Copyright, 2001 Amrita Cottrell, All Rights Reserved.
“Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.” This glib little metaphysical saying, I have heard for years. It has only been recently that I deeply understand its significance in my life. One the one hand, we think or desire something--to heal from a life-threatening disease. On the other hand, receiving what we ask for frequently means stepping into a bigger world, with all its possibilities, responsibilities and unforeseen challenges.
A huge learning curve is the price we pay for entry into the next level of existence. While seemingly "new" knowledge infuses our life with exciting and vital energies, it does so by shattering our comfort zone. In the world of creativity, something dies and something else is reborn. Having lived in Hawaii for the eight years, I became aware almost on a daily basis of this messy business called creation. Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, leaves destruction and devastation in the path to creation of new land and new life. It is a fact of life, on one hand, and a harsh reality on the other.
When the boundaries of our familiar life are called upon to stretch and grow beyond our comfort zone, a new level of knowledge and experience, fear and anxiety can take over. In order to meet the challenges that lay before us, we must learn new ways of being, expand our awareness and stretch our boundaries beyond the borders that have defined us previously. We must heal old wounds in order to accept new experiences with grace and assurance. Our tendency to sabotage accepting the new is driven by old patterns of self-doubt that hold us back.
Creative process is about giving birth to something that never existed in this reality before. Birth begins in the dark, by moving through unknown territory into an even more distant and unknown place. It is about trust and perseverance. It is about gentleness and nurturing of the child experience as strength and familiarity become part of its reality.
I realize that the huge question of self-trust is often at the root of this whole process. Can my mind, body and spirit pull together on behalf of something bigger than each of them? Can my mind let go of control in order to receive the healing? Do I feel worthy of health and happiness, or will I accept illness and possible death as my only course? Can my psyche handle the amount of information, memories, and beliefs it will be called upon to sort through, question, and release?
I have come to understand healing as a delicate balance between investigation, surrender, power and faith. Investigation represents the desire to understand the illness, its origins, my role in it, its characteristics, others’ experience, and all the possibilities for treatment and recovery.
Surrender symbolizes the larger picture of my life and all it’s complexities. As I learn to acknowledge the facts of my life for their historical value, no more and no less, I can accept new archetypes into my consciousness. I can renounce the old ways of being, appreciating that they served me for a time. With this new awareness comes an amazing strength that brings me into a fresh, new, unique, and congruent identity. Power comes from accepting my sacred birthright of health and joy. Gratitude helps me access and personalize the power of the universe that waits for me with open arms. A grateful heart opens every cell in my body, energizes every neuron in my brain, and blesses every experience I encounter, allowing love to flood through me as a powerful healing force. But, without faith, power becomes an ineffective tool. When faith accompanies power, a quantum shift occurs between what we have known and understood, and a new found awareness of an ecstatic realm of possibilities and miracles.
There are many realities that exist simultaneously in this universe. People talk of experiences happening “behind the scenes”. Those who have recovered from life-threatening illnesses, survived near death experiences, or have been separated from loved ones through a death, speak of other realms. These experiences are a type of epiphany or mystical phenomena. During these peak times, reality as we have known it takes on a different significance. Priorities shift along with perceptions of what is meaningful. Suddenly life becomes raw and rich simultaneously, feelings are intensified, intuition is heightened, and I believe a fine line is traversed between life and death. In these moments, we either decide to recommit to life, or we surrender to the inevitabilities of death.
I believe that this is the reason why many people become very ill some months after a dramatic event has occurred in their life. Sometimes the pain of loss is too great to accept. The possible blessings that can often come from a seeming tragedy are beyond our comprehension, so our body, mind and emotions become out of harmony with our spiritual essence. We can no longer sing the song of our life, and we die to it. However, if we have a willingness to enter into a partnership with the power of the universe, we can learn to become more than we already are.
Faith gives us the power to stay with the process, and go deep into the pain of our disconnection. Eventually, something down deep inside us breaks to the surface, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Life becomes a desire to express our essence, connect deeply with others, and share a life of health and joy, with hearts full of love and gratitude.
These spiritual gifts of inquisition, surrender, power and faith can be likened to the elements in nature of earth, wind, fire and water. We see the creative force that transpires when they are in balance with each other, and we know the consequences of when they are not. Each element is unique and is honored for its important contribution to the totality. When this sacred synthesis is attained through becoming balanced, enchantment and perfection become the reality of our existence.
Jean Houston in her book, Mythic Life, talks about the great work of Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey or as she calls it "an allegory of the soul's journey toward enlightenment". In this journey the traveler steps into the world of the unknown, "leaving the world of the ordinary and entering into an unknown reality". Usually, at this stage of the journey, an adversary appears which may present itself as a monster (and is sometimes referred to as the dragon), in other words it is an entity that threatens us mortally in some way. Often the dragon (as was my case) is a physical or emotional illness. This adversary is invested in protecting the status quo. It does not want us to sojourn to the new land, so it will do everything in its power to keep us from moving forward. At this point in the pilgrimage, we might succumb to the adversary, and many do. Dr. Houston refers to this stage of the journey as the passage from "mindlessness to mindfulness". Some refer to this experience as the dark night of the soul or meeting the shadow self. It can be a very powerful and frightening time, when loneliness, depression and hopelessness are strong forces that threaten to destroy us.
For those who are not devoured by the circumstances, this is a time when powerful allies appear in their life. For me, it was a deeper sense of support from other realms in the form of spirit guides and entities who gave me great comfort. Life became synchronistic again and just the right people at just the right time started to show up in my life. I believe this is a time in life when we dig deep into our essence and draw upon what we have planted there long ago. For me, I drew upon my deep faith in God and all that is good in this universe. I asked for grace and strength and courage to face what was ahead, to come out the other side (where ever that would be) a more complete and less wounded individual.
The next stage of this journey is to meet the Father/Creator and achieve the sacred marriage with the goddess or the inner beloved of the soul. The beloved of the soul is that part of us that is both God and Goddess that is the warrior and the nurturer. We are called upon to become our own advocate and savior, our own provider and receiver, our own healer and healed in the process. This is a time of great attunement or atonement in our lives. We are called up to examine and re-examine our most essential being. This is a time where there is no place to hide. The light shines into the dark corners to illumine our most well- guarded secrets, and bring them into the light so they can be transformed. If we are in relationship with others, it may be a time when their shadow self comes to the forefront, and we are called upon to witness this illumination.
When we arrive at this point of our pilgrimage, often we have gained enough strength and momentum to "answer the call". You know...the call...the call to a larger purpose, the call we "have to" answer. I am reminded of what Jesus said in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." That is the call I am speaking about. This is the point of no return, there is no turning back from here. The gate has closed, and we can't return to where we were before. Often at this point, we have faced something so huge that we know if we go back, it will destroy us. So there really is no choice except to moving ahead or turn back and face utter destruction. This sounds pretty grim, until we look at the rewards for moving ahead. Of course, it is easier sometimes to deal with what we know, even if it is painful, than to move ahead into unknown territory.
At this point we have entered the belly of the whale. This is where we are in the in-between. We have left the old, and have not yet entered the new. We have entered into the labyrinth of our life. We are unsure, fearful, turned around and upside down, excited and intrigued by the possible. This is a time for silence and sound. To listen, and be listened to, for once in our life. Often this is a time of great passion or pathos. Incredible strength comes from sitting in this belly. We get to know ourselves up close and personal. We really get to see what we are made of and how strong we are. This passage is where we learn or become reacquainted with faith. Here we challenge our level of trust...trust in the process...trust in a larger and deeper force than we have experienced before...and trust in ourselves.
When we surface from the belly of the whale, Dr. Houston says, "we move from an outmoded existence to an amplified life that is at once more cherished and more cherishing." It is then that we move from archetype to reality, and emerge the hero or heroine to inspire and assist others on their journey. In some ways we enter this journey daily in one form or another. We may not be conscious of its moving through our life in its subtle ways. The true test of the hero is to recognize these small pilgrimages, and learn from them, so that we don't have to enter a drama and become overtaken by the process.
However, for some, the "large" pilgrimage is life-changing, and it is our duty to share with others the lessons we take from these experiences. In their book, Speak the Language of Healing, four courageous women (Susan Kuner, Carol Matzkin Orsborn, Linda Quigley, and Karen Leigh Stroup) talk about their pilgrimage through the experience of breast cancer. They express this "belly of the whale" experience beautifully, "Women experience their own brush with mortality not as a test of survivorship but as an initiation into the deeper mysteries of life. For a growing number of us, life-threatening illness carries with it spiritual dimensions and meanings that the current crop of advice books do not even come close to touching. The path of spirit is not the path of competition and war. There is a spiritual pathway through illness, a new language to express ourselves and to speak with others."
Some of our greatest literature comes from the great myths, and the most powerful teachers are the great archetypes they introduced us to. Joseph Campbell says that myths serve four major psychological and social functions in our development. First, myths bring us into contact and communication with other realms. Second, myths utilize art, music and poetry to convey the concept that we are part of a larger universe, fractals in an unending spiral of life. Third, myths reveal to us through ritual the secrets of living and dying. When we lose rituals given to us through our cultures, we are in danger of losing ourselves, our heritage, and we are affected at our very core as a society. Fourth, Dr. Campbell conveys the power of "integrating the self (the microcosm), the culture (the mesocosm), and the universe (the macrocosm) in this unending spiral of life." He says, "mystery is both beyond and within oneself and all things."
We alone have the choice to breakdown or breakthrough. It sounds simple, and it is, but it is not necessarily easy. We are called upon to muster strength, courage, and tenacity in this voyage. We are reminded, almost on a daily basis, what devastation we have brought to our planet. This is only a reflection of what we have done to our very souls personally. It is much easier to see the vast wasteland outside of ourselves, but this is only a mirror of our own inner wasteland of spirit. We cannot continue to detach, to blame, to turn our backs on our own abuse that shows up as political instability and societal dysfunction. It is time for us to own our wounding, to grieve deeply, to heal and to move on into a world where we can support one another as we step through the threshold into a new world of peace and harmony.
And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy, even as you have always
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility;
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of clay which
the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
MORE INFORMATION
In May, 1999, Amrita was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in two years. She knew that "conventional treatment" was not the journey she wanted to take again. Amrita entered a shamanic journey into the spirit realm, trusting her own process as teacher and healer. With no handbook or physician to guide her, she entered an unknown world of intuition and trust. She followed her own spirit essence and inner knowing to an astonishing experience of eradicating the cancer within two months by using the sound of her own voice, breath, and emotional release.
Amrita uses sound and music in a private and group healing practice throughout the San Francisco Bay area. She is the founder and director of The Healing Music Organization in Santa Cruz, California and is on the faculty at California Institute of Psychoacoustics in San Francisco and Vox Mundi School in Emeryville, California.
Article Use Policy: Please contact Amrita Cottrell for permission to quote or reproduce this article.
Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation.
Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound. — Kabir
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