He took my hand and he led me to the edge of a swamp. As we approached, I saw the beauty of the lush and green of the cattails on one end, and in the center a small pool of blue faded into the muck, and the marl of a pretty typical swamp.
When we got to the edge my guide took my hand and led me down into it. We just kept walking. I looked over at him quizzically because I wasn’t sure what we were doing as the muck and the merc and the gross and the goo came up over my thighs. We kept going in deeper and deeper. Pretty soon he smiled at me, put his hand on top of my head and dunked me under the water pulling me alongside of him. Somehow, miraculously we could swim amongst the reads and the roots and the dark murky ick, and see where we were going.
In a shamanic journey things don’t always move in ways of logic. We swam down further and further towards the bottom where he pointed out a huge plug and motioned for me to swim down and pull the plug. I looked at him again with total confusion. “What are we doing?” I said to him. He looked at me and laughed because again the fact that we’re underwater in mud breathing normally and talking is nothing unusual in the journey, but I was still there questioning why I should pull the plug.
“Pull it out” he laughed. I stared at him. “Do it” he insisted. I swam to the bottom and I did as he said and yanked that big honking plug out of the bottom of the swamp. We turned around and swam to the top. By the time we got to the shore, the water and goo was receding substantially, and by the time we turned around and sat, all of the goo had drained out the bottom until there was nothing left but that gurgling sound you hear when the water runs down the drain in your sink… or your toilet.
I looked at him still completely confused with the situation and said “that is not how I thought this was gonna go.” He laughed at me (repetitive theme apparently) and handed me a gourd of water. “Drink some.” He went on, “isn’t it funny in life?” I looked at him and I said “isn’t what funny in life?” He turned to me and pointed back to where the swamp had drained, and as I turned my head to look, and following his finger, I began to see an incredible amount of a new life springing forward from the muck. Green things, pink things, purple things, yellow things all teaming with life, bright shiny new, and excited to have had an opportunity to make it to the top and bloom.
He smiled at me “do you get it now?” As I turned back and looked at the swamp once again with life exploding everywhere, the promise of new overtook me. I smiled at the beauty of it all, looked back at him and assured him, the message was starting to sink in.
The fact is we have no idea what’s possible when we let go. That stinking habit mind keeps us believing that if everything stays the same, if it’s always familiar and “the known,” we will be safe and OK and at the same time that is our very demise. We can’t ever stay the same. We’re human, we’re not designed for it. When we release the old goo and let things change, miracles start to happen in places that are totally unexpected, but perfect.
He walked over to the edge of the swamp and scooped out a purple flower with its roots, along with a handful of muck. Coming back to me, he placed it in my hands, and as I received it, I watched the mud drip down through my fingers and land on my knees. The dirt itself was teaming with life. In the soil, I could feel and see millions of microbes teaming with energy and vibration and light, all moving together and then separately, all getting ready to become what they were meant to be. In the middle was this perfect purple bloom. I looked at him and I said “thank you for the crocus. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a lotus,” he said.
I looked at the flower again, in this world it is clearly a crocus but in the Shaman world I will accept that that is now a lotus.
Gross, expansion, and beautiful evolution. From deep within the muck and goo it was just waiting to have the chance to bloom… It’s a lotus.
Forever the journey, Anne