I knew I was overdue for a vacation, especially with the extreme chaos of the past 12 months at work. And yet, it really didn’t sink in how out of shape my body/spirit/mind alignment was until I got in the saddle and took off on an 8-day motorcycle tour of Glacier National Park in Montana and the Canadian Rockies.

As I rolled down the road with my 3 companions, I realized that I was carrying a great deal of pain in my emotional and physical bodies as evidenced by the deep depression and the considerable back discomfort I was experiencing. To sum it up, I felt pretty trashed! So here I was faced with having to ride for 8 days and I was wondering how I was going to eliminate these significant distractions as the key to riding safely and having fun is being in the moment. Quitting the ride was certainly an option if I couldn’t get this situation under control but I had committed to my brother and friends that I would make this ride. I searched my intuition for ideas as my conscious mind was fearful and on the verge of panic. As I did, I sensed a distinct purpose to this ride and the idea of a vision quest came to me. I have always been fascinated by this Native American practice of hiking to a place of solitude and remaining there for three days and nights, often without food or water, until a vision came. I was certainly in need of a vision and some healing so I decided to use the challenge of this ride for such a purpose. Instead of wanting to flee from my depression and pain, I would approach it and go through it to see what answers lay beyond them. Once I made this decision, I became calmer and I began working on realigning my body, mind and spirit while I rode.

I focused on grounding myself by visualizing that I was inhaling energy from Earth into the base of my spine. As I exhaled, I spread that Earth energy throughout my body and with each breath I took, I felt my body relax into the motorcycle and the world around me. I then shifted my attention to the top of my head. I visualized opening my crown chakra and as I inhaled, I pulled a beam of golden light from above into the top of my head to activate and cleanse that chakra. When I saw a clear silver color appear in that chakra, I moved my attention down my spine to the next chakra, the 3rd eye chakra located even with my brow. When I got a clear image of purple, the color associated with that chakra, I moved down to the next chakra and repeated the exercise until I reached the root chakra at the base of my spine. I then visualized inhaling simultaneously through the crown and root chakras, pulling in spiritual and Earth energies respectively, blending them in my belly and then exhaling them to form a white light sphere around my motorcycle and me.

From within this sphere, I viewed the world with a greater clarity. Everything sparkled and I became more aware of the beauty of Nature. I felt and sensed the consciousness of the Earth, Fire, Water and Air Elementals all around me. The flow and clarity of information from Universal Mind was enhanced. My normal mental anxieties were replaced with a deep calmness. My spirit guides appeared within my sphere and my spirit animal, a grey wolf, ran next to me as I ride. I was ready to explore my pain and seek a vision.

I focused my mind on the pain in my mid-back. I inhaled through it and asked it to reveal itself to me. The first thought that came to me was this is where my back gave way as a teenager in this lifetime. From that event, my life took a serious turn down a path of chronic pain and despair, ending with a near-death experience on an operating table in a hospital. I absorbed that revelation and looked for the next. Over the next couple of days, it came to me that this is the same spot where my spine broke in my previous lifetime as my home collapsed due to a German bombing raid during World War I. I dreamt of this death over and over during the past twenty years and I now realized that I had not done anything to resolve the issues surrounding that death. And lastly, it occurred to me that this spot in my back is the location of the solar plexus chakra. I inhaled through that chakra and saw the yellow color come forth. What would a blockage in this chakra mean? And then it came to me: this was about not listening to or trusting my intuition to guide my actions.

So I had achieved my vision. I knew that I had a major healing ahead of me. I felt this would best be accomplished by working with Inga. I also knew that I was ready to face whatever had caused this psychic, emotional and physical wound. I spent the rest of my ride absorbing the amazing beauty that we experienced during our ride and I felt it rejuvenating and strengthening me for the healing work ahead.

Upon returning home, I told Inga of my vision and she agreed that exploring my solar plexus chakra would be a good course of action. She guided me to a very relaxed state, much like the state I achieved while riding with the distinction that my body, instead of being in motion, was shifted into a dreamlike state where my muscles were virtually immobilized. And instead of expanding my consciousness into the world around me, she guided my conscious mind inward to the realm of my unconscious mind. As directed, I looked with my spiritual sight at my solar plexus chakra. I saw a large cord emanating from it and Inga instructed me to pull myself along it as if it were a rope, away from my body. Hand over hand, I did so and I arrived at the time of my back injury as a teenager in this lifetime. Inga asked me to describe what was happening. I could sense that a fearful childhood had overwhelmed by intuition to the point where I was deeply confused as to what I came here to achieve. It took a near-death experience some four years later to correct this. Inga asked me to follow the cord further back and it led me to my death in the previous lifetime during World War I.

I noted a lifetime of despair and little hope. I walked through that lifetime as a virtual zombie. I could see that I carried this state of mind into this lifetime and how it didn’t take much fear to push me over the edge again. I could also see that I brought this fear from yet an earlier lifetime, one that I’ve extensively explored and worked on healing during this lifetime. If you’ve read earlier articles of mine, you’ll know I’m talking about my life as an officer in the United States Union Army back in the 1800s where I experienced the Civil War and the Indian Wars. The real despair started here as I witnessed suffering, violence and loss. I saw how I battled with what my intuition was telling me about an enlightened path of action vs. what was happening around me externally. Ultimately, I gave into fear and I was swept away by the tide of violence. Sensing that the cord went back even further, Inga urged me to move on.

I saw the lifetime Inga and I spent in southern France as husband and wife, where I was a blacksmith and she was an herbalist. In that time, war was sweeping the land as religious factions battled for control over ideas and the hearts and minds of people. I played a role in supplying the Knights Templar with armor and weapons. I wanted to get more deeply involved and make a difference but I instinctively sensed the danger of getting swept up in the struggle. I stayed out of the direct conflict and as a result, the storm broke and went around the little region where we lived. I could see I was not content with this outcome and this clearly set the stage for me to risk getting more involved during the Civil War lifetime.

I followed the cord back to another lifetime and I returned to another death that I’ve dreamed of countless times since childhood. I am a Japanese samurai and I am thoroughly dedicated to the perfection of my warrior craft. Where my intuition guides me to take action counter to that required by my clan, I ignore it. I am totally loyal to my clan and I’ll do nothing to jeopardize my place in it as my clan and my skills are the foundation of my sense of security. When we invade the Korean peninsula, we engage in battle and I ruthlessly dispatch my many opponents with expert skill. I am unassailable until a number of Koreans with long spears surround me and I am finally killed. I now notice for the first time that the killing blow enters my mid-back at the location of the solar plexus chakra.

I pull myself back further to an earlier lifetime where the wound and blockage in my solar plexus chakra began. I am a Viking woman and wife of the village’s shaman. That shaman is Inga. Times have become fearful for our village and I overhear people questioning whether our shaman is truly protecting us. I feel responsible somehow as the shaman’s wife and I feel a fear growing in me. A village elder comes to our home while Inga is away and shares his grave concerns with me. As I listen to him, my intuition that is telling me that Inga is very powerful and deeply committed to our village and that with faith and clarity, we can weather this storm, but I become infected with the elder’s fear and begin expressing my own fears and doubts. This starts a chain reaction that results in us being cast out of the village. We take refuge in Scotland and later immigrate to Greenland where we eventually die of starvation. I view this outcome as the result of not listening to my intuition.

I can now see the chain of events leading all the way back into this lifetime and see how the scarring of this wound thickened, as I was unable to heal it. I realize that I now can and Inga guides me to relive the event with the village elder but this time, I am to replace my fear with Light and Love. I perform the same ritual that I did on my motorcycle and I pull Earth and Spirit energy into my body to form that sphere of white light. My spoken words are now those of Truth from Universal Mind, Father/Mother/God. The elder’s fears are dissolved and replaced with leadership and strength. I see myself become a woman of wisdom and a powerful companion for the village’s shaman. I see our home become a restful sanctuary for Inga, which better enables her/him to do the necessary work to guide our community. We weather the fearful storm sweeping the countryside and instead of being cast out and eventually dying in Greenland, we live out our lives in this village as productive, beloved members.

I now can see a different parallel history emerging for me, one where fear is not passed on from lifetime to lifetime and instead, truth and love take its place. The pain I was feeling in my back in gone. I no longer have a blockage to my intuition. I feel a simple, uncomplicated trust in my intuition developing and it’s been lifetimes since I’ve felt that, literally! I’m left with a feeling of expectancy, that I’ve been profoundly changed and that new, wondrous opportunities are now available to me that were previously locked up. I’ll keep you posted. */:-)