Soul Retrieval

(Written in October 2008)
Last night was lovely.  This is the third session of Laura Shannon’s Training in Women’s Ritual Dances.  So good to see all those women again and to dance our dances.  I sat out part of the time with Molly, leaning against her & dancing Koga Me Mama with our fingers.  Laura just put on the CD and I found to my surprise there were quite a few where the music was familiar but I didn’t remember the dance until we started.  I don’t think I’ve done any of those dances since before this cycle of PTSD so there’s a way in which they seem like another lifetime.  Well it was truly another lifetime for the newly integrated part of myself.  I noticed in one dance that my feet seemed to be contacting the floor with more differentiation.  Then my ankle started to hurt and I had to dance more minimally.
I told several people about what I’ve just been through and as I told Judie David I realized that I should really be saying I went on a shamanic journey to find and bring back and integrate a lost part of myself.  There’s a way in which I feel like I’m here — on Planet Earth, in the White Mountains, in my house — for the first time.  Everything seems fresh and new.  That’s really true for the part of me that’s here for the first time in 66 years.