LOVE: Ego's antidote

I experienced God inside out yesterday as teacher/writer Richard Rohr, with Cincinnati roots, writes in today's meditation:

I hadn't quite thought about it in those terms. In fact, I hadn't quite thought about it all. I am savoring the residue of asking my shaman to facilitate me feeling Spirit's love in every cell of my body and receiving that very request.

My intention hadn't coalesced until morning yoga, although I knew it would merge three strands:
– An earlier message from Spirit to surrender;
– A notation that this week has been 15 years since the car accident that triggered my fibromyalgia;
– Recognition that I have a gift of healing energy.

Dormant, but not forgotten/pastel and paint on paper

While relaxing at the end of the hour of breathing and stretching, it struck: I must surrender to love, complete, unconditional love available only from God. And that I must know this as deeply as possible, in every cell in my body. 

My shaman LOVED the intention. I trust him. When I entered his massage room it was as if I had never been there, even though I have been visiting him for 15 years. Yes, he's been with me every step of this pain journey. I noticed the drum skin tacked to the wall and decorated with a beautiful turtle. How long's that been there? I asked.  A couple of years, he replied. As he went to fetch me a cup of tea – I almost hollered you don't have to serve me, which sparked a dream I'd had the night before of a slave being freed – I walked around the room with new eyes, reading his practitioner certificates, noting books and objects on the desk. Things I had previously overlooked. When I mentioned the strangeness of the room, he responded that the world had shifted 11 degrees. Hum....

We always talk first and he shared his view that surrender isn't something we do. Whew, I thought, maybe I won't have to work through this as well. Often, he said it's relaxing and a surrendering of the ego. Then I understood that the previous night's dream was freeing me from the enslavement of ego.

That freedom hunkered into me slowly, with deliberate guided breathing, as I forgot who I was, lost my thoughts and was invited to reside in my sacrum by Spirit. I accepted and totally surrendered myself and body to her. Every cell did, indeed, feel God's love and I felt that cord of ego that props me up severed.

In June, just before God asked me to physically surrender myself on a pew in worship, she said I needed no props.  Now I see she meant ego, that was propping me up. Humming with love, sans any pain, I hesitated to move from the massage table or even open my eyes. Spirit whispered it would be okay. As I sat, I melted back into the table, recognizing and rejoicing that my puppet string had vanished!

Last night was rough as my body felt tingly with healing at work. Today, I plan to rest and just be with this newness.

• When have I been asked to surrender?
• Under what circumstance?
• How was I being asked to cut the strings of ego?
• How was I able to experience healing or wholeness?
• How do I continue to feel God's love working in and through me?


run over and down
for years,
giving up myself
into the fog

letting ego
hold court

and also
seeking
Spirit in
an unknown,
panic-striken,
help-me-God
kind of way

ignorant
that Spirit
never left me,
working
more deeply,
more (w)holy

so, eventually,

every cell
in my body
understands

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