Be prepared for woo woo. Not too much. Just a little.

I grew up in a strict Catholic house. No woo woo allowed. Well, mostly. My mom went to a psychic once. But religion played a big role in my childhood. Church every weekend, catechism, confession, guilt, shame, important life events overseen by occultified child molesters. You know the drill.

I didn’t buy it. Not even a little. While the other kids genuflected every time we past a church, I was, most decidedly, a woman of science and reason. At 10, I was a woman of science and reason. No, really.

So how did I go from a woman who needed two sources for every opinion to being this woo woo person I’ve become?

I almost died. At my own hands.

I attempted suicide on Christmas, 2015. The facts are unimportant, but let it be said that it was not even close to the first time I’d tried, but so elementally different from every time before. Suffice it to say I woke up. And when I did, everything was changed.

When you attempt suicide, you do time in a mental ward. It was scary to wake up and be treated like a villain and an imbecile and shuffled around like a burden. No one hugs you when you wake up. No one asks you if you’re ok or if you feel safe or if anyone had tried to hurt you. You are a problem and you have to be warehoused in a 62 degree meat locker. Your bed is a two inch foam mattress covered in plastic. Your sheets are thin and scratchy. And the lights are never off and you are never alone. I’m sorry. I was wrong. Felons are treated better.

But here’s the thing, I went into that hospital and was completely amused with life. Everything was funny. Chocolate milk at lunch was something to look forward to. The inmates antics were hilarious. And I began to smile for what had been years. All because I was finally off terrible medicine that had ruined my physical health and kept me brain dead for longer than should be legal. That alone is a crime, but it’s not important.

I still felt alone in there. It was not easy. No one could tell me when I was getting out. My family thought I was a nutcase/alcoholic/waste of life and they were the only ones who knew where I was. Not even Michael, the love of my goddamned life knew where to find me. At least when I was awake.

At night, despite the surroundings, I was finally able to sleep. Every night in that God forsaken place I dreamed of Michael. And every morning I woke up feeling happy. Me, happy. It didn’t seem possible. My misery ran deep and I drowned in spite. But suddenly none of that mattered.

I came out of there a little skiddish. When you’re away from civilization for a couple weeks, the roads are scary and choices are suddenly overwhelming. My house scared me. My parents had stayed there while I was in the hospital and they’d moved things. I charged my phone and packed a bag of sweats and pajamas. When I went to look at my phone it was filled with calls from Michael who had been the last person to hear from me before I’d blacked out. And then I’d disappeared behind a veil and he spent all that time not knowing what had happened to me.

I called him and told him everything. I told him how he’d accompanied me through everything, even if he didn’t know it. It sounded crazy, I knew. But not so much to him. Michael understood. And he believed me.

Next came Day. I was at home for less than 24 hours when I had an appointment with Day. Michael has connected us. He was a creativity coach or something. I didn’t know, but I set up the meeting because Michael said to do it and I would have swallowed sand if Michael told me to. In a world where I couldn’t trust anyone, I knew Michael’s intentions were always altruistic when it came to me.

In the course of a few months, Day changed my life. He got me meditating a little at a time. The work was really hard. I didn’t have a vocabulary back then to talk about my spirituality, let alone my creative pursuits. I’d been stripped of all self-confidence and identity and I barely had the guts to utter aloud that maybe, sorta, could be I could write? You know, not like a professional or anything. Just, you know, for fun. Or whatever. Never mind. Just ignore me. It was stupid anyway.

That was how I talked about myself back then. But that was unimportant to Day. In my retelling of the suicide attempt he heard a woman with a compelling story and a will to live. And on those two tiny building blocks, he laid the foundation of who I am today.

The woo woo would come in pieces. I wasn’t ready to hear everything when the message came. I had to grow and learn and grow and learn. But, over time, it just…sort of happened. I never set out on this path. I didn’t set an intention or read a book or sign up for a class. I had Day, my therapist Michael and a psychic that I called once a year named Pat. But, because of my very public humiliation, I had been broken enough times that I finally remained open. How very Rumi.

Humility, it turns out, is the beginning and not the end. Only when you are humble are your ready to listen.

I didn’t pretend to know anything. But Day allowed me to wonder with him. And Michael (therapist) allowed me to explore a world without fear of judgment. And Pat was my Glinda the Good Witch who let me know what gifts I’d brought to the table from the very beginning. I was a warrior/healer. Oppositional forces in the same person. How very Gemini of me.

Growing from that place was not easy. My ego had to get out of the driver’s seat. My ego needed labels. My ego needed certainty. My ego needed control. And what I know now is that none of those things matter in the grand scheme of things. Control is a myth sought after by young souls.

I’ve been evolving at a geometric rate. I’m learning things about the universe and things about me that are profoundly earth shattering. All of them freeing and nourishing. I don’t speak in terms of fear. I speak in terms of compassion. I see beauty every goddamned day. And I am humble before all of it. I no longer fear not knowing. The most glorious thing in the world to me is to express that I don’t know and to be surprised by unexpected lessons.

And now that I am more open, I see the signs everywhere. I collect them, and I chart my course by them the way navigators once sailed by the stars. The people who surround me have been sending me signals as well. Coincidences have long given way to signs. When two of the people you love deeply, who have never met, mention Paramahansa Yogananda in the course of two days, and another two mention Gurdjieff in the course of a week, and you feel safe to talk about the things you feel and see that can’t be explained logically, and you can sit in this space of wonder with someone who you’ve just met, and the Universe vibrates with happiness, this overwhelming sense of calm sets in. The struggle that got you to this point is no longer the important part. You’ve tapped into the collective unconscience, the universal truths, galactic time, and pervasive peace. If only for an hour.

Today I had an acupuncture appointment with a woman named Veronica. I was feeling very raw and vulnerable (see the previous post). I walked a block in the wrong direction getting off the train. So I corrected course and went back. And that is when I saw this:

You and I know it’s the Macy’s sign that is there as a callback to Miracle on 34th Street. But the sign was a sign. And it reminded me to believe.

I got to Veronica’s. We talked for an hour about all of the metaphysical things that she had names for and I just seemed to know intrinsically. So much wisdom. So much woo woo that I don’t share. So much reassurance that the work is paying off.

She worked on me a little and then guided me through a meditation. It was glorious. She had me expand to the edges of the room and then to Manhattan, then north, south, east and west in all directions. I could feel myself connecting with my people all over the world. And I get love.

I don’t know much, but I am so very grateful. So very grateful.

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course it’s gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

I hear in my mind all of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind all of this music

Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart