Part 1: Safety, one of the golden keys to release the shackles of fear and self-deprecation

Because...well, I have had enough of them. I imagine you have too.

The northern shoreline of Crete, taken during a stop at a gas station…beauty is found in unexpected places sometimes

I picked up the delicate copper dowsing rods from the little table in my hotel room where I left them.

I’m in Crete now, far from the Chalice Well Garden and the gardener who gave me lessons on how to use them. It felt so magical in that walled garden, surrounded by a sea of multicolored flowers, the cheerful hum of busy insects, and flocks of birds chatting with one another overhead amidst the branches of widely girthed trees moving gently in the breeze.

“I wonder if I can do this in a hotel room?” I asked myself. Not for the first time.

The morning before I left, The Gardener met with me briefly and gave me another quick lesson using the rods.

We sat together on a bench in the upper garden.

“I usually start with the words, ‘Let us see…’,” he began.

“Who is the ‘us’ Dave?” I asked.

He proceeded to explain that there are many physical and non-physical beings paying attention when such a question is asked to the field of the divine and that it is nice to include them.

“Oh, I guess it’s kind of like the team of helpers I feel with me…,” I responded.

He nodded his head.

“You can also ask them to show you a healing pattern to walk,” he continued.

“Can you show me?” I asked excitedly. “But I don’t have much time today…” (Those rods had already led us through the entire garden one morning and although I would have loved to do it again my taxi was due to arrive and take me to the airport in a few hours.)

To call Dave, a Taurus, to-the-point and efficient is probably an understatement.

Without pause, he stood up. “Don’t worry, it usually takes a small area for this.”

He raised the rods in the relaxed way he had already shown me, parallel to the earth and each other, in front of his heart. I got up quickly and stood next to him.

“Let us see a healing pattern,” he said.

The rods, clearly responding to an invisible energy field, immediately swung to the right and we were off weaving our way along a figure eight pattern. I trotted next to him like an exuberant puppy.

A few minutes later the rods crossed one another and we finished.

“Can I try it on my own?” I asked, quite excited to see what would happen when I did.

“Sure,” he replied as he made his way back to the bench to observe.

“Is it always an infinity symbol?” I wondered out loud.

“Not always,” he said.

I closed my eyes and took a breath as I held one delicate rod in each hand and let my energy drop down, like a pebble into a pool of still water. Then I raised them into the position he had shown me. They hovered there, parallel. A little quivery and less certain than his had been.

I imagined the invisible supportive beings around me I call “my team” in my head and invited them to participate.

“Let us see a healing pattern,” I said.

The rods spun immediately to the right in response. I thought they might need some time to assess things, such as me and what I might need, but they didn’t. I imagine the energy field of the divine already had summed me up pretty well. This time, they led me in a tight circle and I felt like an untrained Sufi dancer, slightly in danger of dizziness as I spun through 360 degrees, and then 720…. I wondered if the energy field was unwinding and releasing something in my system? But one thing was for sure. I had asked for it.

After, thankfully, just a few spins they led me on in a pattern that may have resembled an infinity symbol, and it is hard to recall because they had spun my mind into an incapacity to think… then they became still again.

“Did I do it right?” I asked. “They didn’t spin us when you did it,” I laughed.

“Yes, you did fine. It’s not always the same,” he replied.

He left me with a book his teachers had written on dowsing called Habitat-Inhabitant Harmonisation and I headed for the airport, on my way to Crete.

When I arrived at the security check point, after confirming that TSA pre-check wasn’t going to save me from the full security check this time, I did what I always do, and refused the full-body airport scanner. I object to them for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is the radiation I feel they emit. There are other reasons as well…but that would involve a rabbit hole I will leave to others to discuss as I am already struggling to get to the point I wish to here on safety and how to have more of a sense of it in your life. It’s coming. I promise.

The British version of a TSA agent looked at me like I was looney.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It is going to take a lot longer.”

I sensed a challenge in this and when it comes to those scanners, I have drawn a line in the sand and I wasn’t about to budge.

“Fine.” I replied like a period placed hard at the end of a sentence.

“Do you have any medical issues?” he asked.

“No.” I answered with a hard stop again, annoyed that my medical issues were considered anyone’s business other than my own. And I didn’t have any. Partly, I told myself, because I avoided scanners such as these.

“We’ll have to open your luggage and go through everything by hand,” he continued.

My luggage was already sitting on the other side of the x-ray machine it had successfully made its way through.

“Fine.” I said again, as I turned my steely-blue gaze toward him and looked him square in the eye. My line in the sand was not going to budge.

“Ok,” he said with a bit of a sigh. I do think he respected my tenacity a bit.

“My luggage has already gone through the machine though,” I continued. “It’s somewhere over there and I can’t see it.”

This was troubling me as everything I had was now on the other side of the giant body scanner and I was left standing where I was, waiting, I assumed, for a female to frisk me. I peered anxiously over his shoulder to see if anyone was on their way yet and to try to see my luggage, alone and missing me I was sure, somewhere on the conveyer belt up ahead.

But Britain, in my opinion, dislikes anyone as non-compliant as me. So Britain was going to take its time with me and do everything nice and slow.

Meanwhile, a young child who looked about four approached and the surrounding so-called adults attempted to entice her to stand alone in the body scanner. They demonstrated the position they wanted her to take, arms extended out to the sides like a prisoner getting photographed. I guess it is good to train them early. The “adults” made fake-happy sounds and smiled at her a lot. I could see how early one’s trust in adults can begin to crack.

The whole process was becoming annoying.

The British TSA agent I believe, thought he was being kind when he responded to my luggage concerns, “Don’t worry. Your things will be fine. We have cameras here.”

Well, I was certain of that.

And I didn’t find it reassuring. I found it even more annoying.

Finally, two young women arrived to frisk me.

“Come this way,” they said, as they pointed at the large body scanner in front of me that I was determined to avoid.

“But I don’t want to go through that,” I said, feeling dumfounded as I wondered if people had transported their brains somewhere else and I was in a new version of The Matrix?

“Don’t worry. It’s turned off,” they replied.

Now, I wasn’t feeling particularly trusting of any of them or of the process I was now in. But I didn’t see another easy option. “How do I know it’s off?” I growled.

“The light turns off like this,” said the scanner operator as she flicked a switch and a tiny red light appeared in a small box next to the scanner. They had to show me more than once as it switched from red to green.

“It’s off. See,” she said again, as she sat on the other side of the EMF emitting behemoth that reminded me now of a portal to some hellish planet in a creepy sci-fi film.

Things were getting more and more dystopian and I realized that although I loved the Chalice Well Garden, I had completely different feelings about the technocratic state of Great Britain.

But I made a decision, took a breath, and walked through. I pointed out my things on the conveyor belt to the British TSA agent, and a young man appeared and carried them off to search further, by hand, as non-compliant people such as me I imagine, seem to represent a threat to British technocracy, if to nothing else.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, not one, but two women appeared to frisk me. They arrived with blue rubber gloves and a large metal wand, which I am sure also emitted EMFs.

I was not offered the option to stand there in public, as I usually do. Instead, they ushered me into a windowless room where they began the typical explanation of what they planned to do with their gloves and wand…all with my “agreement” of course.

All I will say is that it was thorough. At one point, I wondered if they were inclined to put their fingers anywhere else? There were only a few very private areas of my body they had not caressed with those creepy gloves.

As we exited the room, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally…I thought.

But they weren’t done with me yet.

“We need to scan your shoes now,” said one of the young women.

“These shoes?” I asked, incredulous, as I gazed down at my Earth Runner sandals which clearly had nowhere to hide anything malicious unless the tiny copper disk on the bottom used for grounding me to the frequencies of the planet is considered dangerous.

“Yes,” they replied, without batting an eye.

I wondered about the metal wand they had used around my entire body and how it somehow didn’t seem to also work for minimalist shoes and if they no longer trusted their eyes? But I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t think they would have done any good. And I guess when people are missing brains, they must do things like this. I sighed to myself and tried to find some compassion for them in their work situation as I trailed after them towards what I have to assume was another EMF emitting device that I imagine is certainly not up to my health standards. (Just for context, I can often be found arguing with the dentist over the necessity of annual x-rays).

Now I faced off against a large, modern machine that looked quite expensive, with a platform in the center of two wide metal gates with a drawing of a pair of footprints on it.

“Put your foot on that,” she said as she pointed to one of the footprints, outlined starkly in white.

I realized at this point, that Great Britain was winning when it came to irradiating my body with EMFs, but I still felt determined to make a statement and stick to my principles as best I could. I didn’t think to take my shoe off at the time and place it there. I wish I had. (Note to self for the future: remove shoes and clothing as necessary when subjected to large scanning devices).

I placed one foot at a time on the black platform so that they could check my potentially dangerous Earth Runner sandals. And that’s when I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.

“Ha, ha, ha…” I chortled after placing foot #1 on the platform.

“Now,” non-plussed and clearly well trained and/or brainwashed to follow whatever rules she had been given, continued the young woman with a Harry Potter school-child accent, “the other foot.”

And by this point, although airport security was taking a lot of my time, I realized with some satisfaction, that I was also taking up a lot of theirs.

I didn’t have it in for the people interacting with me. Not really. Although I did question how they could actually do this for a job and feel good about it, absurd and intrusive as it all was.

My shoes passed the test and the TSA-like man reappeared to conduct me back to obtain my luggage, which was now muddled up a bit inside my unzipped suitcase. I re-organized things again as best I could.

An unnamed person who seemed to respect my tenacity whispered to me (because remember, there are cameras) that next time, it would be a good idea to answer the question about a medical issue affirmatively.

“They can’t ask anything about it and then your luggage won’t be searched by hand.”

I noted that to myself for future reference.

Afterwords, I settled down in a chair to wait for the gate of my flight to appear on a big screen nearby, as they hadn’t announced it yet, despite all the time I spent getting to know security more intimately.

Unfortunately, I made the fatal error of numbing myself from the previous experience by scrolling through X, which caused me to lose track of time.

I felt a nudge, probably from those invisible guides I believe are assisting me, and glanced up at the board again.

“Boarding” it said next to the now-available gate number.

It was my first time in the Bristol Airport and I was surprised to find, that Bristol is quite large. For the first time, I used my Earth Runner sandals for the purpose they were intended as we began to run through the hospital-like corridors in search of my gate while my carry-on clattered along beside me on its little roller-feet.

I had booked a discount airline to go to Crete. In fact, the great deal on the ticket and the fact that I had never been to Greece and had it on a list in my head of places-I-would-like-to-see-before-I-die is why I chose it. Even after I paid the extra fees to check a bag and for a carry on, the price was decent.

Finally, I arrived panting, still recovering from various forms of stress.

A girl at the gate pointed at a sign with a metal cage below it.

“Your bag has to fit in there,” she said.

I had already checked a bag in person at the airline’s counter and it surprised me that any potential issues with my carry on, the smaller of the ones that I own, was not pointed out to me at the time. This bag and I have been on many trips together and it has always been welcomed.

Of course, it didn’t fit.

“Maybe you can take some things out?” she said.

I tried but then I realized, it was never going to fit. The tiny wheels on it were just too big and even empty, it was like a square peg in a hole that was simply too small.

I pointed this out to her.

“You’ll have to pay for it then,” she said.

Of course, I had already paid for it.

But I had to pay for it again.

This time, it cost me $100.

My exit was not going well.

But finally, I made it to Crete close to midnight, suitcase wheels echoing on the pedestrian-only narrow cobblestone streets, as I rolled my way to my new hotel in Chania where I lay awake for a few more hours. People next door were busy running in and out of their room and up and down the stairs until quite late. It had been a long day.

The next day, the owner was sympathetic and upgraded my room to one on the top floor, which I found much more peaceful. That is when I finally began to settle into a new routine.

Since this is my lifestyle and not just some quick vacation, I wanted to give myself time without moving again. So, I had booked the room for two weeks. That’s when, soon after early one morning, I decided to pick up my dowsing rods again.

I had been reading the book Dave recommended. The authors spoke of people’s homes as outer expressions of their inner energetic state.

I didn’t have a home. But I was in this hotel room and I liked the upgraded version of it.

The room was spacious, with a hard wood floor and a table for writing. It had thick walls and two large, screen-less windows that opened to the cobblestone street four stories below. Swallows circled above a courtyard outside in the early morning and late afternoon, two pigeons cooed romantically to one another and the nearby church bells chimed cheerfully.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing with the rods, but I figured I would start in the tiny entryway inside the door and see what happened. Dave and the book had both mentioned beginning from the outside and working one’s way in whilst working with them. The doorway seemed like the closest to “outside” I could muster.

Then I decided it might be helpful to talk to the divine energy field a bit first. Kind of give it a head’s up to my current questions and situation, which I have also shared somewhat with you, to set the stage for some kind of rod-led prayer. I wondered to myself what was on my mind?

Immediately memories and images arose of past events that had been quite challenging for me. I remembered when I did own a home and the boundary issues I had with my neighbor, and how I encountered a similar thing with a woman when I travelled to Findhorn to meet with a teacher of mine. I thought of my recent experiences with airport security and the airline that charged me extra. And I looked at my beautiful, peaceful room and was so grateful to be in Crete, away from all of that. The air was sultry and the sea crystal clear and sparkling. I had already been for a refreshing swim. There were no big waves or strong currents. Just me floating like a porpoise in blue shades of sea.

I couldn’t formulate a specific question. Just those images of boundary challenges and a new sense of peace and ease in the moment along with my desire to embody higher states of compassion, love, and grace.

“That’s enough I hope,” I told myself as I took a breath and imagined myself dropping down into a gentle pond of water. Then I raised the rods up until they were parallel to one another in front of my heart, tips slightly down. I welcomed my guides and any help that was available to hold and to teach me and I said silently, like Dave had taught me, “Let us see…”

The rods, the left leading the way, swung slowly to the left and I began to walk towards the wall with the windows. Then they moved right, and left again.

I found myself facing the window I had left open as they gently crossed in front of me, indicating I pause and take something in.

I gazed at the soft light pouring through and felt a gentle, warm breeze caress my skin.

the window and the view from the top floor of my room at Vranas Ambiance Hotel, Chania

“What is the lesson? What am I to see?” I asked myself and the subtle beings and energy surrounding me as I closed my eyes for a moment… and three simple words came to me:

“I am safe.”

“I am safe,” I said to myself as I repeated them silently. “I am safe…”

And I realized that this is what they were showing me. This moment was what it feels like to be safe.

This room, if it was an expression of me as the book I had been reading suggested, has thick walls. It is up high with a view of the outer world that offers a lot of space and perspective. It has windows that can be shut and when they are open, they are really open as they lack screens, and provide a clear view of things.

I had sat on the ledge formed in front of them and gazed out at a world containing bright purple bougainvillea, soft orange walls across the street and bright blue sky with swallows flitting happily about with precision that seemed much better than any F-14 airplane formations I had seen in Southern California.

“I am safe.”

The rods were showing me what it is like to be safe and truly feel it in my body.

And I want to say that this is not a small thing. I was very aware of my ancestors and how many of them had experienced serious issues with boundaries. I thought of myself as a child, and still as an adult when my boundaries have not been respected.

“I am safe.”

I breathed the energy in as I gazed through the open window and saw the dappled light painting itself across the gold and orange clay-colored walls across the street.

As I have been writing in some of my posts…I feel that one of the most powerful practices I have at this moment is to feel the state I wish to experience more of, physically through my imagination and lived experience.

This simple phrase and its energy had slipped by me somehow.

Some words had come to me in the garden a few weeks before and I had written them in my little book. I wasn’t sure who was talking…and they felt important to take in:

If I embody self-compassion, I believe it gets transmitted to the energy of my family field.

What if safety works the same way? What if all those people in my family field, and in the world around me as well, could do with a little dose of feeling safe, even if just for a moment?

A sense of safety is an incredibly disruptive act. I believe people are easier to control when they are afraid.

My cells know how to resonate quite well with anxiety. I can worry with the best of them.

My cells are used to looking at two weeks in a hotel room and telling my mind to start wondering where I am going next the moment I unpack.

I know they have good reasons to be anxious. They have inherited anxiety and experienced very valid reasons for it as well.

But I also know that continuing to vibrate in that way won’t help things.

Then, there is The World, which is constantly telling me that I am not safe in overt and covert ways. The airport does this with “security”, the medical establishment does it with threats of terrible repercussions if I don’t follow what they tell me to do, and well-meaning adults will happily pass on their own fears to me when it comes to money, health, or the state of the world. And as I mentioned, others have messed with my boundaries.

All these things echo in my body and chant, “Be careful. Be afraid. Worry. Worry. Worry. Anxiety will keep you safe. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t sleep if you hear anything. Keep an eye on your chosen alternative news feeds. You need to be informed so you will be ready.”

But the retreat center in the garden in Glastonbury called Little Saint Michael’s House says, “Put away your technology while you are here. Don’t look at your phone on the grounds please. Leave your computer packed away. Find a book, or not. Just sit. It is enough to do nothing and let yourself simply BE…”

And I realize that that has taught me something, just as this room and the rods are showing me now. That safety can be cultivated, and that a sense of it serves me more than I realize.

“I am safe.”

I would like more of that.

“Yes, please.”

“Thank you divine field of energy and new delicate dowsing rods…for showing me what I needed to see.”

*I don’t promote my writing other than by putting it out here, so if you like this and feel it may help someone you know, then feel free to share it (and I added a bit more on this topic, along with guilt and “should-ing” at the end of the audio on this in case you feel inspired to listen to some ad-libbing…)

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