I had always thought of “fight or flight,” as at least doing something. This third option, “freeze,” had always felt like a failure to me. Freeze felt passive, or worse, it felt cowardly.
I had tears streaming down my face. It was all beginning to make sense, because I was beginning to understand what was keeping me from healing (all the way back and all the way through).
I had never been able to reconcile the feisty, brave, and precocious girl I was before the assault and then the fact that I didn’t fight, didn’t scream, didn’t even move. I wept as my therapist reached for the tissues and set them gently beside me.
I had been haunted by this unease of not knowing why I didn’t protect myself. There was a part of me that never trusted myself in the same way again, with that same level of ease and love.
I had lost a lot that night, the greatest of which was this unfaltering belief in myself.
Now I understood. I did fight back. I froze. I froze because I ardently believed I wouldn’t survive that assault. I died before I could be killed. I froze because the animal instinct in me kicked in, and it saved me from having to experience the pain.
I did exactly what I was supposed to. I hadn’t failed. I had saved my own life.
How the Long Island Medium Answered My Prayer
They interrogated the soul, “Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?”
— MARY 9:26
Remember when Princess Fiona in Shrek finally gets her true love kiss?
She lifts into the air in a mystical fog of radiant light, rays shooting out of the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. We assume that, when the fog clears, and she’s placed back down on the ground of the cathedral, she will be the lithe, sinewy Fiona she was in the daylight. We trust that true love morphs her permanently into the physical form she loved most.
So, at first, we feel shocked along with her as she takes in her still huge green hands, and her bulky ogre feet. But then she locks eyes with Shrek, and she sees his expression shift from surprise to wonder and then to pure, melted light. We see that she gets it. She gets that the real transformation comes in letting love reach within her where it hasn’t before.
It doesn’t come from turning into the form that her ego wants, or that others might have preferred for her to be. It’s not about making more sense from the outside. It’s about bringing what she had kept hidden, what she only revealed at night, what she kept secret as the thing that was most hideous about her, and returning it to the light.
When I had a three-day panic attack from trying to book my flights to Europe for the pilgrimage, I felt a lot like Fiona. I was shocked and not a little bit horrified to see that this level of fear still lived in me.
I thought I had overcome my fear of flying. I was flying, not comfortably, not without grabbing the hand of whoever happened to be next to me and leaving red marks from the strength of the grip I needed to not lose it during takeoff, turbulence, landing—basically the whole flight. I was flying, but not without a glass of red wine, and sometimes a sedative, and sometimes both.
I meditated after the fear returned until my back was sore. I lassoed my soul to tell me something reassuring. I sobbed. And at the end of it all, I finally asked for guidance. (I seem to only reach spiritual surrender via exhaustion.) So, I went inward. I took a deep breath to descend into the heart. I took a second, deeper breath once there, and felt a calm come over me. I asked, “What is this anxiety wanting me to see?” “What do I still need to learn from this panic disorder?”
I heard, saw, and felt absolutely nothing. I blamed the level of anxiety I was experiencing. I waited. I asked again, “Why has this anxiety returned?” Again, crickets. But I’ve been meditating for long enough now that silence doesn’t upset me. I rested in it for a while and then took the third deep, intentional breath that lets me open my eyes again, now from a place more rooted back into my heart.
As I walked into the living room the next morning, my son had somehow cued up an episode of The Long Island Medium and resumed where it had been paused just as I sat down next to him. I inhaled the smell of his hair, I held his adorable form, gathering as much of him and his long legs as I could in my arms, and I whispered, “Good morning, lovedove.”
He shushed me, and pointed at the TV. Theresa Caputo was describing how her phobias used to keep her confined to her house. Her fear of being in a car, or of even just leaving the house, became so great that at one point her family had to help with her grocery shopping. She was agoraphobic at the height of her anxiety, not able to go anywhere. I got that weird warm feeling as she spoke as if my heart was suddenly pumping honey. I listened really closely then, as if my ears were turning up their capacity to receive sound, as if they could zero in like Superman and hear a pin drop three stories down.
The Long Island Medium went on to explain then that the panic attacks were actually moments when spirit was trying to reach through to her. But she wasn’t listening. The anxiety was like spirit banging pots and pans trying to get her attention. Once she began to listen inward, to receive messages, the anxiety lifted.
I teared up. First, because this was clearly the answer to the question I had asked in my heart. And second, my son had been the one to gift it to me.
I understood then that I was judging the panic attack, as if it was a bad thing. As if it was a step back. As if it wasn’t just more light trying to reach through to me. As if healing is ever linear.
I understood the opportunity I had in this moment. I could treat this fear with the love I never gave it in the past. I judged it. I was ashamed of it. I tried to hide it and medicate it. I treated myself as “special,” meaning broken. I felt damaged because of it. I called it names, as the threatened ego always does whenever we try to free ourselves: “human-killer, space-conqueror.”
In this moment, though, I understood the fear as a form of communication. As a message that there’s so much more support I can receive. I understood it as a chance to be compassionate to this place in me that’s so terrified to fly. I could let love reach where it hasn’t been before. I could let love marry the ogre and the princess inside me.
And that’s how I ended up on a boat to Europe for my pilgrimage to Mary Magdalene. A boat named the Queen Mary. (Of course.)
Sometimes the most loving thing to do doesn’t appear to be the bravest. It’s not about pushing through or overpowering fear. Sometimes we just need to be with where we are terrified. And not ask the terror to leave or change. But dare to become the one who can hold it in a love that didn’t exist before it, a love that grew, and expanded in order to meet it.
THE FOURTH POWER: CRAVING FOR DEATH
A Ship Without Sails
1) TAKE A SELFIE DURING THE FIRE DRILL: There’s a mandatory fire drill before leaving port that everyone on board has to take part in. That’s everyone, all 2,000 passengers and 1,000 officers and staff. You’ll be divided into muster stations, which just means the place where you go if there’s a fire as we’re crossing the ocean. You’ll have to be in your life jacket. It’s very large, very orange, and you’ll most likely be sweating. You’ll be crammed into an odd room, like the cafeteria, or the casino, and one of the officers will be explaining what happens if the worst happens. (Sort of like a flight attendant as the plane is taxiing down the runway toward takeoff.) You’ll be a bit green, if like me, you get dizzy from being on rocking objects, surrounded by more people than most people can manage to be around, and all while wearing a life jacket that keeps reminding you that you’re about to be out where there is no land, in any direction, for seven days. Take a selfie just before you go into a full-blown panic attack. (And obviously, never show it to anyone.) This is the photo you will cherish for the rest of your life. It’s that priceless.
2) NEVER CROSS THE OCEAN ALONE: No one does. And I’m not being dramatic. This is a fact. No one signs up to cross the ocean by boat for seven days completely on her own. That is, except me. Or let me
say this another way. If you cross the ocean alone, just be forewarned that everyone does everything in pairs, and everyone on board expects you to be with a partner, or your family, or at least your elderly mother. No one will even be able to comprehend what the hell you’re doing all alone crossing the ocean on a boat. So, just prepare yourself for the stares, the awkward moments of silence, and the incomprehension as people you meet try to take in that you’re actually single and solo on the ship.
3) BRING A BATTERY-OPERATED CANDLE: And keep it lit. Because, guess what, the path that the ship takes to cross the Atlantic from New York to Southampton, England, passes over the mass grave of the Titanic. Yep. And it’s the most bone-haunting moment you’ll ever witness. And yep, it happens in the middle of the night. And you’ll know about it ahead of time, you’ll know to stay up terrified until the ship has passed over it, because everyone on board will be talking about it, and by everyone, I mean the people you’re assigned to eat with for every meal. They are your lifeline. (That is, if you didn’t heed my advice and you find yourself alone on the Queen Mary.) Your dining crew and your candle: these are your tethers to staying calm. And by staying calm, I just mean, appearing normal. Keep the candle lit at all times. Even during the day. It infuses it with this supernatural power to be this steady light, this one constant, as the days pass, and the sea swells become the new ground beneath you. It’s there with you, like Wilson was there for Tom Hanks’s character in Castaway. And listen, don’t panic if it switches off when the ship passes over the final resting place of the Titanic, as it did for me. Just calmly switch it back on, and say a prayer from the sudden humility you feel, being so small, and helpless, and human, aware of the fathoms extending out beneath you.
4) PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR DREAMS: You know how when you’ve visited the ocean, slept near it, or spent some time walking alongside it, letting the waves race over your feet, or taking time to look out over the horizon, letting your mind try to imagine if there’s anything more beautiful, more ancient and endless, letting yourself feel the pure expansion from just taking in deeper and deeper breaths of that briny air—then you dream like a lunatic? Well, just imagine how amped up your dreaming gets if you’re not sleeping next to the ocean but on it! It’s like an experiment in being human, to be out there where no human can actually exist for very long without fresh water and something to float on. You are, yourself, your body, at an interstice. You’re between landmasses. You’re out there (beyond your depths) at the mercy of the sea (and this ship that’s the length of the Empire State Building). So, trust me, even if you haven’t dreamed in years, or even if you’re someone who wakes up and sort of vaguely remembers a few details but then loses it all as soon as you get out of bed, even if you don’t have an interest in dreams and what they tell us, pay close attention to them. Write them down. (You’ll have time.) And save it. Like the selfie at your muster station before the ship left port. Keep it like a pearl the sea gave you. Don’t share it with anyone. Not if you don’t want to.39
5) YOU WILL HAVE A WILD CRUSH ON THE CAPTAIN: It will not be rational. It will not be something you tell anyone at your dining table. But you will have a wild crush on the captain. No matter how old he is, and no matter your sexual orientation. He will become that god you always said never existed, the one that has a beard and speaks to you in this Old Testament, disembodied voice. And you will trust and believe absolutely everything he says. Which will be at noon, exactly, every day of the crossing. You’ll look forward to his daily updates like the faithful await a Sunday sermon. You’ll even hush the people around you who are somehow unaware that god is on the intercom. He’ll let you know precisely, in longitude and latitude, where you are in the crazy blue that stretches in every direction for as far as you can see. He’ll let you know where, on that particular day, the nearest landmass is, which will feel both comforting and terrifying at the exact same time. He will give you odd bits of maritime history or otherworldly comments about the sea, like how at that very moment you’re passing over a mountain range, and even after he signs off for the day, you’ll remain in the very spot you were standing or sitting when he began his daily talk, letting that visual overpower you and all your senses, taking in this reality that only the alchemists reached: as above, so below. You’ll see the hull of the ship and let your mind travel for leagues until you see them, the tips of the mountain range, the peaks that miraculously exist down there.
6) CROSS YOURSELF INCESSANTLY: Personally, I can never remember if I’m supposed to go to the left or the right first after touching the third-eye area of the forehead. I fumble it up every time. So, if you know how to cross yourself, and it’s something that works for you, lean into it. If you don’t, or if you’re like me and you get your wires crossed when you try to employ it, just do something, anything, that lets you bless yourself when you feel something fortunate happen when you’re at sea. Some examples: I don’t know what the chances would be, slim to nonexistent, that I would know anyone on board (unless, of course, I had invited them). But not only did I know someone on board, I was seated right next to him at my assigned dining table: table number one. He’s one of the best friends of my best friend, Donna. We had met (without remembering it) seven years before when I gave the blessing at Donna’s wedding. He was crossing with his mother for a milestone birthday. Every time we talked about writing (he’s an author) or every time he came to my defense when the three fates would cross-examine me (I’ll talk about them next), I wanted to cross myself. So I said the prayer of the heart instead. Or when Jane Eyre came on in French, to my relief, when I couldn’t sleep after my little candle went off right as we crossed the mass grave of the Titanic. I went straight into the prayer of the heart, on repeat. Or when the quiet, middle-aged man from Devon, sitting with his wife to the other side of me at the dining table, suddenly cut off the table’s conversation to tell us all about a program he saw on Mary Magdalene. And we all stared at him at first like he might be possessed or having some sort of out-of-body experience, because he rarely spoke, much less commanded the attention of the entire table. And then he told us how he had turned up the volume on the telly (love that word) when he realized the program about Mary Magdalene was focused on the debate about whether or not she was really a prostitute. I asked him what he thought of it; he shook his head and said he had fallen asleep halfway through it. But it stuck with him, the debate about who she was. I recited the prayer of the heart right then, too. Because in the moment while he was talking about Mary, and while we were all held rapt, I knew why I was away from my little man, why despite my fear of the return flight, I knew I was doing what I had to do. I had to visit Mary Magdalene’s cave. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And that felt like a blessing.
7) IF FATE ASKS YOU FOR A DRINK, SAY YES: At first, fate didn’t know what to make of me. What was a single mum doing out on holiday by herself. (In other, clearer words, what kind of selfish, shit mum is this?) This is the judgment, and the line of questioning, that my writer friend would help me deflect from fate every evening when I had to face them. They will cross the sea with you, so just be prepared to meet with them. They are destiny personified. There are three of them. And they’re all from Surrey. They’ve known each other for their entire lives and can practically speak in eyebrow. They know each other’s thoughts before they each can think them. They are intimidating and hysterical to be around. And if they ask you out for a drink, just say yes. I said no every night, mostly because you can take the hermit out of her cozy apartment but you can’t take the hermit out of the hermit even if you throw her out to sea. And also because I had misinterpreted the theme of death that kept creeping up in pretty much everything I tried to do. For example, the Shakespeare Theatre Company from London was performing all the death scenes from the classics throughout the crossing. And the only music I happened to go hear, when I forced myself to go do something other than stare at the sea in awe, turned out to be a funeral march from New Orleans. It was the music of deat
h as a celebration, a victory even. Death as the one thing we’ve actually never needed to fear. So, I was mistaken in sort of taking heed because of this death theme on board with us. I should have known that it was about Mary Magdalene. That there’s a love that’s stronger than death, and this is what I had made myself a pilgrim to know. So, I didn’t go out with them until the last night. It was the night of the masquerade in the Queens Room. Gillian, Jackie, and Lilly were dressed to the nines. Set for mingling with the decadence and gluttony. We had an issue with finding the right table. We started at one in the back corner, but Lilly felt we needed to be closer to the dance floor to get chosen. She loves to “pull,” the other two fates told me while laughing. “Pull” is British for attracting men (I think). So, we went to a large table with a velvet booth toward the front of the ballroom. An elderly couple was already sitting there, giving us the stink eye as we joined them. Lilly somehow knocked the table as she was trying to sit down and spilled a healthy splash of the elderly man’s lager right onto his lap. The man’s wife was immediately outraged. And started yelling at Gillian, who didn’t even realize what Lilly had done. Gillian took the brunt of it, though, and got out a tissue (a used one, she later told me). The couple was absolutely incensed and unforgiving. The elderly wife was so worked up, she finally shouted, “Just leave!” The three fates looked at each other, then at me, and we all broke out into hysterics. So we left. And slowly made our way back to the table in the corner where we had started.
I couldn’t stop laughing. Lilly pulled, and I laughed again, as she looked back at us just before she reached the dance floor with this smile of sheer triumph. It felt so good to laugh at everything, like it was a superpower the three fates were reminding me of that I had forgotten. Laugh at the absurd, they whispered. Everything passes. All the details, they fade. But what fate, or destiny, and the ocean have in common is the surrender that’s offered to you. When water is all you can see on the horizon in all directions, for seven days, the soul sees itself in it. The soul feels recognized. It is as vast as this. There’s this acute awareness that the soul is this presence of love within us; and that no matter what, this is what can never be lost. The only death is the one of who you had been before. Or who you thought you were. And you realize now that this is a blessing. To get to die while still living.
Mary Magdalene Revealed Page 15