Despite the immense challenges, things slowly began to come together. I got a website up and began sending out regular newsletters and doing some rudimentary accounting. The podcast on animal totems that I co-created with a colleague seemed to be taking off, with hundreds of downloads each week. And somehow, I'd been crowned (albeit by a small group) the “Animal Totem Queen,” known for helping people learn how to receive the messages Beasties were trying to deliver. I comforted myself with the thought that I still had a legitimate job to return to if my dreams failed to materialize. Luckily, help was on the way.
CHAPTER 15
Alice Arrives
“Who is Alice?” asked Mother. “Alice is somebody that nobody can see,” said Frances.
Russell Hoban, A Birthday for Frances
I continued to journey frequently—at least a few times a week and sometimes more. A new spirit helper came forth—an Asian elephant named Alice. I learned it is poor form in some cultures to discuss your spirit helpers openly, but Alice informed me that she enjoys the limelight and wants me to share our connection.
Alice made herself known slowly, perhaps so I could get used to the idea of her. Looking back, she had actually appeared long before Mother Bear, though I had not been conscious of who she was. Years before I even understood who spirits like Alice were, she'd emerged as an image in a collection of vintage chromolithographs of wild animals gathered during my all-consuming découpage phase. I had color photocopied a natural history illustration from the 1800s and cut out an elephant from its background. I remember noticing the kind look she had in her eyes. She seemed to me to be a very warm, pleasing pachyderm, beautifully soft gray, with just the right number of wrinkles. She grew more real in my consciousness, in the way a Polaroid oozes into existence. But when we first met, I wasn't ready to receive a spirit visitor, so Alice took her time.
As I began taking more shamanic journeys to the Upper World, elephants appeared in large herds, even though that realm was supposedly filled with spirits in human form. I had to remind myself that, in these realities, there are no limits. One day, a single elephant appeared. She was standing on a spit of land formed where two rivers met. I wondered if this was the same elephant I'd become aware of through my paper cut-outs and découpage. I asked her and she confirmed that she was. Over time, as I visited her again and again, Alice told me her name.
I record my conversations with Alice in a journal, along with the outcomes of applying the insights I receive from her. Alice's wisdom has helped me tremendously. Often, she laughs about my worldly concerns—not in a cruel way, but in a kind, light-hearted, head-shaking elephant way, as if to say that I shouldn't take my fears so seriously. When I fret and ask frustrated questions—What's going to happen next? Where will I end up? What will it look like?—Alice responds cheerfully that there will be a lot of elephants cheering me on and that I should look for them. Immediately after hearing this, my Facebook wall began filling with postings of elephants from friends and followers.
When I wonder how I can feel entirely harmonious with Mark, Alice responds: Don't worry about him today; just get your own feel-good on and have fun! When I take this advice, I end up having a great day and things with Mark are strangely easy. When I tell Alice that I'm worried that I don't know how I can serve the highest good, she answers: Be yourself! Everybody else is taken. Have fun!
These experiences with Alice often show me how much I belong. When she took me to swim with the whole elephant family, I experienced an unbearable lightness of being, a joyous letting-go filled with childlike wonder. Their enormous, heavy bodies were rendered light and buoyant by the water. They staged a grand underwater ballet, their tree-trunk limbs churning effortlessly beneath the surface as they glided gracefully about. Sprays of water from trunks used as playful water cannons added refreshment. Periodically, they collided ever so gently with one another, just for fun.
Swimming alongside these magnificent beings in this expansive, effervescent rumpus, I began to feel so much love and connection that I thought I would burst. Tears ran down my cheeks and into my ears. Here, with this profoundly sweet family, I understood that I was a part of their circle. Perhaps Alice appeared and escorted me to swim with the elephants because she knew I was better off buoyant. I never wanted to forget this feeling of tender comingling, and I hoped to emulate it back in the ordinary world.
Alice is sometimes zany and theatrical. But she can also be quiet and sensitive. I've heard that spirits often appear to us in ways that we will find appealing. I had a default tendency to get too serious, to squelch the Steve Martin part of my brain—my Heyoka self. Heyoka is the sacred clown contrarian of the Lakota people of the Great Plains of North America who knows how to restore balance by creating mayhem, violating taboos, and acting out or saying things considered unthinkable by society.
To be clear, Alice isn't an archetype or an alter ego. I couldn't be in a companionable relationship with a concept. Archetypes don't converse, surprise, swim, do healing work, or spontaneously dance at the drop of a hat. For me, Alice is as real and distinctive as any other being in my life—except for the fact that she doesn't manifest on the earth. She wears beautiful chains of peonies around her neck that I can press my face into for comfort and to know she is truly here with me. Spending time in these realms with Alice is a curious experience of knowing without knowing—of knowing through body/heart/mind/spirit.
You may argue that Alice is merely an aspect of me, and I'd have to agree. She is a manifestation of God and the Universe. And so am I. In a way, I am Alice and Alice is me, in the same way that you are me and I am you. And yet Alice is also separate from me, in the way that you and I are distinct yet connected by spirit.
Though she is a spirit, Alice can also be pragmatic. When I am confused about how to work productively, she gives me helpful sample schedules—work in early morning, then walk the dog, not the other way around. She also gives me metaphors to help me complete particular projects. Step carefully from lily pad to lily pad. Don't hurry or you'll fall into the river! When I was concerned about using salty language in my second book, she gave me this clarifying advice: Stay out of muddy quagmires. It's the spirit in which things are said that matters.
And there's another thing I want to make clear: Alice is a dear spirit companion, but she doesn't want to control my destiny. In contrast, she cheers me on in whatever destiny I choose. When I ask her what I should create, she always reminds me that it is up to me. For me, Alice is a source of clarity and wisdom about the truth of all matters. While some of the things she tells me may seem obvious, they aren't to me at the time. I ask Alice the questions I most desperately need answered so I can keep going. Alice encourages me.
Alice knows when I can handle her cajoling and when I can't. On days when I am despairing, she gathers the whole herd around me and I feel embraced and loved on a level I've never known. When I feel terribly alone or more helpless than usual, she holds me in an embrace so sweet and peaceful that I know, no matter what, I'll be okay.
One day, while traveling and experiencing an achy loneliness, I awoke in my hotel room, stared at the ceiling, and noted that the sprinkler system resembled the head of an elephant. I knew in a split second that Alice was right there with me. It sounds strange and implausible, I know—a sprinkler-head darshan or divine vision? Perhaps it sounds like a hallucination or merely wishful thinking. All I can report is that it brought me a deep sense of comfort, of knowing I was loved and not alone.
At other times, Alice has appeared to me in Nature—in a piece of wood near a streambed where I am meditating, or in a stone. She shows up in unexpected places, a sweet and powerful presence that I know I can call on anytime.
Charlie and Josephine asked about Alice when they saw images of her on my computer screen and on my mouse pad. I explained: “This is Alice. She's a spirit elephant who helps me—kind of like you having stuffed animals you can talk to who comfort you, or an invisible friend. That's Alice.”
Charlie immediately understood and smiled. Josephine seemed to comprehend, if not entirely approve. Katherine overheard and smiled but said: “Okay, Mom. But you probably shouldn't say that kind of stuff to other people.” When I left to travel, Charlie asked: “Will Alice be going with you?” I replied that of course she would. He smiled and hugged Mr. Pillow-pet, his own green fluffy spirit friend, to his heart.
CHAPTER 16
Hugging Horses
Things that matter don't necessarily make sense.
Russel Hoban, Turtle Diary
Working all the time, reinventing ourselves, and raising kids had taken its toll. Mark and I decided we were long overdue for a getaway, and we headed to St. George, Utah. During the flight, I experienced the complete opposite of enlightenment. Everything my beloved did drove me bat-shit crazy.
We'd both been reading tons of books on self-help. Mark had been studying in Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracker School for several years. Our self-awareness had been growing. I now understood that Mark was a mirror for my consciousness, but right at that moment I couldn't have cared less. The biggest problem? He didn't seem to mind my crankiness at all. Apparently, his mindfulness had overtaken mine. Dammit. To add to the affront, at the spa where we were staying, he was super-effusive with the water-aerobics ladies. This made him even more difficult to bear. Now, he was mindful and popular.
I was drawn to signing up for the Mustang Experience, an opportunity to interact with and learn from wild horses. During coach training, I had heard of Equus therapy and was intrigued. Mark wasn't interested in joining me, quietly remarking that he didn't need to spend money on extra activities, because he was already at a spa. My money guilt aside, however, I felt excited about this opportunity. I was curious to find out what a (formerly wild) horse could teach me.
The spa's driver dropped me off on a desert road at a small collection of trailers and told me he'd be back to get me in a few hours. Three women sporting flannel, well-worn denim, and cowboy boots came out to greet me. My handlers watched me carefully, as if I were a new horse and they didn't quite know what to think of me.
The mustang ladies took me to a round pen containing several horses. The horses ran around and frolicked while one lady pointed out the leader. “You see that one there? She's in charge. They all look to her to see what they should be doing—to stay safe. That other one there being goofy and kicking up his heels? He's the clown.”
It was fascinating—a tiny horse society.
“Horses are matriarchal,” the mustang lady told me. “So, if you want to lead a horse, you need to show them you're worthy of trust. You've got to convince them they should keep an eye on you if they want to stay out of danger. You've gotta be steady and calm.”
I was invited to enter the pen and told to stand in its center. “See if you can get the horse to follow you,” they said, “to do what you ask. It's all about your energy. You can raise your arms up and ask them with your energy to speed up. Then you can try bringing your arms down and ask them to slow down.”
Apparently, mustangs can smell a rat if you are scared, hesitant, or hepped up on your own bullshit. I must have been in a peaceful state, however, because, when I raised my arms as instructed and envisioned the horse running, he did. When I lowered my arms and slowed my energy, he slowed. We were in sync. We did a few more variations on this theme, but, in general, the horse was apparently accepting my leadership.
It seemed so easy that I began to suspect this was only happening because of some training the horse had. Nevertheless, my instructor smiled; she seemed surprised and pleased with my success. Apparently, this cleared me for the next level. Exercise one: Success!
Note to reader: Be wary of early success in the spiritual field!
Soon it was time for the big-finish mustang exercise—the horse hug. One of the mustang ladies asked me, in her brawny but lilting voice, if I was ready. Feeling breezy and confident from my earlier success, I assured her that I was. I was a lead mare on fire.
“This part of the experience is really powerful,” the woman told me. “It's brought many tough cases—hardcore addicts, depressed teenagers, and others—to tears. It's truly capable of causing deep transformation and enormous emotional shifts.”
Suddenly, I was caught off guard. Maybe I should just stick with my earlier success. I wasn't so sure I could also be a successful horse hugger. I mean, I liked hugging, but embracing an equine seemed very—well, different. I sensed an expansive and growing canyon between the woman's excitement and my own desire to move forward with a life-altering horse embrace. We walked over to another fenced-in area in which a horse with painted coloring was tied up to the rail. He eyed me reluctantly. We approached the tied-up horse and my instructor demonstrated the way to wrap my arms around the horse's neck and then twist, so that my body swung gently in front of him, allowing our hearts to connect more directly—horse heart to human heart.
We ran through the horse-hug procedure in much the same way I've heard that Olympians mentally run through their events, envisioning a gold medal before actually securing it. When I laid my hands lightly on the horse's neck, he leaped forward slightly, as if rejecting me (his rope allowed him only a few inches of leeway). “Whoa there,” my instructor gently scolded him, then turned to me. “Do you understand what you need to do?” she asked, her eyes searching my face.
I nodded. It was now or never. I was about to launch into the hug when she abruptly cut in. “Hold up, Sarah. Not yet. Just give us a minute.” While I held off, I regarded the horse. It seemed to me that he was nothing but a pawn. What choice did he have? He was a hugging-horse-for-hire, and I was just another hug-hungry customer from the spa.
The three ladies ran off to a lean-to for some lawn chairs. They lined them up shotgun style about twelve feet from me and settled down in their seats, then grabbed their insulated coffee containers and commenced sipping, readying for my Big Show. One of them bellowed: “Okay, Sarah. Go ahead!” I must have look dazed, because she had to holler again: “You can hug him now!”
In that moment, everything seemed so wrong. I longed to pull a big curtain between me and my horse friend, and the overeager cowgirl audience. I wanted a little privacy for myself and for him. My transcendent experiences weren't for public viewing. I was trying to have a sacred horse hug, even if he was tied up and likely serving me against his will.
I longed for the cosmic shift, the awakening by equine embrace. I glanced hastily at our attentive audience of ranchy women and wanted to run. Or maybe I was telepathic and it was the horse. Leaning over in the least offensive way I could, I wrapped my arms lightly around the horse's neck. Then, in a hesitant, slow, and extremely sketchy sort of surrender, I allowed myself to swing, ever so gently, down in front of his enormous chest. As I dangled myself in front of him, I felt him brace for impact, his whole body tensing in deep-seated disapprobation.
The horse was reticent but committed. I imagined a speech bubble above his head: If I just get through one more of these hugs, I can go for a smoke. Then just one more hug after lunch, and I can send some money home to Grandma and the foals back in Green Valley. I'll suffer through this so that one day we can all be free again!
Great—my horse was freaking Nelson Mandela reincarnated.
As I rode back in the spa's van on the dusty road, I replayed the embrace, searching for some great revelation. I couldn't sense any significant emotional shift. It was just really, really awkward. I'd had an epic horse-intimacy failure and I felt confused. It felt impossible for me to discover anything deeper. What did it all mean? At dinner, Mark told me about the great time he'd had doing yoga and water aerobics. “And it didn't cost anything extra,” he added.
Later that week, as we stayed our last night in Las Vegas before flying home, something in me finally softened. We had a wacky good time eating sushi and drinking beer while we watched pirates do acrobatics and shoot at each other from the masts of a sailing ship. We wound down the night at the top of the (fake) Eiffe
l tower eating fancy cheeses, holding hands, and toasting ourselves while staring out into the rainbow-colored skyline below.
CHAPTER 17
The Healing Stones
In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?
Angeles Arrien, The Four-Fold Way
Mark and I decided to attend a shamanic workshop in the desert near Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. This particular school worked with the teachings and tools of shamans from the Andes and attracted a fun-loving and fantastic group of people from all across the country. There were start-up CEOs, advertising gurus, copywriters, nutritionists, nurses, physicians, chiropractors, and creative entrepreneurs. Everyone seemed pretty normal (and by that, I mean gainfully employed), which was deeply comforting. By now, I was beginning to wonder if anyone who held down an actual paying job did this kind of spiritual work.
When we pulled into the parking area, we saw a dilapidated sign that read “Institute of Mental Physics.” Yes, that sounded about right. The work of personal transformation I'd been doing lately felt really hard, like mental physics. Or maybe spiritual gymnastics. We argued about the best place to park. We were both nervous, and I was feeling more like Crusty the Clown from The Simpsons than a spiritual being.
During one exercise, we were told that the stones we'd been asked to bring from home would become tools for our own healing. “So just hold your stones close and really connect with them,” our instructor said. “Dance with them; bring this connection you share to life! These are your healing stones—for your healing work.” Another instructor cranked up the tunes—a funky, Bohemian riff with a heavy drumbeat—and our group of about fifty adults all began to shuffle around the floor, cradling our stones like newborn babies.
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