Ascension

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Ascension

"I've seen this body rise and turn it's gaze inward in defiance; an affront to death as it stood before me. I've seen this body imprinted by disfigurement, then name it pride. This body is an emblem. As such, I would like to leave this body as an offering."

---

As I approached the clearing I was very aware of the sound of my own foot steps. They seemed to be louder than the people just beyond the trees and the crows that had been singing- louder than my own thoughts. When you live most of your life in conversation with yourself, the absence of your mind's voice can be disturbing... or it could bring you an unfamiliar peace.

I wasn't alone though. He was with me. His role a multifaceted one as he was the only other person there. I cannot talk about my first suspension without talking about him, about Allen Falkner. At some point that name went from being the letters on a screen or piece paper, to a co-conspirator of this rebellion against unfounded limitations. Limitations which found there way into this most permeable temple I call my body. I believe this is called trust. Of course Han was there too, uncharacteristically calm. I needed it to be this way. I didn't want any voices to be louder than the one I speak to myself with; and as I let my bare feet feel the ground beneath me digging into the Earth, with that voice- I began my invocation.

"I am humbled by this past year's lesson. Being grounded gives a whole new meaning to the rise. As I have risen, I will rise once again in your honor. To this place, and this berth, I leave this body as an offering."

The hooks didn't feel like much, they felt as if a warm thread was being pulled through my skin, hard thread that left a growing heat in my back. The feel of the hooks disappeared in this heat until the ropes were pulled taught. "This doesn't feel unfamiliar" I thought and with that thought he lifted me onto my toes. I held onto him as my forehead found his for support. He allowed me to climb his torso evolving from guide to foundation. This was new. There I was, going against a predetermined notion of making this an internal exploration; of focusing on myself to conquer myself - still, I was learning about him.

He's done this before, probably thousands of times finding himself as another's guide in similar explorations, similar situations. Foundation indeed. I felt privileged. I was curled up against him with my knees on his chest, still holding onto his neck, feeling his heart beating and then disappear as my rhythm matched his. Then as I mimicked his breathing I let myself down to feel all of my weight.

"I would like to go back to the moment where I was reborn. Go back to that space that will never change as it has become sacred to me. There I met Death and bespoke of my soul. I was allowed to live. To that space I leave this body as an offering."

How do I explain this surrender?

The heat on my back grew and limited the movement of my arms until they found a resting place closest to me. I felt completely drawn in, engulfed by this heat letting it consume me and as it grew it grew beyond me as did my thoughts. This was a place completely new, here gravity did not matter. I was in flight, a speck of dust dancing for the Sun. I didn't matter. I wasn't matter, I was far away inside of myself.

I began to think of the things that I have been living without and I felt this intense need to see my Mother, to smell something, to taste something; all of these things that I had missed all year *. I realized that I missed them because I felt unworthy of them. I had taken them for granted, just as I had taken this life for granted before. I looked at myself and saw that I was also stagnant in some ways, still living with the events of last year, still not at peace, but there was a growing acceptance that I had not been aware of previously. I opened my eyes to see tears in them and I took in the beauty of the moment, the timelessness, the voices. I felt the world rush back to me and I was relieved. There was no pain, I didn't even remember when it left. I just wanted to stay in the air and see what else this body could do.

Aside from some soreness in my back, that was taken care of by some stretching, the suspension was very pleasant. Heck, it was a whole lot of fun. Allen had to attend to others and I was lucky enough to be alone with Han for a few minutes until Starr came to find me. At this point I was more open to seeing people and soon there was a nice group of them surrounding me and we were all having pleasant conversations about things I can't remember now. I knew that night would bring with it a full moon and I wanted to see it rise, but before that could happen the cold in the air got to me and once I saw that my hands were turning blue I asked Starr to bring me down. She said, "coming down is going to feel like a reverse orgasm", she was right. Touching Earth brings quietus to the immensity of the ordeal, suddenly the over-stimulation of my senses was silenced. After I shivered to the massage tables to let them massage the air out of my back I found myself in a strange mood. There were more people suspending around me and I wanted to be there, to be present.

"I ask to see this soul's expansion, to see myself deserving of this life, to be worthy of this breath and the sacrifice made by everything that sustains it and my passions. With these words I honor these endowments and I would like to leave this body as an offering."

A lot happened that weekend. I added another year to my aging. I saw myself cultivating relationships, and I witnessed some beautiful suspensions. As I watched the men take down the ropes, one of them fell in front of me making the Earth rise. I could smell it. It seemed like time stopped in that moment so that I could appreciate it infinitely. I don't know if I have ever smiled more sincerely in my life. This seemed too much like wishful thinking at the moment, like I was fooling myself into believing this and it probably had more to do with the fullness of the moon then any real change; but in the weeks since the suspension I've learned what my cat's breath smells like, what a sweaty girl about to get pierced smells like, what smoker's breath smells like, and what smells the wind coming through my window carries with itself. Funny how the pleasing smells are the last ones to present themselves. Still, my senses are coming back at a faster pace since the suspension. I don't know if it's because of some physical change or because of something else. Perhaps those feelings of not really deserving my senses, not really deserving my life, were blocking me from truly living with them. Perhaps once I could admit that to myself I deserved them once again.

"As I set my feet upon you once more I proclaim a new life.

For all that I am, for this moment in time, for the lessons etched into this skin. I offer my breath, I offer this dance, to you Mother of all; I leave this body as an offering"

Photos courtesy of Pat Pierce

www.patpierce.org

Photos courtesy of Atom Moore

atommoore.com

I took tons of photos that weekend and you can see those here or on Facebook. Allen Falkner made a pretty rockin video of that weekend which you can see here:

Special thanks to the organizers and all of the attendees at ROPBBQ 2011. Grateful to have lived this with all of you. Especially to Allen Falkner for his understanding and friendship.

Photos by Pat Pierce or Atom Moore where credited. All other photos captured by Allen Falkner and edited by me.

*On the 19th of July last year I lost my sense of smell amongst other things. I wrote about that here: http://astheserpentcreeps.blogspot.com/2010/09/not-to-smell-earth.html

Not to Smell the Earth

If reality is shaped by what we perceive through our senses, then it makes sense that our world changes when even one of our senses suffers any alteration. In the back of my head I always knew that I would be devastated if I lost my sight, even my hearing, but I don't think that I ever thought of other senses until realizations like not being able to smell the flowers that were being sent to me, came about. I didn't notice it at first but food didn't taste like much of anything and once my mind became a bit clearer I noticed that I could not remember what the man by my side smelled like. I had gotten used to burying my face in the crook of Phil's neck letting his scent take me to sleep and at one point I could not remember what that was like anymore. How could scents lead to comfort? This, I cannot explain; but I definitely knew that some things were lost to me and every time I thought about it I felt diminished. These thoughts combined with the the medications* I was taking created a world where I never felt I belonged and all I could think of was running back home but I couldn't even get out of bed... The realization that I lost my sense of smell came rather slowly.

***

As I left the hospital the skies turned gray and raindrops were lifting the Earth as they fell. The coming of the rain always had a way of taking me back to my childhood home. It forced the smell of Earth into my nostrils and it never changed; it was always the same smell I first learned when I lived next to the mountains of La Paz no matter where I was in the world. As we were driving back home I could see the dirt rising but I could not smell it and at that moment I realized that all of the memories I associated with the smell of damp Earth would never be the same. It used to be that that smell would trigger those memories to flood back into my mind where I could see them, hear them, smell them- relive them. This won't happen again.

***

I was told that the injury on my head was at the spot where the olfactory nerves stem from to get to my brain, so my nerves were severed and it was highly improbable that I would get my smell back. As hard as I tried I could not keep my eyes from filling with tears as the Doctor explained this to me. I left her office knowing that I would never be the same, everything would be missing something. The problem with all of this was not that I could no longer smell, but that I had been able to smell everything up until the night of the accident and the thought of those memories were what tortured me, the loss of the memories that I wanted to keep.

One day however, one Best Friends Day, I was sitting by a picnic table eating a veggie burger with some friends when the smell of smoke filled my head. At first I didn't think about it but then I saw smoke rising from a grill and I realized that I was smelling it. I was excited but then thought to myself that I probably remembered that smell because I was in a situation where it was to be expected. Then something that I will never forget happened as I hugged my friend Karolina; I could smell her perfume and when I told her about it she caught herself in mid sentence while telling me that she had put tons of it on; she also understood what was going on and she gave me a huge hug as we shared that moment.

Perhaps all is not lost, perhaps one day I'll be able to taste food like I used to, maybe one day I'll smell the Earth again. Perhaps I had to sacrifice something to get back to reality; where I know that the best teacher is the Earth that I walk on and absolutely everything about her carries a message. In this case she left me in pieces and forced me to fight for every single one of them; and as I slowly started feeling like something like myself again, I felt like I earned every lesson.

From your ruins comes your greatest treasure- your truth.

* I've had some time to reflect on the effect that the painkillers had on me and I've come to the realization that I should have known that pain happens for a reason. Through something like this you need something to focus on, otherwise your focus will find other things to obsess over which inevitably for me are all the things that I couldn't do. Pain would have told me to focus on my body and what is conducive to healing instead of the things that only require patience. The painkillers allowed me to ignore my body and when I stopped taking them I was forced to go through several weeks of withdrawal which in my case meant innumerable sleepless nights were I was plagued by restless limbs going into uncontrollable shaking episodes.

Feast of Friends

Feast of Friends

I was in the ravine again, facing the darkness and the trees while walking in the cold water that came to my ankles. I don't know if I was waiting for anything but I stood there looking at the lightning in the distance. It was intense and I could easily see the lightning bolt that kept appearing. It seemed to come closer after every time it hit the ground. I began to hear the thunder and as the lightning came closer I began to feel the Earth shaking until at last I saw it strike a tree near me sending it's pieces into the sky. As the ground shook I found myself barely able to stand and I tripped over my feet as I turned to run. I ran out of the water and into the trees feeling my feet hitting rocks. As I made it past the tree line I felt the lightning hit the ground behind me sending me forward and when I looked behind me I saw the Earth give way to an opening hole that was getting wider. I turned to run again and that's when I felt the lightning hit me on the forehead, it's brightness blinding my vision then running down my body, through my feet and into the soil.

I awoke to Phil looking at me. He had been looking at me during the last moments of my dream. The same one that would haunt me for several weeks as I could never seem to run fast enough or hide well enough to avoid being struck by lightning. I always awoke to him looking at me and all he could do was hug me and call the nurse so that I could get my painkillers that could never kill the pain entirely, especially not what was caused by the tube that was going through my side. What they did was blur reality to the point that I relived memories of my childhood that I had long forgotten, the accident, and nightmares; I couldn't tell if I was really awake or asleep and the chronology in my life disappeared.

Sometimes I would wake up to people that would bring me to smile even though they weren't smiling. I remember in those first few days when Phil finally made it to the hospital with his Brother and Father, I was laughing while the Doctor was getting ready to sew my forehead back together taking pictures of my open face with a phone; they couldn't laugh. Phil's eyes were darkened and even his Brother, who would otherwise laugh with me, couldn't even take a look at me without covering his mouth, forcing himself to hold back whatever they felt like they needed to hold back from me.

I was still empowered by a recently acquired shamelessness so I exposed my wounds for everyone to see, and the morbid teenager still within me felt that the best way to deal with everything was to enjoy it; laughing, joking, giggling- smiling their looks away. I remember Leyla and Ian standing by the door looking down at me in between dreams. Lynne Marie and Marshall's parents sitting next to me. I don't remember much of the words from my visitors but I do remember their wet eyes and wishing that I was still dreaming at Mysteria instead of feeling like a bummer. I was still in denial about the accident, like it was only a bruise that would go away soon enough so I didn't have to worry. I was still in denial of the facts.

In those first few days at the hospital I was unable to piece together the entirety of what was truly wrong with me. It seemed that everyone wanted to hide all the answers I was looking for. It took me a while to finally gather that several of my ribs were broken causing a lung to be punctured and to collapse, several of my toes were broken as was my nose, two parts of my pelvis were fractured leaving me unable to walk, there was a deep open wound on my knee that never seemed to want to stop bleeding, there were several deep gashes on my shins, then there was the rest of my face. The right side of my forehead lay open as I must have been hit there the hardest, probably causing the concussion that mercifully made me forget most of what happened during the accident. They told me that they had to keep me there to make sure that my brain stopped bleeding, evidence of which was also the blood that stayed in my right ear until I could finally bathe myself. They didn't tell me all of this at once, it came to me in pieces.

***

Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings

where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws

***

Looking back at the grim reality of it all doesn't tell the whole story. The truth is that these days also provided me with some of the greatest memories of my life. Waking up to hundreds of messages wishing me well and giving me words of encouragement in so many different ways, were the only times I allowed myself to cry in the hospital. They sometimes came from unexpected people and sometimes they came from true inspiration. Some of these messages gave me closure on significant events of my life that were never resolved, events that had always seemed like unfinished business, baggage; and I was given the opportunity to feel a kind of relief that most others never encounter. Some of these messages came from people that I only knew in childhood and it made me think that I always had good people around me, no wonder I could never forget them. I never felt unloved, uncared for, or forgotten. My hospital room was being populated by beautiful flowers and stuffed animals, gifts that were sent to me by my friends at home; some of them coming full of meaning and unspoken, unwritten words that I never thought I would ever receive.

Then there was this man by my side, the man of my dreams, my partner in crime never allowing me to leave his sight. He stayed with me the whole time I was in the hospital, in that same room and without complaint. It would be disparaging to say that what he was showing me was love. Love is an overused word, and generally an ambiguous one, in my opinion, when it comes to finding a partner in life; what he was showing me was a purposeful devotion. Even when he decided to cancel one of his tours to stay with me, the most important people in his life were right there behind him showing him their support. I will never forget the fact not a single objection was made about this decision, even by those that would be directly affected by it. I wasn't the only one getting encouraging messages. He would also receive them and we shared what we got with each other. Some of the messages that he got were from total strangers that only knew about his public persona, but even so they always helped us stay focused. There was only one show of negativity throughout all of this* but that was also quickly resolved by the loving words from true friends. If there was ever a doubt in my mind about whether or not I could count anyone as a true friend it was erased just like so many other bad thoughts and feelings about the accident. The accident was being transformed into a blessing.

***

Words in italics were not written by me

* It seems that a person who likes to call himself a friend of mine does not know what that entails. In an effort to give him the honesty that true friendship deserves I discouraged him from following us to Mysteria to save him from a bad experience with others. I didn't do it out of spite or out of judgment as others would gladly testify to because they were there at the moment I spoke to him. When this happened he gave me a hug and through tears thanked me for being honest with him only to find, upon my return home, that he was putting in people's mind that this happened to Marshall, Noah, and I thanks to the law of Karma. It would have been one thing if his thoughts were intended to invite contemplation because they would have only been directed at me not at people who barely know me, if they know me at all. This person's act not only proves his lack of understanding of the law of Karma, but it also shows the extremes this person will go to to get the attention that he so desperately craves. As far as I'm concerned this footnote is the last bit of energy I will ever direct at this person again as he is no longer welcome in my life, not as an act of punishment but because I will no longer allow negativity to come close to me or to the people that I truly care about. Your comment was not only ignorant but it's evident that you wished harm on us and you wanted to bring negativity into this whole situation. The law of Karma however is sending you a message. Unlike you wanted people to believe, the sequence of the events leading to and from the accident have a clear bottom line, and at the end I have found my true friends, my family, and my true loves. The rest can see it's way out. Thank you for making that last little bit clear.

Moonlight Sonata

Rebirth by the Moon

I remember waking up and looking at trees rush past the windshield as the car sped by that place unknown to me. I know I looked at Marshall and that our eyes locked for a moment. I don't remember feeling fear and I have the strangest feeling that I must have decided to go back to sleep. I don't remember what happened next. From then on it was darkness. Life did not flash before my eyes nor did I see anything supernatural haunt me only the most natural feeling of helplessness. I couldn't move but I intuitively knew what happened and as thoughts of my Mother, Phil and Han began to flood my awakening mind I screamed. I screamed for help as loud as I could ignoring the pain that shot through my body every time I even dared to breathe. That's when I saw Marshall in the smallest bit of light that I could see in the distance as if the world were taunting me with one of those cliché images of light at the end of a tunnel. He couldn't pull me out in the position that I was in and although at first the pain that I was feeling was enough to keep me subdued an urge towards life pushed me past that pain and I forced myself out of that darkness as I let out an unrecognizable sound.

***
Farewell, now, my Sister
Up ahead there lies your road
and your conscience walks beside you
It's the best friend you'll ever know
the past is now your future
It bears witness to your soul
***

I found myself alone and in water unable to figure out if Marshall and Noah were anywhere near me or if they were alright. It was dark. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, but I forced myself to do it even if it hurt. I had to force myself to stay up and out of the cold water which already surrounded my feet. All I could hear was the sound of my breathing and any movement I dared to make. There wasn't anything else except the sound of the running water and the dark trees which surrounded me.

***

The only way to keep myself awake was thinking that I couldn't allow this to be the end, that I am my Mother's only child and I couldn't let her hurt. I thought about all of the promises Phil and I had made to each other and how I wanted to live those out so badly I began to cry. Mostly I was mad at having to confront death, talking to death asking it if this was the best that it could do. Daring it to get close to me so that I could prove once and for all that it could never have me, that it never existed. That I could do without it. I laughed at it as best as I could to show it that I was not afraid, that death was beneath this person I created and that even if it touched me I would fight for me; for life because I was not done with life. I was not yet done with my fight with life to be bothered by death. Life was a much more interesting and much more beautiful challenge. I thought about Han and how I would miss his face snuggling against me every morning and how I had spent the last days that I could remember dreaming about burying my face in Phil's neck and how I was determined to smell the Earth as it is being aroused by the first touch of rain. I could not forgive myself for giving up, but the pain faded and I couldn't feel my body; all I could feel was the cold as my weak laughter turned into the sound of my chattering teeth. I couldn't keep myself up anymore and I slowly let myself into the water looking out into the darkness of the trees. All I remember from this point was the cold and how tired I was but I still forced myself to stay awake even if I couldn't stay up anymore.

***
With one wish we wake the will
within wisdom.
With one will we wish the wisdom
within waking.
Awake, wishing, willing...
***

As I was lying there in the water I saw shadows run down towards me and I tried to stare them down because there was no other way that I could defend myself but I slowly recognized uniforms. When I saw the orange emergency equipment I started crying. I felt the unbearable pain again as they started moving me but then I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I remember was arguing with doctors as they pushed a tube into my chest screaming at them because I could feel everything while the doctor ignores me and tells the others that I was anesthetized, I screamed at them arguing that it must have been topical but they pushed on as I cursed them and the world. As I was carted to a helicopter I saw another stretcher out of the corner of my eye and I screamed out for Marshall as loud as I could. I heard him respond and I began crying grateful to know that he was alive. In between dreams I remember a helicopter ride where I thought to myself, "this is so cool" but I couldn't look out the window and I had the most intense deja vu through the ride as I remembered that moment a part of me was at peace. Then I slept.

***

I don't know why I'm writing this, why I need to share it with others, but there's something that I want to remember out of all of this that I would rather forget. I'm just not sure what it is exactly at this time. The main purpose of this writing is for insight, whether it comes to me as I write or whether it comes to me from those who read it. This feels like a new beginning in many ways and that night felt like a rebirth, like I was born into this world again; bloody and cold, born in a rage and breathing for the first time.

***
The stars you see in the night sky
have been dead for centuries
and sunlight creates the illusion
of life for all these years.
Now I no longer trust these eyes of mine
the heart must speak to me
in tongues of forgotten voices
in cosmic energy.
So that I can see...

*Parts in italics were not written by me.