Meet Virginia: Moving Beyond Belief

Meet Virginia

In the dream I was standing beside the flowing water dressed in a blue cape, my guide was pointing down the river and the word “Rodmell” whispered through the dreamscape as I abruptly awakened…

 

This happened shortly after a Reiki session in which I heard the name “Virginia Woolf.” When I mentioned it to my Reiki practitioner, she had felt the essence of Virginia too!

 

Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

Wow.

What did it mean? I wasn’t sure…

It was winter of 2017 and I was simultaneously reeling from grief in the loss of my son and feeling a burning need to write...

To pour out feelings that were trapped inside.

To allow the flow... to move my creative urges into reality.

To somehow write the physical existence of my son into words that were meaningful and tangible.

I didn’t have a community of writers to support me. Heck, I was a lone wolf feeling the enormity of the words that pushed to be birthed inside me and the despair of not knowing how to release them.

I wasn’t a writer, was I?

Who would read my words?

Later, when I researched the name Rodmell from my dream, I was shocked to find that Virginia Woolf had “left Monk’s house in the Sussex village of Rodmell, and took her last walk along the pathway that runs beside the tranquil River Ouse.”

Her pockets were filled with stones to weigh her down as she walked into the cold waters to end her pain.

A well of deep compassion opened, my pain weighed me down as well. I had no desire to end my life but was filled with empathy as I felt my own overwhelming grief and emotions and understood how encompassing they could be.

“Virginia, what does this mean?” I needed to know.

Shortly thereafter, as I walked through a little park I enjoy visiting to sit and reflect, I saw something in a watery puddle that arrested my attention. Later, shivers running down my spine, something astounding reflected back at me in this puddle: a window with Virginia gazing out at me.

 

I imagine she was telling me to claim a room of my own.

Every writer needs a room of her own.

 

A Vision of Healing

Several months later, as I sat by the water, I felt the tides of change wash through me. I surrendered to the feelings I was having as Virginia entered my awareness once more.

I allowed the vision to pour through.

She is urging me to run across the small bridge to the other side.

Noah is there, I feel his essence all around me. And so is my spirit bear. Holding hands, Noah and I walk to the edge of the water.

My heart in his, he reaches into my pocket and deliberately removes the rocks while tenderly placing four leaf clover in its stead.

I think of Virginia, her pain and the pain of those that came before us - our collective ancestors - as I empty my pockets.

And the fire is all around me... I am burning.

 I can’t do this.

I never want to feel this pain again.

This pain of separation.

"Go into the river," whispers my soul.

And so, I run into the river, letting the water ebb and flow. The trapped emotions pour out of me.

The water rises.

Snuffing out the burning, scorching heat. The water flows around me, supporting me. The fire cannot sustain itself in the water.

The remaining stones feel heavy in my pockets.

I hear a long-ago whisper echo in my ear, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And I realize Virginia and so many of us are weighed down by the stones that have been cast by others, and that none of us are free from casting stones.

The stones were the culmination of centuries of judgement, shame, pain and fear.  Of  hiding our true selves and our stories so as not to be judged, diminished and indicted.

By society, dogmatic religion, beliefs, racial cleansing, traumas, toxic patterns - and the list goes on and on.

And it ended that day.

The stones were sent into the cleansing flow of the river.

Releasing the belief that I wasn't good enough. That I was a terrible mother. That I was being punished. That I didn't belong here.

Washed free of pain and judgement. Easing the pain of all who came before and all who would come after as I cleansed my very DNA, the building blocks that have grounded us into this embodied reality from the beginning of time.

It was a new beginning.

I felt a release of the patterns of pain and trauma as the water filled the emptiness and made me whole once more.

I sent love to the ancestors for their gifts, for all the pain and trauma they had endured and all the love they had felt.

It comingled through the ages, culminating in my existence here, at this time and place.

My hands pulsed with energy. My pockets felt light.

A new beginning was opening.

I was birthing a new Dawn.

Thank you, Noah for showing me the weight of my beliefs and pain and how they may be transmuted.

Thank you, to the energy of Virginia for showing me that what I believe, is what I embody.

Today, I believe I AM a writer.

I believe in new beginnings, infinite possibilities.

But most of all, I believe everything will be alright.