Last fall in an Ayahuasca ceremony, I saw a vision of myself in Junior High School sitting in a hard desk. I was looking at the scene from above, as the plant was showing me just how traumatic my years in school had actually been.
I long thought that I didn't have much trauma in this lifetime, compared to the stories of others that were deeply painful and potent.
But as I gazed at myself as a pre-teen, sitting in a hard chair, in front of a straight desk, in a fluorescent lit room for 7 hours day, I could now feel my soul crying.
I could feel my inner child asking "Why don't you love me?" to all the 'authority' figures who made her do that. She wanted to be free, to go out and play, to be with nature, to sing... And yet, day after day she sat in this chair, going home not to do any of those other things, but to work on her homework on a lined sheet of rectangular paper, inside.
In no way am I comparing this experience to the traumas of others, trying to make them the same - Im simply sharing what I saw and felt in this ceremony.
I then felt how years of sitting in these hard seats, in these rectangular spaces, impacted my body. I could feel the pain of the rigidity still in my spine and muscles, experienced in my daily life as back pain and aches.
And so all of that suppression created layers.
All those years where I was chained to the system, controlled by expectations of others, built up. When I felt pain or anger or sadness or even joy, I didnt get up from my desk and scream, or cry, or dance, or sing. I sat. Quietly. Like a good girl. Because that's what I was trained to do.
When we're children, we're free. We let our emotions move through us. Whenever we watch children, we see this. They scream, they cry, they dance, they laugh 'til their bellies hurt, they run around like little hooligans - they do what they want, when they want. And by and large - they're incredible happy, healthy, joyful little beings, because of it. Things don't get lodged in their system.
But as we age, and society starts to take it's toll, we become bogged down by energetic layers. Stuck energy. We don't cry at the office when we feel a surge of sadness. We grab a cookie and go on YouTube to numb. We don't break out in song when we feel creative, when we're walking down the street. We keep walking in a straight line, on straight pavement, until we get to where we're going.
And so we experience the effects of all this suppressed emotion. Like crusted sludge, lodged deep within our system, these layers block our ability to feel our natural luminous light.
We wonder why we can often feel depressed, anxious, sick, fearful, or unclear about our life purpose. It's because of these dense layers that are blocking the natural flow of our life force.
In order to release these layers, we need to think and get outside of the box, literally.
Maybe you go to yoga classes, and get a green juice at your local vegan cafe. Maybe you take herbs for anxiety relief, or meditate 10 minutes most days. And yet you still can experience deep fear, anxiety, and a feeling of being 'stuck'.
Why aren't these practices 'working'?
These practices are great. They are helpful. But they are still 'inside the box'. When you go to a yoga class, you are still doing what the instructor tells you. Your body may want to scream and break down into a primal dance halfway through class. But you don't. You breathe through warrior 2 like you're supposed to.
The green juice and herbs are great, they're supportive. The meditation practice is very helpful.
But we need to engage with pure, primal, electric, divine MOTION and unrestrained flow, if we're going to release these crusted up layers. Remember, they got there through expectation, and suppression. They need wild movement in order to dislodge.
Earlier today, I was feeling fear and stuckness. Im on my moon time, and a lot of sludge was coming up. At first I was trying to just breathe through it, then I went onto Youtube to turn off my mind, so to speak.
I then checked my email and found a water ritual from my friend Dakota Chanel had been sent to me.
I felt the resonance immediately and went outside to dance with water, to sing my prayers, to get primal with my movements, and to summon the elemental power of water to MOVE my crusted energy of fear. It took about an hour, and after the ceremony, I felt such RELEASE!
I let my primal self take over, and allowed divine frequency to move through me and move what needed to move.
These Priestess practices have been tantamount to my journey. I experience the power of ritual and movement in 2 ways:
During ceremony where I am more still, but being lead through a meditation and working with rarified frequency like the violet flame, or Mother Earth's energies from her core crystal. There is a lot of movement happening on the inner realms in this way, as I allow pure frequency to do the work.
Or, through unrestrained movement, through the body, or the voice. Through primal dancing, vocal toning, working with the elements, singing my prayers, or being silly and carefree like a child, I let that old crusted energy move.