Two dying men met on the street the other day.

One was in an electric wheelchair, outside for the first time in a long time.  He drove around the yard where his great-grandson, a toddler, was playing.  He drove up the road to see where the old house had burned down, and to see the new foundation being built.  He said hello to his neighbors, his friends.

The other man arrived in a car.  Through the window, he waved at the man in the wheelchair as his wife pulled over to the side of the road.  Slowly, as though it cost him to move, he walked across the street and smiled.  His was a face used to smiling, though it sagged slightly under the weight of pain.

“How are ya?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” the first man replied, hoarse voice cracking.

And the second man sat down, in the middle of the street, at the feet of the first.

We – the second man’s wife, myself, and my husband (whose grandfather sat in the wheelchair) – simply stood back a bit, holding space.

They talked of sickness, of course.  Cancer.  How they had gotten the news, and what choices they’d had to make.  The man sitting on the road said how sick the treatment had made him, and it was clear in his lopsided figure and swollen eyes.  Our grandfather said how far gone it already was, and that he hadn’t had much of a choice.  No treatment for him.

“How long did they give you?” he asked.

It wasn’t that he asked it; it was the way he said it that took gravity from our chests and laid it bare, as though the moment itself was suspended in our collectively held breath.

“They won’t say, now . . .” and it was understood that the treatment had ended, and so, too, would his life, though the doctors were loath to commit.  “How ‘bout you?”

“Oh, could be a couple weeks, could be a month.”

Though we – the wife, the grandson, and I – exchanged glances, the two dying men were steady.  They had eyes only for each other.

They talked of other things, of renting lakeside cabins and the local garbage service.

One man was in a lot of pain, the other had none.  One slept a lot, the other woke in the night.  By all accounts, the two men could be exchanging niceties at the local diner.

Except.

Well, except for their eyes, and the intensity of their gaze.  Though we – a wife, a son, a mother – were there, nearby anyway, we could never actually be there, with those men.

Like watching two people fall in love, almost, but more solid, like a mountain instead of a cloud, we witnessed two men dying – together, for a moment.

Last year, I went on a didgeridoo journey meditation. The following is my recount of the experience, recorded as a voice-to-text on my drive home immediately afterward. 

In the beginning, I had difficulty concentrating, or rather, letting go of concentration. The sound of the didgeridoo – and being so close to the birth center -seemed to bring back memories of my birth.* I expected them to upset me; that expectation pulled me out of it for a moment, and I thought that I would burst into tears and have to leave the room – but, instead, I was calm. I remembered the beginning part of my birth and what the didgeridoo did to help me stay centered, meditative, and focused. I found myself soothed.

In an attempt to deepen the meditation and allow myself to let go, I invited my spirit guides to keep me safe and guide my journey.

It then began. I had an acute sense of bluish images and the feeling that little aliens were walking around the room, bending over me, looking at me.

I saw images of babies – baby faces. 

A blue light pinpointed shadowy images that I needed to focus on to go deeper. I suddenly had a memory of everything that I felt like I should’ve said or that I ever wanted to say, and then my throat chakra cleared! I could tell because it got so watery that I had to swallow – and then I realized all of my chakras in turn were becoming clear.

When I became aware that my chakras were being worked on, thoughts started to race around my mind. I felt enormous pressure in my head; the pressure was so great that I felt my head weigh a thousand pounds, pressing into the earth, like it could crumble at any moment – it was throbbing.

The didgeridoo music started to permeate the inside of my skull, an offensive intrusion. The music expanded like a bubble inside of my brain until finally it was as though the sound barrier had been breached and the pressure was released: little tendrils of consciousness and shadow, silver and light, and everything that makes me ME became a drip and started to trickle out of my mind – out of my brain – like tendrils of light filling up the room around me.

After the pressure in my mind subsided, I came out of the meditation slightly. I realized that I was cold – the heat that I had built up on my hands** had left me feeling shivery. I changed the position of my head, rolling a blanket underneath my neck, and put my hands under the other blanket that was covering my body. It was at this time that he switched instruments started to play another didgeridoo.

This time, I really started to float away. I can’t even recall the foreign places that my mind visited except to say that at one point I almost think I drifted off a little too far from myself and I felt the sharp bite of my kitty Taz right on the upper part of my thigh – it was as though she was bringing me back. My little Familiar!***

Near the end, I don’t know if it was the fourth or fifth didgeridoo, I had an impression of a gigantic funnel. I don’t know if it was consciousness, spirit, the universe, my higher self, or just some image . . . but there was a huge shovel – no, it was more of a funnel – and it was packing lush, fertile earth all into my roots. My thighs, my legs, my pelvis, my entire root chakra area, and then the aura around that area was packed with light, fluffy, fragrant earth. Then, with the music, some sort of tree or plant started to bloom out of it and it was as though the tree or the plant was blooming inside of a bubble that was expanding from my stomach. 

I was reminded of Carlos Castenada’s “A Separate Reality,” and the luminous egg of energy that lives in our stomach. In that moment, I felt tendrils of energy curling out of the center of my being as though it was the tree of life ensconced inside of this bubble, the bubble all the while growing with the music. Some of the tendrils became so long that they were reaching the edges of the room. Just when I thought the bubble would burst, the music paused.

With the pause, I suddenly became conscious of my body laying on the floor in the studio.

Equally abruptly, I was looking out a window. The green grass and trees looked like a familiar window from my childhood. I saw the neighbors’ lawn and almost heard their dog barking. I saw the side of their house as though I was looking right out my bedroom window from my top bunk.  

I didn’t want to be left with that image; I had the sense that it was almost over, so I tried to recall the feeling of the tendrils of the tree in the earth packed around me.

The pause ended. The didgeridoo played four more notes. I made peace with the bedroom window and promised to absorb everything I had just experienced. I asked that it stay with me, and asked that all the negative energy or sludge be cleared, that I might process this magic and come into my light.

I was left with a profound sense of peace and awe, feeling connected with everything and larger than myself.

—- 

* I had an unmedicated, out of hospital birth plan that turned into a c-section; the experience was traumatic, and I was worried that being so close to the birth center would trigger me. During my early labor at home, my husband played a didgeridoo, which considerably soothed my contractions.

** Energy work manifests as heat in my hands, whether it’s reiki or some other kind of energetic experience. 

*** A Familliar is an animal helper that aides with magic and energy work.  My cat, Taz, shows an interest in this type of work and comes to me in visions when she isn’t physically nearby, as she did during this journey.

Pain takes many forms, but is always transformative.  Always always, we get through it somehow and come out differently.

Intentionally, I took on the pain of covering up an old tattoo on my back.  The original was of decrepit demon wings, and symbolized a similar place in my life.  

I likened the wings to a poem I had written about overcoming mental illness; I battled the beast that haunted me and ripped the wings from its back in victory, then wore them upon my own body as a means of escape when next the demon called.

It worked, for a time.  I had battles to fight, and to win.

But years passed and I grew stronger, more grounded and wise, and came to befriend the demons who had brought me to this new expression of myself.  I no longer needed fear attack; I had reconnected with my own strength.

Yet, still, the wings rested upon my back.  They were a reminder of the choices I’d made and the ills I had endured, and took up space on my body while weighing on my heart.

“This isn’t who I want to be,” I decided.  

So I found an artist who was capable and willing to transform the wings into something else:  an expression of the person I am today.  

For nearly nine hours, I sat under Audi’s gun, breathing and sighing, visualizing and affirming, fidgeting and talking … the pain was immense.  It consumed me at times.  I won’t go into details about other pain I have endured, but trust me when I say that this was unique.  And I am strong.

But – it is done.  The wings are now a galaxy, brilliant in depth and color, swirling above a bold mandala-decorated lotus flower with dream-catcher adornments ending in crystals and feathers.  

Symbolically, the piece describes my soul’s journey through the muck, to blossom toward and into the cosmos, and the realization that in fact the cosmos have been and always will be part of my powerful expression.

Visually, it is striking.

The wings have taken flight, transforming, as everything does, into stardust.