Angels and Demons

Forbidden Knowledge by LJAmlie

Lately I have really begun to feel the diminishment of the extreme polarities I have experienced for most of my life. This has never been more pronounced than it has during my last 6 years in this high alpine valley. It has been a microcosm of the world of duality for me with a spiritual, liberal, alternative town and culture on the east side and an earthy, conservative, conventional town on the west side. I now see how much I needed both "realities" to work their magic of transformation on my psyche and soma.

It seems like no accident that I have spent 10 years studying and training in various modalities to work with the nervous system, body and mind, in order to integrate the ways we divide ourselves internally. My experience is that the world is our projection screen for this internal war and we will never see peace on the outside if we have not faced our own war on the inside.

It has taken so very long for surrender to not feel like sacrifice and submission to me. Finally, after years of circumnavigating this valley of opposites, surrender feels more like trust than terror. Even the divide between trusting the world or trusting my inner guidance is de-polarizing. I begin to once again see how one reflects the other, without a clear sense of which came first, the inner or the outer. My spiritual "chicken or the egg" conundrum is finally dissolving. This may all sound so rudimentary to many on a spiritual path. However, for me it has been profound because it has gone beyond concepts and finally sank deep into my very being.

I have often referred to the last few years as my fall from Grace and wondered what horrible things I did to deserve it. Why would Spirit open me up so wide and lift me to such heights if only to drop me and watch me contract and collapse into helpless confusion. But now I know that Spirit did not DO anything TO me and it was not my punishment for past crimes. Only now can I begin to see it as a gift if anything, because my ego was drunk on enlightenment (with a little "e"!). Yet during that time my recurrent prayer was "let me not succeed at what is not my calling".

Now I also recognize what I knew deep inside all along, I am drawn to where I need to be to support my process of awakening, even if it feels like a time of endless nightmares. For in this tiny ranching/cowboy town I let myself hide and go inward. It has been a time of unpacking my creative gifts that were buried long ago. They lay dormant and hidden because of the power they held to reveal secrets that I felt were dangerous to myself and others. They were put away for the sake of survival at a time when that was of utmost importance.

Finally I let the seismic tremors of panic and terror have voice and vision. Much of what came out was terrifying and confusing, but necessary none-the-less. You see, these are my demons that have since become my friends and my family. They have surrounded me on my walls and called out to me night and day. I did not know if they would kill me or make me mad as a hatter, but I no longer had a choice but to turn and face them.

Liberation by LJAmlie

It seems that my angels were also trapped in there with them and they too were free to come out and play. So they entered this dance of my soma, psyche, soul and we have all been having one Grand Ball together! These Angelic visions gave me the strength to travel though tunnels of terror that I would not wish on anyone. Yet they saw me through to the other side only to find that there are no sides after all. Where this will lead me I have no idea. I only know that the creative flow is now open to express whatever is meant to come through me. I can no longer censor it and bend it to my little will. It is an instrument of Divine Will, which is what I really am...what we all really are.

The result of all of this is that I no longer feel like I have to save anyone from their own horrible and beautiful journey of transformation. That is not mine to decide or to judge. We each have a divine comedy that we are performing in order to remember who we are and what/where Home really is. I cannot answer those questions for you or anyone, but together we may be able to discover them for ourselves....with a little help from our angels and demons!