Soap Opera - Update

After the dramas of a few months ago, which most of my readers will be aware of, my very psychic friend Marieah told me she ‘saw’ a past life I’d shared with my youngest (he to whom I refer as the Prodigal). In that lifetime, she said, he had been my husband, and my present husband was then my lover. The two men had killed each other over me. She told me that fragments of the Prodigal’s soul were still caught in my aura, like a butterfly caught in a spider-web. As I was the spider, it was my job to unravel the web and free these fragments so his soul could be whole, and go on its path unrestrained.

Well, it happened that when Andrew and I first got together in this lifetime, he recalled exactly the one described above, and I was then able to recollect some details too. It was during the French Revolution. My then husband was an English squire; the lover was a French refugee from the Terror, whom the squire befriended and took into employment. Andrew thought the husband that time must have been my previous husband in this lifetime, the Prodigal’s father; but I immediately knew otherwise, and said, ‘No, it was the Prodigal.’ It explained a thing or two about his initial attitude to Andrew.

We were excited to discover this past connection, until our friend and teacher Jenette said, ‘I’d advise you to clear it, otherwise you’ll be in danger of acting it out all over again.’ Good point. So we did. Only it never occurred to us to clear the Prodigal too.

Marieah’s description was interesting because the Prodigal has a pathological fear of spiders, way beyond most people’s revulsion – jumping and yelling in uncontrollable panic on merely seeing a picture of one. I’ve even seen his face go white.

So I set about doing visualisations of unravelling the web. Our relationship didn’t get any easier. There were some distressing communications by email, and no doubt he was equally distressed. Andrew felt under psychic attack from him quite often, and when I tuned in I had to concur that that was the source. In the end I consulted Carol, my Theta Healing and Thought Field Therapy teacher. Brilliant woman! She gave me a long session over the phone, using TFT to clear some of my emotions around the present issues, and Theta Healing to complete the past life clearing. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘You’ll both be free to go on your own paths without the karmic bonds holding you back.’

After that the psychic attacks on Andrew stopped altogether. There was no communication between the Prodigal and me, but that was a relief. I relished the peace! However, he’s my son and we actually do love each other underneath it all. I consulted my own guides as to what to do and was simply told to be loving. So when it came time for one of those ‘family update’ emails, I included him and made a brief acknowledgment that much as I hadn’t liked his behaviour when he was with us (a matter which was no secret from the rest of the family) I could see that his intention had been to benefit me.

After a while he sent me an email accusing me of telling lies about him! I gave up at that point, thinking, ‘Oh well, we’re poles apart. We’ll never understand each other.’ I just didn’t answer. Interestingly, I wasn't devastated as on previous, similar occasions.

A couple of days ago, the phone rang. Andrew picked it up and I heard him tell someone, ‘I’m fine thanks.’ Then he brought the phone to me, saying, ‘It’s [the Prodigal], do you want to speak to him?’ I took the phone and said hello, to be greeted with a warm, ‘Hi Mum, how are you?’ For the whole call he was unwontedly agreeable. (I found out later he was the same to Andrew.) It turned out that he’s just got a new Medicare card, is soon to leave the country again, and has given my address for where the card is to be sent. He wanted to know if I’d keep the card safe for him and just send him the number. Of course I will.

I got off the phone and said, albeit laughingly, ‘The little bugger! He was perfectly charming. He wanted something, of course.’ But I was pleased. Better to be on good terms than bad. On past experience I’d say it won’t last – but I also know how Theta Healing can shift things, so I’ll wait and see. Meanwhile I notice that I’m not so attached as I used to be. It will go how it goes; I’m calm about the whole thing.

Medical Drama

No sooner did I declare I was in a healer phase than I was presented with a friend’s medical drama. Our old mate James came to stay with us, and the night he arrived he had a heart attack and I ended up driving him to hospital around 3 a.m. He was transferred to another hospital and had an angioplasty, i.e. a stent was inserted into an artery that had totally closed. He’s back with us again now and has made a remarkable recovery.

Luckily he was pretty healthy in general; that helped. Also I did a lot of Reiki when it happened, and since. My nurse neighbour tells me there is ‘a very small window’ and is sure the Reiki must have been instrumental in saving his life – because it took a while to realise what was happening. He thought a rib was out and tried a chiropractic session before he got to our place, and a painkiller and a hot bath once here. I twigged what was going on when I gave him some Reiki and Theta Healing, during which he felt considerable relief, only to have the pain return as soon as I stopped.

I told Andrew to stay in bed, no sense him coming too – besides, I knew I’d need him to drive me to my teaching job next morning, because I’d be in no condition to do it myself after such a late night. Luckily he had business in the same town that day. But of course, when I finally got home from leaving James in hospital, Andrew was up waiting with cocoa, and had been giving James ‘distant’ Reiki.

James had already been gradually reducing his cigarette smoking. On his return here after the hospital stay, Andrew successfully cleared the addiction by using Thought Field Therapy. TFT has a very powerful process for clearing addictions. It took only a few minutes.

I really must try it on my chocoholism soon!

Poetry Screeches to a Halt

Mine, that is.

A year ago, someone told me about '30 Poems in 30 Days' happening throughout September at PoeWar.com (Writer's Resource Center). I participated joyfully. I'm still grateful to John Hewitt, who started it all, for the poems I produced and the friends I made. That was the beginning of a most prolific year of writing, often in response to other online prompts I found – notably another Poem A Day challenge during the month of April, this time instigated by Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides. My Haiku on Friday profile became popular, and I was recently asked to create something similar on LiveJournal: Friday Haiku, which I then handed over to someone else to host. One of my favourite games is x365, in which bloggers write about people who've made an impact on them, one a day for a year, in the same number of words as their age – so I, for instance am writing 68-word portraits. My one regret about all this poetic activity was that I had trouble keeping up with my favourite poets on MySpace, many of whom are prolific themselves.

Finally the wheel turned and we were back to September. John started another 30 Poems in 30 Days, which I began enthusiastically. The prompts were just as good, some people I met last time turned up again, interesting new people joined …. but by Day 6 I had run out of puff. On that day, in fact, I posted a poem that was a few months old instead of writing a new one, then made my farewells from the project. And I haven't written a poem since. Even my 68x365 blog has been languishing, though I do intend to resume and will have to do some catching up. The only things I've still been able to write are the haiku. (And some people say haiku aren't poems anyhow, but a genre of their own.)

I thought I must be experiencing burn-out. I don't say I'm not, but I realise there's another factor. I've observed that, for friends of mine who have more than one vocation, things tend to go in phases. I know people who are both artists and writers. They'll paint madly for three or four months, then suddenly that will stop and they'll find themselves scribbling furiously for the next six. My own dual vocations are quite different: poet and therapist. During this year of being consumed by poetry, the therapist has taken a back seat. But not any more.

At the weekend Andrew and I did a course in Thought Field Therapy. We've been acquainted with this modality for some years now. Our teacher, Carol, was one of the first people in Australia to learn it. Soon after she became a practitioner, she told us about this exciting thing she'd done, we tried it out and then couldn't stop recommending it to people. That was maybe eight years ago, and at some point she went to America and trained as a teacher. At first we didn't think of learning it ourselves. We already had a number of excellent modalities, and when TFT was indicated, for ourselves or others, we had Carol and other friends whom she trained.

Now we've all moved a little further away from Murwillumbah, in different directions, and one practitioner has more-or-less retired. Suddenly the training called to us, and so we did it – and loved it. I had fully expected to love Theta Healing, which we also learned quite recently, and indeed I do love it. I had not expected to fall in love with TFT in the same way, but to my delighted surprise I did. By the end of the weekend I realised: oh, that's why the poetry dried up – I'm in a healer phase now.

I don't expect the poetry will stop altogether, just as I didn't entirely stop giving people treatments during the writing phase; but the focus is different for the next while, however long that may turn out to be. I'm so excited, I can hardly wait to get into it! I'm getting new business cards printed; I'm creating brochures, and new signs for the market stall.

And aha! Now I can indulge in the pleasure of poetry by reading rather than writing it. All those lovely blogs to devour – whoopee!