The Time Alex and I Saw a Psychic

Juanita works at the 24-hour massage parlor.  Everyone knows it's really a brothel. It's a yellow building with five-foot-tall pink flamingo on the sides in paint that was probably once very vibrant.  Now, during the hundred degree summer nights, everything in Phoenix seems to be covered in a dusty film.  July in the desert is seen through various filters of pastel depression.  Alex is having a hard time tonight, too, and we figure now would be a good time to get really stoned and get a palm reading.

We want our psychic readings like we want our Taco Bell: cheap, cheesy, and open at eight o'clock on a Friday night.

And that's how we find Juanita.

Alex and I stand in front of the massage parlor's front door.  Like the windows, it's covered with thick iron bars that are slathered in coats of the same faded yellow paint as the rest of the place.  Funny enough, it is built right next to a Taco Bell. Alex presses the call button (also yellow) to let whomever is inside know that the two people who had called and made appointments for palm readings have arrived.  We are a pair, standing in front of a brothel on a Friday night.  Alex has a mohawk and he has started to let his beard grow out over the summer.  I have been losing weight from stress so none of my clothes fit anymore, and my hair is neon pink.  Oh, Juanita, have fun down there with those damned hipster kids.

She shows up with the keys to the front door in her hand.  Juanita is both prettier and younger than I thought our psychic would be.  She's short and round and has a genuine smile. She's surrounded by a very calm and welcoming energy, and as she pulls open the heavy metal gate over the door, I notice a pink canister of pepper spray and I wonder if she has ever been forced to use it.

Alex gets his reading first, and this means that I am being contained in the waiting room that serves both Juanita's clientele and the massage parlor's.  Since I am the only person in the waiting room, I don't mind too much.  The windows in the waiting room are made of stained glass, and every time a car drives by outside, the headlights made the room burst into fractals.   The downside to this is that since cars are constantly driving by, the room is now very noisy and that means I can't eavesdrop on Alex's palm reading.

Ten minutes later, Alex opens the door, and it is my turn.

"So how do you two know each other?" Juanita asks me, referring to Alex.

"He came into the salon where  I work, and we were just kind of instantly friends" I reply, sitting across the desk from her.

I put my hands up on the desk and press my fingers together, then I proceed to fold and then unfold my hands, because I have never had my palms read before; do I wait to be told to present my palms or do I just throw them on up there?  These are things no one talks about and everyone needs to know.

"I am going to do a basic reading," Juanita tells me.  "Very general, nothing too in-depth, okay?  And good or bad, I'm just telling you what I see, no judgement, no hard feelings."


I nod, I stretch my open hands out towards her.  Juanita looks at them one time and immediately begins talking.

"I see here you are a very strong person.  You have been through a lot to become this strong.  I see that you are also a very kind person, but you are not seeing the karmic payback for any of your kindness; you're just getting bad luck constantly and you are thinking this is not fair.  Your life is like a roller coaster, okay?  And you just need to try and get through this down time.  You'll come back up eventually, but not right now.  You started this year very off balance, with an emptiness in you, inside your body, some sort of trauma, okay?  And you're trying to find balance with all the chaos around you."

I can't tell if my amazement is the result of me reading into Juanita's generalized observations in hopes of relief from the summer or if maybe she is the real deal, giving me an honest psychic experience.

"This year is a very bad year for you, and I'm sorry to say it's not going to get any easier until 2016.  That's gonna be your year, okay?  In the meantime, just try to keep your head down and get through this year.  You have very good spirit guides, they take really good care of you, but you have a chakra that needs cleaning and it's creating this gateway, like a portal, to one of your past lives.  You were a very evil woman in a past life...you were a witch."

When she says "witch" I pull my hands away.  I tell Juanita that as a child, I used to have recurring nightmares about being burned alive as a witch.  I know that I should try and play it cool and that this is just giving her more information than I should.  I know that but I tell her anyway.

She goes on.

"I see paperwork, legal documents, a courtroom.  Are you going through a divorce?"

I tell her yes, I am.

"It's not going to go as easily as it seems.  It's going to take longer than you think.  I also see a class?  Something that you put off for yourself awhile back.  Figure out what that is and get back to it."

Juanita tells me that I'm getting ready to go on a trip to see someone I love, in the next three weeks, to somewhere close.  California?

"Yeah, I'm going in two weeks to see my best friend, Charlie, in Hollywood."

"It's going to be a good trip.  Look forward to that, okay?"

I thank Juanita.  She gives me a hug and tells me I can come back anytime for chakra cleaning.  Alex and I pay her, twenty-five dollars apiece in cash, then we go to gay Denny's to discuss and compare our readings.

"Did she try to sell you chakra cleaning?" I ask him.


"No, it was super quick and super general.  Just a few, 'this line means this and this line means this' and that was it.  She did the reading so quickly, she felt bad for charging me full price so she let me ask her a question."

"So what did you ask her?"

Alex shrugs and says, "I asked her if I'd finish my book and she said that I will but that it will be a few years down the road. So she tried to sell you chakra cleaning?  How did that happen?"

I tell him everything I can recall from my reading, so he can analyze it now and so I can remember it all later. The bits about the divorce, the past lives, the starting the year off with an internal emptiness and no karmic payoff...I'm pretty sure I don't leave anything out.  Alex just listens.

"Dude," I say "Did you tell her I was getting divorced or started this year off with one kidney?"

"Nope," Alex says.  "We didn't talk about you.  I didn't talk at all, really.  Maybe I should have said more, then maybe I would have gotten a better reading.  I was too high to respond to anything she said."

I nod, take a drink of my hot coffee, and try to keep my head down for the rest of the summer.

One year

Twelve months ago, everything changed.


Everything.


It's amazing to look back now and to see the effect that surgery would have on every other aspect of my life.  I went into kidney donation thinking I was doing something to help change a stranger's life, and while I'm sure that I did accomplish that, I will admit that I was completely unprepared for the change it would bring about in my own life.


Nothing is the same.

NOTHING.

New home, new job, new car, new diet, new medicines, new freedom, new plans, new adventures, new friends, new stories, new priorities, new outlooks, new books, new life.

And I can trace it all back the one spirit journey, riding the Mission Beach roller coaster at midnight two summers ago during Comic Con.  Things in my life were alright.  I was married to a nice guy, we lived in a cute house in Phoenix, and I was out of hair school and working in a salon that I really liked.  Everything was...fine?  So why did I feel so lost and restless?  I had everything I had told myself that I wanted.  I didn't know what my next step should be, and it was starting to drive me crazy.  So I rode the roller coaster at midnight.  I sat by the ocean.  And a few days later, while sitting at Dairy Queen with my daughter, it just hit me: I was going to donate a kidney.  It was something that I was going to do.  Simple as that.


Then it was a whirlwind of testing and obsessing before it actually happened on December 1st.  Once those lines were cut, once I woke up in that hospital bed,   I felt so... free.  I saw my life for the gift it was. For what it still is.   It's my life!  It's mine to live and it's up to me to spend energy on the things that I love.  It doesn't matter what I've been told is the right way to live.  It doesn't matter what I think I'm supposed to be doing at my age. It doesn't matter that nothing is terrible and that everything is fine. It's not fine. I learned the hard way that if I don't stay true to myself, I will feel trapped and stagnant.  I will spend my time wondering what's wrong with me, trying to figure out why I'm unhappy when everything should be great.

BUT... if I follow the opportunities that make me feel love, I will be shown even more opportunities.  And even if times get hard, even if I run out of money, even if I feel like I'm going crazy....I will not feel trapped.  I will have an infinite amount of opportunities in front of me.  I will be free.

That's what happened when I donated the kidney.  I saw through the bullshit that I had been feeding myself for years.  I saw what I needed to do.  I accepted that I didn't want the things that I once thought I wanted.  I took a chance.  Then I took more.  It wasn't always easy.  It's still not.  But it is my life.  And it's a beautiful, scary, fantastic life. And I am living it so much harder now with more adventure, more openness, more honesty, and with one kidney. 

What I'm thankful for, 2015

1. A daughter who is happy and healthy

2. Everyone else in my family, blood-related and otherwise.

3. Friends, new and old 

4.  Ayahuasca and the things it has shown me and all it will show me in thefuture 

5. A job that doesn't give me anxiety 

6. People who let me do their hair in the kitchen because my job doesn't pay very much

7. A car that gets me from point A to point B

8. A place of my own to live that is safe and adorable 

9. My kidney recipient for turning my world upside down and showing me what true courage and freedom can be

10. Adventure

This Thanksgiving is completely different than any I have ever had before. I was supposed to spend it with a friend, but I caught a cold and spent the day (mostly) alone. Other than the sniffling and stuff, it was one the best holidays I've ever had. I knew my kid was with her dad's family, eating turkey and running around with her cousins. I didn't have to entertain anyone or worry about what they wanted to eat or do all day.  I could just fix myself some food, sit on the couch, watch tv, read, write, and be by myself.  For the first time in years, I got to spend Thanksgiving thinking about the things I am thankful for. Like really thankful for. Like the fact that I was born a human in this time period in this country. It is a miracle that my body came to be formed at all, especially in a place and time where I don't have to worry about scarlet fever or gential mutilation, and isn't that what the holidays are really about?

I don't know if I would have appreciated my own company as much in the past, but it's pretty nice. Plus, as things change, as life goes on, I know that alone time may not always be so easy to come by. Spending this next summer out of state and living out of my car is probably one of the most exciting things I have to look forward to, but in the meantime, I'm going to appreciate this bathtub while I have it. And yes, I may or may not be typing this on my phone while in the bathtub. My only regret is not bringing a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes in here as well...

I hope that your Thanksgiving is filled with love and gratitude, whether you are surrounded my family or whether you are spending it alone. Either way, I hope you feel peaceful and free and genuinely happy.

Rebirth

There is no way for me to type out my Ayahuasca experience. The written word has no room, in any known language, for what I experienced six days ago. I can't even journal it in a way that makes sense.

 

So give me a little more time. 

I'll make a video post describing my ceremony, and even though I know it won't do it justice either, it will be something a little closer to the truth. But there are some things I can tell you now...

I know my purpose.

I know where I came from.

I have started to learn a second language.

I have physically experienced and relived what it was like for our fishy ancestors to crawl onto land for the first time.

I have a lot more work to do.

And most importantly...

The gut blob is gone. Just like that, it is no more. 

I promise more on all of this once I get a chance to make a video.

I hold so much love in my heart for every one of you.

Ayahuasca is absolutely, 100% the most pure and raw form of medicine that I have ever witnessed, and my soul has been healed.  I owe my life to Mama Ayahuasca and I will spend the rest of my life working to make the most of what I have been given. 

I have never felt so much love in my life.

It was incredible.

Famous Last Words

It's here.

I can't decide if I'm preparing for Disneyland or my execution. I think both are probably pretty close. 

I don't have a lot to say except that I don't have any expectations, really, but I am ready for whatever Mama Aya gives me.

I've got my list of things to pack. I have an offering for her. I have my intention. I bought a neon pink pair of long johns in the kids' section at Target because it's gonna be cold tonight. And I'm bringing my snow bear from when I was a kid.

I'll share as much as I can as soon as I can. I have no idea how long it will take me to process everything, so please be patient with me. 

I love you all. And I'm hoping to be capable of loving you (and myself) even harder once I come out of this on the other side.

Over and out, captain.

The Chemical Our Brain Releases When We Die.

What's it like drinking Ayahuasca?
 
Some people compare it to being shot out into space.
Others claim that it's more like dying.
Or being born.
Or an exorcism.
Years of therapy condensed into a few hours.
Lifetimes of memory recall.
Losing control completely.
It's loss of time.
Loss of ego.
It's being thrust into the deepest darkest parts of your mind.
It's being (quite literally) face-to-face with your demons.
Face-to-face with God.
With yourself.
It's realizing that all three of those things are the same.

I honestly have no idea what drinking Ayahuasca will be like.  But I'm doing it in two weeks, and I'm sure I will have a lot to say about it after Ceremony.  Right now, though, I can only compare it to falling in love.  Every song I hear is suddenly about Mama Aya, every conversation makes its way to ceremony, every day is a countdown to when I finally get to meet her. 


I understand how all of this sounds to most of you guys.  It is some crazy, hippie bullshit.  It gets weirder, so strap in tight, kids.

She started calling me over a month ago, waking me up at three o'clock in the morning, not in a menacing or an urgent way, but more playful.  "Let's go!" she would giggle.  "Come on!  Let's play!" 

I told you it got weirder.  But that's the only way I can describe it.  She would wake me up in the middle of the night until I did more research, I read books, I met with friends and shamans and made plans to take the medicine.   There is no other way for me to explain it, or believe me, I would.  I was being called. And just in time, too, I might add.  There are things I need to find out.  There are wounds that need to heal.  There is wisdom that needs to be shared.  And eventually... maybe in this ceremony, maybe in one years down the road, Aya and I will play.

Dieta is hard, I will admit.  Giving up weed was not fun, as much as I don't like admitting it.  Neither was giving up ice cream.  Bread.  Salt.  Everywhere I go, fried foods and pastries taunt my nose.  Oils and sugars have been the most difficult, for sure.  But I want this.  I want to go into this as honestly and as humbly as I can.

And I've noticed things changing.  My dreams are vivid.  She appears in them occasionally, telling me to write apology/forgiveness letters to my father.  She pushes me to write, to create, to share my stories.  She shows me old friends that had my back way before we even decided to come to Earth to be human.  She gives me flashes of information (like being shown a movie for just a split second on a black screen right in front of my face) of the vastness and overwhelming awe of time and space, and then she shoves me back into my living room couch.  "Everything is connected," she tells me, "You can see it if you stay open". 

All of this, and I don't even drink the medicine for another two weeks. 

It's going to be big...

I'm scared to see what she may show me.  All of this self-abuse that I've inflicted, all of these lies I've told, these walls and false faces I've put up for ones reason or another- I'm going to have to answer to it. But at the end of it all, I will come out of it with knowledge, with more questions, and being more Sophie than I have been since I can remember.  And that will be a beautiful thing.

Thank you so much, as you read this.  Whether you know me or not.  Whether you like me or not.  Whether we speak daily or if you just stumbled across my blog.  We are all connected, and we are here to learn from one another.  I raise my glass of black coffee to you, even though I still can't help but wish it had caramel in there, too.

Here's to freedom.  Here's to friends who understand and support, to friends who don't understand but support anyway.  Here's to being shot into space and lifting the veil and to dying and rebirth.  Here's to synchronicity.  Here's to being called to do something big and following it despite all rationality.  Here's to the panic attacks that show us how delicate we are.  Here's to the next day when we realize how strong we are for surviving.  Here's to feeling love on a bigger level.   Here's to heartbreak. Here's to feeling everything we possibly can while we are here on earth for a few precious years.  Here's to learning and failing and learning and failing and learning and failing. 
Here's to being connected.
Here's to being open.

La Medicina

Ceremony is October 30th.

While I haven't buckled down on Ayahuasca Dieta yet, I have seriously cut down on my weed, dairy, salt, and sugar intake.  I have been trying my best to journal all of it- my hopes to purge all of the dark blob that has lived in my gut since I can remember and also the fears I have of seeing everything in that dark blob manifested in front of me.  I'm both humbled and terrified by the idea of stripping down all of the layers of my personality, breaking through my ego, and seeing what is truly there.  Will I like what I see? Will I even recognize myself?  Sometimes I wonder if there will even be anything left once all the bullshit has been cleared away. 

If you think I'm doing this to trip balls in the desert, you are sorely mistaken.

I'm doing this because I am ready to face that dark blob in my gut.
I am sick of being stuck in the same relationship cycles.
I'm sick of feeling trapped.
I'm sick of superficial conversations and feeling like I'm pretending to be a human.
I'm sick of having to smoke weed to get through stressful times.
I'm sick of being tired all day.
I'm sick of comparing myself to other people.
I'm sick of worrying that revealing my true self will also reveal that I'm mentally ill.
I'm sick of lying.
I'm sick of grieving for people who died almost twenty years ago.
I'm sick.
And there's a reason they call it Medicine.

It's not a quick fix, by any means.  The work that I will do on the 30th of October will only be the start of a long process filled with its own ups and downs.  I am alright with that.  The pills I tried before this only treat the symptoms, and they make me apathetic and lethargic. 

The other night, I let myself cry, really cry, for a long time.  It started out with tears of frustration, but once I opened up and let myself feel the sadness, it wouldn't stop.  Every bad thing that I had seen or done or heard or thought, every death I had mourned, every mistake I had made, it all came crashing down onto my chest. I felt judged in the worst possible way, like I was sitting in a courtroom across from every other human being in the world and they were pronouncing me guilty before I could even open my mouth to defend myself.  For the first time in my life, it was too much. 
I didn't know what else to do.
"PLEASE," I called out to my ceiling and whatever was out there that would listen.
"Please, please, please make it stop!  No more!  I can't take any more!"
The contents of entire rivers poured down the sides of my face while I continued to pray for the first time since Brandon died.
I wasn't praying to the Christian God that I had been raised with.  I wasn't praying to the Patron Saint of anything.  I wasn't even praying to Mother Ayahuasca.  I was pleading with anyone, anything that would take mercy on me.  A higher power.   A lower life form.  Anything that could turn the volume down on my life just until I got my shit together. 
After another minute or so of bawling on my bed, I wiped away my tears, I sat up, and I pulled my shoulders back.
You are a force, a powerful being, I told myself.  You have no other choice except to deal with this shit.  Now DEAL.  After my mental pep talk, I pulled myself off my bed.  From somewhere in my brain, the idea came to me that all of these bad things that I was dealing with- the bad decisions, the abuse, the mistakes, everything that has been beating me down this summer- it was all my doing.  I became aware that I had CHOSEN to have these things happen to me before I even started out in this life.  I had decided before I was even born that I needed all of these terrible things to happen so that I could learn from it.  And that thought, while it disappeared as quickly as it came, did not make me feel any better; it only continued to frighten me.
I marched into my living room with a sense of purpose and general ass-kickery to combat this depressive episode.  In my head, I personified it into this slimy, giant creature, and I was coming out swinging.  I am going to do some yoga, I told myself, to bring myself to center and to remind myself how strong I can be.
And then it happened...
As I pulled my mat from its spot in the corner of the room, I looked over at the framed photographs I keep of my family.  My sister, my mother, my stepsister, my beautiful daughter.  All of them stared at me behind glass, and I did not recognize a goddamned one of them.
I'm not being metaphorical.  I'm not exaggerating.
I could process that these people were related to me and I was aware that they were people in my life, but there was no emotional connection to them.  They could have been any four strangers on the street for all my heart knew.  The more I tried to attach myself to my family, the more distant they felt from me.
It had never gotten this bad before. 
I unrolled my mat with shaking hands and repeated out loud to myself the only thing I could think to say, "There is good.  There is love.  There is good.  There is love".
If you have ever been to my house, you know that I fill it full of things that make me feel good (because, let's face it, when you make eight dollars an hour, you tend to spend a lot of time at home).  My bookshelf, my walls, everything in my home has a purpose, and it all has been put together in a way that makes me feel like I am in my own space.  But my living room that night may as well have been a dark, empty cave on another planet in another dimension.  The bookshelf, the books, the art, even the crayon drawings on my fridge were foreign to me.  Nothing felt normal or comforting.  From where I was standing, I could see no good, no love.  But I didn't know what to do so I just kept repeating it to myself while I tried to stretch and breathe. 
After about an hour or so of poses, I wrapped my arms around myself.  I felt so tiny and weak.  I wondered if this is how my friends feel when I hug them.  I have lost a shit ton of weight since the surgery and the divorce, and I could feel it when my fingers found homes in the gaps in my rib cage.  Nevertheless, I pulled myself even closer, digging my fingertips in further.  "There is good.  There is love". Over and over again.  I felt a little better.
More poses.  More hugging.  More chanting out loud like a lunatic.
Once my house began to feel more familiar, I turned on all of my lights and burned some sage, leading the smoke out the front door of my tiny apartment.  Yes, it's a hippie thing to do.  But after an evening of praying to my ceiling and not recognizing my own family, feeling silly for burning some sage was the least of my worries.
I felt a little better, but I was shaken up for the rest of the night.  To be honest, I 'm still recovering from it.


I debated for days about whether or not to post this story.  It's not a happy one.  It's not even a sane one.  It negates logic and reason and everything that I have held true, and it only reaffirms the idea that I am crazy and incurable.  But the truth is, this is something real that happened to me.  It could happen again.  That's the bad news.

The good news is, wounded and broken, I'm still standing. 
The good news is, somewhere in space and time, I've already taken the Medicine.
The good news is that there IS good.  There IS love.
And I'm going to find it in myself, over and over, until it has become a part of me.