One year and a half ago (sounds like a preamble to the Constitution) I was in the midst of a 40 day silent retreat in Ashland, Oregon...just me...solo...guided by Yeshua with the sole intention to undertake the journey into embodied love. The guidance and direction I received during those 40 days as well as the spiritual-energetic fortification has been the fuel for significant healing and transformation over the past 15 months. During my time in silence I experienced a phenomenal embodied oneness that has been the Divine fuel for facing with clarity and courage that which I had not been able to face and transform until this recent time. One of the "assignments" I received during my retreat was to purchase a body casting kit to celebrate my personal embodiment of the sacred heart, of the mystical erotic, of Love. I purchased the kit in a small art store in Medford and anticipated that I would have one of my friends in Ashland do an embodiment ritual and make the casting. In retrospect it seems so clear that I was not ready to fully claim the level of embodiment that Yeshua had in mind for me. No, that embodiment would lead my through a powerful erotic healing and awakening, a full confrontation and immersion into the dynamics of the sexual abuse and the body image/eating disorder issues that were still present and limiting my spiritual and physical availability and ease in my life. It would lead me into community, into intimacy, into family of origin healing, into a sustained Kundalini awakening, into a yoga practice, into my first initiation into tantric love and sacred union, into the 12 steps, The Crucible, The Elixir, the Beloved Community, into a raw diet, into surrender...
And today, today was the day that the cast would be "thrown." I mistakenly thought this would be simple...a beautiful ritual...resulting in a beautiful "canvas"...which it was..beautiful...although not simple and certainly not what I had thought it would be. The manual for the casting process was 65 pages which should have been our first clue that something was amiss...does true embodiment need 65 f'in pages? Surely not! I could feel the tension building as the time was approaching and as I arrived at Megan's house. David and I immediately got into some tangly weird place around his perfectionism and my impatience. The energy was intense immediately. Gene seemed to be the only person unaffected...which means he is enlightened or just playing safe behind the camera...maybe that is what enlightenment is...playing it safe behind the camera...being a witness...a different perspective. It took almost an hour to settle in, untangle and pray. The prayer was for a full embodiment of love...in each cell, with each breath...a celebration of the embodiment that is already here. Megan, David, Gene and I held hands and prayed. I entered Megan's sacred space which was home to the casting studio...plaster strips, bags of modeling powder, buckets, drills with mixing devices...it looked like we were remolding the room...not making a cast. Gene is filming while Megan and David mix this blue goopy stuff that they are going to smear all over my body...which will be the mold for the casting. I am now naked and leaning against the vertical massage table...standing up...my right leg forward, left hip swaying out, arms overhead. They begin applying this goop...and soon we realize that the goop has set...chunks of cottage cheesy like stuff are flying off my body as Megan attempts to smear it on. Yikes...talk about trouble at the border...we had our share!
After several attempts to revive the goop, we shift gears and decide to smear my body with mold lube and use the plaster strips (just like mask making). I smear my body from upper thigh to my neck wit the lube. I resume the position. Breathing, arms overhead. I realize that I am in the position of the Crucifixion. I hear Yeshua say to me..."you must use everything I have taught you to get through this." I breath, I focus, I silently chant his name..."Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua." I realize immediately that there are two levels (at least) of activity going on...Megan and David making this body cast and Yeshua transmitting. I breath...images begin to flash in my mind at lightening speed...Yeshua carrying the cross on his back, on the cross, in the tomb, being wrapped in cloth after his death, walking with Magdalene, seeing Mary at the foot of the cross, commanding his Spirit into the arms of God, praying and sweating in the Garden of Gethsemane.....image after image flashed through my mind's eye like one of those little projectors we played with as kids. Fasster...faster...I keep breathing and silently repeating his name.
Megan and David are working quickly...Megan has my chest, breasts, belly and thighs covered...David is working on my shoulders and arms. They begin applying a second layer of plaster strips. I am breathing, watching, observing.
Yeshua says "this is a full embodiment of the Christ path...a full claiming of this path as your own." In that moment I don't remember saying yes...I just kept breathing, focusing...intense energy is starting to build in my chest, my heart, my solar plexus...I feel sort of panicky...something is happening...what is happening? I breath, my eyes begin to dart rapidly, my body is going limp...a powerful surge of energy moves through me...entering my crown and rushing in...breathing rapid, feeling unable to sustain my upright position...I utter "something is happening and then everything goes dark...I feel like I am dying...and then a flash and the light returns...I am falling forward but somehow have the ability to pull the cast from my body and handing it to Megan...I say, "take it tenderly." And then I collapse on the floor...catatonic...pulsing from head to toe with energy. Staring. Feeling Yeshua and Magdalene's presence in the room. Stunned. Dazed. Crucifixion, Resurrection. Ascension. All at once. What is happening? This is the Body of Christ...this is about taking a Christed shape...giving shape to the Christ Consciousness...to Love.
Megan pulls a sheet over my naked body. She says she sees chills on my skin. I don't feel much other than the pulsing, vibrating energy running through my body. David has my hand. Gene has the camera staring into my face. Yeshua is talking to me...telling me that we (yes, that was for all of us in this journey into love) need to know, to fully know that what we are doing is real...that the love is real, that the promise is real, that we can surrender our cynicism, doubt, resistance and fully immerse ourselves in this journey, in this love. I am hearing this guidance, but unable to speak. So I lie their on the floor, staring, listening. Still dazed and confused.
We sit together largely in silence for 20 minutes or an hour, I am not sure of which it was. There is a knock at the door which brings us back to the room, to the reality of time. I sit up. Plaster is stuck to my body. I ask for tea and Megan brings me a mug of mint chamomile. I take a sip...it feels good. I am feeling quiet disoriented, yet present. Body -- physical and energy -- is humming. Tears are streaming down my face.
I begin wiping the plaster and the goop from my body. Megan asks me about a shower. I stand up and walk over to the plaster form lying on the table. I begin taking some strips and repairing a couple of areas...the cast looks interesting...somewhat exaggerated in the belly area from my "quick exit"...David, Gene and Megan think it is beautiful. I realize that it must be...imperfect and beautiful...that is who I am.
I am feeling woozy now and wander off to the shower. Surreal...altered...like I was show through a portal between the worlds. As the hot water beats down on my chest and my thighs I think back to the blog from last night (the mystical in the real)..."As I sat under the glaring fluorescent lights in the visiting room...staring at a cold, grey steel table, I had a strange and somewhat eerie sensation, a premonition of how everything is about to change for me. I sense the gravitas, the veritas of that statement as I write now. Everything is changing. God alone is changeless.
My dreams are manifesting. The quantum leap forward is in motion." Those words were a foreshadowing for sure...whatever this experience is...it is surely connected to that statement.
I step out of the shower and put on my yoga clothes. Megan and David are cleaning up. I start to fuss with the mess...worrying about Megan...not wanting her to be inconvenienced. She looks at me and says "we love holding space for you and the mess is part of it." She reminds me that I often feel like others don't show up for me...yet it is me that doesn't' allow people to give to me that creates that dynamic. So I surrender that old story and allow my beloved friends to care for me.
We carry the body cast to the car on a cardboard box filled with crumpled newspaper and slide her into the back of Ruby. Gene is in the driver's seat and promises me that he will drive safely (which he did...the best driving job ever!). I sit in a daze (in fact I am still in one, yet it feels important to write this down.) as we make our way to People's Co-op for a grape Kombucha and an apple. I eat a coconut Lara bar that Gene gave me earlier. It tastes good.
I am not ready to be alone yet so Gene drives me to Koru. I lay on the bed...David comes by to check in. Everyone seems a bit altered. I know I am. As we sit their a picture of Jesus on Gene's altar seems to be alive...his eyes piercing us with love and vision...penetrating. As I listen to Yeshua he gives me the world "tased" --- you were tased with Love...tased with God. That is how my body feels...energetic wiring shorting, firing, charging and reconnecting...flesh body somewhat dazed, stunned, numb. Tased. Tased.
Why? I am willing to find out.
I go home and take an Epsom salt bath. Staring at my body...which looks simultaneously familiar and foreign. I see my red toes at the end of the bath tub...yes, those are mine...I guess. What the fuck is going on? That is the thought that runs through my mind.
Now I am laying here typing these words onto this blurry computer screen. Everything surreal. What was isn't. What wasn't is. Everything changed in a nanosecond.
Will I sleep tonight? I hope so. I pray so.
I love you Jesus, I devote myself to walking the Christ path...I commit to the embodiment of the Christ Consciousness, of a rare and radical and fierce Love.
I am willing. I am willing. I am willing. I am willing to become an instrument of your Love.
Powerfully embodied, gracefully revealed, humbly serving this Christed awakening.
Thank you Gene, thank you Megan and thank you David for your love, for your acceptance, for your forgiveness, for your tenderness, for your time, for your giving and for your receiving.
May you feel the blessing of this Love.
And so it is. Ameyn.
