Rebirth in Gratitude

This art for my back piece was drawn by my friend Michael Heltebrake, an amazing artist who recently moved to Colorado from Reno, Nevada. The concept for the piece is of my own design that came to me in the middle of 2018 as I was reeling from a rather nasty divorce which was the catalyst for a massive life change which the artwork reflects with the Merkabah backdrop and the phoenix rising above. Yes, I suppose divorce is always a catalyst for change, but in my case it was a change that was past due, and very badly needed. I am so very grateful to have survived it.

I was born in Costa Mesa in October of nineteen hundred seventy five. Four months later my parents moved to Lake Tahoe with myself and my brother who was two years my senior. With very little cash, my father started a pool service business and my mother found a job at a local restaurant ad they rented houses the first several years. By nineteen eighty they secured a loan and bought the house that was to be ours for the next forty years.

The first 8 years of my life were fairly typical of a child born in the nineteen seventies. Parents who were semi-hippy, semi blue blooded traditionalists, a bit of Jehovas Witness in the mix. They certainly did the best they could with what they knew, and they loved my brother and I, but they couldn't have known everything they needed to know to raise us "correctly". Not many parents do as near as I can tell. Throughout my childhood my parents had many bad arguments and fights. A lot of fear and insecurities formed in my psyche and emotional body. The foundations for a scarcity mindset were being laid in stunning fashion. Despite this, life in Tahoe was great. The forest was all around. We never had a loss of things to do. Very few people lived full time in our neighborhood. It was quiet and quaint, and everyone liked it that way.

Throughout my life, I always, always looked to others for guidance. I always asked what others thought about things. About choices I needed to make. About what I should wear. I emulated others behaviors. I always cared deeply about what others thought about me and the things I would say or do. I never wanted to be a disappointment to anyone. I still don't, but it's different now. By the time I turned twenty nine, I had been running the same circles, doing the same work, skiing with the same people for easily fifteen years. No real change. Looking back on it, deep down I knew a reckoning was coming but the distractions of life hadn't lost their luster enough for me to acknowledge that. No, I needed more ephemeral distractions to the more important things in life, and on my twenty ninth birthday, I met my future ex-wife at an après ski bar in Squaw Valley. Of course neither of us could see the reason for our attraction to each other. The deep seated traumas that were running destructive programs beneath the surface of both our lives. Cluelessly we entered into a relationship, and shortly thereafter she was pregnant with our son. Being altruistic at heart, albeit naively so, I asked her to marry me. We eloped for two years and were married in August of 2005. We then had our daughter a year after.

Our marriage was fairly uneventful. We rarely fought. We had been approved for a loan to buy a house near Truckee Ca. I was working with my father in a stable pool service company. Things were good. My brother had moved back to Tahoe with his wife and four children and had started working with us and for four years after, things went on fairly well. My brother and his wife would have bouts of arguing and fights, enough for it to be routine. Ignorance truly is bliss in a certain light. In September of 2009, the first of a series of events took place that would change my life forever.

I received a phone call in the afternoon of September seventh, two thousand and nine. It was my brothers wife, and she was hysterical. She was barely able to relay the message that my brother had hanged himself in the house they had recently rented on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. A dull shock came over my body. She had hung up before I could even ask any questions. My wife and I dropped the kids off at a friends and began driving. My father called and told me the same in a panic. My brother ad his wife were in the midst of another spat. She said she was intent upon leaving him and she had driven off with the kids, and he made his choice. That was a very hard time, but it was just the beginning.

Throughout the next year, my drinking became more and more of an escape than a social behavior. I began blacking out after just a few drinks towards the end of that first year after my brother passed. After a few sketchy episodes, I quit drinking and began attending AA meetings. Fo the next two years, I thought things were getting better for my life, wearing my having quit drinking like a badge of honor. In two thousand ten, our business suffered a devastating loss of work due to the housing bubble crisis, and we could no longer afford the payments on our house AND my parents house on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, and the decision was made to short sale my house. After squatting as long as we could, we commenced a short sale and moved into my parents house.

For two years we lived in the small bedroom in the back. The house was pretty small for six people to live in, but we made it work for two years while my father and I built a garage with an apartment above it. Once the apartment was finished, my parents moved into it and my family and I had the main house to ourselves. Throughout this five year period, I was constantly going through the thirty eight years of clutter that had buiolt up in and around the house, taking endless trailer loads of useless junk to the dump. I was also gradually beautifying the property, putting in a synthetic grass lawn, a hydronic heated paver patio around the spa, laminate wood flooring in the downstairs. I was making the house our home, like I though I should, like everyone told me was what I should do. In late twenty sixteen, more dire news arrived in the form of pancreatic cancer in my mother. We found out in September, and by early January of twenty seventeen, she was gone.

During my mothers fight with cancer, my wife insisted she help my other rather than having hospice come in. My father and I worked every day tirelessly just to keep the bills paid, and it was extremely hard to keep our heads up in that situation. Despite our offers to have hospice come in, my wife helped my mother through her death. I would return from work and encourage my mother to eat and look for new treatments, but my mother refused any treatment and bravely accepted her fate. I gathered all the family photos, many of which were old projector slides. Many evenings we set up the projector carousel and reminisced over the images of our past. The feeling of helplessness was palpable, but I smiled and did the best I could, not realizing that my capacity to repress the emotional turmoils of life was fast approaching its breach point. After my mother passed, I pressed on, completely oblivious to my inner condition, and conditioning.

That summer of twenty seventeen was the final push to get the house finished. The dog we had was pregnant, the house a mess of projects being done to make it a clean, useable, uncluttered space. My wife had been taking the kids to a friends house in the country north of Grass Valley fro respite from all the bustle. On August first I had started dieting. Being five foot eight inches tall weighing two hundred forty pounds smoking a pack a day, I was a prime candidate for heart attack or stroke. I stopped eating meat, dairy and starch and began only eating vegetarian wraps and fresh juices. I began losing weight at the pace of ten to twelve pounds per month. Just on the borderline of being dangerous. Several weeks before my forty second birthday in October, my father and I bought my wife a Mercedes from Carmax to show her how much we appreciated her and what she had done for my mother. It was the nicest car our family had ever owned.

After we bought the car, my wife began being distant. for several weeks I tried to explain it away, but after my birthday, I couldn't ignore it anymore and after she hadn't come home for the third night in a row, I called her and asked why she was so distant. She came home and announced that she was rethinking our relationship. For me, this was completely out of the blue. It hit me like a nuclear explosion. I fell apart in spectacular fashion. In the blink of an eye, the woman I loved for thirteen years went from giving me long hugs to treating me like a gutter bum begging her for change. At the same time, a man I had known for over thirty years who was like a mentor figure to me since I was twelve was in the thralls of a nasty divorce in Reno. My wife began running to his rescue as he was getting arrested for assaulting his then ex wife by swatting the phone out of her hand as she was talking to a nine one one operator, or getting searched at the courthouse and being arrested for possession of cocaine. My wife, who had helped with the family business and had access to the online banking went in and cleared out my fathers business account to bail this man out of jail twice to the tune of several thousand dollars. She was constantly running off to Reno to help him. Staying the night in hotels with him. It was pretty obvious to everyone else what was going on, but in my condition of suicidal depression, I was in denial. She separated from me in January and left me devastated.

From late October until the middle of February, my mind was a constant train wreck of thought. I worked, but it was a battle through endless bouts of intense crying, enough to have to stop my car for ten to twenty minutes at a time. I couldn't get out of it. I had been reading books on Buddhism, personal growth, psychology, spirituality, and eastern philosophy. While I could see the truth in many of the concept and understandings, I just couldn't put them to work in my life. I couldn't feel good, no matter what I tried. The psychologist I was seeing recommended valium and a few other pharmaceuticals, but they sure hadn't helped my brother and I refused to take any of them. I knew I was in a very dangerous place, and having seen the results of the use of substances like lithium and prozac, I was absolutely terrified. Terrified to face life without them, and terrified of what might happen if I used them. I opted out considering my brothers account of how those substances affected him, and I continued to cry, and hurt, and wonder how to continue.

During our last Christmas party at which I had several lifelong friends over, I made one of the most important observations of my life. Two brothers that grew up down the street from us were present. One of whom, the older, likes to drink, and the other, younger brother who does not drink. Drinking alcohol is not the focus of the observation, but it played its role.Halfway through the evening, the younger brother in jest called the older brother, (who was a bit inebriated), a pussy. The older brother collapsed into a puddle of self pity, self righteously complaining about how terrible it was to be called such a thing by his brother, when it was plainly obvious that it was a joke. The younger brother replied to him, "how long are you going to do this to yourself?", and this comment caught my attention. I was barely able to compose myself, fighting back tears with a house full of people and a wife who was treating me like dirt, and I marveled at my friends ability to disintegrate over something as small as a minor insult made in jest. At first I though the younger brothers comment was about drinking, but I realized after a few moments that it was about something much deeper. A behavior that I couldn't quite define. A behavior that perhaps was the cause of excessive drinking. While I couldn't put my finger on it in that moment, I knew I had noticed something important. Then I asked myself why the younger brother asked the question in the way he did. after all, he was the one who insulted his brother, but I saw that his brother was the one choosing to take it so personally. I then realized that while the older brother was constantly angry and irritable, the younger brother I had not seen upset or angry in several years at least. And then it clicked for me. The younger brother had been talking about meditation ceremonies over the preceding few years. Ceremonies in which a tea is drank, songs are sung, and healing occurs. That was the reason he was so content and calm. Before I was in a serious double depression, what he had said to me about these ceremonies had fallen on deaf ears. I thought I was just fine. I didn't need any healing! Those ceremonies are for people who are weak! But that Christmas night of twenty seventeen, it finally it home for me just how weak we all can be. Later that night, I approached the younger brother about these ceremonies and asked when the next one was. He said it was in February, and I asked him to sign me up. I couldn't have known at the time that the choice to ask him about Ayahuasca ceremonies that night was one of the best decisions I would ever make. That choice to inquire about my dear friends experience quite literally saved my life as the following paragraphs will attest.

By the middle of February as the ceremony date approached, I was still enveloped in emotional distress. The feeling of tension in my chest was crushing, as if someone were perpetually sitting on my chest. The feeling was nothing new, just much more pronounced. My mind was completely cluttered with errant thought. "Monkey mind", as the Buddhists call it. When we arrived at the Temple surrounded by lush greenery, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. My head hung a little bit. A shyness came over me, though I did speak a little with one or two of the other participants who were from the US. When checking in with one of the Shaman, all I could think of to ask was, "will this help?", to which she replied with a laugh and she said that it indeed would. Having never felt as bad as I was, for as long as I had, I knew my body was taking a hit physically from being in the state that I was. My main concern had shifted from the divorce to a very real fear of never being able to feel good again. I absolutely could not feel good, no matter how any books I read, no matter how much I meditated, I was at the lowest point in my life, and I was terrified. Even though I had some fears about Ayahuasca, they paled in comparison to the prospect of continuing on the way I was.

Ceremony opened around seven in the evening. All the participants lay on their yoga mats covered in ceremonial blankets with small buckets and paper towels in case vomiting occurs. The shaman in their amazing voices played a variety of instruments from guitars to ancient tribal flutes and drums. As they set ceremony, they guide everyone to settle in and invite healing from the plants through gratitude and surrender. Their way of ceremony involves singing prayers and calling in Divine spirits and the spirit of Gaia to keep the container safe for all the participants. One at a time the participants approach the shaman at the alter and receive purifying blessings, a small cup of Ayahuasca, and then return to their pad and everyone waits to drink until all thee participants are served. A unified group intention of healing and surrender.

It tastes like black licorice and dates mixed together. A thick consistency. Very dark in color, nearly black. I felt a slight resistance as I drank the medicine. I laid back on my pad and began to do the breathing exercises that were recommended. Eighteen people and two shaman meditating in silence, in the dark. After forty five minutes, I still hadn't noticed any effects. I had read that a very small portion of people don't notice the effects for whatever reason. I wondered if I was one of those. I worried that it wasn't going to work. The monkey mind still torturing every moment. I had tried several different positions to meditate in, and wound up prostrated, frustrated, and hopeless. And hour had gone by and still nothing. I finally gave up, rolled back onto my mat expecting at that point...nothing. As soon as I came to rest and closed my eyes, a spectacular array of colors and shapes enveloped my minds vision as clearly and vividly as if my eyes were open in a well lit area. Shortly thereafter, my body began to feel a feeling of love. It was subtle t first, but soon the feeling I was having and the things I was seeing became so intense it literally was all I could experience, and it even began to hurt at its crescendo, which I found to be funny enough to chuckle at. The chuckle went on a little longer and became a bit of a laugh before one of the shaman came to me and whispered my name just loudly enough for me to hear it. she brought me back in and reminded me to have "anchors", something to remember to bring you out of an experience. Laying back on the mat, I considered what had happened. I knew it wasn't a big deal, and I closed my eyes and began to meditate again. A fair portion of the participants were new to the medicine. About fifteen minutes after my episode, a few people began laughing on the far side of the room from me. As it continued, several more people joined in and I as well laughed a little. The other shaman promptly announced that this is a meditation, people are healing. This isn't funny. A few others in the room were going through some emotions and crying. This event triggered me into an introspect that was the exact key I needed to give myself permission to feel good again. I thought about how it was disrespectful to have laughed while another was in pain and crying. I began to "feel bad for" the participants who were having a hard time, and then I stopped myself and asked myself a question. I asked myself if feeling pain with this person would help them or not, and I clearly saw that it would only perpetuate the suffering. I realized that remaining in a stat of happiness while supporting and encouraging those suffering is the best course of action. Then I turned this idea on myself when the question became, "why can't I feel good then?", and I found the answer. It was because everyone expects a man or woman who has been cheated on and betrayed to be devastated. The more I felt bad about it, the more those around me would support me in the sadness and depression. Their intentions are to help me, but by agreeing with how terrible it is and "feeling my pain", they were inadvertently feeding my pain with me leading the charge! Although I was trying my hardest to not laugh, a mild laugh did make it out, and a sigh of relief as I realized that I was going to be ok.

By three o'clock in the morning, ceremony was closed for the night. We ate soup and talked. I went to have a cigarette and nearly passed out in the driveway. I had no idea how much energy was being used. After some water I got back up and realized that my mind was calm. calmer than it had been since I was a young child. I was completely amazed. After a few more minutes, I realized that my chest felt free and open and I was breathing easier and deeper. I realized that it was stress in my chest, and it was gone. Tears began rolling down my face. A river of them, but thy were welcome as they dripped across my smile.

Several months went by before I attended another retreat, and I was inspired by a few friends tattoos. I began contemplating what I would want on my back. For several weeks I gave the idea some consideration. I chose the scorpion to reflect my zodiac sign of scorpio. The Chakruna leaf and Banisteriopsis caapi vine, (the two ingredients of Ayahuasca tea), saving the scorpion from the edge of the waterfall, a heart shaped with the tail of the scorpion and the vine under the rising phoenix with the transformational backdrop of the geometry of the Merkabah. It really tells the story of a miracle in my life. I had the idea for several months and figure I would find right artist at some point. I found him at a night club in Reno with some friends. He was doing live painting in the club and had a bunch of copies of his paintings. His work was amazing. Original and challenging with depth and meaning and soul. I spoke with him that night and I got his card. We talked a few times in the month that followed, but the timing wasn't right and a year passed before I saw him again. His art was catching on online. He had begun selling pieces for five thousand and more. We finally clicked with the idea and he got interested. We went to his studio and went over it a few different times, and he began working on it. Artists like Michael Heltebrake are a rare breed. He had a lot of projects and was getting very busy, and mine was one of two personal pieces he was willing to do, so it took him a year to do this piece. I may take it to him this spring in Colorado because he wants to work on it more. I am currently in the process of finding the right tattoo artist to translate this piece from canvas to skin. This represents my dark night of the soul and the gratitude I have for this miracle from the ancient world. I don't know where I would be had she not found me...