Still, I don't think that the reading should have ended without some sort of a venture into the positive realm, To leave me with only such negative information did eventually have an effect on me, and my perception of Schuyler. I did get angry at my friend after awhile. If the psychic was just trying to get me out of the way (which is what it felt like at the end, really), he could have at least left me with a more positive outlook on my current relationship with Schuyler.
"I dunno hon," she began, "just suppose this guy was channeling some accurate information, it does make Schuyler's behavior towards you (and yours towards him) seem a little creepily familiar. You know that you yourself have told me Schuyler can be by turns incredibly warm and loving, and then cold and distant. You guys have always had an intense relationship-it's never what you'd call dull--he knows you would do anything in the world for him. And this whole thing really does seem to hurt you a lot more than it does him."
I was quick to point out to her that I attributed Schuyler's extremes in his reactions to me to his being a Gemini (which she is, too, by the way), a thing which he himself uses as an explanation (or excuse) often. The thing I had to admit was that this was beginning to feel kinda creepy.
"You're not gonna like this", she said, "but I've noticed that he can be incredibly charming, when he wants to be. You're both master manipulators, and you know it. Look--there is a dynamic in ya'll's relationship that seems to fall right into place with what this psychic guy said. You are always giving Schuyler a lot of power over you. And he seems to know that and utilize it and enjoy it on one level, and at the same time, I know that he cares for you a great deal, and wants to see you happy. We all have a dark side, hon--you're really in touch with yours, but he has one, too, and you know it."
She was right--I didn't really want to hear this stuff. I just wanted a nice, romantic, love-n-angst-ridden explanation of my deep love for the well-equipped boy-next-door, not yet another collection of character flaws to analyze and painfully work on. "I just wanna be loved, is that so wrong?" (That, of course, delivered in my best Jon-Lovitz-imitating-Harvey-Fierstein voice.) And I didn't want to think anything bad about my beloved friend--he was sweet to me, for the most part, wasn't he--incapable of such horrible things, right? Right?
By this time we had gotten home, dropped off our neighbor and continued our analysis while cooking dinner and throughout the rest of the evening. Much more discussion of the energy dynamics of mine and Schuyler's relationship ensued. It was hard to admit that some of it, OK--a lot of it--did seem to fit and make sense, when I honestly (key word: honestly) looked at how Schuyler and I interacted. I did give him tremendous amounts of power over me on certain levels. I did allow his ability to bond his total energy with mine to (yes) "sweep me off my feet", and I was trying to hold him responsible. That still didn't make the actual emotions evaporate, by any means. It simply made me feel sicker.
The entire "health crisis" has ended up lasting over six weeks at this point. I went to a Chinese doctor who felt my pulse and said, "Gall bladder." The gall bladder and liver are responsible for production and distribution of bile. A little research revealed that the gall bladder and liver are traditionally associated with anger and frustration: bile is also defined as "venom". Isn't that special. My gall bladder was pumping huge amounts of bile (or, venom, if you will) at all times, resulting in a total inability to retain or absorb food. Anger can, indeed, become toxic. I lost over 25 pounds, my body went into self-digestion and I had to go on liquid nutrition for a week to keep my body from eating itself. The good thing is that I now have very little fat on my body. The bad thing is that I am still very weak and cannot work. With six weeks of no work, and at least two to three more of recuperation, things are, shall we say, "tentative"
In this six weeks, I have had PLENTY of time for the further processing of all this. I have spoken with others within our Tribe and fringers who understand energy and consciousness on the level that we do. One woman pointed out that it all made perfect sense to her. I asked her, still puzzled, as to why I would be so in LOVE with my seeming karmic "mortal enemy". She replied, "It's the last time around for the two of you to work this out--it's a karmic flip. What more perfect way for the pattern to be disguised, than for the battle to be waged on a psychic, emotional and spiritual level, rather than a physical one. If he is "killing you" this time, it's with love." Ouch.
Yes, the "victim" thing. Sitting here six weeks later, I have to admit that there is no doubt about that one. I've been through an incredibly painful and dangerous experience. It has been dark. If all this were true, I had to look at Schuyler and our relationship in a totally unpleasant light--one of suspicion and treachery. That really sucked. I had to go over the last three years and see if I could sense an underlying evil plot, and of course, at times I could. Schuyler's own admitted "sins of omission" --withholding information so as not to "set me off"--leads to my reactions getting more intense and wild, because the sense of trust becomes nil.
Other patterns of what looked like manipulation and victimization emerged in Technicolor. Still, all through this whole illness, Schuyler has been very loving, and incredibly supportive, checking in with me on a nearly daily basis, and lately, really discussing this whole thing openly and (seemingly) honestly, and allowing me to be honest. Key word: honest. I really only want an honest and open sharing of emotion. Don't sugar coat anything for me, and please, don't withhold information. The rest of the Tribe has "been there" as much as they could understand. A lot of miscommunication takes place sometimes, which brings up the next logical point.
One of the things about this that Sheila brought up is me needing to remember that I am twelve years older than Schuyler and most of the rest of the Tribe. I have had a lot of experiences that they haven't. I have had a lot of therapy--over a decade's worth. I can finally "feel" with the best of 'em now, after a lifetime of being numb. They are just now really beginning to explore their feelings. I suppose the biggest asset has been a lot of healing with my own inner femininity, my ability to nurture. That was what brought me into this Tribe to begin with, really. A family to nurture and help along the way. Which leads to the other set of patterns involved--what I call the "crazy Mother" thing. You see, my mom was a pretty unstable woman, and my energetic responses became patterned after hers early on, since hers were the only emotions that were ever blared at me.
I instinctively picked up a response pattern of fear and general despair as a reaction to everything. I thought I'd got rid of it as a general modus operandi through therapy. It still creeps in when I get overwhelmed by things. Which, in the month leading up to this latest crisis, I was feeling quite a lot. Schuyler getting a new girl was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I have had to finally admit defeat. This looks like a "serious relationship" with this girl for him, one that destroys my dreams while fulfilling all of his. (mine and Schuyler's actual words there) He's even talking of moving away with her somewhere. And there is nothing I can do.
That is the bitter pill. Sort of like "You win again, good buddy." I don't like "having to accept" things. The most hated reason given to me when I asked a question as a child was "That's just how it is. There's nothing you can do." I still hate being told that. But, you see, that's really what I'm being told. It doesn't really matter what I feel, or what I want. "That's just the way things are."
Just yesterday I threw a medicine card about the situation. Just one. It was Buffalo. I looked that up in the book and read:
To honor another's pathway, even if it brings
you sadness, is a part of the message that
Buffalo brings.
I tossed the book across the room.
One of the more no-nonsense members of our Tribe pointed out to me (rather gently, I thought) that it seemed that I wasn't really thinking about how this was affecting Schuyler. "It really hurts him a lot, you know," he said on the phone one day. "He wants to be happy and it hurts him to see that his happiness is causing you such pain." Smack. I needed that.
The bottom line is that this whole thing is triggered by a feeling that everything is shit, and will always be shit. I will never win. This is one of the basic energetic patterns ingrained in me by my mother's energy field. She was utterly defeated by her life, and really angry and bitter underneath it all. During the last six weeks, I began to look at my life as one long series of dismal failures, one after another. It was just too much when the one hope I had left, my hope of one day finally getting Schuyler to look me in the eye and say he was ready to be with me, was finally completely ripped from me and dashed to bits on the jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliff, so to speak. (Dramatic, huh?)
The entire experience has the feeling of shamanic death-rebirth to it, at this point. My body is completely foreign to me now. (Who's that good-lookin' skinny dude in the mirror?) I am having to re-learn my balance and equilibrium, since there is now so much less of me to heft around. I'm not complaining about that, just about the way it was accomplished. I don't advise anyone to try this as a means of dropping that last twenty pounds. Believe me, folks, five weeks of diarrhea isn't fun.
So I now begin the crow-eating process. I have got to come to peace with Schuyler's decisions and his life. I would like to be able to keep hope of us eventually getting together alive, somehow, but it is too painful at this point. I cannot continue to feel knives in my heart and gut every time I see him with his new girl. I only know that when he and I honestly connect and lock eyes, there is a flow of energy between us that is what I can only describe as a phenomenon. It is substantial. It is the complete lock-and-key effect of the energy bond of lovers. For now, I have to be able to be happy with that energy alone, instead of it being brought to what, in my mind, is its logical fruition. That task seems daunting.
There is a demon within me that has never been satisfied by anything it or I have experienced together in this lifetime. All perfect dreams and hopes and visions are eventually replaced by the tacky, makeshift, cheap plastic shit of reality. Like having to settle for the K-Mart brand when you really want the name brand. Just have to settle for lots less than you truly desire. This demon has quite an appetite. It has attempted to devour me in my entirety, and has nearly succeeded. It is this demon whom I must somehow placate.
In the end the question of whether or not the psychic I had the reading with at the fair was genuine, or simply feeding me a line of bullshit, is moot. The result was that the information he transmitted to me did have an impact on me and my perceptions. Does it really matter if he was making it up, based on a sensitivity to my energetic and emotional state at the time, or if I was really gutted by Schuyler in second century France? I don't think so. This psychic could obviously sense my pain and discomfort by simply being another semi-conscious human sitting across the table from me--my energy field is palpable, especially when I am in pain. If he simply made up a past-life parable to help me see patterns going on now, I'm OK with that.
Rest assured you'll hear more about this.
