Alice and I make it to my favorite rain-swollen river in no time. I realize this river is my Ganges—a place to pray and wash away karma. My thoughts wander back to a recent retreat I led in Thailand, a pachydermal pilgrimage of sorts on which I ended up having another extraordinary teaching from an elephant. This time, it wasn't Alice, but a living, breathing, ten-thousand-pound pachyderm who enlightened me.
We were invited to ride the resident elephants to the river near the inn. They encouraged bareback riding which, we learned, is much more comfy for the elephants than the metal-framed saddles you often see. Knowing the violent history of the domestication of elephants, I was worried about whether riding them at all was a good thing. When I asked Alice, she assured me that this ride would be a blessing.
We clambered up onto a rooftop to await our turn to board. When my turn arrived, I noticed that my elephant had large heavy chains around her neck. At first, I didn't want to accept this. I wanted to be with an elephant who (at least) appeared free. But I realized that it was my turn, and I needed to climb on.
Riding so unsecured atop such a massive beast was terrifying at first. As I relaxed, she kindly tucked her massive ears back over my shins and held me lightly in place. I stretched out my hands and fingers over the bony prominences on her head to steady myself. She automatically began to head slowly toward the rest of our group. As we moved into the forest together toward the river, I could feel my body begin to vibrate all over—a tremor that grew and grew. Then tears started to come. A massive overwhelming wave of love and gratitude was flowing through me. I have ridden on Alice hundreds of times in my journeys, but this was so overwhelmingly and joyfully real. My elephant was so gentle and so incredibly full of power, all at once. Her footsteps glided us along through the world; she was so quiet and sure.
Without formal invitation, all of my spirit helpers spontaneously surrounded me; Alice swam alongside us playfully. Their immense lightness enveloped me. They all seemed drawn there simply to witness my joy. “We are so glad you came and trusted!” they whispered in my ear. I have no earthly idea what the beautiful elephant beneath me was thinking; I only hoped she could sense my joy. After a good ten minutes of riding, crying, shaking, and being blissfully blown away by this experience, I noticed my elephant's chains again. This time, however, they spoke directly to me.
These chains told me that they symbolized the heaviness, the burdens each of us carry. Yet, they assured me, each of us is on a journey moving toward more and more freedom. My mind opened gently and new thoughts flowed. We get to choose how we respond to our own perceived suffering. We can choose lightness. We can ask to be unburdened. Like the weighty elephant who swims effortlessly in the river, we too can become buoyant.
Using a few elliptical, curled leaves I find at the river's edge, I make my prayers. For the first, I gather everything that doesn't serve me and send it into the leaf with a single breath. I blow my requests for strength and guidance into the next leaf. With the third, I ask that suffering be relieved for all. The surge of the rain-swollen river carries my prayers downstream.
Alice and I turn and climb back up the bank. As we do, a beautiful slant of late-afternoon light guides us home on the trail, illuminating raindrops on lush green leaves and making the deep blue-purple stocks of lupine glow pink.
CHAPTER 39
Into the Woods—Then Home
So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable.
Robert Lewis Stevenson, Lay Morals and Other Essays
I've been working steadily with different people who long to be whole again, whose creativity feels blocked, or who have lost their power and feel stalled. Some of them are experiencing what I once did—the feeling that there's something else, some special work they're supposed to be doing. It's just that they're not sure what it is or how to begin. I help them with aid from my spirits. When they ask, I teach them how to connect with their own spirits.
So much has changed since I first walked along the edge of the forest near my house during my first sabbatical, anxious about the great buzzing energy I sensed there. I've stopped being timid and hesitating at the periphery. I now plunge smack dab into the deep woods with awareness.
This fall day, the trails near my house have become brighter overnight with the shedding of dead leaves—as if someone has just switched on the lights. It is the rivers, the stones, the trees, the birds, the flowers, and the sun that are the most powerful reminders to me that we are loved. This beauty—ever-changing, transforming, living and dying and being reborn—is an endless source of inspiration and learning for me. If I've learned anything thus far, it's that my life is extremely blessed and that anything I dream of exists as a possibility. So it's best for me to dream well and be unafraid.
As I walk along, an image of a fetal elephant floating in her watery womb comes back to me. I remember being so touched by the image when I saw it online, because of Alice and all the actual, extraordinary elephants whose families are threatened these days. We may think of elephants as mighty and invincible, but, just like us, they are vulnerable. And right now, all of them need our protection.
On the trail, I stop moving, as I often do when things hit me that feel monumental. Now I see that my musings constitute a great pun from the spirits. Alice, my spiritual guide, is the elephant in the womb. She's been there all along. In my mind's eye, I see that spit of land and the confluence where spirit and matter become one, where whatever I consciously want to create or intend can become real with the help of the spirits. I'm held safely and buoyed by these primal forces, just like Alice in her holy sangam.
The pun gains more strength. I can also see that I'm well suited to addressing the elephant in the room (womb) in a lighthearted way, being an upstanding citizen and a doctor, while also admitting to cavorting with elephants in the spirit world, or talking openly about mental illness, or accepting the beauty of death, or confessing to botched breast implants.
My blow-up Dolly Parton shadow has come to represent a perfect photo-negative of my true self—how I give and receive. Her womb represents divine creativity (sexual and otherwise) and her mouth, symbolic of self-expression, represents speaking my truth. I'm here to create and speak my truth.
I feel as if I'm beginning to understand the trajectory of my last few years, yet my journeys still continue to surprise me. One day, I merge with a spirit I know well, but this time it's different. Once again, I am crammed with ecstasy—every single place it can go in my body, it goes. Once again, I am getting laid by the Universe. But this time, I'm instructed that the ecstasy and power is to be used for good. It's satisfying to be able to contain this power and not scatter it haphazardly, to be a good steward of it.
This ecstatic experience gets me thinking about my relationship with Mark. Why can't we seem to find more time to be snugly and intimate these days? I boldly venture a guess over a glass of wine with him: “Do you think it can be that we have both just gotten so spiritual and so satisfied and peaceful in our lives that those cravings have been eliminated? Some Hindu texts talk about the disappearance of sensual cravings being a sign on the path of enlightenment.”
Mark laughs and says: “No, I don't think that's it.”
Suddenly, we're both laughing—together. The desire to connect is definitely here in both of us. It's just that, somehow, we both need to find more ways to let down our guard. But the crazy thing is that just being aware of this doesn't seem to be helping us to acheive it.
I wake up early the next morning with the idea that we could journey together to ask for a healing from our spirits regarding our desire to be able to give and receive love. I stand next to the bed, with our coffee mugs in my in hands.
“Mark,” I begin, “what do you think about each of us going on a journey to ask our spirits for healing—for us as a couple?”
“Sounds good to me,” he replies sleepily.
“I think our intention should be to ask for a
healing for our relationship and maybe for some advice on what each of us can do to help.”
It's nearly 6:00 in the morning, and the house is dead silent except for the birds starting to wake in the backyard. I shut our bedroom door to keep the dog out, and we lie down on the floor, side by side. Mark throws a blanket over himself, and I grab my fuzzy robe to stay warm. I lay my cell phone on the floor between us and start the drumming track.
I travel to the Upper World and make my request. I see Mark and myself lying side by side on the soft ground. My spirits all appear and begin working on us. First, they place a rose in each of our hearts. I have the sense that all of the heaviness between us is being removed. There's a lot of dancing going on around us. And then Charlotte, my spider spirit, begins to weave the two of us together lovingly with the most exquisite gossamer filament, lacing us body to body, spirit to spirit. Over and over, she dives through us and around us, laying down a continuous interconnecting thread. This unusual laced web is invisible yet strong. I'm told that all I need to do is “be myself,” which practically makes me laugh out loud. Thank God! I'm tired of trying to be the person I keep thinking Mark wants me to be—more organized, more meticulous, more subdued.
When the drum calls us both back, Mark shares that, in his experience, he was instructed to “allow”—to be able to receive. Recently, when I tried to hug him or touch him, he sometimes rebuffed me or grew irritated. But he wants to be more receptive now.
I share what I saw. Once again, the space between us has been made tender by the love and compassion of the Universe. We embrace and find ourselves yielding to each other on a new, sweeter, more fearless level. Together, we feel directed to slip beneath the still-warm covers of our bed to love and to be held lovingly by the mysterious forces that join us.
I am home once more.
Acknowledgments
I must begin my thanks with a loving and reverent shout out to God and to the loving and compassionate beings in both the Upper and Lower Worlds. Thank you for all the unlimited love, care, guidance, and encouragement you give me. I hope this work honors you and inspires others to explore the loving realities where you dwell.
I thank Mark for allowing me to write so transparently about his/our private life and for supporting me and loving me. I can't wait to keep getting to know you! I am also deeply indebted to our children—George, Katherine, Josephine, and Charlie—who generously agreed to be part of this book. Each of you teach me to be a better person in your own way. I love you.
Mom, I was only able to stay afloat on this project with your help—lovingly reading and rereading the manuscript every time I asked, cleaning it up, and making brilliant comments in the margins. I'm also deeply grateful to you, Dad (the greatest dad in the whole world!), for being willing to do shamanic healing and letting me share your story. I thank my wonderful sister, Maria, for reading rough drafts, for reminding me to show not tell, and for encouraging me to go straight for the enema.
I thank my beloved friend Suzi for calling me on the phone shouting excitedly after reading the first draft. You gave me so much fire and stamina to carry on to the finish. I thank Besty Rapoport for her brilliant editorial shaping and life coaching. Without you, I never would have met Jane Dystel, my wickedly sharp and gorgeous agent, who wisely admonished me: “Less talk and more email, Sarah.” Thank you for believing in me—and I am working on it! Thanks to Grace Kerina, who was there at the book's conception and helped me get it to the second trimester. I owe all of my writing to you, as you believed that I could write another book. And thanks to Meghan Fordice, my Mary Poppins, without whose care our family would not be what it is.
I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Cleo Ashworth, Donna Ashworth, and Katari Ashworth-Tafs for inviting me into your lives and trusting me with Mollie's story.
I found many amazing pilgrims along my various journeys, and I thank each of them for taking time to help me understand my experience better: Catharine Larsen, the charming man from Scotland who danced after reading Born to FREAK, Yogi Grayhair (Lloyd), Jon (Kosuke) Harada, Jo Anne Harada, Deb Adele, Mary Beth Liesen, Sarah Gorham, Diane Bemel, Joy Illikanen, M. L. Sather, Kris Thoeni, Joani Nunez, Martha Atkins, Michele Caron, and Nancy Knutson.
I am grateful to Michael Harner for his books, and to the Foundation for Shamanic Studies for their guidance. Deep gratitude to Timothy Cope, my first teacher, and to Alicia Gates, my guide for the three-year program. My life was changed by you. There are no words for the beautiful work you do. A'ho.
Thanks also to the Martha Beck Institute, the tribe, and all of the wonderful opportunities you create. And especially to Martha for daring to write the most helpful and magical books. I am deeply grateful for your encouragement and will treasure my hours at your feet, learning how to write things that can help. To learn more about coach training and other classes, check out Marthabeck.com.
This book would not have progressed without the help of many others: Miriam Goderich, Lisa Dunford, Deb Reber, Darla Bruni, Jessica Roeder, Lynn Blaney Hess, Amy Pearson, Lissa Rankin, Mei Mei Fox, and Jaimal Yogis. Thanks to you all.
And last on the pilgrimage, the lovely people at Conari Press/Red Wheel/Weiser Books. Especially to Christine LeBlond for believing in this project and patiently holding my hand as we made the story more lucid and clear. Thanks to the amazing copyeditor Laurie Trufant, whose careful eye was able to see so clearly what I could not, and to Jane Hagaman for taking it all to the finish line. And a special thanks to Kathryn Sky-Peck and your team for the beautiful cover art of Alice and the Taj.
About the Author
The planet does not need more successful people.
The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers,
restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.
The Dalai Lama
SARAH BAMFORD SEIDELMANN is a fourth-generation physician turned shamanic healer and life coach, who deeply enjoys shenanigans. She's been a frequent guest blogger at Maria Shriver's site for Architects of Change and has led sold-out retreats combining surfing and shamanism in Hawaii and a sacred pachydermal pilgrimage to Thailand. She loves to help others find their own “feel good” so they can live courageously and enthusiastically. Visit Sarah at followyourfeelgood.com.
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