It began in February.
I had spent the weekend working the Body, Mind and Spirit Expo (where the Body was conspicuously missing. Though, I've come to now believe that the body has to be absent in order for capitalism to flourish. Otherwise, our intuitive senses would guide us away from spending our hard-earned dollars on things we simply don't need. But, that's a topic for another time). It was a lot of psychics, angel talkers, aura readers and other meta-physical ballyhoo'ers that, for the life of me, just do not appeal to my grounded, pragmatic self. However, on Sunday, there were also two dark and handsome men who attended and who, unlike the paid professionals in the main ballroom, have the uncanny ability of raising my feet up off of the ground.
One of these men lured me, with his foreign tongue and thick afro, into stopping by his house the following week for an Alpha Biotics treatment. Essentially, what he did was help to release the stress that is held in the space between my brain and spine by performing what looks like a chiropractic adjustment to my neck. Usually, I would not have agreed so readily to such a procedure but, obviously, I was motivated by other factors. I arrived into his artfully decorated home lethargic and energetically drained from an afternoon spent in the office. After the ten minute treatment, I was immediately rejuvenated and reinvigorated. I thought nothing of spending Saturday night out with the girls, consuming a copious amount of wine and drawing attention to our comfortable nook with our obnoxious laughter.
Come Sunday, I was praying to a porcelain Goddess. My vomiting did not let up, even as I thoroughly emptied the contents of my stomach lining into the brown rimmed bowls of numerous toilets. I purged. And purged. And purged. I had not realized just how toxic I was. It was not merely the alcohol coupled with the treatment. It was the food I had spent months, and years, consuming - the highly processed breads, crackers and cookies, the addiction to sugar and caffeine, the added tannins in the wine, and the list goes on. It was the old, fake food that has graced my palate, even as I subconsciously stuffed it down my gullet.
Physically spent, I was reeling come Monday's all-day Small Farms Conference held at a Del Mar Hotel (another walking contradiction, just like me. But, yet again, I digress into a story meant for another time). However, I was also excited, for it was just as the attractive man had initially stated when he was attempting to sell his services - I was given a reset button on my system. From here on out, I declared, I would pay more conscious attention to what I was putting into my body.
As the week progressed, and as I diligently refrained from the coffee and a handful of M&M's (among other things, of course), I thought deeper about the metaphor that I was physically experiencing. Days passed and I noticed thoughts that spoke of a lack of self-worth, deeply held for years, arise and release. I discovered absolve, and it felt like nothing more than a great cleanse. I continued to probe deeper by investigating the way I was spending my time, and with whom. "What is best for my well-being?" and "What serves my highest good?" were questions that I continued to ruminate upon. Intuitively, I began to slowly withdraw from anyone and anything that seemingly fed and added to the toxicity that I had only recently come to let go of. It was both satisfying, and painful. For there I was, back where I had begun, alone and with no girlfriends to spend a night on the piss with, playing wing-woman so that one of us could have our sexual needs met, at least temporarily.
I spent a quiet week in rest and solitude. Then, life picked up where it had left off and I allowed myself to be open to what miracles the universe offered. Of course, more women friends were pointed in my direction and I once again enjoyed my time spent in feminine company (among other things, of course). The ultimate release, however, came in a subconscious state. While sleeping, only last week, I awoke fresh from a vivid dream: I had been sentenced to die. God knows for what yet, strangely enough, I actually believed I DESERVED such a sentence. I faced my fate, brave and without fear. I was dropped, head first, into a vat of cement SHIT. Still, I thought that I deserved no less.
The shit was slow to constrict and as I awaited my death, fear began to creep in. "I don't want to die," my inner dialogue began to scream. So, instead, I crawled out of the pit and wandered around a village, where life continued just as it always does, covered in thick, brown feces and looking for a shower with which to once again absolve myself.
