'Can you see him at the mouth of the cave?' White Bull said to me as I floated in the darkness. It took a while to focus, but when I did, I could see the silhouette of a man lingering outside the cave. He seemed lost.
'You must do it now or else it might take a long time before the opportunity arises again' he continued. He hadn't given me clear instructions on how to proceed. He'd said that my own instinct would take over at the right moment. I wasn't sure.
Since I'd started this healing journey, I got filled with doubt every time I had to complete another task. This excercise was the first of many to retrieve different parts of my soul which supposedly became detached as a result of various traumatic events. These soul shadows were far in the depths of different levels of existence, on inner planes as real as the here and now. I had to reunite with them if I was to move on in my life. It all sounded really easy. It wasn't.
For years I had tried to change my life, to move on from destructive behaviours and negative relationships, but so often I had failed, so I came to White Bull for help. As a Native American shaman, he knew all about these things. He couldn't fix anything for me, but he could take me through various healing processes which would help me feel more together, litterally.
'You must go now!' White Bull's voice became more assertive and I knew how important this was. I could feel it. As I floated in the cool darkness of the cave, I felt a certain affinity with the silhouette that lingered there outside the entrance. I couldn't make out his features, but his posture, and particularly the way he was holding his head in his hands reminded me of myself. I had no doubt we were connected.
My mind kept wandering. I was getting wrapped up in the various stories that make up my life, and getting lost in them. It was hard to focus.
At one point my thoughts were on my childhood; wonderful, peaceful, up there in Voinjama where I was born...the trees, the gigantic trees with a million leaves that never moved when it was morning....the mornings which always had mist...so much mist, I used to wake up early and go outside to run through the muddy earth so I could be in that mist... Then I would just stand there, less than five years old, looking up at the sky which was almost white as the sun hadn't broken through yet. I could hear rice birds calling and I imagined I could understand what they were saying. I was pretty sure they were talking to me...
Back in the cave, I closed my eyes and tried to let go of specific expectations about what should or would happen next. As I did so, I felt a flood of emotions and memories, of times when I'd gotten really out of it with my friends at countless parties. This part of me seemed to have gone away just about when I started all that.
I felt remorse, though I knew guilt was irrelevant. I was there to repair the damage. I took a few deep breaths and relaxed as best I could. Suddenly, I felt a pull from the silhouette. I started to move through the darkness towards the dimly lit cave entrance, straight towards him.
I was scared beyond words. Feelings of dread and high anxiety filled my entire being, but it was too late to stop. Not because of some sense of duty, but because I couldn't! I tried with all my might to stop, to move, to go back to where I was but it just wasn't happening. I just kept drifting slowly towards the figure at the mouth of the cave.
Soon, the pace quickened and I was now flying towards my target. All this time I still didn't know what was going to happen, when or where or indeed if I was going to be able to stop. I took another really deep breath and just let go of all attempts to control the situation. As I did that, I collided with the figure.
Then I went 'through' him somehow, and there was what seemed like a shift in my sight and everything just went blank. With that, all the fear was gone in the same instant. I felt a rush of emotions; I wanted to cry and laugh all at once. It was a strange but somehow relieving sensation.
Even at the moment of impact, I couldn't make out any of his features, except that I was sure he was male. He felt real, with flesh and bones, and breathing rather quickly as though he was scared too.
When I came to, I was babbling. Some of my words alluded to 'everything is working' or something along those lines. I took that to mean that I had achieved my goal. What a relief!
In the moments that followed, I felt peaceful and relaxed. Many thoughts rushed through my mind. I suddenly found myself thinking of people and places I hadn't forgotten about, but rather hadn't though of in so many years.
I remembered going to the top of that steep hill in Mamba Point near home every day after school just to watch the sunset. I remembered feeling like something of an oddity for doing that because my school mates were playing sports and I was watching the sunset. It didn't matter though. Football was never going fill me with inspiration. Watching the sun dissappear into the sea was.
I didn't know why I was thinking about this at the time, but now I do. I was getting back in touch with the part of me that was awed by the simple yet really wondrous things in life. I had forgotten what it was like to feel so deeply inspired.
'Well done' White Bull said. 'We'll do the next retrieval when you are ready'.
'Will it be similar?'
'In some respects, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it'.
We would indeed.
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