Midway through the workshop, we were sent on a shamanic journey to encounter our own shadows directly. I was relieved; I couldn't wait to meet mine. I lay down on the worn conference-room carpet, closed my eyes, tossed my wool challis scarf over my face, and let my body sink into the floor. I took a deep breath in and let out a heavy sigh, releasing accumulated tension from the day. The drumming began.
In my mind's eye, I headed down a path into the Lower World while simultaneously holding the intention to meet my shadow. And then I saw her—a life-sized plastic Dolly-Partonesque blow-up doll with huge boobs and creepy, overdone makeup. Unlike Dolly Parton herself, who is precious and sings like an angel, this image was off-putting, cringe-worthy. What I found most upsetting was that my distorted shadow had two giant orifices—her vagina and her mouth. My shadow was, very unexpectedly, a double-D, double-orificed, scary, clownish, plastic, bleached-blonde Dolly.
After returning from the Lower World, I sketched out what I'd just seen—the false eyelashes, the boobs, the orifices—while shielding my notebook from my fellow participants. I didn't want them to become alarmed and call security. I was so confused. If this was my shadow, did that mean that I needed to apply false eyelashes and thick red lipstick to embrace my divine sexy, feminine power?
I protested to myself. Sexy, to me, is old-growth forests. It is deep, meaningful discussions with Mark, sacred palo santo incense burning in the background. Was the message that I should become a sex healer or therapist, as my mother once suggested when I was back in college? She seemed to think that, because I was so unabashed about most things, it might be a perfect career choice for me.
And yet, the boobs kind of rang a bell. From puberty on, I'd felt woefully inadequate. It didn't help that my breasts came in looking like swollen tubes—not at all what I'd expected after playing with Barbie dolls, seeing Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon, or flipping through the Playboy magazines I found in houses where I babysat. There were so many things I didn't like about myself, and my boobs were certainly one of them.
At twenty-four, I decided that I could fix that particular short-coming with a simple, fairly innocuous surgery. At my surgical consultation, I dropped the paper gown as requested and the plastic surgeon took a good, long look at my now-exposed chest. He immediately gave me his clinical impression: “This is a mild tubular deformity that is amenable to surgical correction. A lot can be done here, yes.” That made me feel simultaneously worse—my boobs really were deformed—and better—there was a cure. I hesitated, wanting to be sure he really understood what I was saying: “So I'm thinking just a wee bit bigger—just to fill them out, you know?” He nodded, making notes in my chart.
Remember that I was on my way to becoming a doctor myself at this time, and could therefore rationalize that a legitimate medical problem like a wretched breast deformity simply needed correction. So my dream boob job became a much-needed medical intervention. I booked it and funded it with student loans. These new boobs were going to change me. They would complete me. I wasn't doing it to snag a man, either. I already had Mark. I was doing it for me, just like all the other happy women quoted on the plastic surgery websites. I was choosing mindfully to enhance myself.
Though Mark supported me in my decision, he was concerned about size, as I was. He didn't want me to look like Anna Nicole Smith any more than I did. When I woke up in post-op, the surgeon informed me in a hushed tone: “I had to make an intraoperative decision on the table to go a little bigger than what we'd talked about originally. I don't think you would have been pleased otherwise.” I was too foggy to contemplate what this really meant.
While recovering from surgery in Mark's apartment, my formerly petite tubes ballooned into huge, shiny, tense cantaloupes. In the cramped bathroom, I pulled back the shower curtain as Mark brushed his teeth at the sink and his eyes grew large. He was unable to hide his reaction. I felt him retreating from me in mild horror, which was absolutely the opposite of what I'd wanted. I had thought boobs would make me feel more normal or acceptable. This was the first sign that it wasn't going to be so simple.
Finally, my new boobs settled down a bit, but they were still much bigger than I'd wanted—not enormous, but still too big for me. Now I was experiencing a whole new level of self-consciousness. I took to wearing baggy sweaters because I didn't want my astute medical school classmates to notice. I discovered that I wasn't cut out for this kind of exhibitionism. Or was it honesty? I found that, as my boobs got bigger, I shrank.
Several years after the surgery, I began to develop a complication often downplayed by surgeons when describing the procedure to prospectice patients called “encapsulation.” This occurs when a bit of scar tissue begins to envelop an implant and harden it. Now, not only did I want to hide my C-cups; I couldn't even lie on my stomach. Finally, I planned a quiet surgery out of town to reverse the original procedure. After the surgery, my boobs slowly perked back up, restored to their small size—more Cate Blanchett than Dolly Parton.
At the end of the shadow workshop, we were put into small groups to do shamanic healings with each other. We sat in circles of six with the lights lowered. We each had an opportunity to be heard. When it was my turn, I shared my family history of bipolar disorder and depression. “My mom, my sister, my great-grandmother, and her mother all suffered from it,” I said, “and sometimes it feels as if I'm not going to be able to escape. Does that make sense?” Heads bobbed in understanding. Then, a little hesitantly, I pulled out my sketch and spoke of my weird, blow-up-doll shadow. “I'm not sure what it means,” I confessed. I hoped my group could help me shed light on it, but everyone just shrugged.
Finally, it was my turn to be healed. One by one, the others moved around me. I could hear rattles and whistling. Tears streamed down my face as I felt enveloped in love by these caring people and their helping spirits. Rumbling shifts seemed to be occurring in my abdomen. At one point, I felt as if I were being flooded with lightness—with pure ease. It was a wordless experience, as shamanic work often is. Later, they told me they had nullified ancient ancestral contracts and cleared out my psychic basement. At one point during the healing, one of the kindly people working on me whispered loudly and clearly into my ear: “That shadow is not you, Sarah.” I smiled through my tears. My chest heaved up in recognition of this sweet truth, and I let out a huge sigh.
CHAPTER 27
Hellbent on Honey
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere—on water and land.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
The pilgrims planning to travel to India were advised by the trip's organizers to take an Ayurvedic herbal preparation called chyawanprash. We were told it contained a very high concentration of vitamin C (clinically proven to boost immune function), as well as other herbs and ingredients. I decided it was high time to heed their advice and ordered it.
The chyawanprash came in a white plastic jar about the size of a jar of peanut butter. I unscrewed the cap and peered inside at the dark brown, shiny sludge. I grabbed a spoon, and reached in and retrieved (not without effort) a very gooey mass of stringy, grainy, date-colored stuff. I turned the jar around and stared at the ingredients. The list of herbs, plants, trees, barks, and flowers was staggering—mysore cardamom seed, bacopa leaf, ghee, sacred lotus flower, fig, true saffron stigma; the list went on and on.
According to the Charaka Samhita, a foundational Ayurvedic medicine text, however, chyawanprash is more than just vitamin C in a weird condiment format. It claims to prevent the flesh from becoming flabby. The ancient practice of Ayurveda, a Hindu-based practice of medicine considered alternative in the US, teaches that the three elements or doshas—vatta (wind), pitha (fire), and kapha (earth)—must be in balance in the body in order to enjoy optimal health. Chyawanprash i
s supposed to balance these three elements; it's essentially an Ayurvedic magic bullet.
I placed a generous spoonful onto my tongue. It was spicy, sweet, sour, and earthy—like an exotic raisin pulverized with the most unexpected combination of herbs and spices I had ever tasted. As I savored it, it felt like a wee bit of India getting inside me.
I drove across town for a potluck dinner with the small contingent of fellow pilgrims who also planned to travel to India. One of the women had invited us all to her home. Fat snowflakes floated steadily down in the dark, blurring the road's edges. Driving through the freeway tunnels along Lake Superior in the early winter twilight, I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. Snowfall like this has come to signify a blessing of beauty and love from heaven to me, the way rain is seen as auspicious in India. When you examine the flakes closely, each is an astounding unique work of fractal art. In my journeys, I have experienced the grace of merging with spirit and falling as a snowflake. We are constantly being showered with extraordinary blessings. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I felt waves of deep gratitude. I'm finally going to India.
I think about all of the suffering my family has faced in mental-health or spiritual crises of one kind or another. Sometimes it was hard to sort out what was my suffering and what belonged to them. It's my intention now to stay connected to my own soul's voice, while being loving and compassionate with all of them. It feels good to dedicate this journey to India to relieving this peculiar kind of suffering of the spirit.
The sweet gratitude I felt was quickly followed by waves of fear about what might happen when I was in India. Things that overwhelm me are sometimes made easier when I undertake them on behalf of others, so I decided then and there to dedicate my pilgrimage to those who suffered from depression, addiction, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and ADD.
When I arrived at the door, I was greeted by Catharine, our seventyseven-year-old hostess, who was a slender lady with white hair in a pixie cut. She was warm and welcoming. On a tour of her home, she showed us her office where she does sand-play therapy with her clients. The shelves were stuffed with hundreds and hundreds of tiny figurines and objects to help people uncover the reasons for their own suffering.
We had taken our son George to a play therapist years ago when he was having tantrums in preschool, trying to figure out how to support him. I'll never forget when he showed me what he had created in the sandbox in one of the sessions—a black Jesus on a cross with an army figurine pointing a rifle directly at his chest. I was shocked at what was revealed by this simple exercise in play. It seemed obvious to me that he felt terribly persecuted. The therapist never offered an explanation, nor did George. Through the play therapy, however, the tantrums stopped, and he became calmer and happier. I immediately felt a deeper connection to Catharine after seeing her workspace. She was a healer.
There were eight of us present. Over dinner, I asked if the others were willing to share their intentions for going. Julia, a focused, former local juice bar owner, told us that she'd done the pilgrimage before, and she aimed to be of service to other pilgrims. “India is really, really a challenge for me,” she told us. “It's exhausting, and I usually get sick, but it's also really amazing. I love it.”
Catharine, who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, said: “I'm really hoping to deepen my yoga practice. I'm only able to go with Julia's help,” she added with a smile and a few tears.
Joy, a nurse, admitted that she didn't know exactly why she was going, except that she loved yoga and was curious. “If you love country music, you go to Nashville,” she added with an impish smile. “And if you love yoga, you go to the Kumbh Mela.”
The others weren't sure yet why they were going, but each, in his or her own way, felt called.
With the introductions out of the way, we exchanged notes on packing, three-pronged current adaptors, down sleeping bags, headlamps, and antibiotics. I was overjoyed to be sharing my anticipation with my new pilgrim friends.
I recognized that, despite the difference in our ages and the different reasons we felt we had been called, we were all willing to undertake what was sure to be a very challenging journey to be with sixty million people in India, so very far from Minnesota. Our collective apparent courage reminded me of one of my favorite Beasties in the South African bushveldt: the honey badger. This fearless creature doesn't bat an eye when diving into underground caves swarming with stinging bees. She's hellbent on honey.
PART THREE
India
Sometimes one must travel far to discover what is near.
Uri Shulevitz, The Treasure
CHAPTER 28
Agra
There is no way to prepare for the mystical zap that is India. It's stunning, tragic, hallucinatory, bejeweled, smoky, overpowering.
Anne Lamott, Some Assembly Required
As dawn comes, the landscape is still cloaked in dense, pure white, maddening fog, and I'm able to catch only small glimpses of a tree here or a vehicle there. I'm dying for visuals! I need to know I'm really here!
After three hours on a bus, we finally take our first break at a truck stop. I step off the bus into night air that's smoky, mysterious, and soft. It's incredibly welcoming—a lush embrace.
Day breaks as we enter Agra and the fog lifts a tiny bit. The bus careens along at an alarming speed. Where the fog thins, I catch glimpses—families huddled around small fires at the road's edge, scrawny dogs, and troops of monkeys atop crumbling walls, as if sitting on bleachers observing the show below. Despite India's reputation for being the most spiritual place on the planet, with each new glimpse, I see that chaos reigns. These glimpses are like tiny sips of what I sense is the ocean of India. This is not the cinematic, charming Best Exotic Marigold Hotel India with colorful parasols, candlelight, and brightly painted rickshaws. This is gritty streetside India, where it seems that most are just getting by.
After breakfast, I grab my phone so I can take some pictures and jump onto one of the smaller buses bound for the Taj Mahal. In the parking lot, it is mildly chaotic, and our driver shoves away a one-legged child who's begging. My mind flashes to the film Slumdog Millionaire, my only reference for amputee beggar children in India. Often children are intentionally hobbled or maimed so they can become a source of income. It's distressing, and I feel momentarily helpless. But our guide is now motioning us to move along quickly.
As we enter the hushed side courtyard of the Taj Mahal grounds, I'm most struck by the number of wild birds within. Hundreds of squawking green parakeets flock from tree to tree, and small, white egret-like birds stand in stillness on the ground. Several different large kettles of hawks circle in rising spirals in the sky. Monkeys scramble up onto the high thick walls. It's as if all the beautiful creatures also know that this place is sacred.
As sun pours in through the fog, an ethereal white light encircles everything. We pass through the inner gate and catch our first glimpse of the Taj in the distance. Wrapped in an embrace of glowing vapor, it rises regally from its broad foundation. Its silhouette is a perfect blend of feminine roundness and driving masculine spirit. The distant image appears to be almost transient; I blink to test its endurance. We hush and slow, as if stupefied by the beauty, before gradually becoming more aware of ourselves again. It truly baffles me how something this sublime could have risen out of the chaos lying just outside its gates. Then cameras and mobile devices are whipped out and people come alive again, wanting to capture photos and remember the moment.
From our vantage point at the gate, I spot many presumably well-to-do Indians posing for photos in brightly colored saris. Selfies are unself-consciously snapped. Indian teens cluster in typical urban getups—fitted jeans and neon T-shirts. There are a few preschool girls with large extended families decked out so opulently that it would make mothers on Toddlers and Tiaras want to pack up their makeup trunks and go home.
The kohl-rimmed eyes of infants blink back at me mythically. I've finally arrived.
&n
bsp; We continue on, past the grand reflecting pool, making our way closer to the main building. With our guide, we bypass enormous lines of presumably middle-class Indians wearing predominantly saris and dress shirts with slacks who are waiting to enter the main attraction, the mausoleum.
Small groups of four or five of us at a time are guided up a narrow staircase to the main entrance. We spill out onto a generous front terrace and walk slowly toward the grand arched entry, taking time to stop and examine the intricate flowers and vines painstakingly carved into the white marble exterior. There are fruits and flowers inlaid with yellow marble, jasper, and jade. I'm particularly excited to see the interior, as I have seen it several times in journeys, and I want to compare my Upper World Taj to the actual thing.
Once inside, I see a combination of geometric and more organic designs carved on the interior panels, similar to those my own journeys had revealed. As we tour the magnificent structure, I see that my interior world is now literally being made manifest in the external world.
Our guide leads us to the circular path around the tombs. The security guards seem to be truly enjoying their whistles, which hang on cords around their necks when they aren't blowing them. They seem to be channeling some kind of righteous fourth-grade gym-teacher karma by blowing on them constantly to keep us moving. But this is necessary, because we are all stunned into a trancelike state by the sheer scale and staggering beauty of the inner walls.
Despite being deafened by the screaming whistles and the intense crowding, I feel strangely calm and unafraid as we're herded like cattle through curved chutes into this sacred space. I feel as if I'm traveling through a living metaphor of the Buddhist wheel of suffering—samsara.
Swimming with Elephants: My Unexpected Pilgrimage from Physician to Healer Page 15
