We Took Him Out

Lake Billy Chinook ~ Madras, Oregon

Monday, July 28th

Sitting in the sun, sweat rolling down my chest, working on my 4th step. A spontaneous writing spills out about releasing the energy I have continued to carry around my stepfather and the sexual abuse. Touching into the core of the energy, doing my best to stay present. This initiates a deeply profound emotional and somatic release.

Tuesday, July 29th - Thursday, July 31st

Spent the week in a "cocoon" at my friend Christy's house. Emerging only for the crucible, a meeting with Gene, Krista's birthday and dinner with vinn. Experiencing powerful surges of grief, hopelessness, despair, worthlessness, inertia. Knowing that these emotions and energies were arising in the now, yet had their origins in the past. Nowhere to run or hide. For the first time in years I took 2 hour naps in the afternoon...so much processing internally, needing rest. Felt like I was the girl in the bubble...nobody around, held in the sacred womb. Thoughts creep in "what is wrong with me?" "will I be able to withstand this, what is this?" In the center of these oceanic tidal waves of grief and despair, I know that love is guiding...I remember that this is what has been between me and the embodying more love in my core, my life. Moments of feeling beautiful in my body, moments of feeling terrorized by being in a body. Is insanity a part of the path to wholeness? Things are breaking down...I am breaking down...the parts of me that need to break up and dissolve. As I move through some of my commitments and social engagements for the week, I feel like a stand in for my real self...some decoy or doll showing up. Where am I? I struggle to make conversation, pull out some charm. Shit, nothing is there. My addictions? Well, yeah...they came to dance...I didn't have the energy to dance back. Sorry guys, find another dance partner, my card is full.

Friday, August 1st

Going to the great outdoors. Camping. A weekend spent in Central Oregon, Lake Billy Chinook. My childhood home 40 minutes away. So many memories of the lake -- swimming, skiing, tubing, jumping off bridges, make out sessions when I was a teen. Here I go back in time, in the now. Ruby is loaded to the brim...no room for more bodies or bags. Taco Bell, gas, Pez dispensers. It's raining in Portland this morning. Feeling agitated by my fellow travellers and all their stuff and requests. Stop at the Deschutes Crossing restaurant in Warm Springs. Indian fry bread for Ruba and David. The thought arrives, "we came to take him out." I smile. What does that mean. Of course we didn't come to "take him out." I wouldn't want to, but at the same time I seem to have this connection to how good it will feel to take him out. Perplexed, I share it with the carload. Take him out. Yes, more will be revealed. I drive on across the prairie filled with sage brush and juniper trees. The mountains stand in the distance -- Jeffereson, Hood, The Three Sisters, Broken Top, Mt. Bachelor. This is a view that I have grown up with...since age 3. I spent the summers playing on the tire swing hanging from the huge willow tree in my back yard...the mountains were a witness to my life.

After several stops, we drive down a gravel road into Perry South campground. I spot Robert and Aminga. They arrived a day early to secure two sites. Prayer flags, 7 day candles on the altar...heart, lingum and yoni rocks. This land has such a primal energy...stripping me down to the essential. Kayaks in the water. Paddling my lovely passenger Aminga out into the lake, breeze, sun. "Do you need a tow?" yell a boatful of young men. "Not yet," I reply. Aminga and I laugh...we get it now...why you men like to look at the young girls. Hmmmm. "Get your yoga arms going Anakha!" says Aminga. "Ok, Mings!" There is only one paddle...and I've got it. I dig in against the current and the boat keeps doing these self-directed circles. Finally we break through into easy water. The boys have their water gun. We are attacked. We retaliate. Maneuvering into position. Mings is a master with the water gun. Victorious. Drenched, but victorious. Back to the dock, back to camp. Dinner: zucchini, sauteed with fresh herbs, green beans, guac and chips. Fire built by the master. Water on the stove for tea. It is dark, stars fill the sky. My belly has been swelling all day. What is this melon on my second chakra? Painful, tight. Just hours ago my body was relaxed, playing in the water, skipping down the road. What is going on? I get up from the fire and help Aminga make the tea. It hits me. In a nanosecond pain literally fills my body. Throat swelling up, tightening, aching. Hips aching, locking. All my joints aching...like the aches that come with the flu...but 100x worse. Intense. I slowly walk back to the fire, sit down on the cooler (later to be recognized as the hot seat). The pain is increasing. Gene begins sharing about his time in the South...a time of breakdown, spiritual emergence, not being able to function in his life. I have never heard this story. The pain intensifies. I begin to speak about creating a support system to sustain people in bringing their native gifts and visions into the world, to sustain people in times of spiritual emergence...breakdown, breakthrough. Tears fill my eyes. I am diving in.

Ruba is the first to recognize that something is happening. She asks me what I need. "I don't know Ruba." "Can I touch you?" "Yes." I am hunched over. She puts her hands on my back and starts moving them up and down. I think she is humming. Tears come. I call for Aminga to put her hands on my heart. She comes. My chest is aching, breaking. What is happening? I breath. I breath. Tears erupt, crying, sounding, breathing, pushing, sweating. I stop briefly and look at Gene..."what is happening?" I check in with Yeshua...what is happening? You are moving a fuck-load of energy. I wonder why he is using the F-word. How un-spiritual of him. But of course he isn't attached in the way we are. He is just using a word that he knows I will understand. I am moving a fuck-load of energy. It feels like a truck-load. Gosh, I wonder if he said truck and I heard fuck. It doesn't matter. Pain, aches, breaking, breathing, pushing, crying, deep guttural sounding. I later wonder what must the other campers thought? An exorcism in the midst of Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker blaring, beer bongs and barbecues.

I don't recall all of what happen in that time around the fire. I do know there were 6 embodied healers around me, supporting the release of the stepfather's fuckload. I was present and moved in and out of guiding people to support me and fully engaging the energy. At the end I made some sort of statement, the three men were around me Gene to my left, David behind, Robert on my right. I took off my skirt...sitting on the cooler, bottom half bare. Robert is looking at me with this gentle and loving gaze. I ask him to get the water and baptize me. He nods. He pours water on my belly, on my pelvis. Oh my its cold river water. He says something...I don't remember. I claim new relationships with the men in my life. To honor and be honored. I look at each one of them in the eyes. I feel the sacred masculine, the healed and integrated masculine energy around me. I feel my own masculine healed. And here I sit, on a Coleman blue cooler, under the starry sky, in front of a hot fire, beloveds around me.

We took him out.

We took him out.

We took him out.

It is done.

I go to sleep that night in Aminga's tent. David the Sacred Sherpa nearby. Keeping watch. I am shivering, teeth chattering...still aching, but its different now. I go to sleep moaning, whimpering. Exhausted. We took him out.

Saturday, August 2nd

I awake early. Need to pee. My body feels like it has been hit by a truck. I make my way to the altar. We start another fire. People begin to emerge. I feel dazed and disoriented. All seven of us hike up the hill. Sit like ants on a log. Sufi heart meditation. 33, tapping, hmmmmming. Campers below looking up. At the end I ask Ruba to sing "O Come All Ye Faithful." She does as we wind our way back down the hill. As the morning unfolds my body becomes increasingly sore...kidneys, joints, chest. I am laying down...on the ground. Robert, David and Aminga make the trek to the top of the hill, rim rock, eagle feathers. I lay in trance, sun beating down on me, sweat rolling off my brow. Hot. Sore. Afraid. Do I need to go to the hospital? Feels like a kidney infection. They tell me that they wouldn't have expected anything less after the experience last night. I am unsure. Can't move. Feel immobilized. Actually in retrospect I think I was like the caterpillar being pulled apart in the cocoon...liquified...until the imaginal cells could find each other...create the butterfly. All day I lay...moved into the tent. Motionless staring...feeling different people move in and out...Felix, Krista, Greg, Randy, Michele.

Dr. E. Claire...naturopath extraordinaire...is one of the campers in our group. She taps my kidneys, my back, feels my head. No temperature. Most likely not a kidney infection. Just the aftermath of "taking him out." She reassures me. My fear releases. I am not really going to die in this place...but something will...something has. I am alone at camp. Everyone gone to the lake...kayaking, swimming, playing. I am immobilized. Staring into the sky. Breathing. This caterpillar is liquefied. Imaginal cells on the move. My head is aching...is this a migraine. At 6 p.m. I finally surrender and take Ibuprofen. I get up to pee. Only able to make it to a rock outside my tent. I look down. Hawk feather. Messenger. I am a messenger. I pee and make my way back to the tent.

Robert peeks in through the screen. He has that flaming "do rag" on his head and a tie dye shirt on. "How are you doing Anakha?" "Not so well Robby." He nods. "Still processing."

I finally get up and make my way to the "food table." (Not to be confused with the altar table, huh Mings?!) I sit down. Feeling the pain reliever do its work. Aching subsides. I eat some beans and couscous. Family dinner. People are looking at me...wondering how I am. Feel like a freak of nature. A freak among freaks for sure. Another fire. Smores. Singing, storytelling. Playback theater, clearness committee. What? It's 2:45 a.m. you guys. I make my way to the tent. The ground feels harder tonight. The air is cold. I nestle into my bag. A million stars above me in the midnight sky. I have survived this day. Thank God. Sleep comes.

Sunday, August 3rd
I awaken early and see Gene roaming around the camp. Everyone else is asleep. Snoring from several of the tents. I am so glad I don't snore. We sit at the food table. Drinking strawberry Kombucha. Watermelon. The butterflies start to come. First one, then three...all of sudden 7, 8. They are landing on the Kombucha, on Gene, on the table. Fluttering all around us. We talk about what has transpired. Wow. I decide to make a fruit salad for my camping mates for breakfast. Watermelon, banana, peach, nectarine, cherries, grapes, mango. Yum. Time for music...it is Sunday morning. I find a set that vinn and I had made for a Sunday morning years back. "Let Your Soul Be Your Guide," Sting. People begin to stir in their tents. Robby is the first to emerge. Off to the bathroom. Then Ruba, Aminga, David, Ericha. Everyone eating.

It's time to go home. I don't want to leave this place. I don't want to go home yet. Everything has changed...is changing. We pack up. Create an altar with flowers, rocks and two dead insects we found. The altar of what has died...what we are leaving behind...what will stay here on this land...to return to the mother.

Loaded up. Driving home. I haven't showered in days, but I feel clean. Stop along the lake for a swim and mangoes. It feels so good to be in this water. The water of my childhood. Of my innocence. Walk back to the car. Police officer. Ticket. Oh well, this will be confirmation that yes, I was here and yes this did happen. Drive into Madras. Ahern's Deli. Mazatlan. Mexican food. Now I am 2 miles from him. My childhood home. No energy. No push. No pull. Just is. I enjoy my salad, chips, salsa and diet coke. Back in the car. Watching the mountains, the fields of wheat, barley, mint and dill pass by. Wheel lines in the fields. These are the lands of my summertime. This is where I grew up. This is where I came to die and then rise again.

We took him out.

We brought me home.

Tuesday, August 5th

Enough said for now. I am grateful. Still integrating. Still becoming the butterfly. Wings tender. I am home.

I am one of the messengers of God's endless love.

Omnipotent.

Omnipresent.

Omniscient.