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Fever dreams, wet coughs, Montezuma’s revenge, and spiritual enlightenment

This is not a blog about fever dreams or everything that comes after them.

This blog does not necessarily want to be written. I just returned from two weeks on a spiritual journey to Mexico. Oaxaca to be specific. The land of mezcal of which I tried not one drop.

I went on this trip without any itinerary knowing I would be picked up and taken everywhere the entire time. This in itself is out of my comfort zone but I ran with it knowing that if I had control I would never be able to find my way out of control and therefore not be able to dive as deeply into the vulnerability as I was hoping to go.

I’m not sure how much of this trip I should share since most of it was profoundly personal. I’m not sure I should explain how quickly intimacy develops between a group of people who are forced into situations that push them to the edge of their very comfort, their very existence.

I’m not sure even that it will make any sense if I try to talk about the rituals we performed with the healers in Mexico. What it’s like to bond in song in the temazcal.

What it’s like to be submersed in freezing river water at dawn, holding hands in a circle and singing a note in unison in hopes that we will be released. And only then in that space learning the cold is just a figment of my imagination. That cold can be painful or it can just be cold. And only in that moment of extreme holding can you truly know what neutrality means. Or why it’s so important.

I don’t know if Sharing the earth ritual with you about how we covered ourselves in mud and laid in the new moon light only to stand up and see the reflection of our soul. If you told me I would see something I would’ve laughed in your face but there as clear as day at the end of this night I saw my soul in the reflection of the mud and almost a total darkness. And what a beautiful soul!

I don’t know what it’s like to share a personal journey of such immense magnitude. And I will hold back most of it because it is truly personal. This is not Eat Pray Love. But what this is, is profound gratitude for myself for having the courage to dive into the deepest depths of my fears as if they were a mirage, and come out the other side.

I took this trip for many reasons. First it happened to coincide with the inauguration of a man who I couldn’t watch become my president. Secondly, everything about it scared the living shit out of me. And thirdly, I was promised I would see whales. Which has become a winter ritual for me on Maui for many years.

What I didn’t know is that you can’t know what the universe has in store for you. You can’t know how deep your soul is willing to go to release you from the bonds of itself. You can’t know how sick you have to become to transform…or what that sickness will allow you to access. You never know the wisdom of a fever dream perfectly placed….laced with memories and stories that have been buried for years. You can’t know how much grief or fear or anger or mistrust or ego or skepticism is hiding under your layers of perfectly crafted protection until your protection is meticulously stripped away with a primal scream.

It is that scream that rips from the very center of you, that takes every scar you have ever received and cuts it open and lets it bleed, and when they bleed they have a story to tell.

And again, I don’t think I can put words to the story. But what I do know is a transformation of the highest magnitude took place. There is a quiet in my mind that has never been there before. There is a surety of purpose that was always almost there but never fully there. There is a gratitude that stems from the very center of me and grows upwards towards the sun. It is a gratitude so profound that just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

So I write this blog in the hopes of letting you know that sometimes diving into your deepest fears will bring you a clarity you had no idea was waiting to find you. I write this blog not necessarily to share the gritty details but simply to say that if you are ever offered the opportunity to do something that scares the shit out of you, that it might just be in your Best interest to do it.

I’m writing this blog just to let you know that I’m still here. I’m still committed to healing as many people as I possibly can. I am still focused on giving back. I am still a humble servant yet now, I am so much more.

I’m going to begin teaching the neutrality technique of squares again in March. I hope you’ll join me so we can continue our peaceful revolution of finding those corners in ourselves that need to be seen and heard which will help unwind all that we see around us.

I think that’s about it. I went. I got incredibly sick. I had fever dreams for days. I climbed mountains in altitude. I ate amazing food when I could actually keep it in. I had the nastiest cough that lingered the whole time. And in the end, my spirit feels so clean. In the end, I am just ever so slightly more enlightened. And in the end, I found a bit more out about me. Which will help me know a heck of a lot more about you.

3 comments

  1. Nicci Johnson says:

    So sorry to hear you got so sick on your journey but that too must have been part of it. Glad you feel renewed. I miss you! Im tied up right now I can private message you…

  2. Linda says:

    Wow. So very grateful for this blog and to be allowed to read it. I almost feel like I shouldn’t be reading it, but couldn’t stop as I wanted to learn more. Like I’ve felt at Port Gamble S’Klallam Powwows, that, even though I was invited, I shouldn’t be witness to everything that was going on – but at the same time so honored to have been included. Glad you’re back, Elisha. Can’t wait to see you.

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