I am two weeks into a 4 week leave of absence.....I hit my bottom over two weeks ago at work, and could not take one more demand on my energy there. It was scary, I knew I needed to take a break NOW. At first I took one week off, spent two days at home, two days then at the St. Norbert Abbey, one day at someone's house (thinking I needed to be around someone......no, I did not, I found out), then went back to the Abbey. I came home and called work the next day to say I needed more time off. Dr. Aldrich also agreed with me, and I changed my paperwork for 4 weeks of full time medical leave. It has been a week now, and this morning I woke up feeling like I was turning the corner.
Two days ago, I spent time with Debra Eberhardy, of Sacred Medicine in Schofield, WI. She was the woman who did soul retrieval work with me in August of 2007, literally saved my life. Well, she did it again! She assisted me on a journey to the other side, and into the underworld, in native american healing fashion. As I began to let go (that was hard, I was so much in my head, so fearful of experiencing the intense sedation I had during a healing touch session a month ago which made me very groggy), Debra was able to gently let me know that everything was ok, reminding me that she was there, I was protected. I heard the words emanate from inside me "chinese medicine will protect you...." Then she showed me the way into the underworld and there I met Silver Bear, my spirit guide. Debra and I communicated gently during the process, and I saw that my spirit had left me when my mother died. Debra retrieved my soul and blew it back into my belly and my head. I felt a release of the noose around my heart. I cried and cried the pain of mom's death, until I was able to sense I had let it go, finally.
The next piece of information that came to me was that I needed to re-address the goal I had of learning chinese medicine. I had the sense that I was to go east for school.....New England came up for me. I was aware of the New England School of Acupuncture outside of Boston, and we talked about that.....Debra had the strong sense that I needed to follow this intuition. I asked my spirit "when do I move and start this process?" I heard and saw "NOW!!!!" Very, very strong.
I got off the table and felt renewed, no heart pain, no fatigue. Settled. Ready to take the next step. My spirit guide is now with me, and I connect in with Silver Bear throughout the day, honor Silver Bear at meal times, and make tobacco ties to send my prayers to the spirit world.
Debra is studying chinese medicine at Midwest school of Acupuncture in Racine. She travels the 5-6 hours down there and back every week, and has been doing this for almost 2 years now. I was at her home for a woman's ceremony/lodge in December 2007, to do my own letting go ceremony of my relationship with D, when she first told me she was studying. I got IRATE!!! It was explosive, I felt this intense "NO!!! I am supposed to be doing that!!!! You are native american, this is not your medicine!!!" Funny to hear that from a midwesterner.....how am I any more qualified? I made some intensely rude remark to her and left the table. It wasn't until later, after I got home that I was able to talk to her about this, to apologize to her. But, I still didn't get the message that I needed to go back to school. I was too much into self-preservation mode as D and I crashed our way through our breakup.
At this session with Debra, she talked about September of 2007, when D and I went to her for a sweat lodge.....for my healing, but it also evolved into ceremony for D and her ancestry with the Lenae Lenape, embracing her grandfather, and to take in her step-sister's spirit to safeguard it as Nancy traveled (she had committed suicide the previous June). Then she told me about how D and I had given her a white bear pelt. Bear is the totem animal for healers. Two weeks later, she was attending the school in Racine. She said it was her honor to now pass on Silver Bear to me, because it is my turn to go learn. We both felt embraced by Spirit, aware that the world was in order.
My shaman brother Dale was with me again on this journey to Schofield. I love him so much.....he is an avatar, a healer, full of so much love! When I told him what transpired, and that I needed to go east to school, and to do it soon, he was initially concerned. I asked him to believe in me, and asked for his coaching, because he is really good at that. Soon, he was coming up with phrases for me to think of:
"winners keep their head in the game"
"know thyself, look inward"
"believe in myself!"
"everyone has the potential to be great, you just have to expect, demand it of yourself"
and my favorite "I am making myself a topnotch healer by putting more tools into my bag."
When I got home later that afternoon, I began looking up the New England School of Acupuncture.....I saw that the term began August 27th....my spirit said, "no that is too soon." So, I did a search on other schools in the northeast.....and, wow, one stood out in neon lights:
New York Chiropractic College's Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Master's in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. 3 years. Term starts September 9th. The campus is on a big lake. The campus health center is staffed by chiropractors and acupuncturists. It is 50 miles from Nancy's, located in Seneca Falls, at the northern edge of Lake Cayoga. Months ago, when I was lamenting to my sister (who lives in Fairport, NY) that I really, really needed to get out of Green Bay, she wrote back to me and said "you know, there are some really neat places around here...around the Finger Lakes..." A few weeks ago, I began to have the feeling that she was calling me to come there. At the time, in my desperately downward spiraling situation, all I could feel was "if I go there, it is because I am dying and I need to be at her place." It felt like throwing in the towel, the last straw. My propensity for initial negativity.
Nope, she was calling me, alerting me to what was possible, potent for me in Upstate New York. There was also something familiar to me about the program. I wrote to Chris Lowthert, DC, my GNM friend, and he wrote back, confirming that this was where he did his chiropractic work! He said it was a beautiful campus, and a good program, and that I would love living in the area.
The next morning I called both NESA and NYCC, leaving a message at NESA, but directly connecting to Kyung Brown, Admissions counselor at NYCC. She and I talked for quite a while, there was still room for me in the fall program, there was time to get everything in place to start in September, financial aid would be available to cover the entire program if needed, housing, testing out of western sciences......It felt so right! I jumped in on FAFSA, my transcripts, the application, the recommendation letters.
NESA called me back later that morning, but it still did not feel like the right fit.
Later that morning I called Debra, she was so happy for me! She also said that she had said prayers for me last night, that everything would go smoothly, easily, and I would find the right program. "It is supposed to be easy" Vimala John Nemick said to me last year. He was referring to relationships, but it applies to any endeavor. Easy yet with its own travails, hard work but because it comes from the heart, it doesn't feel like a burden.
I refer you dear readers to Domo Geshe Rinpoche's blog http://satisfiedbuddhist.blogspot.com/. She is Ann-Marie's teacher. Today's post just happened to be about burnout........
Blessings to all. And, one last parting note from The Universe (just came today):
Look at it like this, Mariah, the more challenging your life story has been so far, the bigger the goose bumps for future generations who retell it to their kids. Who will no doubt add, "And if Mariah Peterson was able to do all that, so can you!"
We've barely just begun -
The Universe
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