It's Thursday morning, March 1st. I read on facebook that there was a light dusting of snow this morning. There is no evidence of white in my neighborhood - only the expected rain soaked naked tree limbs of early spring. I am shaky this morning. Not just in the mental sense, but my body is shaky. I feel slightly nauseous and my thoughts want to balloon out to panic. I won't let them. I am pulling hard on the strings, willing myself to stay even - stay present.
It has been a long time since I've written. I can come up with a list of reasons why - but, that doesn't seem important right now. It is clear to me that I need to write. My tongue feels thick, my brain feels unmoored, there is tightness in my chest. My feet and hands are tingling. I feel worried about my health. I have had a bowl of chicken noodle soup and two glasses of electrolyte water. I have taken my adrenal support medication. I have a choice. I can panic or I can write.
Two weeks ago, I was deep in the Belizean jungle in the state of Cayo near San Ignacio. I was there to study with Rosita Arvigo - a well regarded healer and apprentice to Don Elijio Panti - a Mayan he'men (shamen). I was there to learn Mayan spiritual bathing. As a side bar, I figured I'd open myself up to whatever healing I might need to catch up on within myself. I work as a healer, too. Recently, I had worked so much that I had ignored my own body's messages that it needed a break. How could I take a break, I asked myself? I was in the middle of teaching a four month intensive on flower essences and chakras and my private practice was booked several weeks out. It didn't feel possible to just stop. On top of that, I found out that after three years of trying, my partner finally achieved pregnancy. One day later, we were told by our landlord that we needed to move out of our house. I didn't see a possibility for taking a break. I had the Belize trip lined up and there was no way I wanted to miss it. Signs of my health's demise were abundant. I was experiencing weekly near fainting attacks when I opened the channel with my clients, my gut was a mess - my doctor diagnosed me with a gastric ulcer. My body weight was way under - always a sign of stress for me - and my relationship to my partner was in serious trouble. My life resembled a tattered traveling circus under poor management.
When I arrived in Belize City, I felt tired, but calm. I spent a night at a quaint inn on the outskirts of town and slept. In the morning, I took a water taxi to Caye Caulker for a few days of rest before pushing off to the jungle. Those days seemed fine. I wandered around the island by myself, swam in the Caribbean, ate wheat without stomach distress. Although I wasn't sleeping well, there were no signs that I was about to have a full body collapse. In fact, I was feeling so well that I had stopped taking my ulcer herbs. I felt just fine.
Arriving in Cayo, I was a bit taken aback at how jungly the jungle really is. A fellow Rosita student warned about the venomous, aggressive Tommy Goff snake and the flies that will lay eggs underneath your skin. She was just "wanting us to be informed," which I could have appreciated had my anxiety about poisonous, biting things been rational. I slept even less - constantly imagining the little killers crawling into my bed. The classes were informative and being with the group and with Rosita allayed my fears during the daylight hours. On the second day of class, we did our first spiritual bath. We collected medicinal flowers and leaves from the jungle, filled a bucket with water, said a series of prayers and then splashed our aura with goodness. It all seemed light and peaceful....until ten minutes into the ritual I get blasted by my neighboring spiritual bather with a blood curdling scream followed by vicious animal noises. It totally freaked me out. I moved my bucket of good intention far away and said a few more prayers of protection and purification and then made way for a secluded part of the yard while I heard more screams, wails, vomiting, and growls from this woman. From inside Rosita's house, another woman had started to scream and vomit and wail. Later, I was told, these are normal behaviors for negative energy "releases."
I get that. I have witnessed big crying releases in my own practice with clients. But, something about this experience scared me and felt unsafe. Most of the other participants seemed okay with all the "releasing", but I noticed that the ones closest to the screaming lady were rattled. My feelings were conflicted. On one hand, I felt a lot of compassion for this woman and wanted to put my healer hat on and hold sacred space for her while she healed. On the other hand, I was exhausted and did not want to be a healer - I was feeling small and childlike. The next day, we did another spiritual bath and this time I made sure I was far away from the puking one. I was surprised that I had my own "release" and began to cry during the ritual. It wasn't a big, loud cry, but definitely a release of grief. It felt good to cry a bit. I had plenty to cry about. I had been holding so much stress in my body that it felt like crying was a good detox method.
On the Thursday before I left Belize, we went on a three hour canoe ride down the Macal river. Apparently, I did not drink enough water because what ensued later was a total disaster. I started to feel "funny" at lunch while sitting in a stifling hot room at Juana's house - a Mayan grannie healer. I started to feel like my body was rocking on a boat and I couldn't find my ground. My stomach turned and I had to have an urgent bowel movement. I felt like I was going to pass out. Through a bunch of confusion, I ended up in a taxi on my way back up to Rosita's house. Laying on the cool tiles of the floor, my body shook and the dizziness increased until Rosita said it was time to send me to the hospital. This part of my story is a bit of a blur. A bumpy ride in the front seat of a van - Corrine, one of the assistance and the Mayan spiritual healer that I see in Portland, holding my hair out of my face. Grinding my fingers into her knee- willing myself to stay conscious- willing myself to not panic. A one room emergency room - dark and unattended. Two nurses trying to insert an IV into my hand. A doctor looking over me, mumbling something. Corrine praying in spanish into my wrist. I am on a carnival ride - the pirate ship that swings back and forth in wide arcs. I need to eliminate my bowels again. I am barefoot on a tile floor swaying from side to side trying to find the only bathroom which is in the waiting room. Posters depicting venomous snake bites and dengue fever clutter the walls. The lights are dim and flickering. I use the bathroom with the door open. Corrine wets toilet paper so that I can clean myself. The IV pole is swaying back and forth. The floor will not stay still. I do not know where the ground is. I want to throw up, but I don't. Corrine holds me up. I lay back down on the gurney. The nurses have left the room - offended that I have refused the anti-nausea medication. I am afraid of medicines and distrustful of doctors. I am vulnerable and in need and feel threatened all at the same time. The IV fluids feel cold in my heart. I am shaking and Corrine is praying. I want the United States hospital efficiency - but I am a seven hour airplane ride away. No one in the room wants to be there. After the IV, the doctor looks into my ear. I insist there is something wrong. He discovers a raging infection. He gives me ear drops. I ride back to camp and try to sleep through the night, but I am nauseous and sweating. There is nothing else to do. No safety in my body beyond my own trust that this moment will pass and I will survive - or not. I am terrified and trying to hold my shit together.
The next day, we have another spiritual bath. I feel at ease with the spirits and I pray for healing in my body, mind, spirit, and emotions. The bath is refreshing and I feel immediately healed and happy. That lasts exactly eight hours. The next morning I am doubled over in stomach pain and having severe diarrhea. I feel weak and faint, but still show up for class. For the next two days I vacillate from pure happiness and wellness to body devastation and weakness. The arc is wide swinging.
Somehow, I managed to get through. The upswings were euphoric; whereas the downswings were severe. On the way to the airport, my throat started to burn and the fatigue of fever hit hard. I was able to fly standby to Houston out of Belize City, but once there I had a seven hour layover. Splayed out on the cold linoleum floor in the C terminal, my fever blazed. I purchased DayQuil (not my usual), Vitamin C packs, and lozenges from the airport news stand. Severe illness was eminent and nothing was holding it back. I half-heartedly read about Whitney Houston's death in People Magazine while trying to keep my head clear and conscious. When I closed my eyes, I had vivid hallucinations about a snake rising up from deep within my abdomen. I felt the sway of the snake seduce me in to a deep meditative state. In my hallucinations the face of God appeared on a woman's body. She was sexual and raw. I opened my eyes to clear my head - to count the legs of travelers hurrying by, but when I closed my eyes, there she was again. This hallucination did not feel mental and did not feel like a fantasy. I've had daydreams with sexual content before, but this was not that. The world behind my eyelids started to feel more real than when my eyes were wide open. I couldn't avoid her. At the time, it made total sense to me that I was being visited by a spirit of healing and it was just taking the form of a sensual encounter. Nothing about the visions felt shameful or self-conscious. Nevertheless, it was confusing to be experiencing these feelings out of the context of my partnership. But, yet, it wasn't about that - I grasped that much. The hallucinations stayed with me for a full 48 hours while my fever soared to 103 degrees. When the fever finally broke, so did the vision. Although I have a distant memory and body sensation of the hallucinations, it no longer feels present and real in my mind.
Days of coughing and sleeping passed. I injured my ribs from so much coughing. I was terrified about the fragility - the helplessness - of life. I could have died. I could die. That's the truth. Life is unpredictable and as much as I delude myself into thinking that I hold the puppet strings, I do not. At my worst emotional moments, I withdraw into myself and stop communicating. Five days of being in bed while my pregnant partner worked a 40 hours a week job, I had become emotionally mute. The guilt at being sick, weak, and helpless overpowered my will to stay positive. Friday night, my partner had had it and yelled at me and told me to get out of the house. Where could I go? I was too sick to even get to the car. Instead, I locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed and sobbed. Was this the reverberation of the spiritual baths I took in Belize? Was my prayer of healing playing out as a falling apart of everything that seemed stable around me? I had to cancel all my clients for the week, my relationship was falling apart, my ribs were agonizingly painful, I could hardly breath, and now I was being asked to leave my house because my illness had made me "an unreliable partner." It all seemed too much. I could do nothing more than cry, cry, cry myself to sleep on the futon in the living room of a house I was no longer welcome in. Bottom of the well? Better be.
Five more days of laying in bed - my partner seemingly tolerating my existence - I finally went in to the office and saw two clients. It was hard, but not impossible. I was feeling like maybe I was finally getting better. I accompanied my partner to her pre-natal appointment and then we stopped for a bite to eat. During dinner, she said, "You know, we still haven't talked about that fight we had." I coughed - I felt a pop in my lower right side. My head started to swim. I got up to use the bathroom and then lost consciousness. Before I knew what was happening, I was in an ambulance on my way to the emergency room. Another blur. More needles poking into my veins. Questions. Bright lights. An emergency room filled with homeless people, drug addicted people, people coughing their infections all over the room. My mom was there waiting for me. My pregnant partner seemed impatient and disbelieving that I should be at a hospital. Later she tells me I looked pleased as punch to be getting attention. This couldn't have been further from the truth. I was terrified to once again be in the place that I am most afraid of. Some people are afraid of spiders, robbers, volcanoes. I am afraid of hospitals. Deathly afraid. I leave my body and perhaps the other me that shows up to animate my bag of bones appears calm and pleased. I don't know, because the real me is long gone.
More needles, more IV fluids, more tests. My mom is emotionally struggling with her own life and is struggling to stay awake while mine seems to be going to Hell in a hand basket. I recall Joan Diddion's story of her daughter Quintana Roo. She was so healthy, got a respiratory infection, had a complication with her brain, went into a coma, then died. Could that happen to me?
I left the hospital with EKG stickers stuck to my chest, arms, and legs. Three bruised veins where they had tried to insert the IV needle were bandaged with tape and cotton. It was 1:30 in the morning when my mom dropped me off at my house. My partner was in bed. I slept deeply. There were no dreams. I felt like I would sleep forever. A loud banging on my front door roused me. A panicked face peered in the window. What is happening? Who is that? I open the door and discover it is my friend, Jen. It's 11:30 and I have been unresponsive to phone calls and texts from my partner. She is frantic with worry and has called everyone she knows to see if they could come and check up on me. I'm okay, I think. I burst into tears, overwhelmed. I am breaking apart and it is so messy. It is so vulnerable. My partner cries on the phone and tells me to figure my shit out and hangs up. It is tearing me wide open. I sing the song Rosita sang at the closing ceremony, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine." I am scared. I don't know what help I need. I don't know how to figure it out. I am weak, I am shaky. My ribs ache. The bruises on my body pulse. When my partner comes home from work, we fight, we cry, we talk for hours. I hold her, she holds me. We both retract, still wounded, still feeling unsafe with each other. We come to a place of small understanding. I will seek therapy. I will work through these mute walls. I don't know what she will do. Continue her therapy - maybe continue to think that I brought this all on my own head. Maybe feel frightened and unsafe with my precarious physical stability. I don't know and I really cannot do anything about it.
I am holding on to these strings of presence with all my might. I keep on reminding myself that this moment might be hard, but it will change. Nothing stays the same. I went to Belize to learn how to heal - I did not expect this was going to be the way I would learn it. My heart is wide open. I am present. I am willing. I surrender to what is. I am.
