Getting to Know Fear



Fear: Panic



Fear, other people’s fear, is what I have thought keeps them from volunteering in the prison ministry: fear of becoming a victim of a crime.  A little bit of my own fear enabled me to be cautious in designing how the ministry worked.  Even the worst things about us have some good to offer.

In the past six months I’ve been exploring darker aspects of my mind.  Darker means that which leads me to darkness, to blindness, that enmeshes me in not knowing the truth.  It started as an intention to do this, via SoulCollage®.  That is an enjoyable, intuitive art activity through which you create a pack of cards with your own collages on them. It was developed by Seena Frost who has studied and practiced Jungian analysis and also theology.  She had originally been using Tarot cards  with her clients to help them easily open the treasure chest of their own minds (or spirits) themselves, to access their own wisdom.  At some point she must have decided that folks could make their own cards.  A SoulCollage® deck has four suits that are different from Tarot suits and give unique self-exploration opportunities through a Jungian model.



Fears about Money

So, as part of the darkness that is also me, I had made a card for anger, my own anger.  Making that card was remarkably healing.  My anger became integrated and not an object rejected and also dragged behind me in a way that everyone else, except me, could see.  



Fear: Never "At Home"

Then I made a card for fear.  The first one was for pure Fear, or even panic, which I had experienced now and then a couple of years ago.  The card is bold--one of my better cards. Interestingly enough, I now know that it carries the color that helps heal fear: yellow.  The next card expressed fear about money. I’m at the age when I should be retiring, or even retired, but cannot quite release into that state due to money concerns. I allowed that card to be the first seed for my journal which is being worked on by the members of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Journals.  That was the second fear card. Last week I saw that I have now made four fear cards. One represents never quite feeling “at home” and so carrying my home wherever I go.  The most recent has to do with being crushed by others.    

Apparently, my fear has been deeply suppressed because it contributed to longstanding physical dysfunction. My understsanding is that, if an emotion can be expressed in a healthy way, the energy is released but, if it is understood not to be safe to express the feeling or there is no opportunity to do so, the feeling gets stuck in the body until such time as it can be let go.  I conclude that my fear is suppressed because, in the past six months, I have experienced a lot of physical and mental trouble.  As healing takes place, I gain glimpses of the fear that has been buried for a long time. 

Fear: Destruction

At first, due to my physical and mental symptoms, I thought my thyroid was  underactive and I arranged to have it thoroughly tested.  As I was awaiting those results, I decided to get Chinese herbs to get rid of gallstones since I knew I had those. There seemed no need to wait to rush moaning and groaning to the hospital for surgery.  That herbal treatment started continued and repeated blasts of cleansing the entire gastro-intestinal tract.  It was uncomfortable, draining, embarrassing, and, yes, scarey.  Did I have some awful disease? That question could be entertained because the culprit, Fear, had not yet shown itself.

At one point, as I was going through the experience, I realized that, if I had gone to India and have the ayurvedic cleansing treatment called pancha karma, I would have taken herbs to cause the same physical cleansing experiences.  Of course, I would have lived in a place recognized as a healing center and have had knowledgeable people help me care for myself during the process.  I certainly would not have been going to work and having to explain to co-workers that I had diarrhea, at the most inopportune moments.  During this episode, intuition, the strongest mental facility I have thankfully, needed to be my vaidya (auyurvedic doctor). The realization that I was undergoing healing and renewal caused a shift in my outlook. 



Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith of the Agape International Spiritual Center shared a vision with us in Oakland in 2010, that we all exist in a dynamic multi-dimensional field of God energy for good that is always seeking to give us the greatest good we can have if we open to it, accept that blessing.  That Power for Good will win eventually. Sometimes, remembering his words, I can feel that God energy as though, at that very moment, I am swimming in it.  One morning I awoke with the thought “I accept my healing.”  I had perhaps one more bout of “the runs” and then found that my digestive system was actually working well for the first time in 32 years. During the healing process I had moved away from eating wheat or much of cow milk products as I moved through this process.  For me it is not worth having much of either of these.



Companion Card for Third Chakra



Next came an infection which brought with it lots of coughing and the release of lots of old stuff from the lungs.  After the most severe discomfort, I recognized that what was leaving me was what remained due to the longstanding digestive malfunction.  If I doubted my rosey attitude toward these discomforts, yesterday I went swimming and was able to swim happily up and down the pool with no dimunition of energy, as if 30 years had been removed from my body’s age of nearly 68.



During this challenging period, the amount of fear I have carried revealed itself like an exotic demon dancer lifting its shimmering veils from time to time.  For instance, I saw that, due to never having had consistent energy, I am afraid that I am not up physically up to the challenge, whatever it is, that I won’t have the energy to pull it off.  This quiet fear has held me back, has led me to avoid doing things for years.  Due to fear of being crushed by others, I can feel deeply hurt and stuck when a normal miscommunication has occurred.  Each glimpse of this fear demon's dance leaves me feeling greater freedom.  I can see his snarly face, smile, and brush him aside.

Back a few months ago, I decided to have a Vedic astrology reading.  I considered myself Hindu for nearly forty years and the whole culture expressing that faith tradition, including the traditional astrology, is like a color-filled, sparkling, healing meadow of wonders that fits me exactly when I allow myself to wrap myself in its shawl.  It gives tools that work on deep levels for me.  I cannot rationally explain why or how they work but I gratefully accept them and allow them to nourish me. 

Durga Ma



Vedic astrology has amelioratives including herbs, gems, and prayers to lessen any dire events coming up.   I came away from the reading knowing the season of my life (a rahu period for the next two years) and what could assist in this period.  The helpers included the color yellow, as mentioned before, dominating my first SoulCollage® card for fear. Devotion to Goddess Durga was recommended. She was one of the three – Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati—with whom I had not yet become acquainted. Gems for Mercury (emerald) were good. Devotional singing and all creative expression was good.



This prescription was like having my old toys returned to me, renewed.  It was as if someone had prescribed that I should do all the things I love doing.  Yellow had already been calling to me.  Getting to know Goddess Durga meant that I could chant Sanskrit again and get to know the symbology of this Goddess who removes difficulties.  SoulCollage® experts might say that I’m stepping into a new archetype as I immerse myself in Durga Ma as a way God has blessed humanity for centuries.



This is not to say that the spiritual practices of Religious Science have been displaced.  My spiritual journey has brought me to many holy places and practices from the first entry into native spirituality through vision, through my Catholic upbringing and practice, to Christian Science, to Hinduism, to Religious Science, to Buddhism.  They all nourish.  They all remain like rooms in my spiritual home, in my soul, and I walk freely around in them as needed. They are my greater sparkle.

At Oakland Center one Sunday at breakfast, a woman who is a skilled masseuse, as I was crowing about my fun with yellow, said something about healing the third chakra.  I hadn't put that together yet, hadn't consciously included chakras.  The Vedic astrologer hadn't mentioned them.  Of course, it is the third chakra, the region of the digestive organs, that physical area called the "hara" by the Japanese, that is said to be the center of personal power.  Curiously, in SoulCollage®, The first companion card, the card where you choose an animal to reveal your feeling of a specific chakra's energy--my first companion card (above) was for the third chakra rather than the fourth or heart chakra which is commonly done first. 

Durga, when remembered, relieves fears of all who are in trouble, grants intelligence and well-being for those who are not in trouble.  She relieves woe, fear and poverty.  She is always kind hearted, creating everyone's welfare.

-Saptashloki Durga

God is all there is. God is life, love, wholeness, and freedom.  I am one with God as alll this and more.  I speak a word for myself, Aikya Param.  I accept my complete healing right here and right now.  I know that the fullness and power of that same God who created the galaxies is in every cell of my body and created my body out of the Logos, the "stuff."  That very same God who created it, knows it all as whole, perfect and complete and is fully capable of recreating it in perfect condition.  I accept my complete healing for the benefit of all creatures. I accept the best thing that could happen in all areas of my life.  I give thanks for the opportunity to express this prayer and I release this word into the Law, which is the Mind of God in action.  And so it it.  Aho! Amen.