So New Year’s Eve is very nearly upon us. And for the past TWO WEEKS – I have once again been sickly and just generally not up to par. Oh, yeah – everyone’s got the same take: “There’s something going around…” “This weather doesn’t help matters…” blah blah blah… BUT – with this mornings’s millionth coughing spasm, something else dawned on me: DETOX. And not the kinda detox you might think, either.
The word was thrown at me by a lady named Cynthia. Now, Cynthia is one uniquely beautiful lady. She’s a powerful energy healer and a spiritualist who I was serendipitously led to several summers ago while up at our mountain retreat. I have incredible love, respect and admiration for Cynthia. Meeting her has helped to bring about some profound changes in the way I now look at the world and my responsibility within it.
So ANYway, this week while I’m singin’ the damn blues on FACEBOOK about how sick I’m feeling, etc., CYNTHIA simply posts in reply: “Detox, baby, detox.” Took me a second to take that in, and then – WHAM - don’t ya know, that healer-babe is right on the money AGAIN. It’s literally SOUL detox, a mandatory slow-down of my whole system that manifests in the purging of toxins. This happened to me when I was on autumn vacation at the cabin just a few months back, too. Dunno if any of you recall those BLOG tales of woe…but…SAME THING.
On further examination, these DETOX’s definitely AND ALWAYS match up with pivotal emotional revelations and thorny life lessons. Not easy, pain-free stuff but totally worth-it stuff.
As soon as I come to grips with this perspective, I quit fighting my own healing process. I’ve been (literally) snowed under in my own sickly gloom, and the only writing I’ve been doing (if you wanna call it that) is to complain on goddamn FACEBOOK. Also, I checked out that show ‘HOARDERS’ on NETFLIX, which made me want to hit myself in the head with a hammer. Note to Me: LYNN, THIS STUFF IS NOT HELPING YOU!! What a fucking loser!
Wait, ouch. I mean, I am NOT a loser. I am trying here. Let’s cut me a break, alright? Because suddenly I feel a lot better and I also feel like telling a little Pre-New Year story. And I’m gonna do that right now. Yooz just watch me.
I told the following story to Cynthia (and few other select friends) back in 2008. She loved it, and I do, too. Hope you guys enjoy it.
* * * * *
It was the early days of our courtship, and I had just moved in with Chris. One night, I have one of my lucid dreams. In this dream I behold a hideous gargoyle-type face, which is communicating to me telepathically. This gargoyle thingy calls itself ‘AUNT LYNN’. So there I was, kinda captive with this Aunt Lynn thing before me, just this shuddering, malformed head: {{{{ I’M AUNT LYNN – AUNT LYNN – AUNT LYNN }}}}. A real freak-show. Very David Lynch.
I wake with a start. “JEEZ!” But then I start laughing because it all seems so wacky. Chris wakes up and asks me what’s so funny. I relay the dream to him, trying my best to describe the Aunt Lynn Creature.
Me: “It had these horns coming out of the sides of it’s face and these bizarre, rubbery arches on it’s forehead…”
Chris: “Just draw it. Draw it right now, while it’s fresh in your mind!”
So I do. And I take it one step further. In an effort to draw Aunt Lynn specifically from memory, I sketch it with my eyes closed – sort of like ‘automatic writing’, but I guess you’d call this ‘automatic drawing’.
I examine my finished sketch and I’m pretty surprised by how accurately it resembles the figure in my dream - down to nearly every detail. Also, as a halfway-decent sketch artist, I am struck by how this drawing looks NOTHING like my own style of drawing. It is literally a total stranger’s style of sketching and to this day it’s hard for me to believe that I drew this thing.
Anyhow, we got a real good laugh at that drawing. It just looked so crazy. Then Chris safely puts it away between the pages of his personal address/telephone book where it remained for about 12 years. Every so often, maybe twice a year, when he looks up a phone number or an address, he’ll flip a page and come across the sketch of Aunt Lynn. Invariably, he holds it up to cheerfully exclaim: “Look honey! It’s good ole’ Aunt Lynn!”
OKAY FAST-FORWARD 12 YEARS TO MARCH 13, 2008.
By now, me and Chris have been married for nearly 9 years. It’s early evening, and as usual I get home from work first. After walking the dogs, I’m settling in with a cup of tea when the doorbell rings. It’s my father-in-law with a small plastic shopping bag. Seems he has been cleaning out the family attic and came across a few things that me and Chris might want: Some bandanas and a small ceramic sculpture that Chris made way back in 1977 for one of his art school assignments. I thank DAD and he’s off.
I sit down, open the little bag, take out the bandanas. They are ordinary in every way except for one of them, which is neatly folded on the top of the pile. It’s light beige with a distinctive orange flowery design. Looking down at it, a lump immediately forms in my throat.
The only other bandana like this that I have ever seen belonged to my dog Girlie, who had been my best friend in the world for 16 years. I still have her old bandana like this one. It’s so faded and thread-bare that I keep it folded in a special little cosmetic case. I bring it along with me on all of our travels as a good-luck totem and so that I can touch it occasionally and hold Girlie close to my heart always.
Ever since Girlie passed away almost 13 years ago, I have looked for a bandana like the one she wore. Searched army/navy stores, bodegas, even online where one would think you could find ANYTHING. Never could find it. And now here it was – in my hands. I could almost sense Girlie in the fabric and I felt as if she had climbed on to my lap and put her head on my shoulder. It was a very real sensation. It’s not something that I can easily put into words, probably because I don’t suppose there are words for how that felt.
As I sit absorbed in remembrance of my dear old friend, Chris comes home. He’s like, What’s up with you? I happily relay my ‘Girlie’s bandana’ story and, as always, he is an obliging audience to another installment of MY WIFE’S INCREDIBLE (OR NOT REALLY ALL THAT INCREDIBLE) HAPPENINGS.
But he’s happy that I’m happy, ‘cuz that’s just the kinda dude he is. So then I remember that there’s something for him in the bag, too - “Oh, and there’s an old art project of yours in that bag, too. I didn’t look at it yet.”
Chris takes his time taking his coat off and getting himself a drink of water, etc. He settles down to look inside the bag and by this time I'm sitting across from him on the sofa reading, new bandana on my lap. I’m not paying much attention until Chris goes: “Here, look at this.” He is holding a little chunk of glazed ceramic out in front of him. From where I sit, it’s just a mud-colored, misshapen lump.
I hold out my hand and take it from him. When I look down at it, I feel my hand – or maybe my entire body? - vibrating. I can’t articulate what I think I’m seeing at first, but then I hear myself ask Chris: “Do you know what this is?” And without missing a beat, Chris replies, half-questioning, half-deadpan: “Sure. It’s ‘Aunt Lynn, right?’
I will be damned if this thing is not the sculpture embodiment of my dream-sketch from those many years ago. The thing is, Chris actually created the piece in 1977. That’s 31 years ago and long before we ever met.
Side note: My niece Livvy was born the same year that me and Chris met, and she is the first child in our family to start calling me ‘Aunt Lynn’. Now, hopefully this does not mean that Livvy views me as a gargoyle, because I like to think that the kid is kinda fond of me.
But who cares what this all means, anyhow!?! I just know that there’s somethin’ about it I like!
* * * * * *
Okay, so here’s to all of us having a Healthy-and-Healing New Year. Be kind to Mother Earth. Happy and Prosperous. Love one other and our fellow creatures. We are all works in progress and it’s all good.
And of course, many thanks to dear Cynthia. This gal is the real-healer-deal. She offers free bi-monthly distant energy healing, but she is also available for intensive one-on-one healing as well. If anybody wants to contact her directly with regard to one-on-one energy healing, please write me privately and I will do my part in helping to hook you up.
A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR from AUNT LYNN!
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