Soul Walk Through the Threshold
The gull had swallowed a baited fish hook and was dragging ‘invisible’ fishing line behind her. Looking back over her shoulder she kept puzzling over the line that followed her wherever she went. When she walked or even when she flew away to another place, it followed her…haunted her and eventually, it would kill her.
The morning began with a dream that awakened me long before sunrise. In the dream I was traveling to the mountains and a young woman was present. I invited her to ride. She needed to come along for some reason so we rode in silence and arrived at a music fest somewhere in the mountains. Some people I knew were singing on stage and I was invited to sing with them and asked her to join. I said, just be yourself and let light shine through you.We sang together and later, I saw a video of myself–in the dream–and couldn’t believe how my face was pure light, as if I was channeling pure light through my singing and by simply being myself. Later we sat at a table with musicians I know and she was there with me. The fellowship was amazing.
After awakening from such a powerful dream, I remembered that my house didn’t sell, my possessions were boxed up and I was still living a nightmare. I wrote in my journal, October snow drifts around my heart. Frozen tears slide from hollow eyes. I only know the pain of loss. Where is the sun to melt this grief?
I needed sunrise.
Rather than ride my bicycle, I decided to do a long pre-dawn walk on the beach and try to leave behind the insanity of the past week where mere days before closing the deal fell apart and left me and three other families with our homes boxed and ready or worse, one family had already vacated their home. To say it had been a shitty week is like saying the ocean can be tumultuous during a storm.
When I arrived at the beach I said aloud: I am leaving all that behind. Please tell me what I need to know, I am listening.
I stopped and did a live video on social media of the intense line of orange reflecting off of the smooth sand, saturated with moisture. I saw how the turbulence washed away shells and left a smooth surface where light reflected was even more beautiful than the light itself. I said, My hope is that I can be swept clean and light can reflect off of me and through me this day and every day. Setting that intention was powerful medicine as the experience unfolded.
As I walked alone yet surrounded by beauty, I stopped and turned and spoke these words to the Gulf of Mexico: Show me what you want me to know about myself.
Immediately a dolphin popped up offshore and I began to smile. Remember who you are…you are Dolphin Woman.Throughout my life dolphins have been such powerful companions and teachers. I wrote an entire chapter of a book on amazing encounters with dolphins.
So on I walked appreciating the beauty and finally stopped to simply sit on the sand and listen to the waves and await the sunrise. Sometimes it seems to take forever for the sun to peek over the horizon.
A dolphin leaped out of the water just as the tip of the sun slid above the horizon. I couldn’t make that up in my wildest imagination. As the words WOW!!were coming out of my mouth the sun rose. That WOWturned into OH MY GOD! You wanted that first glimpse of sun!
After such a stunning display of dolphin magic I decided to continue on after a pause to watch a blue crab await breakfast in a tidal pool. My mind tried to interject thoughts about the past week and I simply said, Nope. Not now.Then I would repeat the question, What do you want me to see and hear?
In my mind’s eye I saw a red thread that seemed attached to me and heard, I cannot run away from myself…and this is my pattern….over and over again….learned very early in my life. Abandon myself to please others or to decrease fear or for whatever reason a child learns to abdicate her power in order to survive….or an adult does the same thing. Bargain with life, I’ll trade ‘me’ for safety and security. I will deny myself to be loved. I will leave myself rather than risk being who I am and be rejected. I need to take myself with me where ever I go, where ever I live. Don’t leave without taking myself with me.
I kept walking after making a few notes on my phone. There was some unmistakable soul guidance coming through and I wanted to piece it together later.
A great blue heron was standing in the rising light of the sun. The beauty was stunning and I felt a thawing of the frozen tears and October snow that has been heavy on me over the past week.
I reached a turning point, literally, and headed back letting the sun push me along with the increasing heat of the day. As I neared the exit point the gull with the fishing line was in my path…on the wide, wide beach it was right in front of me. After such a great walk, what is this insanity?
With a focus on calming my energy in hope that the gull would allow me to approach it and take it to receive help, I stopped. The gull refused to allow me to get close, even when I knelt on the sand telling it on the inner to please allow me to help it. It would walk and the ‘invisible’ fishing line followed scaring it. The hook most likely was baited on the fishing pier and the gull caught it and the fisherman cut the line rather than deal with helping the bird. That story was crystal clear. The fact that the bird flew away rather than allow me to help it was clarity that it would die with that hook imbedded in its gut…unless it took the risk to stop and allow someone to help.
So I left the beach upset that the bird would have a very painful death. I sat in my car writing about the walk and the bird and returned home with a huge question mark over my head…why did the walk end like that?
Buddy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and as I was walking I thought, right about now we’d be in Montgomery with the moving truck following behind. A tinge of sadness arose but then I heard, But wouldn’t it have been sad to leave myself behind?
I stopped walking and smiled. Oh, yes indeed. I needed to see that pattern of leaving myself so that where ever I am I can include my self…be myself…embrace myself. Never allow any part of me to be left. Every bit of pain and suffering was worth it to remember my Self.
Once inside I was just about to begin writing about the walks when my phone rang. My friend Rose was calling to check on me. She is an expert listener and has helped me piece together my life over the past year…and especially the past two weeks as I was pushed to find a home in North Carolina and then pack my house…and then…well….have the deal come smashing down a few days before moving. So she’s been an anchor to me and a most amazing listener.
I began telling Rose about the walk and how it ended with the weird experience of the gull. She immediately pointed out that the thread I saw that was following me through my life was reflected by the gull who literally had a thread of line attached to a hook swallowed.
My energy field lit up like a light-bulb. That gull was my teacher reminding me that if I continued to swallow hooks, ways I have left myself behind, I would also die a slow and painful inner death. And isn’t that what we do when we abandon ourselves? We suffer soul loss that affects us increasingly through our lives.
The gull was the weaver of the entire story….of my life. I reflected on how I have compromised myself, changed to fit in, worked places that do not reflect my ethics, accommodated others so their feelings are not hurt, made myself feel less than others to build them up, to belong no matter what….and the way out of these patterns of self-abandonment was to stop and recognize the pattern and when I move and where ever I go take all of me with myself. Stop running from who I am. Shine like the singer I was channeling light through an open heart.
What would it be like to open myself so completely, to allow the turbulence to wash over me so I could be a clearer, brighter reflection of Light?
This ‘move’ is about moving into a New Paradigm of self-acceptance and staying present with myself…my true Self…no matter what. It’s about connecting with Dolphin Medicine, that place of Oneness I have experienced so many times with my cetacean brothers and sisters. It’s about being part of the pod who accept me for who I am, not for who they want me to be. It’s about freeing myself to shine and connect with Light and be a channel for that brilliance to come through an open heart. It’s about being in a place that calls me with such power I cannot help but go…no matter what.
How sad it was to see the Gull that swallowed the bait and hook; however, it was the Gull that tied the story of my life together. And Rose reflected that truth to me. It is with the utmost respect and gratitude that I say thank you Gull…thank you Rose.
My walk this morning was a Soul Walk. This is how the Soul speaks….dolphins leaping into the rising sun, glistening reflections of Light…animals that appear illustrating the very ‘thing’ I just heard in my head…friends that call and help piece it all together in a brilliant story of birth, life, death and rebirth.
All the suffering and pain of the past week, the past three years…oh, honestly the 59 years in this life…led me to that walk on the beach. What a powerful gift that resulted.
Today, October 5th, 2019, I was given my Soul Story. I was given a rebirth into my true identity. I am Dolphin Woman, Medicine Woman, Shapeshifter, Pod Member…embracing myself, bringing along that young part of me that’s afraid, inviting her on stage to sing with me and be herself.
The Soul is always giving us glimpses of our truth if we will simply stop and listen and look. Today I was given the gift of my Self after a very long and dark journey.
Let the turbulence wash over me so I can reflect the Light. May I sing my song with such joy that I become a flame of Light.
The dolphin literally leaped and brought up the sun for me and thawed my frozen and aching heart. She reminded me of my true identity.
This Threshold I’ve been standing at for three years…or 59 years…or lifetimes….this Threshold was successfully crossed today. Let the celebration begin!
I’ve never been one to give much credence to manifestos. They are sort of like…ooohh, look at me….I have something to say. And I find that most of us have something to say but nobody really pays much attention except to their own voices in their heads. Everything else just goes through their filters of who they accept as okay and who isn’t and they look for everything possible to uphold their belief about themselves and others. Oh, there’s the evidence that she IS crazy.
But this cluster of a house closing and moving has brought up enough fear to shake me to my core and make me wish I was anywhere but here, in this skin and bone experience. Not just regarding my own personal challenges but for the planet. I keep hearing to write my own manifesto. Maybe a last word of an old life that helps open the doorway to the new one. I’m ready for that crossing. That Threshold has been looming for over three years or 59 years or lifetimes. I don’t really know. Regardless, here goes.
I am so freaking angry at humanity and wish I wasn’t a human. The shame I feel from being part of a species that is hell-bent on destroying itself is huge. It isn’t only the miserable leadership of this country (USA) that is taking us backwards at warp speed….racism, environmental lack-of-protection, elitism, corruption…it’s happening in many places on the planet. The gains so many worked for so diligently for so many decades have been lost in nearly three years. Three years. Three years of insanity supported by politicians who don’t have the guts to stand up to a maniac because greed is their guiding light. There is no moral compass in this country where such bigotry, hatred and nihilism is encouraged and fueled by leadership.
There are those in my life that think they know what’s best for me. If I only got a ‘real’ job I’d be just fine. As if me having a job would fix any of the woes of the world…or fix the angst in me.
I worked for six months for an international company and found how insidious their practices are regarding the environment yet they wanted the lowly workers, earning less than $10 an hour, to ‘sell’ how great they were environmentally….while thousands and thousands of plastic hangers get trashed every year at just one store and plastic bags wrap every shirt, pants, hat, coat, vest….plastic that doesn’t get recycled. Yes….by all means let me just get a job to solve my problems. It only opened my eyes wider to the insanity of this world based on greed and profit at any cost.
I’ve never felt like I fit in and have felt I am at least one step off from the rest of humanity. My goal has been to connect people with Nature in an effort to preserve at least some parts of the planet and Her species. While my efforts have been sincere and well-received, they have never supported me financially. So I’m left either selling my soul to corporate America or watching my finances swirl down the drain as I try to make a difference.
In my travels I have connected deeply to the land and sea, to humpback whales, manatees, dolphins, sea lions. I have felt the immense power of the sea and wanted to kiss the ground upon release from a storm-tossed boat. I have sensed the stillness of the sea that reflected the heavens so perfectly it was difficult to tell where the sea stopped and the sky began.
There are no regrets about my traveling to other countries such as England and Ireland where in stone circles or other ancient, sacred places I have awakened to deeper levels of my soul and the vast connection to Earth and Stars and Sea. Each journey has gifted me with something priceless. Had I grasped my money in fear, I would have never had those experiences.
I have watched an octopus dance with me, had squid explore the dome port on my underwater housing. Had manatees kiss me. Humpback whales, after spending three separate weeks with them, have taught me how intelligent they are and how caring and loving they are to their young…they broke me open to love like I had never known before. And they began calling me when I was only a teen through their song. They have been a guiding force for me and the kinship we share is profound and on the level of soul.
Diving in the veins and life-blood of the planet has been a gift like no other. Being inside Her….within Her beauty changed me, altered my perception of what is truly important.
I have moved through my life with trust in the Universe, even when things were at their worst for me personally. And now, after everything had seemingly come together perfectly for this big leap into the next part of my journey, I stand on a precipice knowing I cannot return to how I was–I won’t unpack the boxes and carry on as if nothing has changed–knowing I might not survive if I leap and fall into the Abyss but knowing that the only way forward is to actually step out in faith over the Abyss trusting that if I fall there will be grace in my passing and peace. And if I make it to the other side, there will be grace as well.
Artists….photographers, writers, painters, dancers, composers…are often troubled because we exist to express and share our experience of the world with others, not for profit but because we must express. Our souls call us to this and to try and cram us into a box, into a job that steals our reason for being is torture. But we live in a society where these gifts are undervalued and profit-at-any cost is the norm.
My manifesto wanted to be written. It’s for no one’s benefit but my own, delving into my own feelings of frustration, fear and love for this planet, for the beauty that seems to be disappearing so fast I can scarcely keep up. My manifesto is one of deep and profound grief. Of fear for an uncertain future personally and planetarily. I don’t want to live in a world without bees and butterflies, without right whales and orcas, without black rhinos and gorillas, without kemp’s ridley sea turtles and orangutans, without love and compassion and common decency. For to live in a world such as this is not to live at all. It’s simply to exist in a living hell.
During this long Threshold experience there has been much time to reflect on this juncture in life. For over two years there has been intense consideration but in reality the question Why am I here? has echoed for many years.
I have followed my heart, followed the guidance I feel, and it led me on a fascinating journey. It started while in high school working at a local state park in environmental education which progressed to attending college and majoring in Outdoor Recreation Administration which led to seven years working as a state park naturalist which led me to deeper discovery in life when I had an awakening that took me away from everything familiar at age twenty-five.
Because self-reflection was so useful for my own inner growth, I choose to attend graduate school majoring in Counseling which led me to work in the fields of addictions, children and adolescent therapy and family therapy. To be an effective therapist I kept going deeper which led me to massage and bodywork.
But the part of the path that was missing in my work was nature. I spent a lot of time in nature—hiking, cycling, paddling, diving—but my work was indoors and there wasn’t a connection with nature and healing in the work I offered people.
I stopped ‘working’ for a living and started giving for living. I photographed beautiful places—both on land and underwater—met amazing creatures that allowed me entry into their realm and through these amazing experiences kept journals and wrote about the inner transformation that happened every time I submerged into underwater caves, made contact with humpback whales underwater, swam with dolphins pushing against me in their pod, witnessed lavender mountain sunrises, saw the birth of baby sea turtles, had manatees rest their heads on my shoulder…amazing experiences happened when I stepped out in faith to fulfill the promise of helping connect nature and humans.
During this time I spent a year documenting the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. I traveled from the mountains of North Carolina to the Gulf Coast each month and spent a week photographing and creating videos of seven beaches from Fort Morgan, Alabama to Ft. Pickens, Florida.
Several books were produced, mostly by my own financing, ranging from a child’s book on the Gulf Oil Spill, children’s books on sea turtles and manatees to short essays on profound interactions with ocean wildlife complete with photographs I took. One of my books—the most-sold one—was created by listening to the wisdom animals shared…Manatee Mindfulness and Other Wildlife Wisdom.
A lot has resulted from fulfilling that promise and now the time comes for another leap. Guidance has been to go deeper with Nature, to connect people with the wisdom teachings of wildlife. During one meditation I heard, You went out and connected with the animals and places, now you must teach what you learned to those willing to listen.
Not the most specific instructions but I did begin writing a course in self-study called, Deepening with Nature, which will eventually become an e-book people can download and use for their own deepening experiences. The other piece will be workshops and retreats designed to help people connect deeper with Nature and each other.
One has been delving into the last few years of Freddie Mercury’s musical career and while I respect and generally adore Freddie Mercury and his music, it is the final years of his writing and singing that have touched me deeply. His love of opera motivated him to follow his passion to write and perform duets with opera diva Monserrat Caballe.
His advancing illness eventually kept him from performing yet he was determined to go into the studio and record tracks that his band mates in Queen could finish after his death. He knew he would never hear the final music yet the songs were coming through him and he wanted to give them to the world.
The album the band released four years after his death contains some of the songs he left behind with his piano and voice. Other tracks were recorded by the other members of Queen and then mixed. It is some of the most moving music I’ve ever heard, especially knowing how it was created and with passion not only from Freddie but his friends who added their instruments and voices…and love.
Can you imagine the loyalty for your path to keep going, to keep sharing under such hardship? He inspires me every day to listen deeply to that which wants to be birthed through me.
As I read her stories, her passion and vision was so evident. I heard myself asking, What is my vision? What is my passion? I love to cave dive but there is no way I would ever explore and go through the hardships required to do that sort of work. And yet, I have done deep exploring…within myself.
Too often we fail to give ourselves credit for the intense, challenging, courageous work we do when we make the commitment to grow. The awakening that happened when I was 25 years old was the first major leap inward. It was my introduction to ‘cave diving’ within the cave that is me. And even though I am a certified open water diver/instructor and certified cave diver and side-mount cave diver, the most incredible experiences from my life have been the ones where I unearth treasures buried deep within myself.
It’s not so exciting or adrenaline-pumping to read about someone’s personal, challenging, courageous inner journey through their life but those journeys are just as important as the challenging experiences extreme explorers have that take them to the edge. Anyone that makes the commitment to grow faces many experiences that take them to the edge of what they know and their ability to navigate the dark, uncharted inner realm.
The outer experiences of learning to open-water dive and learning to cave dive compelled me inward, called me deeper as did experiences with humpback whales, manatees, dolphins, sea lions, mountains, streams….my outer ‘lite’ explorations pushed me to depths of connection that forever altered my life and hopefully, by sharing them, the lives of those reading about them or viewing my photographs.
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