Opening Up Your Voice as a Sacred Portal for Healing
When I was young, I longed for a mentor.
I knew I had special gifts that needed nurturing.
Some of them were recognized, and I was blessed to be given an unusually supportive education from the time I was 10 years old. I was in a program for “gifted children,” and was able to cultivate my divergent thinking in a way that was celebrated. I learned about guided visualization and the magic of creativity and the imagination. That, along with the direct Samadhi experiences I’d been having, I knew there was a way to use my gifts to serve in some way. I saw visions of it, but I knew I needed more.
Some of my gifts were not recognized, and I was mocked and shamed for using my voice to create altered states, spinning like a Whirling Dervish, seeing elves and fairies . . . over time, my voice and my vision shut down.
I knew I needed someone who could really recognize my gifts and show me how to cultivate them while navigating a world full of amnesia, hypocrisy, and myopia.
I sat one day, praying for the right teacher, and as I opened my consciousness to connect the way I had many times before, I realized that my future self would have so much wisdom (that famous 20/20 hindsight), and so I opened up a portal to connect with the older me.
I saw myself in circles of people, channeling things through my voice that were helping them to reconnection with God/Source.
But over time my own amnesia kicked in and I followed the positive affirmation breadcrumbs that lead me down my academic path – studying consciousness, human development, and psychology, and much of my magical, wild, spiritual access got sleepy and inert and feel into a deep slumber.
It took a trauma to wake me back up, to shake me out of the spiritual somnambulism and re-open myself to the connection with something greater than me. I started to see, hear, and feel faces of the Sacred Feminine.
First it was Kali Ma – I’d never heard of her before, never seen her before, but there she was, guiding me through panic attacks with grace and ease. Then it was Spider Woman, weaver of the Universe, showing me the secrets of manifestation.
Around this time I remembered that magical portal I’d opened as a child, asking for help from my older self. I started to send back messages to the younger me when I was in moments of deep meditative presence with Source, and in moments of great clarity about what I am here to do in this lifetime.
It was profoundly humbling to find myself in the exact circles I had seen as a child, not knowing exactly what was happening, but feeling the powerful transmissions of healing, love, and communion with Source that is unique and ineffable.
Most of my life, trying to share about what I saw, felt, and experienced, well, it never felt adequate, and therefore it seemed inaccurate, and even futile, and also, just not what most people were ready to hear.
I also carried with me the old wounds, not just from this lifetime, but many past lifetimes of being shut down, choked, silenced for saying things that were unusual, heretical, or simply uncomfortable for others to hear.
You might have a hard time believing, as did I, that I had blocks to my throat chakra. I mean, I don’t seem to have a hard time expressing myself.
Last weekend, I facilitated a Huachuma ceremony. I’ve served countless cups of this medicine by now, but last weekend there was something that felt different.
As we dropped in to the movement and breath work to open up our physical and energy bodies to be receptive to the healing of this beautiful medicine, my voice became gravely, like I had been smoking packs of cigarettes. Then, suddenly, I felt my throat close up. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like there was an anaconda wrapped around my neck. I knew it was spiritual, and I relaxed and brought my complete loving presence into my throat, even though it was momentarily horrifying. I felt something the size of a softball coming up my throat from my heart and I let it rise, and as it did, immense grief broke through.
I allowed myself to mourn and weep. I felt the pain of my voice being choked, literally and figuratively, in this lifetime, and past lifetimes. I felt the pain of all people who have been silenced for speaking their truth, especially women. I allowed myself to grieve.
Within moments, I felt so much spaciousness and lightness, I was overcome with immense joy, and I started to laugh.
I shared what had just happened, and each person was so present and so receptive. I’ve never had anything like this happen while holding space for others.
I had no idea I still had such pain locked away inside of me, and I am deeply and humbly grateful for the sacred Huachuma medicine, and our safe and sacred container that allowed me, even as a facilitator, to get such a powerful healing. The sound healing, and my whole energy field has been profoundly shifted since then.
I’m passionate about creating the safe and sacred spaces for this kind of deep healing to happen – being vulnerable, releasing the hard feelings, and receiving all that is available to us when we truly make ourselves available to our true divine nature is so necessary.
Once again I want to speak my gratitude for the profound healing of the sacred plant medicines, especially Huachuma, and all of my teachers, and all of my guides, and everything that is greater than me that wishes me well that continues to support my own healing, and the great gift of holding space for others to heal as well.
Here’s to the liberation of all of our voices!
