A time comes in our lives, does it not, to re-connect to the innocent soul, the creative soul, the wounded soul within us, the poet and artisan, the shapeshifter that knows itself and its many faces, learning – always learning to ‘de-program’ oneself and ‘re-program’ what is true.

And me, I’ve chosen a different kind of pill to the one I took before. So the unraveling begins, the un-programing of so many years, so much information and conditioning. It’s a tough journey, piece after piece, sent to a place where they can be forgotten. I begin to find ways to create a new program, a different thought process that works for me and the kind of person I am with my own particular dis-ease.

It always started with a need to break out of a spell I felt myself under. As if I was being led down a trail that was sucking something from me that I didn’t want to give, yet it was happening and I could not stop it. I was in an illusion of a dream, an un-reality I could not get my head around. It was a bit like having a carrot dangled in front of me, (if I was a donkey) that I would never reach, but fed small tokens on the way that had a bitter taste to them. There was always something missing, something not quite right.

Each time I realized I had to break that spell, I knew I would have to do something drastic if I wanted to prevent its clinging on and dragging me ever deeper into its lair. A lair that simply was not for me, but it had a power, strength and an enticement that was still so tempting.

When I knew the spell had to be broken, I needed distance between me and its force, I needed to create that distance so I was not reminded of its power over me.

On occasion I leaned into it, just to take a look and I felt the nauseousness of nearly falling from a cliff top and knew I needed to pull myself back again to hold my equilibrium. Such was its power and even though I knew it would never take a hold of me again, I felt a pain, of which I did not understand that created discomfort, as if I SHOULD want that spell, that I had made a terrible mistake. It wanted me, it wanted my heart my blood because it had been feeding off me for so long, it needed me!

But I could not see this, not for a very long time.

The spell had sparked an envy in me, or it made me competitive, maybe it made me ill at ease with others success and I wanted some of it, sometimes a feeling of not being good enough! That was the carrot waving at me off a long piece of string, drip-fed into my veins and kind words of encouragement would whisper in the back ground “you can have this too”

But it did not materialize its promises which only made me want it more and hang on there with expectation in my mind, not my heart. If I had fully paid attention to my heart I might have understood much earlier and recognized I was complete without that spell.

I ignored so much of what I was seeing, I turned a blind eye to the uneasiness of others behavior, even though I knew what was going on. I was too afraid to let go, to turn away, incase I missed something, incase it really did turn out for the best.

Still a hunger grew in a corner of my psyche when it began to realize I was not being true to myself, it gradually began to fill those empty spaces, which had hungered for so long, beginning to nourish the core of my own center with something new.

When I broke away I felt the relief, the freedom and the spaciousness, I felt the lack of hunger. And then possibility took the place of that carrot, no more to dangle at my lips, its tempting kiss-like-trance sweeping over me as it lurked, always ready to pounce at my naivety. The naivety that believed another person could throw back at me all that was wrong with me, without looking at their own self, but took the authority to condemn and name me as the wrong one, that really should by now be getting it right.

The curse once lifted, I can see a little clearer, I chose the pill that would break the spell and the new spell of freedom beckons and grows stronger every day and fear subsides and some thing else takes its place. I know the feeling of being seduced into the trap of power, of course I do, but I know the sweet freedom of cutting that tie and making my life my own and that is the pill I swallow.

Ah, how much we always yearn for our self, forgetting our own true identity. How often we must lean back from that cliff top before plunging into uncontrollable waters!

How much tempts us to fulfill a need of others, how much tempts us to move away from our own true natures, how much pulls us apart as we do our best to be with our integrity to our own lifes purpose? How much courage does it take us to be who we were born to be.

Caroline Carey

for shamanic and creative dance gatherings and workshops  www.middleearthmedicine.com