from there, i ended up seeing chris every so often when the boyfriend's friends came around. there was this feeling of comfort with him, a respect i had for him that i couldn't quite pin down. i actually went to great lengths trying to convince my best friend that he was the guy for her. i had such a warm feeling towards him, and not wanting a good man be wasted, for them to be happy together seemed pretty perfect.
during that time, i was finishing up my last year in college, majored in philosophy. my obsession was studying world religions, and towards the spring of '97, i felt myself changing, becoming more quiet, more inward. and during these changes, i felt myself relating more and more to chris. after six months of a casual friendship, i started getting these strong intuitions that there was something more unfolding, some deeper spiritual connection i had never felt with anyone. this connection had me intrigued, yet utterly confused.
the boyfriend and chris had recently become roommates, and one afternoon, i was over at their house. boyfriend put this song on and went out on the back porch to have a cigarette. as i sat, alone with chris, listening to the lyrics: "i know you belong to everybody but you can't deny that i'm you," i was overwhelmed with how they resonated with how i was feeling about chris. there was a sameness i was feeling with him, this oneness. but i'd been telling myself that i was crazy; it was impossible to think anything would happen between us.
and then my boyfriend came up to the glass door and looked in at us. he pointed to himself, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and then pointed to me and pointed to chris. he loved us? was this song, this sign through the window his way of acknowledging that chris and i should be together?
maybe. what i was feeling was so intense - how could it not be obvious? how could it not be clear that it was chris and i that had more things to talk about?
after that, i couldn't keep hanging out with the boyfriend and chris all the time. the chaos on the inside was too much to take, and i felt like i was being so false, falling in love with one of them while in a relationship with the other.
so, i did the only thing that made sense at the time; i told the boyfriend everything. within moments of telling him how i was feeling about chris, it became painfully clear that the boyfriend had no inkling this was coming. he ran out of my house and said he needed space. i chased him out to his car. he asked if chris knew how i felt. i said no. he said that he had to tell him, and he drove away.
it brings up a bit of a queasy feeling to even mentally return to that moment. knowing how much i'd hurt the boyfriend that i did love so much, the helplessness of having my feelings delivered to chris by him, wondering what chris would think, if he felt the same, if he would think i was a friendship busting bitch, or if he would understand my sincerity. and there was nothing that i could do.
but within a week or so, i couldn't wait anymore. i called their house, hoping chris would answer. i just wanted to apologize for this whole drama. i just had to talk to him, even for a second. and as luck would have it, he did answer. . . and he did feel the same way.
from there, chris didn't feel ready to face his roommate about his feelings for me, and so we wrote and mailed letters to each other. now, all these years later, i feel blessed for that crazy drama that forced us to have our first dates through pen and paper. it drew out something so much more real, and it let me fall in love with the slow and deliberate wise man within him.
that whole first summer together is one of very little memory for me. there are some moments that linger because of how other-worldly they felt. like the night we held each other by my front door; when we finally separated, we realized that literally hours had passed as we stood there, not saying a word. or the time we were at the park and so suddenly the sky lit up with a fuchsia tinged pink just moments before rain started pouring, and then as we ran for the car, lightening struck and split a tree right where we were when the rain started. truly, it was the most insane and unexplainable time of my life. it was like a veil was lifted and i was living in a completely different reality than the one i had known all my life. at moments, it was bliss, at others, complete chaos.
***
i lay here on my sleeping bag, waiting for the ayahuasca to take effect. the cave is dark now that the sun has set. my sleeping bag rests on one of those inflatable camping pads that is only about three quarters the length of my sleeping bag. each time i move, i feel that hard rocky floor and i wonder if those rubbing sounds of my sleeping bag are disturbing the others.
i just need to close my eyes, to feel safe, to feel protected, watched over, loved. ah, i know. this is the perfect time to call in and thank those spirits around me. i bring codi to mind, that beautiful wolf dog that dropped his body a year or so ago. although i miss his body roaming around, he feels closer than ever. as soon as i think of him, he is here. he is loving me.
then, there is that loving spirit guide that whispered to me about chris when i didn't yet have the slightest clue what he was talking about. the one that filled pages of my journal with all sorts of things that made no sense as i was writing, but without fail, made more and more sense as the time passed. he too is here, loving me.
as i go through those things that make me feel safe and loved, i am overwhelmed by how much love there is. how there seems no limit on it; there seems to be no end. tears start slowly falling down my cheeks.
and then, that nausea starts slowly rumbling in my belly. softly at first, and then i know from all the stories that i better get myself up and out of this sleeping bag.
i slowly make my way to the cave entrance. as i emerge from the cave, the brightness of the full moon hits me; the aliveness of the amazon feels so open. dolores comes over and puts her arm around me; she looks gently into my eyes and without saying a word she lets me know she is there for me. as the wild volcanic eruptions start, i feel myself stand aside and i let the body do what it must. i let the caretakers caretake, and i just admire the great mystery of it all.
***
my honeymoon phase with chris lasted for the rest of that first summer, and then, it was time for me to go on the three month trip to costa rica that i planned before i became lovestruck. my heart definitely grew fonder while i was gone, but that old reality started creeping back in. old thought patterns revved back up, old insecurities rose, and old ways of moving through the world started showing up.
the biggest shocker of all during this period of resurrecting ego was the way that all my old patterns with men starting coming back in. after things stabilized with chris and the whirlwind of excitement slowed, i started finding myself looking at other men, wondering if they were looking at me. i suppressed all this stuff as much as i could because i knew what was true: my love for chris. and i followed that truth to the alter.
a couple years into our marriage was when the walls on my not so neat and tidy inner world started coming down. i started sensing vibes from a younger man that worked in my office. there was this moment i still remember so vividly: we were in the courtroom watching a proceeding handled by one of the other attorneys. i looked over at him, and he had this look, this hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar look. i became so curious about whether it meant what i thought it meant.
over a few years, i had a "friendship" with this man that confused the hell out of me. all sorts of crazy signs started manifesting, and i started having intuitions about me and this other man. it was all so familiar because of how it had this strange air of that first summer with chris. it was all happening again, but with someone else, and chris was still there, and i still loved him. and as i stood on the ledge about to leap into something new, it all became so obvious. if i took this leap, it wasn't going to lead to soaring flight; this leap was headed for a messy splat on the canyon floor.
the period of time that followed that realization was a bit of a mid-life crisis for me. i felt so ashamed for getting so lost. i had quit my stable lawyer job, and we sold our house because without my job we couldn't afford it. we moved in with my brother, and i cried, i wrote, i walked, and i spent my time wondering what the hell had just happened.
with our bank account more full than it had ever been from the proceeds of our sold house, i just had one thing that i knew i wanted to do: go on a trip to the amazon. i'd read a book back in college about these vision quest journeys, and the idea resonated so deeply with me. i'd always wanted to go, but there was never the right time. but now with no job and a ton of money in the bank, it was definitely the right time.
***
as i lay back down on my sleeping bag, i am amazed. i don't even feel the slightest bit sick anymore. it's all passed, and i feel fine. i don't know if it's working though. i'm not hallucinating; i look around the cave and i see the others lying down around me. i see sharon walking around outside. it all feels ordinary now that i'm back on my sleeping bag, like a camping trip with a new found lot of friends.
i recline and relax. oh well, i didn't care so much about the trippy part of it all anyway. i still feel that extraordinary sense of love, that limitlessness, that glow from the moon streaming in the mouth of the cave, the warmth of the kind spirits around me. maybe i'll just sleep.
but immediately a dream starts unfolding. these images flash . . . images of my face, different hairstyles and clothes, ones i've never worn before. . . i feel such love, such awe and appreciation for the many forms i can take, the different ways i can appear and act. . . then, a bird's eye view of a castle moves in, like a blueprint showing all the rooms, a secret chamber in the castle, the door slowly opening. . . then there's another shift and things are getting more vivid, more real.
i see this house, an adobe house, feels like what i'd imagine of the southwest. . . but the house has caught on fire. . . no, no, it's not a fire like that, not an accidental fire, it's something else. . . a family is packed up outside the house. . . the house is holding the flames, containing them. . . the family with their belongings begins to walk, away from the house on fire . . . where are they going? why are they leaving? why don't they seem sad?
***
after our time in the amazon basin, our small tribe of nine took some time to recuperate before returning to the hustle of quito, the gateway to our homes around the world. we spent some time at a beautiful and tranquil hot springs resort where we could soak, process, and just spend some last moments together. these people were all strangers when i'd arrived ten days earlier, but after that time together, they felt closer to me than anyone else. since they didn't have all these stories and perceptions of me that went way back, they felt like the only ones that really saw me, right then, as i was.
and one of the things that i was processing during this time was the next step. for many years, chris and i had talked about leaving our home in the east, about moving to eugene, oregon. before things fell apart, we were sure that was where we were headed, but over the last six months or so, it didn't seem clear at all where we were headed, or even if we'd be headed there together. but in the clarity of those moments fresh from the forest, it felt clear again that we should go. when i returned, chris was very much on the same page.
about four months later, we moved to eugene. after ten blissful months of enjoying our new home, signs starting pointing in a direction that we hadn't expected: santa fe, new mexico. it's funny looking back because the strongest memory is of seeing this movie and then the wheels started turning. there wasn't any logic to it; we just had a gut instinct that we should check it out, and we did, and we moved to new mexico a few months later.
santa fe was a dream. ideal to our fantasies in so many ways - we lived in a gorgeous home with miraculous views of the southwest sunsets; our daughter was in a fantastic school; we made friends quickly; it really felt like home.
and then again, the arrows started pointing away. this time we were more reluctant to listen, more attached to the new home, but as life would have it, we just couldn't stay. it was clear that the time to be practical had come, and we moved to albuquerque for me to take a job.
and this is when things slowed down. although we rented a hefty handful of houses all around albuquerque trying to find an area we liked, we stayed in the same vicinity. we became so stable that within a couple years, my parents, brother, and sister all took up residency in albuquerque. our daughter settled into a school, i settled into my new job, and everything felt like it was settling in around us.
no arrows showed up, as much as i sort-of hoped they would. and then the hopes turned to fantasies, the fantasies to obsessions, the obsessions to needs, and then, chris and i started hatching the plans to restart again. it all felt so in tune. i was living in this adobe house in the southwest, and i could feel that it was catching fire. we were the family from my ayahuasca vision five years earlier; we were meant to trek from here.
now, my parents didn't feel quite the air of fate about the whole thing as we did. they were pissed. they'd bought a house and been traveling back and forth for the last couple years, just to be near us, and now, we were moving. within months of announcing our intention, they sold their house and left. and we busily made plans for our next big move, this time to the southeast.
but, things just weren't working out the same way this time. all the signs said very different things than they said the other times we made a move. this time they said things like: "no work here," "sorry, i can't help you," and then, the kicker, "sorry, you need to be out of the house where you are living on may 1st. . . no, you can't stay until june 1st . . . i'm sorry this messes up your cross-country move, but you need to find another place to live," and then the icing on the cake, "sure, you can rent our beautiful home . . . just for a month, no problem. . . wait, so sorry, but we just refunded your money; you can't stay there after all."
with each obstacle, we scrambled to figure out how to continue, but finally, it broke us. we had to surrender. it just wasn't happening. i'd hurt my family and chased them away, and now, we had no place to live in a few short weeks. our previously honed intuitive guidance had clearly veered off track.
and right about that time, i discovered adya.
chris had become interested in adyashanti a few months earlier and had purchased the end of your world cd set, which still hadn't even been opened. feeling quite a sense of the end of my world, i put the set in my car and started listening, and listening, and listening.
adya reconnected me to something very old, something that i hadn't felt connected to in some time. his teachings drawing on zen buddhism brought me back to those college classes that enthralled me back in '96. his talk of awakening and enlightenment touched on that mysterious pull i felt back then, the drive to really know what was true, what was real. listening to adya started bringing me back to that first summer with chris, those unexplainable events, the evaporated memories, the different processing of the world.
and again, things shifted, rather quickly.
we quite serendipitously found a cute little house to rent right near the one we'd been kicked out of, and that house has become more of a home than we've ever had, more than even the home we bought together about a decade ago.
and now after two years in this lovely little house, it has turned out that we really are headed back east, but not to the town in the southeast that we'd picked a couple years ago. we're heading back to the town where we started, to the place where chris and i met, and to the place where we both grew up.
and as our time here in the desert has been coming to a close, i keep feeling a sense of deja vu. the fire in the house from my ayahuasca dream felt so close this past summer. with all the fires in new mexico, i finally felt that deep sense of being too far from my habitat. i felt the closeness of the flames while watching them at night through my windows. i longed for the green, the rain, the ocean. for the first time in a very long time, i deeply longed for home.
and that family in the ayahuasca dream, i keep understanding different levels of what they are experiencing, where they are going, why they are leaving, why they aren't sad. i feel now why the fire in the house wasn't something to mourn; the Fire is what i've been moving toward all along.
The story continues here: Water in the House
