On Mother’s Day, a few months before my fetus soul retrieval,
I sat next to a radiant woman at a yoga retreat
who shared with me that she had recently undergone
an exceptional kind of surgery for endometriosis.
Endometriosis is a chronic, painful disease
in which the endometrium tissue grows outside the uterus
where it can adhere to the pelvic wall
and negatively affect and even penetrate several organs.
Due to my occasional, but debilitating, episodes during my periods
(always after a nightmare about a nefarious being attacking me)
I suspected I suffered from endometriosis,
but it could only be confirmed through surgery.
The woman told me that this highly successful
surgical technique was called excision,
and it was originally conceived by a Dr. Redwine.
He created the technique because his wife
suffered from endometriosis
and traditional surgeries weren’t helping.
It was created out of Love.
On that Mother’s Day, I knew I was given a directive.
However, it wasn’t till months after
my soul retrieval at the crucifixion
that I scheduled the surgery.
Being a holistic gal who tends to eschew allopathic medicine,
choosing to have elective surgery was unnerving, to say the least.
But every time I doubted myself
the signs, synchronicities, and gifts
amped up.
For example, the surgery is performed
in the same hospital where I was born
in Atlanta, Georgia.
The surgeon’s office manager’s daughter
happens to be best friends with my second cousin,
which resulted in an extraordinary discount
on a surgery that my insurance would not cover,
and my generous family and friends
footed the rest.
Besides the physical benefits of having this surgery,
soulful benefits were hinted at as well,
especially in regard to my relationship with the demon.
Entering my Wounds
and refusing the demon’s bait
during my fetus soul retrieval
was the beginning of our separation.
But getting his influence
out of my body
apparently took, well, surgery.
In fact, it felt like I could not embody my soul
with him still marking his territory inside me.
And the only person who had the skills and the spiritual presence
to remove him was an incredibly compassionate Christian surgeon
who, I kid you not, looks like a giant cherub angel.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him
that he wasn’t just excising endometriosis
from my pelvis,
he was also exorcising an ancient demon.
But more than a demon has been hiding out in my pelvis.
Most of my feelings and trauma from my first life reside there as well.
In fact, during our first pre-op appointment,
my surgeon prescribed some surprising medication
—medication I was not supposed to take via my mouth.
When I left his office, I immediately called my friend Sharon:
“Girlfriend, guess what?
My PLPTSD (past-life post-traumatic stress disorder)
is so bad . . . that my vagina needs valium.”
Her immediate reply: “Can we make T-shirts with that phrase?”
If you don’t have friends like this
—friends who make you laugh your ass off,
friends who don’t blink at your freak (but add to it),
friends who cheer you on as you venture
into the Wild West of your interior
—then Incarnating is way more difficult.
But I digress.
Back to the exorcism.
As exorcisms go, this wasn’t an easy one.
Not only did I have to prepare for it by energetically deconstructing
and emotionally psychoanalyzing the complex, intimate relationship
I had with the demon, but I had to own my shadows that match it.
and my recovery,
kicked my butt.
I woke up in immense pain,
extremely nauseated and way out of sorts.
I feared that I had put my poor body
through something unnecessary.
But then my dear friend Tara,
who had flown in for the surgery,
informed me that the surgeon had taken
high-definition photos of the endometriosis
he had removed from my body.
She held up one such photo and humorously asked,
“Why does a Jew have to be the one to point this out?!”
The photo left no room for interpretation.
The photo was of a thick
black cross
adhered to my pelvic wall.
It was endometriosis
that was now ex(or)cised.
I keep the photo on my iPhone,
just because you never know
who you’ll be sitting next to
on an airplane.
If my seatmates show me pictures of their kids,
I show them pictures of my pre-exorcised demon.
[wink]
After I returned to the crucifixion and retrieved my fetus fragment,
I felt ready to retrieve Sarah’s other fragments as well.
But newborn Sarah taught me
that each fragment is distinct
and required a different approach.
When I return to the birth of Sarah,
I allow myself to experience
the devastating feelings
of rejection and being unwanted.
[deep, shaky breath]
Despite their hurtful reactions to me,
I try to do the correct and conscious thing:
forgive my parents’ community.
But my Lady stops me.
She asks me to feel newborn Sarah,
who is screaming with pain.
My solar plexus is contracted,
and my front body has collapsed.
My Lady counsels:
Don’t act more spiritual than this wound.
Ground into your female body,
and do what you feel like doing.
Get Real.
my spine straightens,
and my feminine fire reignites.
I scoop up newborn Sarah
and hold her howling body close to my own
so she can feel the solidity of human touch,
the physical presence of my love,
and how much I want her.
“I’ve got you sweet girl, I’ve got you,” I murmur,
my eyes watering, my heart booming.
Sarah settles a bit, but she is still extremely agitated
because she doesn’t feel like she belongs in human arms.
I whirl around to face those who are activating these feelings
and then do what any soul mama would do
if this crap were aimed at their baby:
I bitch the disciples out.
“You are acting like a bunch of ASSHOLES!” I yell.
“You are adults! This is a baby! A BABY, for Christ’s sake!
Take your issues and your negative attitudes elsewhere!
You are not coming near my soul baby again
until you learn how to treat her
with the care and respect she deserves!”
Then I take my soul baby and leave,
slamming the door behind me.
BAM!
That felt good,
Real Good.
I feel empowered as adult Sera
and soothed, protected, and fiercely loved
as newborn Sarah.
I discovered that I can take care of myself,
no matter what others throw at me.
I can set boundaries with unhealthy energies and people,
even if they appear or are considered to be “spiritual.”
I can walk away, or stand my ground,
or even bitch someone(s) out.
And, even if I didn’t or couldn’t
do it then,
I can do it now.
For the first time
I feel safe in my own arms.
Newborn Sarah was back.
That was one of my favorite soul retrievals.
Retrieving Adult Sarah
This next soul retrieval was one of my least favorites.
Retrieving the fragment of adult Sarah
required being buried alive.
I sink down, through the dank earth,
into that dismal and desolate underground room,
and sit next to Sarah.
Learning from my previous retrieval of newborn Sarah,
I allow adult Sarah to be where she is and who she is.
I allow myself to feel what I felt then.
As the man who I thought was my friend
rolls that rock over my exit,
air and trust rush out of me,
followed by
the horrendous sensation of rape.
But it’s not my body
that has been violated,
it’s my soul.
Shock renders me mute and immobile.
With my only source of light missing,
I am swallowed by the hungry darkness.
Not only was I betrayed by someone I trusted,
but I betrayed those who entrusted me.
I handed the keys to the Kingdom and Queendom
to a jailor
who does not want anyone to be free.
My lungs collapse
as what I did
lands on my chest.
I failed
my Parents,
my Lineage,
myself . . .
you.
My regret is like a rabid animal.
I scramble about in the dark,
frantically searching for some way out,
but my failure fills every crack
and my self-loathing seals every stone.
I scream as loud as I can
for as long as I can,
but nobody hears me.
Nobody has heard me.
I keel over, clutching my arms as I feel
everything that has been done in the name of my father,
without my mother
and without what I was entrusted to pass on.
I feel Christianity’s fear
of Natural Ways of Being,
and the resulting near extinction
of Organic Life.
I feel the horrors and the heartlessness
of the Crusades and Holy Wars.
I feel the terror during the Inquisition
when millions were tortured and massacred by the Church
for speaking, writing, or living their truth.
I feel the confusion and fright felt by every human
who has been told that they are going to hell
because they have not made Jesus Christ their savior.
I feel the sickening physical and psychological self-flagellation
that results from being called or believing one is a “sinner,”
the relentless soul-sucking struggle
to be good enough to “get into heaven,”
and the resulting distrust in and suppression of one’s authentic nature,
creative self-expression, and healthy sexual preferences,
which so often leads to depression, disease, addiction, and even suicide.
I feel the lack of self-confidence and the diminishment of power
within all the little girls who are treated as less than little boys.
I hear the millions of silenced female voices
and sense their shut-down, shamed, and defiled bodies
and the interrelated desecration of this earth.
I feel all the women who are trapped
by “the virgin” and “the whore”
instead of respected and released
by the ravishing truth of
both my grandmother and mother.
I feel all the men who have taken a vow of celibacy
in order to be (un)like my father,
and the rampant repression and sexual abuse that has resulted.
I feel the inflation and power-mongering
of many Christian leaders who have overtly or covertly
stolen the spiritual authority away from their followers.
I feel the spiritual abuse committed
by attempting to “save” others,
which denies and dishonors
the Sovereignty of the Soul.
I feel, I feel, and I feel
the devastation caused by Christianity
and the incalculable and unnatural wounds
it’s inflicted on souls, bodies, and the earth.
[pause]
My scholarly mind is well aware that the Church
isn’t solely responsible for everything I listed above,
and that Christianity has also been a positive influence.
The Church has been a liberating resource for many,
and has committed outstanding acts of service,
and many Christians throughout history suffered horribly
at the hands of others.
But nothing stalls a soul retrieval faster than intellectual critiques
or psychological analysis of one’s honest feelings.
What I needed to stay
true to during this retrieval
was my wounded soul fragment,
who, yes, somewhat narcissistically,
felt more than partially responsible
for the negative affects of Christianity
since her lockdown.
I roll back and forth, crying out:
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I can’t stop apologizing.
“I’m sorry” is my soul’s mantra
and I have to keep saying it.
Because nothing can fix what I have done,
or repair the damage I believe I have helped cause.
My faults finished my Lineage.
My weakness defeated Their Love.
My humanness fucked everything up.
My hatred of being human rumbles to the surface,
ironically making me sound not unlike the Church.
Although my confession feels like a release,
it also feels like a life(times) sentence.
As my fractured soul, I am convinced
that I belong in this cell forever
and that the world is better off without me.
I exhale and lie face down in the dark.
Almost imperceptibly
the air shifts around me.
I can’t see in the darkness,
but I can feel that someone else
is now here, with me.
It is one of you.
I gasp and scuttle away.
The air changes again
as another one of you
arrives in my cell,
then another, and another.
I’m stunned and retreat further against a wall.
Soon, a warm body touches my own.
Then a different body finds me.
There is no more room for me to hide.
The cell is now full.
I panic and feel like I’m suffocating,
but you all start breathing together,
slowly and rhythmically.
inhale . . . . . . exhale . . . . . . inhale . . . . . . exhale.
I begin to breathe with you.
After a while,
I feel connected to you,
supported by you,
and then,
I feel something even more powerful:
I feel forgiven and loved by humanity.
My body shudders with release,
and the walls around my heart crack
allowing a truer reality than the one
I’ve been inhabiting to trickle through:
My Soul’s Reality.
Red leaks out of my heart
and into my body.
It flows faster and grows stronger.
As it Refills me, it Reminds me
not only why I Chose to be human,
but why I Chose to be Sarah.
I didn’t choose to be Sarah
only to expand my capacity to Love
and evolve as a Being,
like I had previously Remembered
before my return to the crucifixion.
This is not an abstract Love
that I am now feeling.
It’s personal.
It’s an incredibly intimate
experience and expression
of LOVING.
It is more Love than I have ever felt,
and it is flowing from Me.
It is Red. It is Hot. And it is Holy.
It is Unwavering, Unstoppable Devotion.
I Remember. I Remember. I Remember.
It’s because I Love
my Parents, humanity, and this planet,
so fucking much
that I Chose this role of Sarah.
I bow my head and the tears pour.
I chose my life as Sarah
in order to one day
be a Living and Loving Reminder
of Who We All Truly Are.
We are the Third.
We are the missing pieces
of
Love’s Story.
We are the daughters and sons
of this Universe.
And,
We are Universes Ourselves,
Distinct Divine Souls
Who have dared to become human.
We
Make
True Love
Whole.
I couldn’t remind anyone of This
by floating above or by beaming down
as some seraphic blaze of love and light.
For that is not how Organic Life roots
or True Love grows here.
The Reality is:
I wasn’t buried.
I was planted.
I needed to be placed in the dark earth first
and experience everything that entails
in order to eventually be able to support
my fellow soul sisters and soul brothers
who might feel buried, too.
This is what we do for each other.
This is what you all just did for me.
I compassionately place my hands on my chest.
I did what any human fetus
would do during that crucifixion.
I needed to disassociate, fragment, shut down,
and even sell out
in order to protect myself and my body.
My survival instincts saved me.
They did not condemn me.
And then I did the best I could
with that trauma and those core wounds,
in that lifetime and for lifetimes after,
including trusting the wrong people with my truth.
Even feeling abandoned, evil, unlovable, rejected,
betrayed, alone, lost, worthless, and like I failed,
has been an essential part of my soul’s path.
The Radical Truth is: I didn’t fail my mission.
In fact, it looks like I’ve been doing it all along.
For there is no other way to Incarnate Love
but to go through the human experience.
And, that is what I am doing.
As are you.
I rub my chest.
My deepest shame has been being human,
but it is actually my greatest triumph.
I wrap my arms around myself.
I’ve been judging myself so harshly,
for so long,
and thereby everyone else as well.
When instead I should be hugging myself,
and everyone else, for being so goddamn human.
In fact, I should be congratulating us all,
because we are obviously really fucking going for it!
Feeling you around me,
I stand up in that cell,
and I forgive myself
and all of you
for being human.
I close my eyes
and start to weep
as what feels like
the Waters of Life
pour over me,
washing me free of all the paradigms and belief systems
that have directly, but more often indirectly, taught me
to feel less than and ashamed for being human.
I am being cleansed of their sins.
I am being Baptized
by my Divine Being,
and my Divine Parents,
so my body and soul
can shamelessly enter
the heaven and hell
of humanity.
I open my eyes.
Although it took my father only three days
to roll the stone away from his tomb,
I’m not entirely convinced this proves he is stronger.
For it takes a particular kind of strength
to stay in the dark for as long as so many of us have.
It is a different kind of sacrifice.
Sarah’s life was a sacrifice.
It was a crucial and auspicious beginning
of my Soul’s journey to becoming human.
It prepared me
to be and do
what I originally came here
to be and do:
Love.
Now I have the opportunity to transmute
my personal suffering into support for others
(with no shadowy strings attached).
I have the ability to turn my past
into a genuine present.
It’s Time
for many of us
to grow up
and come out of the rich, dark soil.
It’s Time
to blossom as shameless, human souls
and reveal our unrefined, natural beauty.
I place my hands on the walls of my cell
and start digging.
Sacred Roles
I dig faster and faster in the soul realm,
making the same bodily motions in the physical realm.
I dig like my life depends on it.
When my fingers find that rock,
I resource all the strength I have gained
from living under it
and break right through it.
And then I’m standing above ground
squinting in the bright sun, covered in dirt.
With a ferocious ROAR I start chasing after
the man who stole my Soul and locked my body away,
my feet pounding in place in physical reality.
When I reach him,
I rip my Redness out of his greedy hands
and swallow it with a voracious gulp.
Belch!
Furiously, I start to dance around him in the soul realm,
and in my bedroom in the physical realm.
My movements are untamed and anarchic.
I stomp my feet and swing my hair.
I stick my tongue out and widen my eyes.
I hiss and growl and make terrifying noises.
I get right up in his face,
and let him know just
who he has messed with:
Sarah-la-KALI!
But then, my Holy Feminine Rage
twists into something less liberating:
my human thirst for revenge.
The sudden and savage need
to make this man suffer and pay
for his crimes against my body and soul,
feels almost impossible to resist.
So I ask for help.
My Lady Turns Up:
There is nothing wrong with what you are feeling.
Let him know the pain his actions have caused.
Tell him how you feel.
Through quivering lips and with beads of sweat
rolling down my face, I tell the man what he has done
to me and my loved ones and how much it has hurt.
He stays silent,
eyes wide.
Now sense his reality, my Lady nudges.
I open toward him and begin to feel
how fearful he is of me
and of what I am sharing with the world.
He honestly believes that I am poisoning
his spiritual lineage.
Ending my life and covering up my existence
was not easy for him,
but he felt it was necessary and justified.
As if waiting in the wings, more men
from my parents’ community appear.
In this open state, I can feel why my birth upset them so much:
because they felt unqualified and unsure
about taking on their beloved teacher’s mission!
And because their teacher’s only child was born female,
they then felt entirely responsible for doing so.
They didn’t realize the effects of their treatment toward me.
I was just a girl to them, and my mother, just a woman.
I felt their wounding around women and fear of the Feminine.
I recognized how their wounds, shadows, and power struggles
allowed the interfering forces, like patriarchy, to work through them,
just like they can work through all of us.
My heart softens toward these men,
and I start to release my grip,
which allows me to become aware
of my own accountability.
Truth was, I rejected my Soul and my mission in the womb
and then blamed the disciples for rejecting me and my mission
when I came out of the womb.
Deep down, I believed I was evil
and then blamed that disciple
for treating me as if it were true.
I didn’t want to exist at the end of my first life,
and then I blamed the Church for excluding me
and the whole world for not knowing me.
While admitting this doesn’t condone
the cruel or unjust actions of others
—nor is this about self-blame—
it does require that I look in the mirror
and take an appropriate amount of responsibility.
It’s easier to project the cause of my pain outward
at spiritual authorities and institutions, at the unfair world,
at demons, at those close to me,
and admit that I’ve done similar things to myself
that I’ve accused others of doing to me
and I was the first one to do so.
The air starts to clear and my Soul’s lens widens,
helping me recognize the Roles that we, as Divine Souls,
play for each other on Earth,
and the challenges and lessons
we provide for one another
that help us grow as human souls.
In other words, there is a Sacred Role
the disciples have played for me
by dismissing my Original Role.
Behind the scenes, as Divine Souls,
these men were (and still are) challenging me
to let go of my aspirations to prove myself to them
and give up my need to be accepted and respected
by them and all spiritual teachers and authorities
including the Church.
A bitter taste fills my mouth.
I hold more resentment toward the Church
than I do toward any other institution.
My Lady carefully asks:
What is the Sacred Role of the Church?
What is it teaching you
by acting in opposition to you?
The answers rush forth:
“By acting as the Spiritual Authority,
the Church is, er, ‘encouraging’ me
to become my own Spiritual Authority
and Know and express my Truth,
no matter what spiritual traditions
claim is The Truth.
By denying the love shared between my parents,
the Church is provoking me to Remember True Love.
By believing my first life is a lie,
the Church is pushing me
to believe in myself!”
Fired up, I can See the Sacred Roles
all my oppositional forces and so-called enemies play,
and recognize the necessary “Boot Camp”
they have provided for me.
My Lady continues,
How you choose to act in response
to someone or something that has harmed you
is what makes your parents’ teachings
Come Alive . . . or not.
I recall what my father did right before he died
and what my mother continued to do afterward:
They forgave those who harmed them.
Forgiving freed the souls of those who betrayed them,
and it freed my father’s and mother’s souls, as well.
When we don’t forgive,
we stay chained to that person or thing
throughout time,
and perpetuating our injuries,
instead of healing from the initial wound
and evolving beyond it.
If we don’t forgive,
we hold ourselves
and the other
back.
We obstruct the natural movement of Life.
Forgiveness not only changes us
and those we forgive,
it changes this planet.
Because it is in the act of forgiveness
that we Incarnate Love.
[clearing my throat]
All that said, forgiveness is not another “should”
we need to put on our spiritual “to do” list
and feel guilty about or judge ourselves by.
For most of us, it takes time to forgive
(uh, two thousand years for me),
and some substantial help from our Soul.
Forgiveness doesn’t make
what happened right or okay.
Forgiveness does not mean we should forget
or pretend that the harm didn’t occur
or ignore how we still hurt from it.
To forgive requires that we tell our story,
feel our pain, and voice our violations.
By owning what happened to us,
we are finally able to let it go,
and let Love In.
Our life becomes our own again.
We are no longer defined
by what has happened to us
but instead by the resilient human
we have become as a result.
I take a deep breath and face the disciples and the Church.
“You have been the bane of my entire human existence,
but I now recognize and respect the Sacred Roles
you are playing for my soul and for many souls.
Thank you for all you have taught me
and will continue to teach me.
I forgive you.”
With tears in their eyes,
the disciples nod
and walk away.
When the man who locked me underground
walks away from me,
toward the Church he is credited for building,
I can’t help but notice how different
his footprints are from my father’s.
Immediately, the demon who operated through
the man who rolled that rock over me materializes
and looms menacingly.
I fall into my usual position and cower in fear.
This guy is no joke because evil is no joke.
He has abused me and violated me in every way imaginable,
and many ways unimaginable, resulting in severe and what has
felt like permanent damage to my body, soul, energy, and psyche,
and he has committed heinous crimes against those I love.
I feel my Lady’s firm hand on my lower back.
I straighten my spine as I receive Her support.
What has the demon been teaching you? My Lady gently asks.
I focus on his Sacred Role in my lives.
Ah.
He’s been teaching me
that no matter what it feels or appears like,
no one can steal my mission
or my Soul.
Tears spring to my eyes.
He has taught me about betrayal:
Betrayal by others and of others,
but also betrayal of my self.
The hairs raise on the back of my arms.
Through all his antics and abuse,
he has ultimately been “training” me
to honor, claim, and embody my soul.
And, are you honoring your Sacred Role with him? My Lady inquires.
Awareness ripples through me,
followed by dumbfounded shock.
I haven’t been.
My hatred toward him has chained us together,
preventing us both from becoming free and evolving.
His influence might have kept me buried in darkness,
but my lack of forgiveness
was keeping him buried in darkness.
Beneath all his terrifying awfulness,
I can sense an infinitesimal desire to change.
A soul spark.
And it is enough.
This seems eerily similar to
when I was stuck in that dark cell.
I needed your forgiveness and Love
to be able to find my Soul again.
And now he needs mine.
I step out of the chains binding me,
pick up the heavy links between us,
and start walking around the demon,
unwrapping him layer by layer.
I say, “I’m sorry.”
When he is unchained by me,
we face each other:
human to demon
and soul to soul.
I confess: “I have not been strong enough
to forgive you and release you
from our bondage, till now.
I apologize, and I hope you can forgive me.
No matter what you have done to me and those I care about,
you still deserve the chance to feel True Love, as all Beings do.
And now you have it.
I forgive you.
I release you.
And I Love you.”
The demon throws back his thick head
with a heart-breaking howl.
When his dark eyes meet mine again,
we exchange something that needs to be exchanged
after playing such epic roles for each other:
Gratitude.
Then he unfolds his tenebrous wings
and flies away.
since I was first a fetus,
I feel free.
A Red footnote:
My psychologically reflexive mind would have preferred
a different ending to that complicated relationship.
You know, where I realize the demon
who has stalked my soul all this time
is actually a shadowed part of me.
I could then top that with the spiritual cliché:
“Because we’re all One.”
But I’ve been in this Universe for far too long,
and I have too much respect for all the complex Beings within it,
to shortchange their sovereignty by blending us all together
into some easily digestible, cosmic chicken soup,
or by treating them as only byproducts of my psyche.
That’s solipsistic and disrespectful
from my Soul’s Point of View.
Not to mention dangerous.
Are some demons part of our psyches? Of course!
And what complicates things even more
is that our wounds, shadows, and inner “demons”
are how actual demons and interfering forces
infiltrate, affect, and work through us.
It is how and why we can become
temporarily “possessed,”
which we all have been at times.
However, just because the earthly and cosmic dimensions host demons,
this does not give us the right to point fingers and demonize others,
nor does the demonic reality let us off the hook from doing
our psychological and spiritual work.
Instead, this should motivate us to be clear and compassionate
toward ourselves and others who are wrestling with such forces,
and to remodel our inner domain so demons don’t have
as many doorways to enter.
To be extra-strength clear:
Demons are not something to dismiss, befriend, bless, or take on.
Make no mistake about it, they aim to destroy Life.
But like all interfering forces,
they also serve a Sacred Purpose
and, when we can manage it,
our respect.
Which is why I now refer to my demon,
as my soul’s best Personal Trainer.