Summoning Innocence

The build-up was felt as soon as I opened the medicine space in a private Ceremony on the night of the New Moon. I was feeling the intensity, the heaviness, the edge that was shaking me all the way to the bones.

I tried to hold still while feeling the shivers. Sometimes they were taking over and other times I was taking a deep breath as stillness was felt. I was guided to empty myself fully and embrace it all as I was in the presence of a human being whose intention was to heal.

Asking the body if it was feeling cold but the cold was not from a typical winter evening rather an inner cold that was showing up in the space. The cold of loss and despair. The cold what the unknown can bring. The cold of fear that shakes one’s whole being showing the ongoing narrative of “I can’t get out of this. I am stuck. I can’t move”. A narrative that I experienced many times in my own healing journey and one that I know oh so well. The freak-out state that puts us into freeze mode which walks, hand in hand, with fighting of fleeing.

I started gently and was so careful as the icaros (medicine songs) were coming through. I was asking the medicine spirits to caress the being without any harshness. In order to do that, I needed to be in that state myself. I was seeing the vibrations of the icaros landing gently as the intensity was quite edgy.

The sounds gradually weaned down to place me into utter stillness and silence. Watching and listening to a space showing resistance to receive the medicine. I asked: “What am I doing here? What are you teaching me?”
In return came the response: “Enjoy the icaros regardless of the response to them. Medicine is infinite. God is infinite. Love is infinite”.
I halted and sat back only because the only sound that was allowed was the stillness. Being still and watching the fear. I was guided to fully accept while looking at the multiplicity of possibilities of how it will unfold with the person. I Watched and listened without doing anything. Full presence with it all.

The sounds of fear, resistance and struggle suddenly shifted into giggles and the laughter of the kid that was not allowed to laugh started rippling in the space. They were diverse with different feelings that encompassed happiness. Sadness, bitterness, regret, frustration and all kinds of stuck emotions were bursting out with laughter. I was watching with awe a shift of what looked like a volcanic eruption into an innocent need to express and be fully witnessed and accepted. A breakthrough to celebrate the beauty of how things can unfold when we stop and listen with full presence.

On the New Moon of this month, I was privileged and felt a pure joy to be in the presence of someone who chose to end a life cycle and begin again with laughter as medicine. Laughter that is felt and enjoyed with innocence and purity.

Isn’t it amazing to fully experience the simple things in life by allowing ourselves to fully be?

In Love and Medicine.

Maya Abou Chedid