In early 2018, my friend Dee had given me the book Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin. As that was the year I’d be turning 50, the concept of embarking on a wild, crazy, rendezvous of the soul sounded like a fun way to embrace the journey to elder-hood. Dee and I decided to sign up for a retreat together. We chose the Rites of Passage Wilderness Quest in the Inyo mountains of eastern California.
The night I signed up for the course, I began having strange dreams. Normally, I never remembered my dreams. But after enrolling in the soul quest, my nights were filled with images. They streaked through my consciousness like heat lightning, so vibrant that they felt more akin to visions than dreams. A frequent visitor was a stunningly gorgeous Black woman, hair piled high with braids, who referred to herself as a Pachamama.
From trips to Peru, I’d learned that the people of the Andes revered the Pachamama as an Earth Mother: a warm, loving goddess of fertility. In my dreams, this Pachamama explained that she came from an African lineage that was much older than the Andean tradition, but that my image of the Pachamama was the closest point of reference.
It was hot and humid in the vision where I first met my Pachamama. My skin felt prickly from the heat. I was walking barefoot on sun-baked earth towards a ramshackle, clapboard cabin, shaded by two massive oak trees. The door to the cabin stood ajar. Just as I reached to push the door, it seemed to open of its own accord, revealing two rickety wooden steps that descended to a recessed dirt floor.
The cabin was comprised of a single room, dimly lit by a few dingy windows. A dozen Black women in simple cotton muslin house-dresses were scattered around the room. Some sat in chairs, sewing. Others were working together on a quilt, which was fanned out on a large table at the center of the room. The quilt contained the sun, moon, planets, all the stars of the galaxy, and universes beyond our galaxy.
Some of the women looked at me with curiosity. Others seemed wary and apprehensive. Not a word was spoken aloud. But I heard their thoughts as they communicated with a woman who I realized was the one who had opened the door. “Why is she here? Why did you let her in?” they inquired.
My Pachamama said simply, “Because she needs to see.”
In visions over the next several weeks, my Pachamama revealed that she was one of many entities whose collective power is vast—virtually limitless—when viewed from our dimension. They were there at the beginning of time, the life force behind all living things.
The Pachamama are responsible for all shifts in energy as it changes form. From the sprouting of a seed to the birth of a star, the Pachamama play an integral role at their inception. As a collective, they are the formative entity that weaves a patchwork quilt of energy, knitting together universal forces with as little effort as it takes to mend a sock.
My Pachamama explained that they feel great compassion for humans in their suffering, even as they weave tragedy into the fates of man. The Pachamama offer supernatural comfort, especially when a woman loses a child. They are known by many names. Their role is found in the belief systems of every nature-based religion, and that role has been worshipped, revered and feared throughout all of human history.
“Why do I need to know all of this?” I asked my Pachamama.
With deep compassion, she replied, “You will be tested.”
One night, a couple weeks after my first dream, I woke from a dead sleep. My husband was out of town and I was alone in the bedroom of our little cabin, which was perched on the side of a pond in western New York. Our rural setting was normally very quiet at night, aside from the sounds of crickets, night birds and the croaking of pond frogs. I sat still, listening, wondering what had woken me. The bedroom was much darker than normal, like a shadow filled the room.
Then I heard a voice. It wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a voice in my head. The timber was more metallic than a human voice. And the sound didn’t come from a single point in the bedroom. Instead, it seemed as if it came from darkness itself. This deep, masculine, commanding voice asked, “What are you not willing to give up for this soul quest journey?”
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t that I was scared, shocked, or confused. After many nights of vivid dreams and bizarre encounters with my Pachamama, I wasn’t even surprised. It just didn’t occur to me to reply.
The voice repeated the question again, more loudly and insistently, “What are you not willing to give up for this soul quest journey?”
Oh. Maybe this isn’t meant to be a rhetorical question…
Then the voice was so loud, I felt the sound waves reverberate through the room, “WHAT ARE YOU NOT WILLING TO GIVE UP FOR THIS SOUL QUEST JOURNEY?”
Without thinking, I blurted out, “My happiness!”
There was a whoosh, like the air was sucked out of the room, and with it went the pitch blackness that had been filling it. Ambient light filled my bedroom as moonbeams filtered in through the windows. I shivered. The experience was too visceral to pass off as a dream.
What in the name of all that is holy was that about?
In the coming days, I didn’t give a lot of thought to the dreams, visions, or whatever they were. In the past, existential inquiry left me with more questions than answers. So I’d become perfectly comfortable with unanswered questions. More importantly, I think I never really took the dreams seriously. After all, they were just dreams, right?
The day of the soul quest arrived. Dee and I flew from Buffalo to Las Vegas, where we met up with a few other questers for the four hour drive to the Inyo Mountains. Due to a number of detours along the way, our four hour journey became five and a half hours. By the time we arrived at camp, the other members of our soul quest team had already assembled. They were in the midst of introductions.
After introductions, we learned that points of the compass can be assigned attributes, which can then be used to set intentions. I’d brought small items from home, little touchstones that represented each of my family members. I decided that each touch stone would represent a directional point of the compass and the three days plus night vigil of the my solo journey into the wilderness would be dedicated to each of my family members.
My 14 year old daughter, Callie, was my south. She represented childhood and playfulness. Callie wore life lightly, rarely letting circumstances weigh her down. Many of our friends wistfully commented how great it would be to spend just a moment living in Callie’s world, where everything was bright and beautiful, filled with magic and adventure. My symbol for Callie was a little stone with the words “Let It Go” engraved on it. When she’d given me the stone for Christmas, Callie said, “Whenever you are feeling frustrated, or angry, or sad, just let it go! Because nothing is worth trading for your happiness.”
Gracie, my 15 year old, was my west. She represented the tumultuous teenage years. Gracie was deep, moving water, sometimes flowing in a wide slow-moving river, sometimes raging in anger, sometimes plunging deep into the earth to explore and create subterranean caves and caverns. Gracie was literature, poetry, and expression. She was power, struggle, insight and wisdom. Gracie loved all living things. My symbol for Gracie was a little container of honey from the bees she’d raised.
My husband, John, was my north. He represented adulthood. John was responsibility and protection. He directed our family’s path, deciding what business venture would best provide for our family, where we should live, and what new adventures we should pursue. He represented safety and stability. My symbol for John was a green aventurine stone. I chose it because aventurine sounded like “adventuring,” which had been the hallmark of our life together.
Twelve year old Christopher was my east. He represented the ethereal spiritual realm. Christopher was my empath. He was highly aware of the emotions of the people around him. But unlike many empaths who feel emotionally overwhelmed by this heightened awareness of energy, he managed to stay happy, balanced, and free. Everyone loved Christopher because he genuinely cared about people, taking an interest in their lives without carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. My talisman for Christopher was a shell he’d given me when we were on the beach. The shell was broken on one side, allowing air to flow through it. For me, Christopher’s shell symbolized an unconditional love as wide and deep as the ocean.
Our group leader was standing in the middle of the circle, recapping the significance of setting intentions, when I heard a new voice in my head. It was similar to the voice of my Pachamama, but with more authority. I came to refer to this new voice as the Earth Mother. “Get to your knees, child. You’re on holy ground.”
I pursed my lips, suppressing a smile at the image of dropping to my knees right in the middle of a bunch of people I’d just met. Hi. My name is Christy. I came here straight from the loony bin. Just ignore me while I get down on my knees in the dirt!
But the Earth Mother commanded again, “Get to your knees. You are on holy ground.” I was surprised to discover that I was fighting a physical urge to drop to the ground, like a hand was pressing down on my shoulder. The impulse was as strong as the urge to sneeze. I quickly excused myself and shuffled towards the outhouse, pretending I needed to use the bathroom.
Skirting around the back of the outhouse, I headed into the desert. Dodging tall clumps of sage brush and cactuses, I was barely out of sight of the campground when the voice came again, “Get to your knees. You are on holy ground.” This time, when the Earth Mother said the word “knees,” my legs crumpled beneath me, and I was kneeling on the ground, palms planted firmly on the dirt in front of me.
The power hit me in waves, rising up through the earth, riveting my hands to the ground. My palms felt like they were shooting out roots, anchoring me to the earth. Then wave upon wave of ecstasy coursed through my body as I received a message straight from the soil.
“Whether you had the perfect mother, a terrible mother, or no mother at all is irrelevant. All pale in comparison to the all-encompassing love of the One Mother.” The truth of these words permeated every membrane of my body as bliss rolled through me in wave after wave. Tears streamed down my face, and my throat ached from the effort of enduring a power that surpassed anything I’d ever felt.
When it was over, I stood shakily, wiping tears from my eyes and drool from my chin.
What in the hell was that?
I didn’t linger to find out. As I returned to the group, Dee looked at me quizzically. Bewildered and still trembling, I whispered, “I think I just had a spiritual orgasm!”
“Wow. Where can I get one of those?” she quipped.
Later that afternoon, we arrived at our wilderness camp, which faced the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains. Our trip leader showed us how to use our tarps to create a makeshift shelter. Though some shelters looked better than others, none were sufficient to fend off the late-spring sleet storm that accosted our camp during the night.
I’d set my tarp too high and the wind easily drove rain sideways under it, pelting my sleeping bag. As sleet stung my face in the darkness, I climbed the rock buttress supporting the tarp and yanked ropes free. Back on the ground—extracting my sleeping bag from a puddle—I angrily wriggled back into the soggy sleeping bag, rolled the tarp around me like a burrito, and shivered through the rest of the night, praying for sunrise.
In the early morning light, the rain stopped. I changed into dry clothes.
As our trip leader gathered the bleary-eyed members of our group, each of whom was commiserating over the toils and tribulations he or she had endured in the night, I was once again overcome by that strange, powerful-as-a-sneeze urge to drop to the ground. I abruptly scurried out of sight, found a ring of tall boulders, and fell to my knees.
The sun was cresting over a hill in the distance, and I felt a deep, aching, sensual joy as the sunlight caressed the frozen rain-soaked earth. I felt the sun’s touch like the embrace of a lover, caught between a masculine sun and the Earth Mother as they united in the morning light. Again, the feeling of bliss coursed through me, over and over, in waves even stronger than the previous day. Moaning, chest heaving, gasping for air, I was sincerely worried I might have a heart attack.
Tears streamed down my face in gratitude, awe, and wonder at this incredibly profound experience. It was so confusing. What did it mean? What was I supposed to learn from this? Why was it happening to me?
I made my way back to camp. Reluctant to rejoin the group with a tear-streaked face, I hovered near the food tent, where the trip leader’s wife and another quest leader were preparing breakfast. Yet again, my knees buckled, and I dropped to the earth, profoundly embarrassed.
What in God’s name was happening to me? It was weird enough to go through this alone in the desert. Being in the presence of other people while gasping and sobbing in the throes of some kind of euphoric spiritual orgasm was completely mortifying for a somewhat stoic Minnesota girl! I just wanted to roll under a sage bush and hide until it was over.
The women preparing breakfast rushed over to make sure I was okay. Seeing my face, the trip leader’s wife assured me that everything was fine. This was perfectly normal. In the throes of ecstasy, I looked at the woman, dumbfounded. What about this could possibly be considered normal? “I feel…like I’m having…a spiritual…orgasm!” I panted.
“No, sweetheart,” she chuckled as tears filled her eyes. “It’s not an orgasm. You’re being birthed.”
Orgasm? Birthing? What’s the difference? This was… by far… the most bizarre thing I’d ever experienced.
At this point in the story, I think it’s important to mention, there were no hallucinogens or drugs of any kind involved in this journey. Three days of preparation were followed by a three day “solo” in the desert with only a tarp, sleeping bag, water, and ceremonial items. The retreat ended with three days of integration. This was day two of our nine day retreat.
Over the next two days, I completely fell in love with each member of our group. As the oldest woman attending the retreat, I adopted the role most comfortable to me. I became “Mom:” nurturing, caring, offering a shoulder when someone needed support. Some of the group participants actually started calling me “Mom.” It all felt relatively “normal.”
Then, during my three day solo, the trippiness continued. The fabric that separated me from other living beings melted away. I could talk to…yes, converse with…plants, birds, rocks, trees, etc. and hear their reply. It was like the Earth Mother’s gift of rebirth opened some kind of translation tool that interpreted energy as words.
I spent my three day solo living in a place I called the hummingbird house.
An honest-to-goodness hummingbird showed me around his house, instructing me where and how to enter, where to leave my shoes, where I should sleep, the best place to watch sunrise and sunset, and even where to go to the bathroom.
How the hell am I understanding a hummingbird? I mused.
Each time I did a self-designed ceremony, the hummingbird hovered inches off the end of my nose, bearing witness. Each time I watched a sunrise or sunset, the hummingbird watched with me, hovering just off my right shoulder.
Though I slept alone for three nights under the stars with no tent and no food, alone in the middle of the desert, I was never uncomfortably cold, hungry, or scared. I felt deeply protected, and slept as soundly as I would at home in my own bed.
The first morning of my solo, I woke at daybreak.
“Come and greet your day,” the Earth Mother said.
“Is it okay if I greet it from inside this nice warm sleeping bag?” I asked.
“Come and greet your day,” the Earth Mother repeated gently. “I have made it warm for you.”
Sure enough, despite the fact that it was early morning in the mountains, the air wasn’t cold.
During my morning bathroom routine, a little mouse popped his head up a couple feet away. He ducked back down, then popped up again, closer this time. Finally, he climbed up on the rock, easily within reach, and sat on his haunches, staring at me as if he was waiting for me to remember something.
Oh! I’m dedicating the first day of my quest to the South! Indigenous people consider the mouse to be one of the spirit animals of the south! Thank you, little one!
With a happy heart, I remembered that Callie would be my guide this day. This was going to be fun! Scanning the horizon, I tried to picture where Callie would go.
She’d climb to the top of the highest hill, of course!
Due east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the high desert landscape of the Inyo Mountain range was devoid of trees. Rocks shaped like ancient, stone-carved visages dotted the landscape, lending a sacred air to a vast sweeping valley that rose to the mountain top beyond.
It was impossible to gauge the distance. Would the trek to the top of the mountain take two hours or four hours? I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before and wouldn’t eat again until breakfast three days hence, so every calorie mattered.
I set off with a light daypack, an extra layer, and one and a half liters of water. This is going to be so fun! I thought, fully energized and excited for the hike. There was no doubt that I was channeling my inner Callie.
As I walked, the Earth Mother told me that much of my quest would be spent collecting fractured pieces of my soul that had been lost at various points in my life. My family members would serve as guides to find these pieces.
Awesome! This sounds like a treasure hunt!
My first directive was to climb the mountain. There, I would collect a piece of my soul that was fractured when John pulled me from an Incan mummy’s tomb when we climbed a 17,795 ft. mountain in Chile, called El Plomo.
Dirt two-track roads crisscrossed up the valley. I did my best to follow them in the direction of the mountain. As one veered off in the wrong direction, I’d set out across the desert in search of another one. After an hour and a half, the valley rose steeply and the roads ended. The top of the mountain still loomed far in the distance. Undeterred, I continued picking my way uphill amidst fields of boulders and cactus-studded earth.
The Earth Mother’s presence was with me through the journey, conveying intimacy for each of the rocks, flowers, cactuses, and sage bushes we passed.
The day became cool when intermittent clouds blocked the sun’s light. On several occasions, I kicked myself for not bringing a rain jacket. The sun was lower in the sky when a wind from the south began to pick up. I had been hiking for well over five hours, and was just getting to the weather-beaten conifers that crowned the mountain’s crest.
Finally, after traversing the final spinal ridge to the summit, I sat down on a log for a much-needed break.
Now what? How does one go about reclaiming a fragmented part of their soul?
I listened for the Earth Mother’s voice, but she was silent.
Really? You had a lot to say about rocks and plants! But when it comes to connecting fragments of my soul, I’m on my own?
A cold wind rushed up the sheer face of the cliff. The sun’s proximity to the western horizon was making me nervous. After traveling all this distance, it would be challenging enough to find my camp by day. At night, it would be utterly impossible.
I leaned into my intuition, listening harder. There was nothing.
Fine.
I bent down, grabbed the log I’d been sitting on, awkwardly hoisted it over my head… realized I had no idea what to say and dropped it again.
I feel like an idiot!
After a moment, I bent down again, grabbed the log, hoisted it over my head, and proclaimed, “I claim the piece of my soul that was lost in the Incan child’s tomb on a mountain far away! Thanking my family for bearing witness, the Mother Earth below and Father Sky above, I set the log back down, shrugged, and scurry-walked back down the steep slope in a race against the setting sun.
Did I do that right?
How could one know? It could have been my imagination, but I somehow felt fuller, more whole, but lighter at the same time.
The next morning, I was sore. Having returned to camp in the gloaming the night before, I marveled at the miracle that guided me through the desert to arrive back at the hummingbird’s house within moments of darkness. The hummingbird was there to greet me upon my return.
My stomach growled. It had been thirty-six hours since its last meal. Not one for fasting, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Though most of my fellow questers were apprehensive about sleeping alone in the desert, my biggest fear had been going three days without eating. I was surprised to discover that my body only protested at meal times.
Rolling out of a warm sleeping bag in the cold pre-dawn light, I thought about the day ahead. This second day of my solo would be dedicated to the West, and Gracie would be my guide.
I listened for the Earth Mother’s guidance. She said this second day, I would be recovering other fragments of my soul.
One was lost when Gracie and I battled over her naps when she was three years old. Giving birth to three babies in four years left me spiritually and physically depleted. In this state of weakness, my spirit wasn’t strong enough to do battle, and my soul had been damaged in the fight.
My spirit continued to splinter through ensuing years whenever Gracie and I fought. Tiny fragments of energy, some as fine as a strand of hair, lay strewn across space and time.
I wasn’t surprised my soul was fractured doing battle with Gracie. Even as a toddler, her determination and sheer strength of will made her a force to be reckoned with. My ego mind insisted that as the parent, I knew more than my three year old daughter. But my spirit recognized the fact that Gracie was a sovereign being with her own moral compass, wisdom, inner guidance and role to play in this lifetime.
Gracie loved sunrises and had been known to drag me out of bed to watch them. Watching the sun rise, I felt Gracie’s presence. The hummingbird hovered just off my shoulder.
While I was making a breakfast of herbal tea, an inquisitive bee buzzed over my pillow and sleeping bag, flew in and out of my backpack, and came to rest on the tea bag. Seeing the bee inspired inexplicable delight.
Dipping the tea bag in Gracie’s honey, I set it on the rock and waited. Within minutes, a small swarm of bees had descended upon the honey. Watching them made my soul happy.
It wasn’t long before a big black lizard decided to join the party. He would do little push-ups with his front legs, stand perfectly still, then scoot a few steps closer to the bees.
Do lizards eat honey?
The lizard continued to do his funny little dance, closing the gap between him and the honey-soaked tea bag.
With horror, I thought, Do lizards eat bees?
One bee broke away from the rest and flew to the place where the lizard was crouching. The bee made a slow, lazy circle around the lizard’s head, then landed right in front of him. The lizard pounced, and the bee disappeared. I gasped. The intentionality in the bee’s actions was unmistakable.
That bee wanted to be eaten! I wonder if there is a part of us that chooses our death. And what if our souls choose the adversity in our life too?
Instead of feeling sorry for myself and for the situations that caused those fractures in my soul, I began to feel grateful for this exciting treasure hunt to restore them. Those little fractures were blessings in disguise.
Much of the previous day’s trek up the mountain had been filled with conversations with the Earth Mother. I suddenly realized that restoring the fragments of my soul had nothing to do with the log-raising ceremony at the end of the day. It was the journey to the top of the mountain that made me whole. This insight has been applied many times in ensuing years, recognizing that presence plays more of an integral role in healing that words or even actions.
I wanted to continue the conversation with the Earth Mother. Our trip leaders had taught us how to make a circle of rocks, a medicine wheel, for the night vigil at the end of the solo.
Would you help me find special rocks for my night vigil? I asked the Earth Mother.
“Each rock is special,” the Earth Mother replied.
I know. But please help me find the right rocks to contain the energy.
“There isn’t a rock on the planet that wouldn’t be able to contain the energy in your ceremony. That’s the very function of a rock. It holds energy,” The Earth Mother replied. “Some people think that rocks themselves contain a specific energy. That’s not the case. There isn’t a stone or crystal that can create happiness if a person doesn’t already have happiness inside of them. However, certain rocks have the ability to reflect and amplify one energetic frequency or another. Similar to the way you perceive color as light refracts off an object, you perceive emotion when your own energy refracts off a stone. But the main purpose of rocks is to bear witness. Any rock will be both worthy and honored to bear witness during your night vigil.”
While hunting for rocks, I saw a beautiful Indian Paintbrush flower in full bloom, and it reminded me of Gracie.
You are so gorgeous! Thank you for sharing your beauty with me.
The Indian Paintbrush asked for a sip of the tea I was holding. I gave her a splash and asked,
The Earth Mother told me that while humans use their five senses to acquire information, nature communicates vibrationally. Does your awareness extend to the mountains beyond this hill? Can you “see” the mountains?
“You would call this desert one ecosystem. To us, it’s more like a family. My family extends to those mountains, so yes, I am aware of them. When a plant, tree, or animal in our family makes a transition (dies), the entire family is aware of it. But we don’t sense transitions from another ecosystem—or another family—unless it is on a massive scale.”
What about the destruction of the rain forest? Is that something you sense
“Yes. That kind of destruction reverberates through the planet. I also sense forest fires from other ecosystems. And the energy of earthquakes and volcanoes is transferred to us through rocks and soil.”
Is nature angry with humans for the destruction we cause when we create farms, or build our roads, houses, and cities?
I sensed the Indian Paintbrush’s smile. “In most cases, we are no more angry with humans when they build than we would be with a lion who kills a gazelle. Humans were created to create. In their creative process of building cities and roads, they inadvertently cause death.
“Similarly, the gazelle causes death when she tramples and eats the grass. The lion causes death when he eats the gazelle. It is the way of the world. However, destruction that is heedless and willful has consequences. Such is the destruction of the rain forest. This type of destruction causes a shudder that travels through nature around the world. Just as there would be a consequence for the lion who kills all the gazelles in the herd, there is a consequence for man’s unnatural behavior in destroying the rain forest and causing unnecessary death.”
I thanked the Indian paintbrush for her wisdom.
I couldn’t wait to tell Gracie about my conversations with the rocks and flowers. These little chats were the perfect way to get in tune with my inner Gracie.
Returning to camp to meditate, I was just nodding off to sleep when a bee hovered above my nose, asking me to follow him. I stood up, and was surprised to find the bee flew slowly, so I had no trouble following it.
After a ten minute walk into the desert, we arrived at the bee’s hive.
Do you have a message for me? Can you tell me how to restore the pieces of my soul that were lost?
The bees didn’t reply. I suddenly felt silly talking to a bee. Actually, talking to bees wouldn’t be too strange. Expecting a reply? That was crazy.
I sat watching the beehive as it swarmed with activity. Three big black lizards hovered nearby. Not a single bee was consumed. Again, I had the feeling that the bees weren’t eaten unless they chose to be eaten. Laying on a flat rock, I fell asleep in the warm afternoon sun.
Some time later, I woke to the sound of the hummingbird’s wings whirring above me. He’d come to take me home. I followed him back to the hummingbird house, waiting as he stopped to sip nectar from a few flowers en route.
He told me that the fractured pieces of my soul had been restored by the bees while I slept. There was no need to do anything else.
I took pictures of “Gracie’s sunset,” as well as the flowers, landscape, and snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.
I also collected two stones to add to my circle of rocks—one with moss growing on it that reminded me of a garden to represent my mom, and another white crystal to represent my dad.
When I awoke on the third and final day of my solo quest in the desert, the wind was blowing from the north. I laughed out loud. The first morning, the wind was blowing from the south. The second morning, it was blowing from the west. Now, on this day dedicated to John, who represented my north, the wind was indeed blowing from the north.
Watching the sun rise, I held John’s aventurine stone and welcomed his energy. The hummingbird, who had been hovering nearby, flew away as if to give us privacy.
I felt the weight of John’s sadness. There was deep remorse. “I’m sorry,” he said. Those words reflected all the apologies that my husband, in his physical form, was never able to make. My arms ached to hold him.
It’s okay, Baby. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.
Later that afternoon, John’s spirit and I sat watching the afternoon sun as it cast shadows on the snow-topped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. We were sitting in a place I referred to as the Lanai deck in the hummingbird’s house. The hummingbird had again returned to share what seemed to have become his favorite pastime—watching sunrises and sunsets with me.
I felt another wave of emotion coming from John’s higher self. He invited the spirit-energy of my parents to join us. There was appreciation and gratitude mixed with regret. John turned to my parents and said, “I’m sorry.”
Again, my heart melted. Though the Earth Mother hadn’t specifically told me what fragments John would help me recover, I knew they had something to do with knock-down drag-out fights early in our marriage when I wanted to spend more time with my parents. On a metaphysical level, his apology was accepted and balance was restored.
I made two lists: “List of Beautiful Things My Parents Have Done For Me” and “Places We’ve Lived and Visited Since We Were Married.” Both were long and impressive. With each line, I felt the missing pieces of my soul falling back into place.
As the sun slipped behind the hills, I began to mentally prepare for the night vigil. After a self-designed cleansing ritual with sage and essential oils, I entered the medicine wheel, perched high on a rock overlooking the expansive valley and snow-tipped mountains beyond.
Though May temperatures dipped into the forties at night, I hadn’t been cold through the entire three day solo. But entering the medicine wheel, I felt an odd chill that wasn’t just due to temperature. Feeling apprehensive, I pulled a sleeping bag around my shoulders as the last light of sun faded into the cobalt sky.
The wind kicked up. Attempting to sing one of the chants our group leader taught us, my voice sounded feeble and empty. I called for the hummingbird, and turned to see something frightening. Just behind my head was a kind of bird or large insect I’d never seen before. It looked like a cross between a wasp and a hummingbird. Its presence felt like a portentous omen. In my mind, my trusted companion had been replaced by something vile and sinister.
Staying awake became a great battle. Constantly drifting off, I felt guilty for my lack of discipline. How hard can it be to stay awake? With all the beauty, grace, and magic that had been revealed, how could I fail at this simple task? I finally gave up and succumbed sleep, tossing and turning to get comfortable on the cold stone floor of the medicine wheel.
After waking for the hundredth time, I sensed the faintest hint of light in the direction of the eastern sky. But rather than viewing the prospect of sunrise with joy, I felt a growing sense of dread. As the world around me emerged from darkness, I felt utterly and completely abandoned.
Like the pervasive wind that had raged through the night, a sensation of abandonment tugged at the newly restored pieces of my soul, threatening to rip them away. I felt hopeless and alone. Then came rage.
“You can’t have them,” I shouted to the wind. “They’re mine now!” Like a mother protecting her child, I clung to the newly reunited pieces of my soul, though it seemed as if God himself was trying to take them away.
The rage boiled up inside me, and I directed my anger at each of the sacred rocks that had been tasked with holding the energy of my medicine wheel. With all my strength, I threw the rocks as far as I could, feeling pain in my own body as they struck the earth.
This roller coaster of emotion from spiritual ecstasy to abandonment and rage was truly terrifying.
I’d gone nuts. That was the only explanation. After all, hadn’t I been hearing voices? Talked to rocks and flowers? I’d clearly lost my mind.
As I stood on the high rock, surrounded by barren desert and veritably wrestling with God, the only thing preventing a true psychotic break was the memory of the deep and abiding love I had shared with the Earth Mother. In my darkest hour, I was far from that love. But the memory of it still held power. To dismiss this encounter as insanity would be to discount the truth of that love.
Sobbing, I managed to gather my sleeping bag, stuff it into the backpack, navigate through the high desert, and rejoin the group.
We had been instructed to be silent when reentering the camp. Congregating in a circle, we were to share a single word or phrase that epitomized our three day solo or the final night vigil.
Every other member of the group stepped forward, faces illuminated by the same love I had received during the first few days of our quest. When it came my turn to step forward, I felt as if every ounce of energy was gone. I barely had the strength or courage to utter the one word pounding a hole in my brain. Finally, in a voice barely above a whisper, I spoke the word “despair” and broke down crying.
Each person in the group held me in turn. I knew their love was there, but I couldn’t feel it. Nothing reached me. A thick plexiglass shield separated me from the deeply compassionate people surrounding me. I could see them. I could hear them. But I couldn’t feel them.
We spent three days “unpacking” our discoveries. I listened to the profound revelations and insight my new friends and soulmates had experienced while attempting to reframe my own story in a way that would allow me to sleep at night. But I was in shock. What had happened?
Scanning my heart, I couldn’t find evidence of a single emotion. Soon after arriving back at camp, the despair disappeared. Like sand draining from a broken hourglass, every other emotion drained away with it. I was a shattered vessel. Nothing made sense.
A chill ran down my spine as I remembered the voice in the darkness, in my bedroom. “What are you not willing to give up for this soul quest journey?”
“My happiness!”
Who am I without my happiness? What’s to become of the fun, adventurous mom—the mom who danced in the kitchen, sang dirty rap songs with the kids during soccer carpools, read Harry Potter aloud with each character having its own ridiculous British accent, hosted high tea in the graveyard, and ran naked down an empty beach with the kids when they were little? Where is the mom who climbed mountains and rode elephants?
The soul quest was so confusing. I didn’t feel worthy of the powerful encounter with the Earth Mother at the beginning of the quest. And I certainly didn’t feel deserving of the despair at the end of the night vigil. It just… didn’t… make… sense.
