The tears are still damp on my cheeks, attempting to burst forth as I write. Gratitude pours out from my heart, a heart that is far too small to contain the vastness of the deep loving emotions in my soul.
Last week, as Eduardo and I finished our final Bach Flower Therapy session, he informed me that he was feeling guided to perform one final energy blessing.
“Before you leave next week, you will come back one more time.” Eduardo began. “I will surround you with the energy of the ‘Fleur-De-Lis’ and imprint the flower’s energy on your soul—kind of like an energetic tattoo.”
This morning I called to check on Eduardo’s schedule, eager to schedule this final appointment. Ten minutes later, I found myself lying on his treatment table in the shaded open air of his beautiful roof. Eduardo’s love for plants was all around me. His roof and yard are like a beautiful botanical garden. An unexpected morning shower briefly cooled the morning air as we began our spiritual session together.
As we finished the prayerful and meditative ceremony, Eduardo paused before telling me that there was yet another ceremony that he felt inspired to perform on me. As I lay peacefully on his table, Eduardo began to talk to me while he worked.
“You know Brenda … you are struggling with fear … not fear of doing things … not fear of things happening to you … but fear of yourself.”
Tears began to uncontrollably stream down my cheeks—tears of acknowledgment that Eduardo had touched on a painful truth. I have felt overly tired for several days, wondering what is wrong with me, feeling spiritually and physically stuck—wanting to move on to my next adventure, but seeming to find any and every excuse to remain here in Cozumel just another few days.
I truly am not afraid of external things happening to me—but at a very subconscious level I seem to be afraid to step out of my comfort zone. I am standing at the edge of a thick but beautiful fog, knowing I want to step into the unknown—but still doubting myself and my abilities.
Eduardo continued his loving words.
“Brenda, as we say here in Mexico, you need to ‘dejate en paz’ (leave yourself in peace), to stop beating yourself up. It is time for you branch out on your next incredible journey—time to quit avoiding and delaying.”
Tears again resumed their flow down the sides of my cheeks as I lay silently, still flat on my back with my eyes closed. As Eduardo continued to work his magic on me, I could feel the aliveness of my spirit once again beginning to dance in my mind’s awareness. The feeling was so relaxing and peaceful that I drifted off into a deep meditative state.
After perhaps twenty minutes of silently enjoying the peace, I barely opened one eye and was surprised to realize I was alone. Eduardo had disappeared without making a sound.
Closing my eyes again, I resumed my deep meditative state while wondering what to do next. Soon, I began to occasionally open my eyes, ever so slightly, still enjoying the peace while glancing around to look for Eduardo.
Minutes later, I finally glimpsed movement in the corner of my right eye and turned my head enough to witness Eduardo carrying a twelve-inch start of a small Sable tree. I quietly observed him reverently carry the small sapling over to the edge of his roof next to a large Sable tree in his back yard. For a few brief moments Eduardo touched the leaves of the tiny tree to the leaves of the larger tree, connecting the energy of the two. Then Eduardo walked toward me and resumed his seat at my side.
With my eyes mostly closed, I noticed that Eduardo had wrapped the roots of the small tree in a canvas-colored green cotton fabric and was carefully tying the fabric at the top with a piece of white cloth.
The sable tree is a very sacred tree in the Mayan and Yucatan traditions. After my first Temazcal with Eduardo, when we all jumped into the sacred pool of dark amber-colored water—it was the holy Sable tree whose large roots had tinted the water. It was at that Temazcal where Eduardo had first explained to me the sacred nature of these beautiful Sable trees.
A few weeks ago, Eduardo had proudly showed me a small plastic gardening flat on his roof where he had a large gathering of tiny but healthy Sable saplings. He had planted them from seed, and was lovingly nurturing them to the point that he could begin planting them at various locations around the island of Cozumel.
After finishing our spiritual energy work, Eduardo told me, “Brenda, I feel inspired to give you some homework. I am giving you this baby Sable tree as an assignment. You will take it with you too the mainland, and you will look for the ideal spot to plant it. When you find such a spot, you will bless and dedicate the site and plant this sacred tree.”
Continuing on, Eduardo told me, “And when you return to Cozumel, before going back to the United States, you will come back and I will give you another sable tree to take home with you, after which you will select another location to plant that tree.”
Tears of gratitude again resumed as I looked Eduardo in the eye and asked him if he would relay a message to his wife for me.
“Can you please tell your wife how incredibly grateful I am?” I asked.
“You can tell her yourself,” he replied, as he lovingly called down to his wife, asking her if she would join us on the roof.
As Eduardo’s wife sat down on the narrow wooden bench beside her husband, I stared into her eyes, searching for the appropriate words to convey my deep emotions.
“I am so grateful to you,” I began, “for loving and trusting Eduardo so much … for trusting me … for allowing Eduardo to spend such a great deal of time spiritually connecting with me and teaching me.”
By now, trying to hold back my tears was a lost cause. After a short conversation, the three of us walked down the stairs, back to ground level and my bicycle.
“Can I have a hug before I go?” I asked them both.
Soon, I was sharing one last huge embrace with each of my dear friends. Then, accompanied by a confusing combination of both joy and sadness, I reluctantly hopped onto my bicycle, beginning to pedal away. After about twenty feet I looked momentarily back. Eduardo and his wife were standing together watching me. The three of us exchanged one brief wave goodbye before I again turned forward, resuming my journey into the future.
Hurricane Excitement
These past few days have been quite the adventure into anticipation and excitement. When I moved to Cozumel in June, I was quite aware that I would be here throughout the entire hurricane season. While I would never wish a large destructive storm on anyone, I have secretly hoped to have an opportunity to experience the energy of a large storm while in Cozumel.
I have always been a storm chaser at heart. For as long as I can remember, the energies of wind, heavy rain, lightning, and thunder have always energized on my soul. As October drifted into the history books, so did the official hurricane season. While taking a few extra days to finish writing and recuperating from my food poisoning, I was totally surprised last week when a rare late-season storm, Hurricane Ida, began crashing its way into the eastern shores of Nicaragua.
As the storm headed north through Nicaragua and Honduras, it quickly diminished in strength to nothing but a Tropical Depression, but every forecast predicted that it would quickly regain strength once reaching the open waters of the Caribbean—and the vast majority of predicted paths had Ida heading right towards Cozumel. For sure Ida would regain tropical storm status, with estimates predicting that Ida might very possibly regain hurricane status.
Originally, I had planned to be leaving Cozumel by around Saturday, but with the storm predicted to hit the area on Sunday, I was not going anywhere—for a variety of reasons. First of all, my excitement and anticipation got the best of me. I simply wanted to be here to experience the energetic possibilities. Second, I am house-sitting and dog-sitting for my friend JayDee. Yes, another friend will come over to feed the dogs when I leave, but my heart reasoned that if a severe storm were to hit, the dogs would need me to stay with them—and the house would need a full-time resident to monitor wind and flooding. Third, the passenger ferries were shut down on Saturday, and did not restart until late Sunday afternoon. I could not have left on Saturday even if I had wanted to.
By Friday night, Ida had quickly regained tropical storm status, and was still headed for the general area of Cozumel. Throughout the day on Saturday, I frequently monitored hurricane reports on several web sites, watching satellite images, tracking charts, and wind speeds as they gradually inched back toward hurricane status.
Realizing that JayDee’s home was not prepared for strong winds and rain, I called my friend Sheila asking for advice and help. She had just barely returned from her Spanish school in Nicaragua. The two of us spent five hours together, wind-proofing JayDee’s backyard, bringing buckets of water into the shower for flushing toilets, locating a large floor squeegee, making sure I had flashlights and candles, and discussing overall hurricane strategy.
In addition to talking about her recent experiences in Nicaragua, the two of us had some great discussions about her experiences living through Hurricane Wilma, just four years ago. That massive category 5 hurricane sat right on top of Cozumel for 52 hours with continuous sustained winds of 185 mph. Sheila told me her adventures of having large amounts of water blowing in through her second story windows, sending water cascading down her stairs into her lower levels. She told me of waves as high as sixty feet, causing massive storm damage throughout the area, especially along the shorelines.
To top off our afternoon together, the two of us went over to the Mega store to do a little grocery shopping. The store was more crowed than usual. The bread aisle was quite depleted, but there seemed to be plenty of food left, and no one seemed to be panicking.
With mixed emotions, I closely tracked the storm through much of Saturday evening. Ida had regained “Category 1” hurricane status, but predictions were now estimating that it would pass slightly to the east of Cozumel. Nevertheless, emergency alerts on television still showed hurricane warnings and watches for Playa Del Carmen northward. The center of the hurricane was expected to pass closest to Cozumel at around 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Saturday evening, the whole area was eerily quiet–no wind, no rain, no hint at all of a pending storm—other than the fact that the city was shut down. Bars and restaurants were ordered to close by 11:00 p.m., and the streets were empty. All ferry boats had left the island completely. All other boats that were normally anchored along the shoreline were noticeably missing. Even with the cautionary preparations, however, no one was alarmed enough to put any boards over doors or windows. Just four years ago, the local people had survived the worst category 5 hurricane in recorded history. Little Ida, while still potentially dangerous, didn’t seem to have many people in a heightened state of alert.
I slept lightly all night long, constantly expecting to hear the onslaught of torrential rains and strong winds at any moment—but there was nothing, absolutely nothing. As I looked out my windows at 6:00 a.m., the trees were just barely moving, and only a few scattered sprinkles were falling from the sky. The core of the hurricane was seventy miles to the east, so I was not expecting ninety mph winds—yet all forecasts still called for tropical storm strength winds to reach well beyond one hundred miles.
A quick check of radar tracking maps showed the area of high winds barely approaching the edge of Cozumel, but not quite penetrating the island’s boundaries.
Intrigued by the silence, my curiosity was calling out for exploration. By 9:00 a.m., I was on my bicycle, exploring the waterfront. Along the shorelines, the winds seemed to be coming from the west-northwest with sustained force that I would estimate as being between twenty and thirty mph. The water levels seemed to be several feet higher than normal, and wave activity was considerable.
All along the seawall, unusually strong waves were cresting and crashing—frequently sending powerful sprays of white churning salt water pouring over the top of the wall up and onto the street. In many places where there were openings in the wall, piles of brown slimy seaweed had washed up onto the road and sidewalks. Accompanying the seaweed were several inches of sand, gravel, and even rocks as big as baseballs.
I watched with fascination as waves completely engulfed a small fishing pier, momentarily swallowing it until the water pulled back, once again returning the sturdy structure to the realm of the visible world.
Just north of the ferry dock, a group of local people gathered along the seawall, watching something with intense interest. Eager to discover the focus of their fascination, I joined the crowd and soon witnessed a small skinny crocodile, perhaps two feet long, struggling against the powerful surf. The little crocodile never gave up. He repeatedly struggled to swim out to sea, just beginning to make measurable progress, only to be mercilessly thrust backward by the wild churning waters.
A quick glance at the skies to my right revealed an ominous scene. As I looked out in the direction of Cancun the clouds were dark and threatening, obscuring the turbulence that was going on behind their veil. As I glanced to my left, glimpses of bright blue sky poked through on the distant horizon to the south, bringing hope and promise of new beginnings.
The waves and moderate winds continued to pound the eastern shores throughout the afternoon. Being energized by the scene, I set out on a two hour bicycle ride—quite possibly my last ride on the island. Nostalgically, I repeated the exact same ride that I had made on the day I purchased my bicycle in late June. Riding southward along the coast, while paying attention to every beautiful detail, I explored all the way to Chankanaab and back.
At the end of my journey, as I coasted back through the center of town, I noticed that the ferries to Playa Del Carmen appeared to have resumed service. While the waters were still rough, the seas were beginning to once again be manageable.
Last night, as I lay on JayDee’s sofa to briefly rest, I was overcome by sheer exhaustion. A short nap turned into an all night crash. Even though my mind and heart are anxious to move into the next phase of my journey, my body was saying “Whoa, slow down Brenda, get some rest.”
People Wrap Up
For the most part, I think my writings have maintained a fairly accurate and up-to-date account of ongoing relationships and interactions with dear friends such as Eduardo, Rafael, and Michiko. I have repeatedly written of my deep love and gratitude for these incredible friends.
But there are a few people who have played into my story, about whom I have not written in quite some time.
First and foremost is Berto. For some strange and unknown reason, our paths have not crossed since the two times I bumped into him toward the end of August. I find Berto’s absence from the scene quite curious, given that I once expected his presence to be a more integral part of the story. Even so, he has continued to play an indirect role.
I am not sure if I wrote this earlier, but during my 2007 trip to Cozumel, Rafael had a subservient working relationship with Berto. At the time that Rafael referred me for the timeshare tour, I was just recently unemployed. When Berto found out, he was livid and angry at Rafael for having referred me for the tour anyway. I won’t go into any inflammatory details, other than to say that after I left, Berto provided Rafael with some great forgiveness opportunities.
As Rafael and I discussed what had occurred, I could see that Rafael still struggled with letting go of some of the past hurt and resentment. I explained to Rafael about what a key role Berto had played in the inspiration that brought me back to Cozumel, and explained that everything has a purpose. All of the events that happened back in 2007 needed to take place, and it all had a rippling effect that put us exactly where we needed to be today.
I also told Rafael of my personal belief that “Berto was just doing his part to create forgiveness and growth opportunities for both of us.”
So there you have it. Even though I haven’t seen Berto in quite some time, his presence has continued to play a very real role in the story—presenting ongoing opportunities to practice forgiveness and unconditional love.
I haven’t had any face-to-face interaction with Arturo since he took me to see the “Brujo” (witch doctor) in September. Even so, we remain occasional email and Facebook friends, and I definitely see the friendship continuing into the future, at least on a casual basis.
Dear sweet Miguel and I have not talked for almost two weeks. When I said my goodbyes to him at the end of October, I fully expected to be leaving within a few days. As we shared our final conversation, Miguel gave me his phone number and I promised him that I will look him up whenever I return to Cozumel—a commitment that I will definitely keep.
Given the fact that he does not do email, I do not foresee a great deal of future contact with Miguel, but I will be forever grateful for the lessons in language and communication that blessed my life as a result of our many interactions together.
I am filled with gratitude for my new American friends here in Cozumel, especially JayDee and Sheila. For some reason, when I first moved to Cozumel, I also found myself sinking deeply back “into the closet”—fighting a variety of mild fears about what would happen if I shared my life secrets with new friends in a small city of a foreign country.
One of many great blessings from my journey of the past four months is the realization that I can indeed be my true self no matter where I go in the world. Again and again over the past few years, I have learned that being genuine and open attracts others who share the same unconditionally loving energy. I am so grateful for my loving friends.
Reports of My Death Are Highly Premature
I hesitate to write about this next experience—not wanting to alarm or scare anyone in any way—but a feeling tells me this experience is important and relevant to the story that I want to share.
Two days ago, I had a very interesting and inspiring conversation with my dear friend Rose back in Utah. During the course of our discussion, she gradually hinted at a powerful experience she had just a couple of days earlier.
Rose was extremely hesitant to give me any detail or specifics. I lovingly probed and continuously reassured her that I am ready to hear anything. Finally, after considerable resistance, Rose finally agreed to open up and share.
My dear friend Rose was sitting quietly by herself in her living room back in Utah. Suddenly, she realized she had been given a peaceful glimpse of my body lying in a casket. Rose, Lori, and Jeanette were at my viewing, standing over in the corner, peacefully reminiscing about our incredible growth and times spent together.
Rose proceeded by telling me that my dear friends were blessed with an extremely peaceful feeling about my passing—knowing that I had lived a full life and had completed the work that I had come to do. I had followed my heart to the fullest, sharing a beautiful example for others to follow, living on the edge, inspiring others, honoring my inner truth.
Rose made it very clear that there were no timeframes whatsoever in her vision. Throughout our lengthy discussion, a deep sense of peace and confidence continued to exude from my soul.
“Rose,” I began to explain to her, “For several years now I have had very strong promptings that I will live a very long and healthy mortal existence. That sense of knowing remains strongly and peacefully rooted in my very being. There are so many things that my heart tells me are yet to happen before my work here is complete. Nevertheless, I am at peace with whatever occurs because I know I am following my heart—following pure inspiration. If something were to happen to me, I want you to know that I am fully OK with that. I know that nothing can ever harm my soul, nothing can destroy who I really am.”
Both Rose and I felt deep peace as we carried this conversation forward. While we talked, a strong sense of knowing permeated my soul that Rose’s waking dream was figurative and not literal.
“In many real ways,” I explained to her, “the old me, the old relationships as we knew them in the past, are indeed dead. I have grown and changed so much while in Cozumel that the old me, my old life, will never be the same.”
During subsequent inspired conversation, both Rose and I felt very deeply that we are all being prepared to stand on our own feet, to launch forward into new growth, into our own individual journeys. Our bonds are so deep and close that we will never be more than a phone call away—but the days of the four of us hanging out on a frequent basis are most likely in the past.
In many ways, the conversation deepened my commitment to my present path. I have no idea where my journey is taking me. I can only imagine and speculate as to the incredible gifts that await me as I progress down the journey of practicing and learning unconditional love.
Yes, I am forever grateful that the old me, my old identity, is gradually withering away, fading into the nothingness from where it originated. That part of me is indeed dying. The new emerging me is so alive with love and possibilities that I cannot imagine turning around and returning to my old life. Yes, I still have many ups and downs, but I have come too far down my path to ever consider going back. I am deeply committed to my journey of awakening.
The Journey
Early last week (several days before her waking dream), Rose called me, exuding a very excited energy.
“Oh Brenda,” she began, “I found this poem today that was calling out your name with every word. It describes everything about you and what you are doing with your life. I have to read it to you.”
With intense reverence, I listened as Rose read the powerful words with deep passion and emotion. The message of these words resonated within my soul, sending vibrating energetic tingles throughout my spine.
Today, as I am on the very edge of completing my journey in Cozumel, preparing to launch out into another adventure into the great unknown, I would love to share these amazing words with you.
Pay attention to the punctuation as you read. This is the exact format in which Mary Oliver wrote her poem. The punctuation will help add emphasis where it is needed.
The Journey
By: Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
Though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks once again as I ponder the power and meaning of these incredible words.
Yes, one day I did wake up and know what I have to do. My heart is alive with the energy and purpose of my journey. I cannot even imagine being anywhere else, doing anything else, being anyone else. My new voices are so strong and beautiful that I could never ever be content with going back to an old way of living, to an old way of perceiving and thinking.
As the stars in my life continue to burn brighter, I am fully committed, determined to go deeper and deeper into my undoing process. The more I grow and learn, the more I know that my true task is not to save the world or anything in it. My one and only task is to spiritually awaken—to shift my perceptions from fear to love—to save myself—to save the only person I truly have the power to save.
Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved