My health crashed, like the Twin Towers, two months after September 2001.
I was plunged abruptly into a profound state of malaise. Physical well-being and energy levels plummeted. Within a couple of weeks, I’d spiraled from a multi-tasking career woman into an invalid who could barely make the walk across her own living room.
I felt as if I were hibernating.
Like a bear.
My life had closed in on me.
102-degree fevers spiked every night. I had little appetite. Accomplishing even the simplest of tasks took more energy than I had to give. All I could manage was a retreat to my couch for hours and hours in a darkened room with my eyes closed.
I felt as if I were hibernating. Like a bear. With scarcely enough vitality to fix meals or listen to phone messages. My life had closed in on me.
I’d always been a bit of a hypochondriac. This time I was thoroughly convinced I’d contracted some truly hideous malady.
A frustrating sequence of visits to allopathic and integrative physicians made it clear that no one had a clue what was wrong.
Answers from the outside world were not forthcoming and I was entirely too exhausted to continue pursuing them.
All hope had been lost that I would be able to continue my demanding career. A colleague took over and I relented to a time out that had already begun.
Although I’d practiced meditation for years, nothing had prepared me for this plunge into the emptiness of physical and emotional vulnerability.
I didn’t know what to do. I was virtually immobilized.
Since doing much of anything was more than I could do, I had no choice but to Give Up.
Let go. Surrender into life as it was. And that was terrifying.
By December of 2001 as the dark season descended I, too, entered a bleakness. Exhaustion was the emblem for this passage into a Dark Night of the Soul.
Writing this account now, in the era of Covid, there is an oddly familiar tone to the collective zeitgeist. Yet this time, rather than being a solitary journey into the unknown, our planet appears to be taking a similar trip.
The frenetic doing that had characterized my life prior to November 2001 had been replaced with an immovable beingness. Nothing was happening.
When a tiny bit of doingness finally reemerged, it showed up as something entirely fresh. (In my earliest dark days, I’d canceled my newspaper and magazine subscriptions because they transported me into a world whose energies had become too agitating).
I had always been an avid reader.
I dusted off a book that had been neglected on my shelf for several years: “Healing with the Angels”.
I discovered that I had the gift of clairaudience.
While spirituality wasn’t new to me, this read proved to be transformative. It marked the beginning of a road not yet taken, a heart-centered journey into the depths of my Soul.
My days became rotating immersions into … reading … writing … sleeping … reading … writing … sleeping … (You get the picture.)
I discovered while doing the exercises in the book that I had a gift for clairaudience. Inklings (what I now call guidance) started coming to me. Practical messages related to my day-to-day life, which when followed, brought an immediate, positive outcome.
This freshly-discovered talent unearthed reliable information that helped me navigate my very limited life – later, even unearthing the name of a physician who was able to treat my condition to wellness.
I started experiencing what felt like being hit by a bomb — smacked by these sudden, energetic body blows.
One particularly terrifying aspect of my health collapse involved the emergence of an energetic phenomenon which felt like I was being hit by a bomb.
Smacked out of nowhere by these sharp, energetic body blows. An ‘explosion’ would detonate, usually in the chest area, stomach, or at top of my head. This felt not only godawful, but extremely unnerving. What the hell was going on?
I realized later that these ‘mini-explosions’ (which continued for years) had marked the beginning of an ongoing process of awakening kundalini. Over time, the sensations morphed into something quite different – thankfully, occurring mostly at night, but waking me in the wee hours from a less than restful sleep.
Experiences of full-body buzzing, vibrating, throbbing, heat, pounding heart … or, pulsing energy that felt like a super fast-moving river of light (often accompanied by nonspecific fear or anxiety) were typical. Nothing about this was pleasant.
As if that weren’t bad enough, by early January 2002 a nasty head-to-toe rash had also sprung up. Exceedingly itchy and annoying. By this time, I was feeling pretty darn afflicted.
Some days, a depression was penetrating and relentless. Ongoing despair had set in, along with bouts of gripping fear. My thoughts turned to sh*t. I imagined that nothing in my life would ever work out. That I would never get well. And, that I would be alone forever.
Looking back, I can see the poignant irony in that bleak assessment.