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 Flames Dancing |
 Soul Alignment |
 The One |
 Twin Flames |
How Phoenix Rising Came to Be
The journey began at the put in of the Upper Fork of the North Fork of the Cal Salmon River, May of 2007. This section is a class 5 part of the river. River class is based upon a 1 to 6 scale of difficulty to run, 6 being unrunable. Our group consisted of two 13 ft rafts, one of which was a paddle raft of 6 people and my raft with an oarsman and one other bow paddler besides myself. There were 3 hard shell kayakers as well, one of which was my partner at the time. This was the most technical and largest water I had ever run. I’ve been rafting for 17 years on much smaller scale rivers. I had no idea that it was going to be that difficult until I entered the first rapid, weaving between the boulders, dodging large trees that had fallen the winter before.
Rafting through a gorge so narrow that the oarsman could not put out his oars, it was up to the river where we could and couldn’t go. At that point I realized I was in over my head. Coming out of the gorge to a clearing, another huge bolder garden rapid warned the kayakers that this was a long rapid, so they went ahead to guide the way. Listening to the guide who was the oarsman yell “forward paddle”, I dug my paddle in the water with deep fast strokes trying to move the raft in the right direction through the beginning of the rapid. I looked ahead to see a large pointed rock that gave me an uneasy feeling of danger. In the heat of the moment I yelled, “We need to stay away from that large rock!” but no one heard me in the rumble of the rapid. “Forward paddle!” the guide yelled. In my mind I tried to convince myself when in doubt paddle out full throttle.
We went right under the rock and before I knew it, I was right next to the rock. The boat tipped on its side which was my side and I fell out while the other two did a high side and stayed in the raft.
Being in the water and having been in flipped rafts before I went into a natural state of panic because of the cold water. I reached up and felt the raft and thought that one of them would pull me onto the raft like other times and experiences I had in the past. I reached up again to realize that I was alone. Then I thought that my partner at the time would save me…. no I was alone…
Unknowing of why I was staying in one spot and not drifting with the current down river like I had before when I had flipped in a boat I knew something was wrong. I felt trapped. My last conscious thought was wishing I could tell everyone in my life that I loved them. I looked up under water to see turquoise water with thousands of white bubbles. I took a deep breath fully expanding my lungs with water. I fully let go and I heard this woman’s voice, ?this is what it is like to drowned?. I felt like who I am but expanded into the air, free from thought, free from gravity and polarization there was no good or bad. I was nothing, pure nothingness like the air, free. I was at peace.
Meanwhile the boats all collected at the bottom of the rapid and everyone got out of their rafts and hiked up stream to try and find me. They saw my helmet under the water standing still. I was stuck in a whole being recirculated and noone could get to me. They saw my helmet disappear and come up below the whole had sucked me down when I became limp and spit me out the bottom. I floated limp around the boulders and down the rapid to the bottom where they threw ropes to me. I was caught in the ropes and they pulled me in. When they pulled me into the boat, the moment I was up right I began coming to life puking water out of my lungs. They laid me down, my eyes were a blur, I felt as though I had expanded in to the universe and was sucked into my body by gravity I felt like an ?elephant shoved into the body of a mouse?. So confined and imprisoned after being so free.
We continued our journey down stream I felt nothing good or bad, not happy or sad right in the middle of all feelings. The mind trying to wrap itself around ?nothing?. Tears streamed down my cheeks without sadness, what a strange feeling my body did not recognize.
We finally got to the take out and packed up the cars. Our trip was complete, but I still felt like I was not fully alive and still unable to make sense of how I was feeling. I went forward into my life and my weekly work routine. I felt nothing, no emotions, no intuition, unknowing how to feel again I stayed in this meditation. Realizing that life is not worth living if I cant feel and realizing the true gift is being able to feel what a gift to truly feel is to be fully alive.
Two weeks later my God mother Amorah Quan Yin invited me to a Shakespeare play in Ashland OR, which I have always wanted to go experience. I felt a tingling in my chest then a shiver up my spine what is this? What is this? My body began to quiver with excitement!! Wow! Wow!. I am excited!!! oh my god!! I am excited!!! I have never to this day felt so excited. It was like feeling happiness for the first time!!
I started the Phoenix Rising series starting with Flames Dancing, I was so sensitive to feeling and I realized that every color matched a different feeling. As the feelings flew through me the colors danced upon the canvas!!