By the spring of 1989, I was basking in the glow of motherhood, and I was seriously exploring my spiritual path once again. Kyle’s presence in my life was affirming and comforting. I was meditating regularly while Kyle slept, and I was also starting to use crystals in my practice. Having gone through a Tibetan Red Tara healing crystal initiation, I recited the many mantras connected with the practice on a daily basis as I learned to read what the various crystals were telling me.

I also returned to using the tarot regularly. My older brother gave me my first tarot deck when I was in high school, but when my friend showed her new tarot deck to me, I was amazed that the first card I pulled reflected an image that I had dreamed the night before. A week or so later, I showed the new deck to Mike when we were at our favorite bookstore. When I opened the deck, the first card I drew again reflected a dream I had had the previous night. Having pulled two cards reflecting two of my dreams, I felt a great connection to this particular deck. The connection was obvious to Mike as well, and he made certain that the deck became mine by giving it to me as a Mother’s Day gift, a tool that I continue to use daily.

My nightly practice was to give myself a tarot reading after Kyle was asleep, and then to meditate, usually holding a crystal. As the energies moved and shifted around me, I learned to become more and more aware of them. I was able to feel my energetic empowerment easily, and felt myself expand to all my energy layers. I was well-protected, having learned the value of shielding myself from the energies around me. Sometimes, when I would sit in certain place, I would have to “push” my energy through a wall, or a tree, to claim my space. It was always interesting, and sometimes fun, to experience the being-ness of something immobile in my energetic space; or, me in something else’s space. I felt safe and calm, and I lost the fear of losing control as I had in the past.

One night, I had an especially wonderful meditation during which I was completely aware of the energies circulating through me from above, and then leaving me and going down into the earth. All of my apprehension was gone, and I was able to expand, filled with a golden-yellow light. Later, in the Brahmamurta hour (4:00 AM~ the hour of the changing from the night to the day), I felt energy moving within me as I lie in bed. I decided to allow the energy to flow, and it filled my entire body. With my eyes closed, I pictured my crystal in its “nest’ on the shelf, and the force of its energy came across the room to me. I saw it clearly, filled with a peachy-colored light. I began to repeat positive affirmations for my empowerment and my safety, and then I began to feel my spirit zoom.

I went upwards from my head as I lay there. I went with such speed and force that I felt the “G” force on my face. At one point, the surge began to slow, and I thought it was because I was questioning what was happening. So, I said “Yes!” and took off at great speed again. I didn’t see anything; it was all blank space, colored brilliant blue. I heard a rushing noise in my ears, but still saw nothing. I felt a tremendous heat all around me. I brought the energy back inside me and then opened my eyes before I was completed settled in to my body. I stayed still for a half an hour or so, feeling the sheer joy of it. All I could do was laugh and remember the feeling of it. Soon, my body was cool again and I fell asleep. I dreamed that I had telekinetic powers, and that when I held up my hand and looked at an object, the object would fly into my hand. I had a great time with it in my dreamtime.

I began to experience different things during my out-of-body times. At one point, I had to deal with a drunken man who was “entering” the house to try to get to Mike to do him harm.   As I interceded, he would strike out at me, and I would just move with the motion of his hand, and so was not harmed. Finally, he wore himself out, and I was able to calm him down. He told me about a conversation he had been having with my husband that day, and how it had upset him. After I returned to my body, I felt a great amount of pain in my solar plexus and heart chakras. I was beginning to feel a constriction in my throat, and I could not get the pain to leave my back. After a while, I went to the other room and woke Mike. As he rubbed my back to try to get the residual energy out, I told him what happened. He said that that evening, while I was out, he had received a call from someone who used to work with him, and that he had been very drunk and angry, and would have probably hit him had he been there in person. It was my first experience with the power of thought and the energy that we can leave behind if we are not aware.

Another time, I found myself “sitting” with my older brother and sister in the loft of a small house. There was some sort of energy field there, and when my sister put her hand out to touch it, it crackled. Suddenly, I was being pushed by it. I felt it at my chest, and it pushed me across the loft and carried me downstairs. All the while I was sitting in the same position. I was then grabbed by the energy and it started throwing me around. I felt a great tightness across my hips and lower back as it whipped me all over the place. I started swearing and cursing at it and yelling for it to put me down. It threw me against the ceiling, but the ceiling gave way like a piece of cloth, so I wasn’t hurt. It threw me against the ceiling again, and I went way out into space, where I saw a brilliant blue light and immediately felt calm. I started to chant “Om” and the energy immediately let go of me. I landed back in the room on my feet in a balanced and protected stance. The Om was incredibly loud and reverberated deeply throughout me. I’m not sure the sound actually came from my mouth, it just kept repeating itself again and again, overlapping each time. My hands went straight out forward, pointing at the energy field, and I began to glow in a bright red light all around me. I saw the energy of what had been in the room as it became smaller and smaller, and increasingly dense. In a short amount of time, it closed in on itself, and disappeared. I knew that I had conquered the “demon”, and knew that it was the last of what I would have to deal with on an energetic level from my brother and sister. Once again, I had to call Mike in to help me release the energy in my back. The pain was intense, but subsided as I slept.

Often, I would receive teaching when I was in my “travels.” At one time, I was being shown how to sit and watch all the atoms (and parts therein) move about within me in all their different colors. This is when I learned to “see” the movement of the cells in the body that I would use throughout my career as a somatic bodyworker.   I was entranced by the patterns and wanted to stay and keep learning; I said that I was enjoying myself, but that I had to leave and go care for my son. At one point, I was given a book to read, and it contained pictures of what I would need to learn as I continued on my path.

Even my dream time during this period was eventful. I had many vivid dreams of working through past karma in this life and in other lives. One night, I dreamed that I was pinned down in the vineyards by a group of flying saucers. As they came close enough to fire at me, I saw that they were piloted by my family members. I soon as I recognized that, I stood up and walked away, saying that they had no power over me anymore and they completely disappeared.

The work continued, and my strength increased. I “met” with my teachers from my childhood, and learned wonderful things about myself and about my son. I was also in places where I knew I had to be on my guard. Sometimes, I would find myself in a group of beings, and I felt that they were “cultish” or not of the highest good. Sometimes, I just left; and, sometimes I had to find a way to get myself out of there, and to overcome the challenges they presented for me. One night, while allowing myself the freedom from my physical form, I met my first and only real “bad” entity. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was in real trouble, for this thing was purely evil, and I felt it trying to enter in to me. I used all my resources and prayers to make it disappear and be replaced with Light. When I was back in my body, and cooling down, I used an “energetic eraser” to erase the memory of what it looked like. I knew that if I ever let the image come back to me, I would allow the energy of it in my space. I was lucky to have gotten away, and I knew it.

The pains were getting greater in my back, and they were there more often. I was becoming exhausted by all the travels and wanted to stop. The trouble was that I wasn’t always in control of whether I stayed in my body, or not. It took incredible work and strength on my part to finally overcome the energies that drew me away from my physical self. I hadn’t been aware of how poorly I was grounded. I realized that this was the reason I had had so much trouble in the late 1970’s. In all the meditation practice I had done and all the meditation and yoga teachers I had studied with, I was never taught to ground myself. We were always taught to focus on the solar plexus, the heart, or the “third eye”; the lower chakras were never fully addressed, almost to the point of being ignored completely. The novelty of out-of-body experience had worn off. I was tired of having to fight to stay in my body night after night. The pains in my back were always with me, and Mike was not always around to help me get rid of them. I came to the realization that being out of body is a transgression against the pact between body and spirit that is made at birth. I knew that I needed to learn a different way of receiving information.

I dreamed I was sitting in front of an indigenous woman, a very beautiful woman, who was teaching me to weave. She braided my hair, and said that I had a lot to learn, and that she would teach me. She told me to learn to get grounded and stay in my body. When I could do that, she would be available for me to learn from her. She would show me that it was through ceremony and understanding that I would come to know what I needed to know. I didn’t have to be out of my body to experience the spirit realm.