Lyrics: When you’re weary/ feeling small/ When tears are in your eyes/ I will dry them all…
I experienced a paranormal event several years ago. Alone on retreat at a friend’s home on Lopez Island, I awoke in the middle of the night in extreme fear. I tried all the calming tricks I knew; deep breathing, visualization, counting backwards, while listening for sounds in the other room. Immobilized by fear, I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest. In desperation and without thinking, I simply surrendered and turned it over, “God, you’ll have to take this one. I can’t do it myself.” The fear vanished immediately and, in the place of fear, there were three white wolves; one outside, one in the living room, and one laying down in the doorway to my room. I got out of bed, stepped over the wolf in the doorway, used the bathroom, returned to the bedroom, stepping over the wolf again, got into bed, and went right to sleep. It never occurred to me to question the form in which my prayer was answered.
The wolves have been with me since then whenever I feel the need for protection. I’m not a fearful person however, living alone since the death of my husband, I sometimes question the placement of things (did I put that there or where did that come from?) or hear sounds at night from the basement like a woman’s voice, eventually traced to a talking smoke detector, but usually it’s the furnace in the throes of shutting down or the refrigerator ice-maker, or noises outside. Whatever and whenever, I just lower my hand down to where the white wolf waits and I’m comforted and reassured.
A psychiatrist/psychologist/western medical doctor/scientist/and anyone in your family or mine, will tell you it’s all in my head. Yes, it is. Somehow that’s intended to invalidate the experience. It doesn’t. Remember, I was there. Welcome to my reality; a combination of the known physical and the unknown metaphysical.
We live in a culture of multiple realities; political, religious, social, environmental, psychological, medical, conditioned beliefs, and more. The more fundamental religious belief systems appeal to the insecure because they promise to have the answers and offer security. Think of the Kool-Aid, Disciples of Christ pastor, Jim Jones. That Great Fear Peddler, Donald Trump, promised the same false security, and his kind of reality appealed to many, but not the majority. The majority must now contend with his narcissistic reality. Psychiatrists meeting at Yale’s School of Medicine last month stated they had an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump’s dangerous mental illness. We wonder who’s listening?
One of my spiritual teachers once talked about enlightenment; how we wake up enlightened but then we fall back to sleep. It’s historically imperative now that we wake up and stay awake. Viva La France for waking up.
Lyrics: I’m on your side/ When times get rough/ And friends just can’t be found/ Like a Bridge Over Trouble Water/ I will lay me down. Words and music by Paul Simon 1969. (Ascolta! Gianluca Ginoble Youtube Bridge Over Troubled Water. Beautiful. Enjoy.)
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Beautiful – and what is “reality” anyway? (says Jean who I talk to often)
Thanks, Barb. I have panthers.
I like your wolves, Barb. They seem protective. I have cats in my head, and I’m not even a cat lover.
We must stay awake. Otherwise we will miss a lot of things, some of them important. They are there, but we just won’t see them. We are always protected, even from a fear peddling child. An ever present source when needed. All is well. Thanks for the reminder.