Major Test of Faith #7: “Leading a Healing Circle at the Rainbow Gathering where the emotional releasing of two participants was way beyond frightening.”
Everything was going smoothly in a healing circle I was running at the Rainbow Gathering until a woman (I’ll call her Ms. S) took over control of the whole circle.
I was being trained by the Universe to lead these healing circles, and basically, I was guided to simply ‘have faith’ and wait for inner instructions before I intervene in the natural unfolding of the process.
So here I was, supposedly leading this healing circle, yet being guided to sit still quietly while Ms. S stood up and proceeded to re-experience rape experiences she had endured throughout her life.
It would be impossible for me to even begin to capture the completely blood-curdling, bone-chilling screams that began to pour out of Ms. S.
She started ferociously smashing the ground with her feet and hands as she screamed over and over again, never losing one ounce of her volcanic rage.
Then she picked up a thick branch from a tree and started hammering the ground with it over and over again, still screaming at the top of her lungs about the pain she’s had to endure.
I, and everyone else in the healing circle, as well as everyone within 500 yards of us, were all terrified that Ms. S was either going to seriously injure herself and/or she was going to seriously injure someone else in her violent seizure of emotional pain.
I had no idea whether or not Ms. S was on any hallucinogenic drugs at the time, and/or was taking psycho-active anti-depressants and/or other prescription drugs. I also have no idea whether Ms. S had previously been hospitalized or institutionalized for these types of violent emotional releasing seizures, among other symptoms.
If Ms. S were in a mental hospital and she had these types of seizures, I’m sure that maximum security would have been summoned and that she would have been soundly restrained such that she wouldn’t hurt herself and/or injure any one else.
But here I was, a relative novice at leading healing circles, having virtually no experience at all with how to handle this type, or any type of violent emotional outbursts or seizures. There was no hospital staff here to help me to (hopefully gently and calmly) restrain Ms. S.
The only thing I had was my inner guidance, which again, was telling me to stay calm and to basically allow Ms. S to release the emotions she was experiencing. When I asked my inner guidance if I needed to be concerned about her wild assault of the ground with the tree branch, the Universe again just told me to sit quietly and ‘have faith’.
This ‘faith thing’ can sometimes be taken too far, I’m sure I was thinking to myself at the time.
But amazingly, after about 15 minutes of this wild seizure, Ms. S simply put down the tree branch and quietly sat down by a tree nearby. I asked 2 of the women in the healing circle if they would be willing to go sit with Ms. S, and see if there was anything more that she needed from me and/or from the healing circle.
Again, amazingly, Ms. S just hung out with the 2 women quietly for a good period and then left the area with them in relative calm.
But just when I thought everything was going to go back to normal in this healing circle, a whole other incident got triggered.
Shortly after Ms. S was walked away with the 2 women, a guy who had been part of the healing circle and had witnessed Ms. S’s seizure, suddenly stood up and also started screaming at the top of his lungs.
He was completely naked and was screaming that he hated his penis and felt collectively responsible as a man for the rapes that Ms. S had experienced, as well as feeling collectively responsible for all the rapes that all men have ever committed on women over all of human history !
Once again, I had no idea whether or not he was on any hallucinogenic drugs at the time, and/or was currently or in the past taking psycho-active anti-depressants and/or other prescription drugs. And, as with Ms. S, I had no idea whether he had previously been hospitalized or institutionalized.
Once more, I had no hospital staff to help me with this situation that was quickly spiraling out of control !
Taking his emotional pain to another level, he threw himself face down on the dirt, and proceeded to violently churn his penis into the ground in an attempt to seriously self-mutilate his penis. All the while, he was crying and screaming that he was so sorry for all the rapes that had ever occurred to any woman throughout all of history.
Fortunately for him, everybody in the healing circle gathered around him and begged him to please stop trying to hurt himself. We all kept telling him that it was not his fault and that his body was sacred and beautiful and that he was NOT collectively responsible for the crimes that other men had committed against woman throughout history.
This intense comforting support seemed to work, as he finally collapsed into deep sobbing and ceased trying to hurt himself. A number of people in the circle then picked him up from lying face down on the ground and collectively cuddled him as he lay in a fetal position in their arms.
Faith. Faith. Faith. Faith. Faith !
Running this healing circle was a seriously humbling experience for me, as I’m sure you can imagine.
The magnitude of the suffering of humanity was weighing heavily on me as I sat completely exhausted, the healing circle quickly winding down around me.
How much good can one healer do against the enormity of the world’s suffering ?
But as I was about to get up from the healing circle and continue on with my night, a guy who was part of the circle during this whole experience asked me for a healing. It was a guy whom I’ll call ‘Mr. D’.
Mr. D is someone who I will speak more about in the next section.
He held the next key to my journey……a place to stay in Austin , Texas, a place that the Universe had previously hinted we would be trekking to eventually.
Mr. D told me that I could crash at his place in Austin, whenever I arrived there.
Out of ashes came the phoenix. I knew I had to just move on from this humbling experience and ‘ just have faith’ that I was moving on the right path.