Spirit Has Lost Its Mind
Ever since I first asked to be on my spiritual path during a grail ritual performed at 3:00 am with 20 people in 1998 – this thought has gone through my mind on a regular basis. “You want me to do WHAT?!!?” I have asked the question over and over again whenever I get directions from spirit that seem to make no sense.
You see, in personal growth you start with the “wow, this stuff looks cool” stage and then you begin to see the results from the few things that you’ve experimented with. Then you go into the “Really? It works? How often?” stage. And in this stage, you start proving to yourself that this stuff really works. Some people also use this stage to spread the word about their new discoveries – bringing their friends into the mix to add social proof to experimental proof, just to make good and sure that no one is pulling the wool over their eyes. Then, once you’ve proved it to yourself, it’s time. Time to pull out all the stops and hit the stage where the universe asks you to prove yourself to it.
You’ve been demanding proof for weeks, months, years. Now the universe wants to have its own proof in return. You have to prove that after all you’ve learned, after all that has been demonstrated to you, that you are willing to have faith that the pieces you do not yet understand are actually worth trusting in spite of your lack of proof. You are asked to be faithful. To trust that you will be taken care of. To trust that what you are asked to do is for a good cause, even if you will never know what that cause is. Enter the “You want me to do WHAT?!!?” stage. And this was the stage that I was entering as we came out of the 9/11 attacks and moved into the end of 2002.
Shortly after 9/11, my house mate announced that he was getting married again – in December. I knew that was bad news for me because he had made me the woman of the house in the absence of his previous wife and I knew that I was in for a serious “putting in my place” by him to make room for the new wife. So I started planning my move. I looked at apartments, made applications and got rejected over and over again by landlords. So that, by the time the wedding happened on Dec 21, 2001, I still didn’t have a place. So, in an effort to avoid the inevitable conflict in my house, I opted to just throw all of my stuff in storage and arranged to stay one night each week with a different student from my teaching circle. I became a kind of a traveling priestess.
During this time, I kept looking for a place to call home, but eventually it became clear that I just wasn’t meant to find one. Ultimately, as you’ll see in the posts that follow, I ended up on spiritual pilgrimage. I didn’t intend to. It just happened that way. Here are some of the things that happened to open the way for the journey to take place.
- The store I had been working in went out of business and I ended up on unemployment. This provided me with $300/mo. which paid for my car insurance, gas, and cell phone bill.
- My car got broken into and my ancient laptop got stolen (right after I had backed everything up). It was insured for replacement value and since it had been top of the line when purchased 4 years before, it was valued at $1700.
- I used $700 of that to pay off the last of my car loan so that I wouldn’t have to worry about a car payment on the journey.
- A friend gifted me with the money to get the tattoo that would become my vision quest.
- Without my knowledge, a random person on the Starwood list forwarded my question about getting a tattoo at a festival I was attending to the tattoo artist’s email. He emailed me at 1:00am, just before he would be out of internet connection, and I happened to be online to answer him and we arranged for the tattoo to happen. (He would have been booked solid otherwise.)
I was told during the journey that it would be 10 years before I fully understood the purpose of the trip. Today, on the 11th anniversary of that journey, I am republishing my journal entries from that time.
I am also adding in observations from my life now – things that are coming clearer as I re-read these entries. [These entries will look like this.]
All of the entries will have the picture you see at the top of this page in them. I’m doing this in an effort to make it clear when I am visiting the past journey vs. talking about the current journey in today’s blog posts – which I will continue to write as time goes on. The entries from 2002 will also all be included in a single category. So if you want to read them all without interruption, you can click on the category on the right side of the screen and you will be taken to a page that only includes the blog posts from the journey.
I hope you enjoy the virtual journey. Let’s get started.
July 1, 2002
Welcome! This is the first entry into my journal. This journal is meant to be the journal of my journey of walkabout that started when I left for Starwood Festival in Western, NY on July 21st. Today is August 6th, 2002 and it is the beginning of my entries into the log. I will be going back and filling in the history as I can, but everything from here forward is being written as it happens. I hope this provides friends and voyeurs with information and insight into my journey. I have no idea where I’m going nor any idea if I’ll recognize it when I get there. Therefore I am forced to enjoy the journey for its own sake. Not as difficult a task as I had imagined it would be for this former control freak. Many of the entries you see will be clips from emails sent out to friends who ask me questions, etc. These give me a direction in which to discuss things. So, if you see something you’ve read before, it’s probably because I was writing to you in the email in question. Well, that’s it for the intro. Now, on to the story.
07/06/02 – Great Kelle’s Stuff GiveAway – Franklin, MA
07/21/02 – Starwood – Sherman, NY
07/28/02 – Daniel’s House – Bloomington, IN
08/14/02 – Chuck’s House – Coudersport, PA
08/15/02 – Muin Mound ADF Fest – Bridgeport, NY
08/18/02 – The Fountain House B&B – Wilton, NH
08/20/02 – Jeff and Midnight’s House – Salem, MA
08/24/02 – John/Gumby’s Place – Coventry, MA
08/25/02 – Tom’s Place – Worcester, MA
08/26/02 – Ann’s House – Aerosmith Concert – N. Attleboro, MA
0 8/27/02 – Ludwig’s House – Groton, CT
08/30/02 – Andrew’s Place – Pomfret, CT
09/02/02 – Mark’s House – Enfield, CT and then Chuck’s Friend’s House – Danbury, CT for the night
09/03/02 – Molly’s House – Fairfield, CT and then Chuck’s Parent’s House – Queens, NY
09/08/02 – Chuck’s House – Coudersport, PA
09/13/02 – Heartsong Festival at Brushwood – Sherman, NY
09/16/02 – Angela’s House – Ryland Heights, KY
09/18/02 – SPiRaL – Atlanta, GA
09/25/02 – Caroline’s House – Orlando, FL
10/01/02 – Melissa’s House – Charlotte, NC
10/07/02 – Chris and Jacob’s – St. Augustine, FL
10/16/02 – Magnoliafest – Suwannee, FL
10/21/02 – Chris & Jacob’s House – St. Augustine, FL
10/25/02 – Anna’s – Centreville, VA
10/27/02 – Mark and Paula’s – Enfield, CT
10/28/02 – Sandi and Chris’s – Framingham, MA
10/31/02 – Ken and Tra’s – Medfield, MA
11/01/02 – Dragonfly Housewarming- Lowell, MA
11/02/02 – Tracy’s – Yarmouthport, MA
11/03/02 – Jeff and Midnight’s – Salem, MA
11/06/02 – Sam & Tom’s – Bridgewater, MA
11/07/02 – Tom’s – W orcester, MA
11/08/02 – Griffin Grove Inn – Vermont
11/11/02 – Peter’s – Taunton, MA
11/12/02 – Andrew’s – Pomfret, CT
11/13/02 – Ludwig’s – Groton, CT
11/18/02 – Daniel’s – Lowell, MA
11/21/02 – Jeff and Suzie’s – Salem, MA
11/22/02 – Michelle’s – Jamaica Plain, MA
11/23/02 – Che’ Dragonfly – Lowell, MA
11/24/02 – Bill & Amy’s – Rockville, MD
11/25/02 – Anna and Jeff’s – Centerville, VA
11/26/02 – Holly’s – Cincinnati, OH
11/27/02 – Sandy’s – Cincinnati, OH
11/29/02 – Crow’s – Kansas City, MO
11/30/02 – Steamboat Springs Resort – Steamboat Springs, CO
12/07/02 – Crow’s – Kansas City, MO
12/08/02 – Keter’s – Cincinnati, OH
12/11/02 – Daniel’s – Bloomington, IN
12/14/02 – Mom’s – Genoa City, WI
12/18/02 – Jamie’s – Akron, OH
12/19/02 – Daniel’s – Lowell, MA
12/24/02 – Ludwig’s Cabin – Maine
12/27/02 – Daniel’s – Lowell, MA
01/02/03 – Bill & Amy’s – Rockville, MD
01/12/03 – ?
See the next step of the journey
*This is the first post in what was my spiritual journey. To see the entire journey as it gets published, click on the category “You Want Me To Do WHAT?!!?” to see all of the posts.
