For the Love of My Darkness
Finding myself annoyed and triggered in a room full of wailing, pain-ridden bodies turned out to be the ultimate gift in my 24-hour Bwiti ceremony.
Each carnal, medicine-induced scream within the space would be a catalyst for a popcorn affect of energy release until each of us either expressed or suppressed our triggers.
“Why have they held onto their pain for so long?” I judged as I affirmed to myself how far I'd come from where they are. “They're just identifying too much with it; I can help them with that.”
As the medicine began to release its grip and we transitioned into integration, the veil of denial began to fade within me. And, while each ceremony-participant was invited to share, I felt myself slowly giving myself permission to resonate with their experience.
This is me. That's me too.
Our female shaman then came to call on me and she shared her insight:
“Rachel. You are MAGIC. But the truth is you have served everyone a dose of your magic - accept for you. We often choose to serve in order to hide from from our own pain.”
The tears streamed as I broke down (feeling my own deep heartbreak in the depth of her statement).
The truth is I was TIRED of my pain asking for validation. I was tired of “dealing” with it and tired of giving it air-time. I felt open to healing ancestral traumas but certainly not to owning that it was my pain too.
I could hold an INCREDIBLE space of non-judgement for my clients, family and friends. But, not for myself. Not for the most important person in my life.
I had instead invalidated the source of my own pain, told myself unconsciously that if I didn't have literally the worst (and visible) sexual, mental and emotional trauma on the planet that I had no RIGHT to experience my pain. If anyone suffered more visibly than me - that my trauma was null and void.
I had also mistaken my remarkable ability to suppress trauma and be highly functional - for healing. I had become the pharmaceutical version of energy work: Transmuting the symptoms, but not the cause.
And here I was in ceremony: allowing myself to fully see my darkness. Resonate with it. Honor it. LOVE it. And I had never felt so vulnerable and complete in my life.
The angelic realm and plant medicine itself teaches us that we are ALL things. Light AND dark.
This is natural balance. And if we fight hard enough to become ALL light, we will inevitably create more darkness to sustain it.
No more darkness. No more light.
