Being the ever-inquisitive hobbit that I am, I recently
went to one of the traveling "Psychic Fairs" that manifest themselves in
towns across the country as a circuit show of card-readers, crystal dealers,
and psychics of all shapes, sizes and persuasions. This one was taking
place in a hotel conference room in south Austin. The announcement for
the fair was rather confusing, as there are two hotels in town with the
same name, and no mention was made of which particular one the fair was
at (I guess we were supposed to use our psychic abilities to figure that
out). We, naturally, drove to the wrong hotel first. This lack of clarity
in the announcement resulted in a lot of misdirected people doing the same
thing. (Remember that phrase, "misdirected people". It will be used again.)
My purpose? I had been having an extreme emotional gut-reaction
(you will appreciate my choice of description soon enough) to a close friend's
latest romantic involvement. This is not really a new thing. I suppose
I should explain a little about myself, and about Schuyler, and our relationship.
If you have read my rantings before, you know that I am an anarchic thinker,
and have my own, very unique, ideas about "Life, the Universe, and Everything",
and that I actively seek out any investigative tool which might help me
in honing my perceptions of said ball-o-wax, My anarchy extends to every
area of thought and life, including interpersonal relationships, sexuality,
and tribal/family/friendship structure. I espouse a personal theory of
Universal Sexuality. I believe that all human beings are what I call Universally
Sexual. I choose not to use the over-abused epithets of Hetero/Homo/Bi.
I feel that only the strictures of puritanical western religious dogma,
social programming and family pressures keep everyone from realizing that
sex is sex, and it's all good. (Yes, I'm writing the book. I'm working
on it, furiously. Really.) I feel that the ultimate expression of real
love between any two people is really great sex. Any sexual dysfunctions
or inabilities to "perform" are usually due to peoples' brains, not their
genitals. If we are truly open, and our concept of our own sexuality is
totally unblocked, we should all be able to share ourselves with one another
without reservation. Indeed, I feel that sharing ourselves with one another
sexually is vital and necessary for balance.
In my own life, I have found that the male-female sexual bond is not just a nice thing to have, it is necessary. Man and woman both need to have that bond to feel balanced. But it has also become apparent to me that the male-male and female-female sexual bonds are equally as vital and necessary for true balance. People who are "strictly hetero" or "strictly homo" are simply holding a block against a part of their own sexuality which is screaming for expression. I think our society's inability to come to grips with this truth is what results in rape, prostitution, child molestation and any number of clandestine, furtive sexual encounters which turn sex into a criminal act. As a result of my beliefs, it is easy to see that I could "fall in love" (another phrase I abhor) with a close male friend who, for whatever reason, cannot return the favor. I have done it before. I have gotten over it. Not a problem. But this particular friend of mine, Schuyler, and I have a very intense energetic connection.
From the first time I met Schuyler, I felt an incredible energetic inter-action between us that spoke of deep, long-term connections; soul-spirit-mind connections that belied the fact that we already knew each other very well the moment we first laid eyes on each other. (Yes, I'm talking past-life stuff here. Being who and what I am, I take these sorts of connections and feelings seriously. Often I find out information about past-life connections with others which really makes sense within the context of our relationship in THIS life. So much so, it seems the patterns I see being played out in this lifetime are simply the "contemporary re-makes" of our joint vintage movies from aeons past.) As I said, I have experienced the "unrequited luv-thang" many times and have always been able to shake it off, get on with things, and no longer be affected by it. Not so with Schuyler.
I began to realize that there was truly something different and weird going on after we had known each other about a year, Schuyler also espouses (to a certain degree) a similar pan/polyfidelic sexual philosophy. This has led him on his own path of experimentation with said philosophy from his "hetero" stance. Suffice to say, there have been several romantic involvements on his part in the nearly three years that we have known each other this time around. After about a year of our friendship, I began to notice that I became emotionally upset for a period of time whenever Schuyler would get a new "thang" going. I attributed it to various things for a while (moon energy, releasing Monster-Mommie traumas, etc.), but in the end I had to admit that the source of this seemingly occasional upset was my buddy and his exploits. This bothered me, and threw me quite off balance when I realized it. I have never been affected by someone in this manner before. I have "fallen in love" (ugh!) many times in this life, and made several deep connections, but nothing that came close to the intensity of energetic connection and involvement of this. I admit the thought frightened me considerably and I panicked for a long period of time. Here was someone with the energetic signature of the Cozmic Twin Brother Wizard Stud Muffin that I was sure was out there for me, to go along with the wonderful woman who had burst into my life. Yet he was, for all practical purposes, inaccessible.
My behaviour at times, I'm afraid, reflects my panic, and puts a strain on our friendship. But there has always somehow been a willingness on his part to keep trying to maintain (what I hope he views as) a valuable friendship. For my part, I simply try to process through the emotions that come up as they come up, trying not to store anything up. This is a difficult thing to do, and I actively search for additional information which might help me understand this. Schuyler knows I am working on it. He understands that I am trying to find a solution to this for myself. I think that is why he really wants to keep the channels open, and that is what I consider true friends to be about. He knows that I will work this out, and he seems willing to keep being present. I still have my moments, which is what (finally) leads us back to the topic at hand: my visit to the psychic fair.
The latest episode of emotional turmoil coincided with a nine-day stretch of chronic diarrhea for me. Was this synchronicity, or cause-and-effect? I suddenly needed new information in a bad way; this was getting ridiculous. I mean, we all know love is a many-splendored-sorta-thang, but it shouldn't make you physically ill, now, should it? My lady, Sheila, wanted to go to the psychic fair, and offered to pay for a reading for me. (She's totally hip to the whole Schuyler thing and supports me fully in trying to find and live my own truth. Damn fine woman, ya'll!) Of course, I jumped at the chance. I had been wanting to find out some past-life information for a while now, especially things pertaining to Schuyler and myself, What deep karma have we been slogging through together as we've schlucked our collective boots through the muck of the ages?
On our way to the hotel where the fair was being held, Sheila and I established our plan of action. We would walk around, looking at the stuff, feeling out the vibes of the various psychics and readers, make a couple of rounds, and consult one another about who we felt was "right" for each of us (if anyone). I know it must be hard to imagine, but yes, I am a scathing skeptic when I wanna be, OK? Thus armed with a healthy dose of mild cynicism, we plunged through the doorway.
Instantly, I felt the air in the room to be literally thick with energy. After getting my bearings by keying in on a trinket stand of cheezy pewter dragons and wizards, and breathing deeply for a few seconds, I was able to feel energetically stable enough to make my investigatory rounds of the place. I continued to use the trinket stand as a centering point to work from, and eventually worked my way around the entire room. Two really friendly crystal dealers with some nice stuff were chatty, the readers who were busy were intensely involved in their craft. It was the psychics and readers who were idle that caught my attention, or rather, I caught theirs.
You must understand, I blast a huge amount of energy pretty much all the time. I no longer find the need to turn it off, in fact, turning off the flow is detrimental. So, to these psychics, I was a flaring beacon of "Tha Juice". At various times I would feel a sharp beam of energy hit me, and I would glance up from the trinkets to find one or more of them intently staring at me from their positions spread out across the room. I simply returned their stares with a smile, and disarmed them into looking away. This happened no less than three times during the first fifteen minutes we were there, and I began to chuckle. This was really fun, There they were, fishing for a sucker, er, I mean client.
Sheila and I met back up after about forty-five minutes and compared notes, I showed her some of the stuff I found that was cool, and she did the same. We then consulted on the readers and how they felt to us. I hadn't felt any particular pulls or attractions that I wanted to pursue. First off, I ruled out all the psychics who were putting "the beam" out to me. That seemed a natural decision to me. It hadn't felt like the proper way for a psychic to operate. We walked around together, and pointed out various people until I made what, to me, was a rather impartial choice.
We stopped in front of this fellow's table, advertising everything: past-life, love, money, soul-mates, cards, the whole nine yards. His signs were funky and home-made, his build was that of a Roseanne-era John Goodman, his clothes bespoke Rodney Dangerfield on vacation in Hawaii, and he seemed friendly enough. He looked up at us, rather blankly, and waited for us to say something. I looked at him right in the eye, and said, "I suppose we should ask what your rates are." He drew up, a little huffy, I thought, and said "A buck a minute." I looked at Sheila, and she nodded to indicate that was cool, and I sat down. She left to finish making her decision, and I was left with "Mr. Goodman-field".
He wasted no time, and asked me what I wanted. I told him a nutshell version of the Schuyler story, and told him that I needed some answers as to why I am so affected by all this, and my hope that uncovering some past-life facts might shed more than a little light on this. He sat for a second, and then began pulling out a bunch of stuff. "Got just what ya need right here, buddy!" I must admit I had visions of a guy selling tonic out of the back of a wagon...
He brought out what looked like a ceramic tile with a clear acrylic coating about a half-inch thick. Then he smeared some "lucky elfin oil" on the tile. Then he plopped down a laminated picture of a human skeleton, frontal view. He then picked up a small doctors' reflex-testing hammer, with an orange rubber head and a string of beads wrapped around the stainless steel handle. He rummaged around in his stuff and found a small stick that looked like a piece of pencil about three inches long. I was told to place my fingers on the edges of the skeleton picture, and hold them there, He explained that as he would tap the little stick with the hammer in various places on the skeleton picture, he would be clearing traumas that Schuyler had inflicted upon me in past incarnations that I have not yet cleared, and telling me what they were as he did it. Fair enough, I thought. It seemed cheezy, but then most of the so-called psychic divination methods reek of at least a little show biz.
As he began tapping in the head area of the skeleton picture, he began his narrative, which I have condensed into the following little stream of consciousness:
"Well, he has definitely killed you before.., several times... Bashed your skull in, we're talkin' three thousand years ago... lets see, he's hung you no less than four times, he was an inquisitor, and poked your left eye out... there's been some tooth trauma--broken back molars, right? One of the times he hung you, he knew you were innocent, and had a hand in your death... gutted you with a broadsword in second century France... broke both your arms before he crucified you when he was a Roman soldier.. oh, yeah... he impaled you, right up the old... in eastern Europe,.. this guy is basically a bully, and you love playing the victim... he's simply graduated from killing you physically to killing you emotionally... he always has manipulated any situation you have been in together so that he comes out on top... he's still very powerful, even though he feigns a lack of confidence... you guys've even been doin' this off planet... you were black marketeers in space, and he double-crossed you and killed you..."
Instantly, my mind flashed to an episode of my life that I call "My Worthy Adversary", after Castaneda's experience that was similar, OK, kids, gather 'round... here's another story...
The incident in question occurred one November morning
in 1994.
The local woman who was supposed to be a partner in the
restaurant with me (but I later found out was one of the people who perpetrated
this experience), came running into the kitchen, pale and evidently frightened.
She said there was a bad man out in the restaurant, who had a local reputation
of being a devil worshiper, having murdered someone, and being a basic
black sorcerer. She said she was afraid he was going to rob us. I went
out into the front, and greeted the guy. He was a typical local, dressed
in black jeans, with a black leather motorcycle jacket and a surly look.
I had my energetic shields up at the time, and was beaming a huge beam
of confident energy right at him, to warn him to keep cool. All he wanted
was coffee. He snarled at me as he requested it. I set it down in front
of him, and he stared straight ahead. I sat down across the room from him
and attempted small talk. Not much reply. I began to hear a rhythmic tapping
on one of the metal legs of the table, I immediately felt my back tense
up and a sharp pain embedded itself under my left shoulder, I got up and
walked over to him, to refill his coffee, and he stopped the tapping. I
saw that he was tapping the table leg with a very large switchblade. After
he stopped tapping, he got up, pulled on his coat and walked out silently.
I went back into the kitchen and immediately doubled over in pain. The
fucker had shot some sort of energetic dart into me using that rhythmic
tap as a vehicle, and I was feeling it. I could not stand up. I had to
sit down for nearly two hours, drinking hot ginger tea, and breathing to
clear the pain. It was later revealed to me that this local woman and her
family had sent this man to put the whammy on me. After this incident,
both my partners in the restaurant promptly left it all up to me, my mother
back in Texas died two days before Christmas, and the whole thing fell
completely apart. We now return you to your regularly scheduled story...
After thirty five minutes, in which he replaced the frontal skeleton picture with a rear view and repeated the whole tapping process, outlining ever more gory details of all the times Schuyler has kicked my ass throughout history, he said, "You're done!" I looked around for Sheila to hand him the plastic, and he promptly ignored me completely, and spoke only to her, about how he wanted to get one of those cell phones with the card swiper on it... blah... blah... blah, sounding more like any yuppie putz with a car phone than a psychic. After he made out the sales slip, he again looked only at Sheila and said thanks. I said thanks again, and he again ignored me.
While I was getting my reading, Sheila had decided on a female card reader who was well respected in town. I walked around while Sheila got what ended up being a rather generic tarot reading that didn't really tell her a whole lot. We left after chatting with some friends and drove home, beginning our analysis of the experience on the way.
