Brenda's Bicycles

Fluttering wings startle me as I sit writing in the living room. As I look up to glance around my apartment, I check my watch and note that it is 11:04 a.m. on this beautiful and peaceful final Saturday of January 2012.

Seconds later, I am startled as a beautiful little sparrow flies out of my spare bedroom, landing calmly on the back of a kitchen chair. Fascinated by the unfolding events, I quietly observe with love. Moments later, the small brown bird takes flight once again. The noise of his wings whooshes loudly as the little flying acrobat hovers this way and that, getting quite close to the wooden ceiling directly above my head before returning to the metal grill on my entryway door. For the next minute or so, the little sparrow explores my propane tank, on the patio just outside my door, before taking flight and rapidly vanishing as fast as he had magically appeared.

Fascinating Fluttering Feathers

Just after 12:20 p.m., another fanciful little sparrow flutters into my kitchen. When I glance up, I observe two more that are perched in the metal grill of my patio door, making three in total. Seconds later, the little sparrow darts back out my patio door, and the three of them hang out near my window for a while, as if building trust.

At 2:32 p.m., one of the sparrows returns, spending considerable time hanging out around my windows and door, without actually flying inside. I am fascinated with deep curiosity as I ponder the possible metaphorical meaning of this delightful phenomenon.

Forgotten Emotions

Sunday, I feel guided to spend the morning watching and re-watching Abraham videos. I am surprised as the inspired words continue to awaken buried feelings of deep emotional charge – forgotten feelings of powerlessness as a child – forgotten fears of conflict and confrontation – forgotten memories of knowing that the only way to cope with others is to be a people pleaser and to avoid ruffling feathers.

But as I prepare to walk out to Keith’s porch for an afternoon chocolate ceremony, the biggest issue on my mind is the awareness that Tom – the same man who expressed so much anger on Friday, will likely be present to trigger me, yet again.

A Brief Respite

During the first half of this large ceremony, I am blown away by the radiant power of my own heart. I feel deeply connected to higher energies and visualize my heart as reaching out to touch everyone on the porch with my supportive, space-holding love.

After Keith asks me to assist with one woman, I branch out from there, simply following my own inner flow, going wherever my guidance takes me. The ceremony today is extremely intense. Many people are involved in profound and deep emotional release, and I feel called to hold space where I can. I have no way to validate what I do. Instead, I simply follow intuitive instincts as I participate in facilitating a whirlwind of profound inner work, moving confidently from one person to the next while Keith and Paul work elsewhere on the porch.

With one man, I assist him in accessing and releasing deep rage that has been bottled up for an extremely long time. With a woman, I hold a powerful space while assisting her with bringing in more loving energy into her high heart region. With another man, I coach him into receiving love from his inner child, from his mother’s Higher Essence, and from himself. At one point, I am working with two people at the same time, holding space for one woman’s loving expansion while assisting a nearby man to release another level of deeply stuck anger.

For several hours, my guidance takes me from one person to the next. Radiant aliveness consumes me as gratitude fills my heart – gratitude for the opportunity to be a channel of healing light to help others – gratitude that I am being given a brief reprieve from doing my own agonizing inner work.

A Brush With Drama

When the intensity of active emotional release eventually relaxes, Keith pulls the porch back together into a cohesive unit as he starts to conduct an empath training for the benefit of many on the porch. As Keith begins to lay the groundwork for his training, I sink into my own inner chatter.

“I think I did a great job today, and I would really like some type of external validation or acknowledgment to reassure me about how I am progressing.” A buried voice begins to protest silently.

“I don’t need validation.” I ponder the opposing side. “I feel energized, alive, confident, and filled with light and love. That is all the reward and validation that I need. I know I am doing a beautiful job today. No one else needs to tell me that.”

“But I want the external validation.” The protestor silently whines. “I feel ignored and overlooked, and I deserve to be rewarded.”

“This is different,” the loving observer in me responds. “This time I will receive all of the validation I need by simply basking in the glowing light and self-love that fills my soul.”

Once again, I recognize that I am gently brushing up against my God/separation drama – brushing up against the belief that if I am strong, competent, and independent, that I will be ignored by God and left to do things all by myself. It is the belief that the only way to merit the assistance of higher powers (and teachers) is if I am pathetic and struggling.

A Magical Soul

Soon, as Keith proceeds with his group empath training, I feel guided to do a little “soul retrieval” work – imagining that a long lost part of my magical self is now ready to come back and rejoin me in my heart.

Tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I imagine another layer of my own lost magical energies returning to me. The tears are quite confusing, as they seem to stem from a mixture of both fear and joy – deep trembling fear that I am not yet ready to re-embrace my light shadow – and excited joy that I am beginning more and more to do just that.

As I continue with this self-guided mediation, I start to feel a beautiful energy flow in my upper heart regions. As profound peace consumes my body from the rib cage up, I am slightly confused as to why my lower body feels so dead and painful. I meditatively focus on bringing in love from Mother Earth, asking it to rise up through my root chakra, but I feel nothing except confusion about why I could feel this energy last week, but that today, it is nowhere to be found.

An Undeserving Brat

Eventually, after the empath training is complete, I follow along as Keith does some deep inner child work with a man on the porch. Soon I begin to imagine myself doing similar integrative work with my own fourteen-month-old little Bobby.

As I attempt to connect energetically with this innocent little toddler energy, I feel very standoffish toward him. When I visualize myself as holding him in my arms, attempting to share my love with him, I am quite shocked to realize that I harbor profound resistance to loving that little boy.

“He is an undeserving little brat.” A rampage of confusing feelings flashes through my mind. “He just cries all the time, I don’t trust him, and I definitely can’t love him.”

Deep tears begin to flow down my cheeks as I ponder the absurdity of these hateful emotions – emotions directed at my own precious and innocent inner child.

As I allow myself to sink into this heart-wrenching emotion, I begin to recognize that the entire ceremony today has been a beautiful setup, one designed perfectly to guide me into this confusing emotion.

Loving Support

As I continue to cycle between tears and whimpers, trying to remain low key and invisible, Keith soon turns to me, reaches out his arm, and touches me lightly with his fingertips at the center of my heart.

Recognizing Keith’s loving gesture as encouragement to go deeper, a new wave of emotion surges within.

“I can’t even love my own inner child.” I burst out in a new round of tears. “I really hate myself at this age. Keith, how could a fourteen-month-old hate himself?”

Keith encourages me to go deeper, reassuring me that these are real emotions from my childhood – emotions that I must feel to the core so that they can move through me.

By now, it is getting dark and most people have left what has been a beautiful ceremony. As Keith briefly steps into his Kitchen to fetch several candles, a beautiful young woman comes over to hug me. Desperately needing some outside assistance in loving myself – in loving my little child – I latch onto this young woman and hold her tightly for at least five minutes while I sob and cry. I deeply connect with her unconditional supportive love.

Cool Breezes

“Ask your little child if you can work together on bringing in more love.” Keith guides me.

“Yeah,” I respond through my whimpers, “my child wants to do this.”

“Open a little window in your heart.” Keith continues. “See what happens.”

As I imagine a tiny window opening in my heart, I feel a cool breeze of energy literally circulating in my heart. It is very soothing – physically soothing – and I love it.

“Now close that window.” Keith gives me unexpected advice.

I do not want to stop this energy flow, but I follow Keith’s guidance and imagine the window closing. The beautiful flow of cool energy dries up and quickly stops.

“Now, have your child come and open the window and see what happens.” Keith continues.

As I visualize this scenario, I again feel that same beautiful cool breeze of soothing energy flowing through my heart chakra.

“Now close it again.” Keith encourages.

“I don’t want to.” I protest, before reluctantly complying with Keith’s guidance.

No Expectations

“Now, have the child open the window again,” Keith guides me, “but this time your doubts are going to start throwing a fit. Instead of pushing the doubts away, ask them to get bigger, to perform for you, to dance around the stage.”

As I visualize this dramatic metaphorical scenario, I feel invisible physical pressure pushing on my chest and I have a difficult time feeling any cool-breeze energy at all.

“This is really hard.” I express my frustration to Keith. “I can’t feel anything now, except for the resistance of the doubts.”

“Ask the doubts to share in some of that love with you.” Keith guides me with more unexpected advice.

As I surrender more, I suddenly experience a sensation of deeper relaxation in my heart as I again begin to feel an actual cool breeze of energy flowing in my heart.

“Now, do it again.” Keith encourages me to repeat the process.

“Keith, I’m stuck.” I respond a few minutes later. “I can’t feel that cool breeze anymore. All I feel is lots of resistance and pressure from the doubts – and a slight pressure on my forehead …”

“Stop,” Keith interrupts me. “You are trying to control and put rules on how you expect to feel … and if you don’t feel what you want to feel you judge it as wrong and doubt yourself even more.”

“This is a setup from your energies.” Keith coaches me. “It is designed to teach you that it is different every time. Take out an eraser and erase all memories of previous experience. Start from scratch and open that window with no expectations.”

Unexpected Feedback

Again, I ask my little inner child to open that tiny window in my heart.

“I’m getting a tiny tickling feeling in the center of my third eye.” I respond to Keith a few minutes later.

“That might be exactly what you need.” Keith encourages me. “Just trust that this is the response that your body is giving you. Do not judge it. Do not expect something different. Just trust the flow of your experience.

I sit in this meditative energy until the end of the ceremony. Twice, as the gathering increasingly fades, Paul surprises me with beautiful unexpected feedback regarding how powerful I was today.

“Wow, how things change.” I giggle inside.

My Own Feedback

“I know the only feedback I really need comes from within.” I share with Keith as I prepare to walk home. “But do you perchance have any parting feedback for me. I would love something to help build my self-trust.”

“Brenda,” Keith responds, “just like I was trained, you are being taught that you will receive only the guidance that you need, and no more.”

Keith is referring to the fact that he often receives inner guidance without having any idea about the bigger picture. He was trained to simply trust his own knowing, and to trust that when it is important for him to know something, that the understanding will be given to him in some way.

“Today you received your own feedback,” Keith tells me what I already know. “You felt the energy in your hands, you followed tiny intuitive hunches, and you were able to watch the responses that you received.”

“Congratulations on a beautiful day.” Keith calls out as I climb the steep street by his house. “Dream well.”

Fun Feathered Friend

Late Monday morning, as I busily write away on my laptop, a lone sparrow lands on the metal bars outside my window. I stop what I am doing and begin to observe. My watch reads 10:53 a.m. Soon, the little winged wonder flies to the bars guarding my patio door. After a few seconds, he hops inside and perches atop the door by my refrigerator.

Before I know it, this little sparrow becomes quite the uninhibited explorer, fluttering to my bathroom door, then to a sweatshirt on the back of a chair, then to a light bulb above my stovetop, then to another chair, after which he finally begins to explore my kitchen table while appearing to search for edible crumbs. After a minute of excitedly exploring food opportunities, the little sparrow flies to my sink and the countertop (where he finds more crumbs).

The innocent little guy seems to have no fear. Soon he flies to two door tops and then explores the straw mats that double as window shades above my large sliding window to my patio. As if saying goodbye, the little bird flies through the air, briefly hovering above me before turning to make two last rest stops on my sweatshirt and my patio door. Less than four minutes after entering to explore, my little feathered friend disappears back into the great outdoors.

I cannot help but curiously ponder the beautiful message that this little sparrow is bringing me.

Powerful Closure

My next-door neighbor, Tina, is hosting a dinner party tonight – only her little studio apartment is too tiny so she needs to use my house and patio. As fate would have it, Tina has forgotten to invite Keith to her party, and asks if I would please email him – which I did. But when Keith has not yet responded by noon, a little hunch tells me he has been too busy to turn on his computer.

Following my instincts, I walk out to Keith’s porch to extend the invitation in person, and when I get there I am quickly invited to sit and briefly participate in the ending of a small private session – one in which I am privileged to do a little Spanish/English translation for a Spanish Speaking woman.

Meanwhile, in my writing, I am working on my “A Dragon Quest” series, and I am terrified to write any further about my bizarre Christmas Eve experience in which I literally stood up and told Keith I was going to trust my own experience over his words.

As Keith thanks me for helping briefly, and as I prepare to leave so I can return to my writing, I mention my fears in passing.

“Keith,” I express my concern, “I am afraid to write about that day because I don’t believe that you have ever been able to see my side of that crazy afternoon.”

“Of course it was a beautiful experience of you getting to find out in a profound way how you felt as a child with your loving parents.” Keith acknowledges.

He shares that he was not knowingly playing the role of parent for me, but that he can now clearly see in retrospect that such a perspective was a powerful part of my process. I sigh with huge relief as I return home to finish my difficult writing. I finally have clarity and closure on what was an extremely frustrating experience.

Delightful Feedback

The party Monday night is delightful. How many times in your life do you get to play hostess for a wonderful gathering of friends without having to do any of the work? Tina literally does everything, yet I get to enjoy all of the benefits of having a wonderful group of people in my home – a large group of over twenty amazing souls from San Marcos, and from all over the world.

One beautiful friend that frequently visits San Marcos is a doctor who provides free medical clinics to indigenous people all over Guatemala. At one point, over a year ago, I had seriously considered assisting in a few of his mountain journeys.

“Brenda,” this beautiful man shares with me. “You have changed so much since I first met you. You are so much more relaxed, and have a new glow in your eyes.”

Later in the evening, while enjoying a fun conversation with Keith, I am also delighted by his words of feedback and encouragement.

“Brenda,” Keith smiles at me, “Paul must have had whiplash yesterday as he had to do double-takes to catch a glimpse of who you really are.”

“Yeah,” I respond, “he has never seen that magical healer side of me. He has mostly only seen me as I bawl my brains out in deep emotional processes. I really needed yesterday to remind me of where I am headed.”

“And Brenda,” Keith later provides more unexpected feedback, “Your writing just keeps getting better and better. You are writing about a very difficult topic, and you are keeping it genuine, without ego, at a personal level, in a way that is deeply relevant to the processes of others.”

I am floating in the skies, just like those little brown sparrows, as Monday evening gives way to sleep. I could not have asked for more amazing feedback.

Multiple Thumbs-Up

After another day and a half of non-stop writing, I finally finish posting the conclusion to my “A Dragon Quest” series early on Wednesday morning, the first day of February, 2012.

After a relaxing morning, the afternoon chocolate ceremony turns out to be a beautiful repeat of Sunday. My heart radiates powerful love, light, and trusting confidence as I follow my intuitions – intuitions that seem to lightly channel through me – little whispers that I simply trust and follow as I am humbly grateful for the opportunity to powerfully assist many others while not having any of my own stuck inner issues come up.

As I am assisting a friend in a powerful process of emotional release, I momentarily glance in Keith’s direction. I want to giggle when Keith eagerly gives me multiple “thumbs-up” signs while sporting a huge grin.

A Crazy Tangled Web

But as the ceremony reaches beautiful conclusion, I find myself in a very strange and confusing state of mind.

I am working on having no expectations regarding the flow of my own journey – to simply allow and love whatever flows my way – to simply drift down the river in my raft with no oars.

But for a long time now, I have yearned for a period of time where I could simply play with the healing energies while not having more of my own emotional inner work come up. With this subtle expectation, it seems that every ceremony has just taken me into ever more intense inner work.

Now, after having enjoyed two ceremonies in a row with beautiful light, I am feeling guilty with the crazy feeling that I am not focusing on my own work – that I am simply avoiding my inner-work while assisting others – the very same thing that I have been projecting onto Paul is what I am now projecting onto myself.

What a crazy and tangled web I weave.

On the surface, the observer-me knows that I can simply trust the flow – that if I need more emotional release that it will surface beautifully as it always has – and that if the flow brings me a fun ceremony of simply playing with energies, well, then that too is perfect.

But it seems that every time I attempt to let go of control and to simply flow, my head takes me into the chatter of “I should this” or “I should that”, blah blah, blah. The powerful thing is that I am gradually learning to “Know Myself”.

Silly Sparrow

Thursday morning, at 10:42 a.m., I am deeply focused on yet another full day of writing. Suddenly I notice a blur land on the kitchen floor by my small recycling bins. When I turn my head, I am not at all surprised by what I see.

A tiny sparrow gently hops around for about a minute. I can hear his tiny beak lightly pecking on the floor as he joyfully searches for a breakfast feast. Suddenly, as quickly as he appeared, he flutters his tiny brown wings and zooms back outside.

Wow … I am amazed by how the sparrows are gracing me with their presence. Part of me finds great delight in the thought that this is likely the same sparrow that is gradually gaining the confidence to enter my apartment.

Fifteen minutes after his first visit, the silly little sparrow returns for another visit, this time checking out my sleeping quarters. When I casually walk into my bedroom to check on him, he is simply hiding under a chair by my bedroom window. After watching him for a few minutes, he again takes flight and easily flutters out my patio door.

Sparrow Symbolism

It blows me away how this beautiful little sparrow is becoming such a symbolic and magical part of my life.

As I recall a day in early December, 2011, when two little sparrows first graced the inner walls of my apartment, I cannot help but think of the beautiful symbolism that I wrote about in a blog titled “Two Little Birds”, published December 17, 2011. In that posting, I shared several quotes from a book titled “Animal-Speak” by Ted Andrews.

The first quote was as follows:

“One story tells of how it (the sparrow) was the one bird present throughout the crucifixion of Christ, making it a symbol of triumph after suffering.”

It is only as I write that I recognize the powerful significance. I have long understood the metaphorical meaning of that “nail-in-my-heart” spot representing how my childhood magic was symbolically “crucified” in the name of my religion. Then, the metaphor of a screwdriver stabbed into this spot brought the profound understanding that it was the fixing energy of my mother and other church leaders who literally caused me to disconnect the power to my heart – something that I myself did as an act of desperation and self-preservation.

I now understand that this beautiful little sparrow is attempting to communicate with me … to tell me that it is indeed time to triumph after all my shutdown suffering.

Remembered Self-Worth

The next quote from “Animal-Speak” also deals with human and societal shutdown. I have omitted several sentences and highlighted the word “social.”

“Its (the sparrow’s) ability to multiply and assert itself in spite of predation reflects the idea that nobility of the common person is inherently strong. […] Have you forgotten your own self worth? Have you begun to think that you would always be under the heel of some tyrant – human or social? The sparrow will show you how to survive […] helping you to triumph in spite of outer circumstances.

The song sparrow is very symbolic of this. […] There is a dark spot on each side of its throat and a heavy spot in middle of the breast. This reflects a drawing down of energy to awaken the heart and the throat centers. It is the assertion of will to bring out the inherent dignity so it can sing forth in your life. This is what the sparrow can teach.”

Wow, these last months have indeed been intense – taking me right into the state of feeling as if I were being trampled under the heel of a projected social tyrant (what I projected onto Paul). At times, I have indeed lost sight of my own self-worth. But I am not only surviving, I am triumphing … learning how to heal my projections … to heal the childhood wounds that caused me to be so devastatingly sensitive to the fixing energy of others.

In retrospect, these beautiful “encounters of the sparrow kind” bring such beautiful meaning and closure to the journey through which I continue to pass.

Defying The Odds

It was just six days ago that I returned home after a very difficult Friday afternoon chocolate ceremony on the evening of January 27, 2012. It had been a conflict-filled-but-magical day – a day of synchronous, powerful flow – a day of deeply understanding the psychological abuse that can take place in a very loving and deeply religious home – a day of facing conflict and confrontation in the middle of a chocolate ceremony – a day of lovingly embracing my anger and rage at the powerlessness of having no voice, of simply having to conform and obey, of simply giving up my own heart.

Late that evening, after going to dinner with a friend and then struggling to stay awake long enough to take notes after my eventful day, I opened up Facebook and found this beautiful message from an amazing friend back in Utah.

“The Song “Defying Gravity” from Wicked came up on my IPod, and you’ve been on my mind ever since. I’m sure you’ve heard it … But the lyrics perfectly remind me of what you’re doing right now. And no, I’m not calling you a wicked witch! LOL”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4ekwTd6Ig&feature=youtube_gdata_player

… Love, -G

As I watch the above YouTube video, I am blown away. As I prepare for bed, deep intuitive guidance tells me that one day soon, an entire blog will be named after this song.

In retrospect, how could I possibly have known at the time that this very moment would mark the precise start of such a blog? It is a blog that would not even begin to gel in my integration and understanding for seven more weeks (present day of writing, March 15).

Even that little sparrow who repeatedly graced me six times that week was defying gravity.

Defying Gravity

While I would love to do so, I have never seen the 2003 Broadway Musical titled “Wicked”, so I am unable to comment on the actual play itself. But wow, the words of this song send electricity through my soul.

According to Wikipedia, the music and lyrics for the play were written by Stephen Schwartz. For details, see Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(musical)

The previously quoted YouTube link is a short video from the Tony awards, in which Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth perform a modified version of the song “Defying Gravity” from the actual play.

Following are several segments of the original words to “Defying Gravity” – words that resonate deeply in my soul:

Defying Gravity
Sung by: Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth
Music and Lyrics by: Stephen Schwartz

[Entry words omitted …]

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

It’s time to try
Defying gravity
I think I’ll try
Defying gravity
And you can’t pull me down.

[… miscellaneous portions omitted …]

I’m through accepting limits
‘Cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I’ll never know
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love
It comes at much too high a cost!

[… miscellaneous portions omitted …]

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately
Ev’ryone deserves the chance to fly
And if I’m flying solo
At least I’m flying free
To those who’d ground me
Take a message back from me
Tell them how I am
Defying gravity
I’m flying high
Defying gravity
And soon I’ll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down

[… Final words omitted]

Sparrows And Songs

Something has indeed changed within me, and it is too late to go back to sleep. It is time to trust my instincts, to close my eyes and leap.

It seems that the Universe is giving me a steady non-stop stream of synchronous symbols, sparrows, and songs to stimulate a new sense of self – to give me a beautiful glimpse into where I am headed as I continue to lovingly and methodically clear out the inner blocks that prevent me from recognizing what already is.

When I first listened to “Defying Gravity” six short days ago, the song deeply inspired me. How could I have possibly known that it would be the theme for six beautiful days to follow?

And at every step, it seems that a beautiful little sparrow has stopped by to visit – to remind me to soar – to love myself – to play – to spread my wings – and to triumph over the gravity that would anchor me in my dysfunctional patterns of the past.

It has indeed been a beautiful week of healing via writing, and of enjoying the amazing gift of being able to play with portions of my awakening magic.

No, there is no looking back. If you want to find me, look to the western sky.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved