FINDING MY LIGHT

Years ago I trained in Healing Touch.  A nursing modality.  I studied like crazy; books, articles, websites. I took courses online and in person and practiced my new found craft in homes, massage treatment rooms, hospitals, clinics and retirement communities.  I loved my sessions, my clients. But I often felt that something was missing. Maybe I was just too distracted by work and chores and all the things I felt obligated to tackle, complete and obtain, maintain. Along the way a healer I met told me all my work would be easier if I would meditate regularly.  Meditation competed with exercise time, or time with my partner, or that nap I needed.  The guilt I learned so well as a child kicked in each time I let meditation slip by.  But nothing changed.

About a year ago a friend loaned me a book: WOMAN WHO GLOWS IN THE DARK. It was just a few months before our move to Mexico. I was immediately taken by it. Curanderas. Latin American healers. Healing touch. Fascinating.

Then in looking for books about Mexico I stumbled across THE HUMMINGBIRD’S DAUGHTER by Luis Alberto Urrea. Amazing historical novel about his aunt Teresita in old Mexico. A curandera. Something was leading me.  A thread. A journey. Spirit. Spiritual. Awakening? 

Somewhere along the way the subject of shamanism entered into my explorations. Eventually I stumbled (really?) on Sandra Ingerman and her book SOUL RETRIEVAL. Connected. Felt right, reading her, listening to her. Her words resonate with me. Diseases lost souls parts and pieces to be found.  The Earth  lost. Parts and pieces to be healed. Before it is too late. How can I help?  Her website intrigues me, draws me in.  Web of light.  So similar to Healing Touch teachings.  

In a secondhand store in Ajijic I found TRAVELING WITH POMEGRANATES by Sue Kidd Monk and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor, soulful descriptions of a mother and daughter unraveling their own spiritual journeys.  Nearly every night as I read myself to sleep some passage in that book rankles my nerves and brings me to tears; processing, clearing, allowing the light in. 

The thread continues. Lunch at DHARMA Restaurant reveals a weekend of healing for the Lake. Lake Chapala.  I long for it to speak to me. But it feels flat.  Lifeless.  Inaccessible.  Distant.  It saddens me.  It negates some of the beauty of this place we live in. Shaman from New Zealand and Jalisco will meet on Scorpion Island (recently named a sacred place for the Huichols) soon.  The Huichol indigenous people have lived in the mountains of central Mexico for 15,000 years, according to the Wikipedia description.  The ceremony  they will hold for healing of the Lake will be steeped in tradition.  All are invited but the way has not been clear for me.  I will be there in spirit.

The drum shows up on Facebook.  Then the massage table.  The pieces of my new life falling into place in their own time.   I am driven to holy meditation on the sheepskin my mother held dear from her long ago visit to Scotland. I nearly left it for sale back in NC but something called me to keep it.  It could be useful. (It reminded me of a stack of them I’d seen in a market in Guadalajara.  Is this just about decor?)

Then I find Spiritual Friends Lakeside on Facebook. I attend their luncheon and find my “tribe”.  Mixed. Gringos and locals. All searching, seeking, finding. Confused, joyful, quiet, lively. I am home. At the end of this month we will visit FOCO TONAL. www.focotonal.com Wearing white on a sacred spiritual pilgrimage.

A local B & B-Villa del Angel-holds open house and I go with Ben and friends to reconnect with the owners we met last year. I felt a kinship there and kept in touch a bit. Facebook has its uses. (She & I will now be Spanish study partners. Turns out we are neighbors.) The place and the people there resonate.  Finding peace.  Finding place.

Moments of joy and pure delight come frequently, often bringing me to tears. A new experience, a new book, a new friend. There is time now. I am not blinded or overwhelmed by the list of Have-to’s, Should-have’s & Musts. There is time now to create sacred space. Both inside my being and out.

Healing Touch this time will be done with MY Ideas and comforts, with no obligation for note taking or specified structure. It will be mine. It will be drumming & bells & rattles. It will be essential oils and hand & foot massage.  It will be about SETTING INTENTION THEN TRUSTING it.  My “old” business name – Wings of Light – rings true again in this place filled with birdsong, this place where I am now. This place “circled on a map” for me.

I am retired now and beginning to understand what that means. I can say NO. I can say YES. I can find my spot in the world and devote myself to it. Relationships. Giving. My confidence grows with each door that opens on this threaded journey I am on. Spreading my wings. Finding my place, my Light, in this new country. Growing in unexpected ways. I had no idea I would become this person I am today.  This little Light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…