A journey through time is the warp of the tapestry of life; experience the weft, belief the weave. With each pull on the shuttle, each motion of the treadle, the pattern is revealed and the tapestry takes shape. My purpose in life was put into motion as a child and only now, after having lived a good many years, do I see the beauty of the tapestry and how it came to be.
My story begins with three early childhood experiences. The first is a pre-birth memory - an awareness of being before conception. As a child, for as long as I could remember, I put myself to sleep every night by rubbing my eyes ‘real hard’. I saw amazing colours, moving and iridescent, unlike anything I knew. I was transported to a vast nothingness, floating in unlimited space, disconnected, yet one. I was sublime consciousness.
My second dream-like experience is also pre-school. I had learned to make clover chains and would sit in a field of clover for hours on end making ‘jewellery’ and very, very long chains. One day, head down concentrated on my work, I became aware of a glowing white light to my left. I looked sideways and saw a man’s shoes and trousers all white and shimmery. I looked up. The man was very tall and he smiled down at me. Raising his left arm, he pointed his finger toward the sky and said: “Did you know that every thought that’s thought and every word that’s spoken goes up there and stays forever for everyone to know?” I looked to where he pointed, squinting my eyes against the bright sun and thought about what he said. When I opened my eyes to look again, he was gone, leaving me with the vague notion I had been visited by an “uncle.” Many years later I learned of the Akashic Records and knew this was what uncle wanted me to know.
The third childhood experience to shape my life’s journey occurred in fourth grade. My family and I had moved that summer to our new house in a rural suburb of Louisville, Kentucky. A single lane gravel road ran in front of our house and it was safe to play alone in the nearby creek and woods. I spent hours exploring and roamed several miles away, called home by my dad’s loud, piercing two-fingered whistle.
Enrolled in a new school, I wanted to please my teacher and was not one to daydream in class, however, on this day I was brought back abruptly from a reverie by my teacher asking a question. In that instance, I knew my life would be a continual progression upward toward the light. I did not hear the words spoken; I simply knew it to be true as I was being pulled upward toward a brilliant white light. That was the last such experience for many years to come.
Looking back now, I see the patterns woven into my life as a young girl. I remember the many summers and holidays at my grandparent’s farm. “The home place” was where my dad was born and his dad before him. The house was built by my great grandfather on a two hundred and fifty acre parcel of the original family farm, a gift from his father when he married.
My earliest memories are permeated with a sense of the continuity of life - I played with the same toys my dad and his siblings played with, swam in the creek just as they had and walked up the same country road they did to the little church my grandparents attended. There, I stepped on “devil’s puff balls” and, being careful not to step on the graves, traced the engravings on the moss-covered tombstones of my kinfolk with my finger. I loved being there.
The house was a bustle of activity with family and friends coming and going, everyone was welcomed and made to feel at home, including the foster children who took up residence from time to time. As a young man my granddad worked on the railroad and lost his leg just below the knee in a train accident but that didn’t slow him down much. My grandmother turned out meals on the wood burning stove I still think about. I never heard them have a cross word and can still hear the sounds of their laughter in my heart.
My two favourite places in the house were the sun porch and the attic. I have the wicker furniture from the porch where I spent hours rocking and reading books from the “library,” a row of bookshelves around the perimeter of the living room. My other favourite place was the attic, which was filled with trunks of clothes, letters, photos and family memorabilia. Unconcerned with cobwebs and spiders, the threads of the dream were woven there and the pattern took shape.
My mother, too, influenced me greatly. She loved history, was an avid American antique collector, oil painter and gardener. She could do anything she set her mind to; one summer she laid a patio made of old hand-made bricks. She would not let my dad help; she had a strong work ethic and took pride in doing it herself. She saw beauty in all things, she was a dreamer and she was fearless, I am grateful she instilled those interests and qualities in me.
Life went forward; I attended college, got married and had two children. Divorced in the early 70’s, I worked in the modelling and fashion industry in Louisville for seventeen years. Successful as a model even though barely 5’3”, I worked trade shows, photography, runway, TV and radio commercials. For three years I was the most heard and recognized female commercial voice on radio in our market and had a midnight to 3 AM pre-recorded show on the easy listening station. The modelling agency grew from a small-town entity into a forward fashion icon and my career turned to teaching, event planning, performing as mistress of ceremonies, commentating shows and eventually agency director.
The disco days were upon us. We were “the beautiful people,” often the centre of attention, invited to openings of clubs and restaurants and included on many glamorous party lists. I was mistress of ceremonies and commentator for several fashion shows a week - the most notable being in the hottest disco dinner club in town.
One evening, revelling in being the centre attention after a club show, I was approached by a stranger - a man who looked into my being and saw something not reflected back from a mirror. Introducing himself, he asked what was I doing there. The thought ran through my mind he had just arrived and not seen the show, but before I could speak, he smiled and looking in my eyes, said he saw me as an “Earth mother” not one to frequent a night club. Surprised, I laughed and asked: “Why would you say that?” “Oh, just a feeling,” he replied and smiled again before disappearing into the crowd.
I had several chances to remarry. I was looking for someone who shared my deepest sense of what really mattered but how could I recognize that in someone else when I didn’t see in myself?
My children were still at home and I was not prepared to bring someone else into their daily lives, even though greater financial stability would have been an asset. I watched numerous matches made - men attracted to the physical beauty of the women who were drawn to the money, trips and clothes these relationships provided. Most of the marriages lasted less than three years before the women moved on with money in the bank.
I offer up this phase of my life not because what I was doing was important but because even though I was able to support my children in a competitive business, I was not invested in it. I often said, “A door opened and I fell through it.” Admired for being ‘someone’, it was a fabulous life but it lacked meaning. Glamour was not what I wanted for myself, I believed I was being prepared for something but knew not what; only that someday I would be at ease speaking to people, telling a story yet to be written.
My day to day life was counterbalanced by two series of books. A friend of a friend, someone I barely knew, offered a book to me she thought I might find interesting. “The Seth Material” was written by Jane Roberts who lived with her husband in Elmira, New York. The information was channelled through Jane by an entity, something I had no idea existed. Seth’s basic premise was that we create our own reality by our thoughts, an idea as foreign to my belief system as the concept of channelling but what I learned was that each one of us is responsible for our own life. We cannot blame others or fate or happenstance, we create our lives by the way we think about it. I was stunned by a concept that was so simple yet made so much sense.
While reading the final pages of “The Seth Material,” another friend suggested I read Carlos Castaneda’s book, “Don Juan, A Yaqui Way to Knowledge.” My mind had begun to open up to new thought and I was enthralled by Castaneda, an anthropology student at Berkley who wrote an account of his apprenticeship to an Indian sorcerer from Sonora, Mexico. I had never heard the term “sorcerer” used in this way much less the methods Don Juan employed to teach his student to ‘see’. This series of books introduced the concept of alternate realities and reinforced responsibility for one’s own life.
With new horizons to discover, my children now grown and on their own, I opted to leave ‘the business.’ I explored several options, none too successfully. Uninspired, unmotivated and unhappy, sitting on the front porch of my apartment overlooking Central Park in Old Louisville on a spring morning, I “turned my life over.” Mind you, I did not know I was surrendering to a Higher Power, only that I could not continue without knowing if my life had meaning beyond what was apparent. I asked for guidance and vowed to follow the path that opened before me. A few weeks later I received a phone call from a friend in Nashville, Tennessee, the Nashville Entertainment Association (NEA) was looking for an Executive Director, was I interested?
Chosen from eighty seven applicants, I was probably the only one with no musical talent or background and for certain had no connections in the music business outside the friend who called. Believing something unseen was at work, I was grateful for the opportunity to begin anew.
Over the next few months several seemingly unrelated events occurred simultaneously that when woven together form an emerging pattern. The Universe had responded to my plea - everything was shifting into place should I choose to fulfil my vow.
Within a few weeks of my move to Nashville, I met a Potawatomi/Creek woman. She was gathering together a small group of women interested in the teachings of the moon circle. We would learn the ways of women within our indigenous peoples’ culture which are oftentimes misunderstood or misrepresented. Stepping gently onto the path known as The Beauty Way, I participated in the monthly teachings for better than two years.
Selected for the first class of Leadership Music, I had an incredible opportunity to witness the inner-workings of the music business and to sit with some of the most talented and powerful individuals in the industry. Its true importance would be revealed later in life as it will be here.
I was asked to record a demo tape of excerpts from the spiritual writings of a former Trappist Monk who had written his autobiography and was looking for a publisher. He and his wife, a former nun, had relocated from the Seattle, Washington area to be near his agent, the man who asked me to read on the tape. The couple was offering a weekly book study group on “A Course in Miracles”, which I began to attend. Over the next six years, the booklist grew to include many genres of metaphysical and spiritual thought – “I was growing out of my mind.”
At the same time, I met a young woman of Native American ancestry, who lived with her family in Bells Bend, a farming community just outside Metro Nashville. The land in the bend of the Cumberland River is sacred to Native Americans; it had been home to ancient tribes who left behind many graves and artefacts. The city/county government had targeted a farm in the Bend as the new city dump. In defiance and to protect the land of their ancestors, Native Americans of many tribes from all over the country gathered there to participate in demonstrations, sit-ins, vigils, sweat lodges, ceremonies and many nights around a fire pit engaged in conversation. The beginning of the demonstrations coincided with my move to Nashville and I was privileged to participate in the waning days. A year later, I was living in a house on the farm which was the focus of the demonstrations - today this site is a park.
It is said that when the pupil is ready, the teacher will come. I know that to be true, as I was blessed to have many teachers, although most would not refer to themselves in that way. I had come to terms with what was important to me; it was not the world of money, power and prestige, rather, the simple way of peace, love and joy.
I kept one foot in each world until one of my teachers delivered this message, “You have nothing to fear for you will be held up by the invisible hands of the Universe.” Buoyed by that belief, I took a deep breath and made the leap of faith. I surrendered for the second time – now well aware of what I was doing and why. I wanted to live a sacred life, out of the mainstream and with others of like mind.
Soon after my surrender and guided by my friend, a Cherokee elder, I did ceremony with a very powerful animal totem. Standing on the banks of a creek, I willingly released “everything that stands between me and Spirit”, then threw the stick, into which I had imparted my desire, into the water and watched it be carried swiftly away.
“Be careful what you ask for” can be a hard lesson as I soon found out, which was overlaid the second, “be specific”. The NEA was on shaky financial footing when I arrived on its doorstep, progress was made during my tenure but not enough to stay afloat. At the end of my first year, the board of directors informed me the not for profit was becoming an all volunteer organization - it could no longer afford my salary, I was out of a job. Six months later I was being evicted from my apartment with little money, few contacts and no place to go. Everything connected to my old life was slipping away… I was paralyzed by fear.
Alone in my apartment not knowing what to do and contemplating a bleak future, the doorbell rang. Waiting at the threshold was my friend from Bells Bend, her husband and three others, none of whom I knew well. “OK, you’ve got to move, let’s start packing, you’re moving in with me,” my friend said as she swept past me and began to survey the room. I stepped back and said nothing, unable to react. “Come on,” she motioned to me, “you can’t wait until the sheriff comes to put your stuff on the street.”
They had stopped to pick up boxes on their way to my place. “OK, you start in the kitchen,” she commanded two of those who had come to help, “and you start in the living room,” she said to her husband as she began to organize the packing. Looking directly at me now, “You come with me,” she ordered and headed down the hallway to the bedroom. I obeyed like a child, even though I was her elder by a dozen years.
By the next day everything was packed, loaded on a truck and taken to a storage unit. I kept a few clothes and my sacred things. I slept on her living room sofa off and on for a little over a year and worked whatever short-term job that came my way, including ten months as a live-in personal assistant to a rising country music star.
Living in my friend’s home and still a regular in the book study group, I continued my inward journey, committed to living a spiritual life. I learned about “Indian time”, which meant we got to where we were going whenever we got there. If someone needed our help or we were in the midst of a spiritual experience, everything else could wait.
A group of six of us lived as a tribe, others came and went. We sat around the fire pit and did ceremony together. We shared everything including many late nights at the round antique dining room table telling stories while making leather bags. My friend gifted me with my medicine bag, which I always wore. I learned about Native American ways and came to understand their relationship to the land, which affected me deeply. Not separate and apart from the Earth, their belief is they are one with it. When you have this understanding, unusual things occur.
I was taught to stand on a hill and to feel the wind. At first, I was aware of it blowing around me, I could feel its gentle touch on my face, my long skirt was pushed close then pulled away, my waist-length hair blew in patterns reflecting those of my mind, my thoughts were swirling, and blurring until I could feel the wind pass through me. I was one with the wind.
The first winter after moving in with my friend, I lived in a one room cedar cabin on the banks of Marrowbone Creek in Ashland City, just west of Nashville. The cabin was built on a pedestal foundation close to the edge of the creek. The deck, which encircled it, jutted out over the year-round running water. Living there, I was truly alone for the first time in many years. I was immersed in the beauty and rhythm of nature replete with magical moments.
On New Year’s Eve, with no plans to celebrate, I came up with an idea. A heavy bell wind chime hung outside the door, I would ring in the New Year. It was a clear night but not too cold as happens in Tennessee. A few minutes before midnight, I rang that bell loud and long. It reverberated throughout the creek bottom and off the ridges that rose up around the cabin. The sound was exhilarating and I was elated. When the ringing ended, I heard the plaintive sounds of a trumpet blown from somewhere at the top of a ridge. I listened until it stopped. I rang the bell and when it went silent, the trumpet took up again. For the next hour, a kindred stranger and I were joined across the valley to ring and to play in the New Year together.
A few days later, the weather continued to be unusually warm. I slept on a thick futon mattress covered with sheepskin on the floor in the loft of the cabin. As usual, I awoke with the sun and still abed, noticed several wasps on the inside of the windows that ran the length of the loft and looked over the creek. Within a matter of an hour wasps were everywhere, crawling out of the cracks in the wooden tongue and groove walls. They were just waking up and lethargic so I didn’t feel threatened but there were so many, what should I do? What would happen when they warmed up, would they be angry with me when they realized I was in their nest?
I walked the pathway to my neighbour’s house and knocked on the door. When they answered, I explained my dilemma and asked if they had any wasp spray I could use, they did. I retraced my steps back to the cabin with wasp killer in hand. Entering the small space, there were more wasps crawling about, some were flying now. Pulling off the top of the can, I was poised to spray. There were so many it would be hard to miss, but I could not do it. Killing them went against everything I had come to believe, they were the handiwork of the Creator and their lives had value as did mine. I snapped the cap back on the can and set it on the counter.
Picking up a red and white checked kitchen towel, I fearlessly threw it over a wasp, gently wrapped the towel around it as my dad had taught me many years before and then one by one, carried them outside. It was a ritual that lasted for several days; I lost count after one hundred in the first few hours. With the towel loosely encasing the buzzing wasp, I could feel the vibration of its beating wings, which seemed to move up my arm and throughout my body. Stepping outside onto the deck, I held the tiny treasure in the towel up to the sun, opened it and watched as the wasp flew upward toward the light. Oddly, I, too, felt free!
My lesson was to show no fear and to realize I am made of the same “stuff” as wasps. I believe they could feel my energy as I could feel theirs. I was never stung, even when one landed on my chest while sitting up in bed. I got up, climbed down the ladder, went out the door and into the sunlight. The wasp rode all the way and when warm enough to fly, it was gone. I have a special relationship to this day with wasps and bees.
That spring, I moved back in with my friends in Bells Bend and in the summer moved into a house on the farm where the vigil had taken place. My friend, the Cherokee elder, stayed with me for awhile and asked me to travel with him on the pow-wow circuit. He needed a woman to take care of him and to share in the responsibilities of setting up and tending the booth where he sold his hand-crafted reed flutes, drawings, CDs and other things he made but I could not make that commitment.
Although I did not know of any Native blood in my veins - my paternal grandmother was an orphan, my friend, and I, too, believed the Spirits of Native people who have gone before return in the bodies of the Earth-bound to walk the land they love. He said he saw that spirit in me and wanted me to go with him to The Stomp Grounds in North Carolina to be adopted into the tribe. I did not feel I knew enough nor was I worthy of such an honour and I knew my way was down another path.
For five years I was gifted with the time, resources and teachers to uncover deeply held beliefs and to face the fears ingrained by our society – fear of failure, of being unloved, of being alone, of being unworthy, of poverty and scarcity, of life without meaning. I discovered new ways of being – in reconnecting with my authentic self, I was finding out who I am and why I am here.
To be Continued
Copyright © Jolita Kelias, January 2012
All Rights Reserved
0 comments:
Post a Comment