Appropriately Naked In April - Part III

The weekend following the Wailing and Sweat Lodge was something Wendie and I had been anticipating for a month or so. In previous posts I've written about how Stacey had recommended these books on hypnotherapy and past life regression by Brian Weiss last May. I ended up giving the first one, Many Lives, Many Masters, to Wendie for her birthday last June, then she liked it so much she highly recommended I read it. When I returned to Denver last July I picked it up out of the library, loved it, then read two more of his books within a few weeks.

The concepts and insights from those books formed much of the framework for what I got out of the second half of last year. Through Wendie and I, we then recommended those books on to my Mom, both her sisters, various friends of ours and of the family, and so it spread. These books were directly related to me seeing Ari while I was in Port Townsend, since he had studied how to do hypnotherapy and regression under Dr. Weiss as one of his first students. Through that experience I had visions of my life as a pirate captain among others, and started looking seriously at issues of control that I hadn't previously seen.

All of that is back story to the fact that Wend and I found out Brian Weiss was coming to Portland, OR to do a workshop two days before my birthday. Back in December, when I was staying with Stacey, she and I had decided to meet up in Central America somewhere for my birthday, since that was where I thought I'd be at the time. It worked out quite well that I wasn't for her situation, since she was able to take two weeks off to take the train from Springfield to Portland and spend my birthday week with me as well as attend the workshop.

In preparation for this weekend, Wendie and I decided that we'd listen to a CD she had of Dr. Weiss that guides you through a regression at home. He recommends it as a way to get used to his voice so that one is able to dive deeper with each session and gain greater access to the subconscious and, theoretically, deeper memories. So we played the CD Monday night while we sprawled on the living room floor in relaxation and allowed ourselves to be taken back.

Just as I had done it last fall, I was able to see visions of things, but they were murky. Last fall when I did the CD on my own I saw visions of choppy water, felt the sensation that I'd been bound up and tossed in the sea, and I could see clearly the city of Venice on the coast and the hull of the ship I was being tossed from. I also saw the year 1606 come up. Other than that I didn't know what was going on there. When I saw Ari, and had an actual person guide me through the regression asking questions in response to my replies, everything became much clearer.

It was then that I had extremely vivid images, as if from out of the eyes of the man himself, of walking around the captain's quarters, looking at his hands and feet as if they were my own, and theoretically, they were. His name was Alastair and his crew was mutinous because I believe the Spanish armada had cornered them so they blamed him as a scapegoat but couldn't muster up the courage to over take him. This pissed him off and made him extremely sad, to the point where tears welled up in my eyes, because he thought they had more strength than that and it disappointed him. I never learned who threw him overboard, the Spanish or the crew, or if in fact that was him I saw before. It certainly seemed to be.

Anyway, Monday night I revisited a few childhood days and got a vision of the clock in the hospital I was born in at the exact time I was born. 3:59am, I watched it tick over from 3:58. There is no time on my birth certificate, but my Mom tells me I was born some time around 4am. Along with that I also saw silhouetted images in the ancient middle east chilling under a joshua tree sipping on wine and talking in depth about philosophy. I got the impression it was me in a previous life then and Christ, but I also think that could be an image conjured up out of ego.

The next night we did it again and I had some much more crazy images. I saw red out buildings of a 1600's American Colonial farm. It was all in drawings though, like heavy crayon, and the images were of things like the corner of a building, or half a bench. I also saw what felt like Atlantis going to shit. With Ari I had seen myself as a worn, old, wise man that was spent after the chaos of Atlantis had torn the continent apart and was in the last throes of sinking. This time I just saw mayhem and madness.

The last image that I got was the clearest. It was of a man of some sort walking through the heavy iron gates into the arena of a grand Roman Colosseum. I don't know if it was the Colosseum in Rome, or just another huge one, and I'm not sure if the man I saw was a gladiator or a peasant thrown in there, but he was definitely there to die and not pleased about it.

We only ended up doing that for those two nights. I worked later that week, and we visited with friends in town, played board games, and I watched Clash of the Titans which was horribly disappointing, though still fun. On Friday evening, about an hour before we were going to get in the car and drive down to Portland Wendie got a call that drastically altered our plans. Before I go into that, I should return to the beginning of the week for a moment.

Sunday, I mulled around the idea a bit more of going to the men's group the weekend after the Portland workshop. It seemed to fit. Stacey would be getting on the train that Friday in Seattle, so then I'd be well positioned in the city already for Sage to pick me up and bring me where ever it is with him. The one obstacle was that Teresa wanted me for Tuesdays and Saturdays, but when I thought about that a second time I realized how ridiculous a reason that was not to go. Here I was, I year on the road now having quit my full time job, gone through pains to make sure I had no bills, made all kinds of observations during that year of money showing up when it was needed, all to pursue a greater understanding of myself, and now I was thinking of not going because I could miss a four hour shift at work that could easily be covered.

I sent Sage an email to ask him a bit more about it. Sacred Groves had been on suggested donation, so I sort of had the impression this would be too. Wend and I both gave a decent donation to the Groves and I figured if this thing was decent I'd do the same there. On Monday he wrote back letting me know it'd be $600, but assured me it was well worth it. I immediately wrote back telling him there was no way and started putting it out of my mind.

That afternoon I got a call from Ang. I answered because I thought it might be an emergency call to talk, but she was surprised to hear me pick up. Her Dad is moving from Toledo to Vegas and specifically asked if I could help him drive. He'd fly me to Toledo from where ever I was and pay me for my time, and I was free the week he was asking for. I told her that sounded perfect, and since I know what sort of life change this means for him, and indirectly for Ang, I got really excited that he'd asked me to help.

About two hours later I was checking email and got one from my friend Maddy in NYC. She too was writing to see if I'd be up for a job she'd heard about from one of her friends. He needed someone to drive a 24 foot truck from Connecticut to Utah, was willing to pay one way airfare home, all travel expenses paid, and $150/day expecting it to take about a week. All of this, and asking for around the end of June, just after my friend Josh's wedding which is my last commitment in America. I was stunned at the extreme similarities of the two job offers, and the perfect timing of them both. If the second one panned out that would give me the perfect amount of funds to live off of for several months in Latin America and the one way airfare to get me straight there without having to spend any of it in expensive America. I told her to sign me up.

I sat with those two offers on the table now and reassessed my situation. Sage tells me its $600 for this weekend, two totally random, well paying, perfectly timed job offers show up the same day; not to mention they are trucking oriented jobs which is a career I'm eyeballing seriously for when this odyssey is over. Since my phone was on already from talking to Ang I called Sage up and told him I'd changed my mind and was extremely interested in this weekend now, despite still knowing nothing about it. When the Universe points these days, I follow if I see it. Sage then said to me "well, if money is an issue we can see if you'd be eligible for a scholarship toward that tuition". Sweet.

I called the scholarship guy, Scott, that night. It was with a group called The Mankind Project, apparently an international group with branches all over the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, even South Africa. The weekend was dubbed the New Warrior Weekend, and was designed as a modernized adaptation of ancient initiation rites into manhood. He asked me what I thought I'd get out of the weekend and I told him I was hoping to get internal tools I would need when in Latin America. I gave him my full story about roaming the States trying to tune in to my intuition fully, and the spiritual growth I've been working on.

It turned out the tuition was actually $650, the Universe upped its ante, and before calling I got impulsive and signed up already paying the $150 deposit since time seemed of the essence. In talking with Scott it sounded like this was exactly what I was after, and he warned me that it would be physically, emotionally, and psychologically challenging. That egged me on further. I gave him full disclosure on my financial situation telling him I had a temporary job but a total of probably 30 hours for the entirety of my employment. I did have the full $650, with that income and my tax return, but that would be the entirety of my funds. I also told him, if it seemed fair to him I'd be completely willing to pay the full amount given my philosophy on being provided for, but that it didn't work with reliance on it so the tuition would certainly be helpful. I left it in his hands.

He replied simply by saying, you've paid $150 already so your balance is $500, how much of that do you think you can cover. The number $200 popped into my head so I said it to him without hesitation. He said okay, and it was a done deal, I was in. I don't know what would have happened if I said I couldn't pay anymore at all, or that I really needed my $150 back on top of not being able to pay anymore. I didn't even think about it, but it did seem like the most fair financial negotiations that I ever had been involved with, and after the weekend was over I wished I did have the funds to cover the rest it was so worth it.

So that brings me back to Wendie's phone call Friday evening. An hour before leaving for Portland the lady she was subletting from called to tell her she'd broken her leg down in California. Their arrangement was that Wendie got a reduced rent for the flexibility of being able to clear out of the apartment within a week or two's notice should an emergency arise and the lady needed her home back. The broken leg was her emergency and she asked if Wend could be moved out by Wednesday. She said yes, of course, in accordance to their agreement, hung up the phone and had a panic attack.

I was impressed with how well composed she actually was with the whole thing. Sure she was in hysterics, freaking out about the fact that here we were with plans to go to Portland for the weekend, someone to meet there and pick up, a workshop we'd signed up to volunteer at for free admission, and even with coming home early Sunday night she'd still only have three days before she needed to have a place to go. In her sudden rush of homelessness she maintained an amazingly cool head between heavy breathing and some tears.

Within two hours we scoured all the main public notice boards in town, she'd sent out something like 200 emails to every possible connection she knew in the Port Townsend area asking if anyone had a place for rent, or knew of one, and we even had time for a slice of pizza before the shop closed. I have to admit when I figured out the news through the reaction on her face on the phone I felt like this was really good news for her coming in a really inconvenient package. I kept reassuring her of my faith in that, and she was steadily trying to believe it and appreciated me saying it.

She was worried about what to do with me if she couldn't find a place by Wednesday and I reassured her again that that should be the last of her worries. I'm the guy who regularly sleeps outside and am well prepared for it. On top of that, with Stacey coming into town we had plans to stay the night in Victoria, BC Wednesday night anyway, and Seattle Thursday night so she could catch her train. Friday and Saturday nights I'd be gone at this crazy Mankind Project weekend thing, and if she still had nothing by Sunday I could either stay in Seattle with friends, camp out around Port Townsend to be able to go to my last two days of work Tuesday and Wednesday that week, and after that I could head off. That would free her up to just be her on a friend's couch in town, without the baggage of some backpacking brother in town as well.

By the time we did end up heading down to Portland she'd found three places she liked the sound of and had a slue of offers from friends all over town that, if in a pinch, she could crash with them until she got on her feet. She was being given the chance to refresh her life after this break up and get new surroundings, while also being shown how large a support network of friends she really had in town. On top of all that, she got some really great support from Daniel himself who called offering his help in anyway he could give it; including letting her stay back at their old place if she needed despite the awkwardness that might create. It was the good news that came in the annoying package.

That night we met up with Stacey in Portland and stayed with Wendie's friends Will and Abby, whom I've always liked as well, from when I knew them living in Seattle many years ago. The next day would be the workshop, then the hard work would begin of actually securing an apartment within three days.

I told Wendie that between the two of us it seemed like the Universe had busted open over us, and through that gash came a river of life. Our job was just needed to lean into it and float the rapids with all their intensity.