The Seer, The Owl, and The Thief

On our way to the overlook, I found myself wondering when it was going to end. The tide carried in a tempest that crashed along the shoreline. I didn’t dare stroll the beach. Only the tourists were naive enough to take that risk. Our house sits back on the cliff, just far enough from the eroding banks that threaten the homes sitting along the edge. Some had lost their driveways and were forced to create new ones through their neighbor’s yards. Those who have chosen to stay run the risk of falling in, but they are older folks who see it as just another way to die. Sometimes we joke about how it won’t be long before we have our own ocean view.

I’ve been waiting. I’m not sure for what exactly, but I feel it and I follow the signs. I know it will bring about great change, and the end of my life as I currently know it. Although, all endings are just beginnings in disguise. I have taught myself to see it this way, so that when it comes I will be prepared, and will know not to dwell on the end, but to arrive safely at the beginning of this new chapter of my life.

Life and its hardships have taught me to be in constant preparation for the unknown that arrives around every corner. I watch so many others get caught in the undertow of loss, some never recovering, and I never want to be that way. I listen closely to my intuition and my body that speaks to me and tells me when to pay attention. Those who get lost have not learned how to listen. They don’t know why they are here and they let others decide who they are for them.

I realized that I need not be waiting. It was a challenge for me to know pieces of the future and not anticipate the outcome, or wonder when and how it would play out. I knew I needed to be here now and enjoy the journey, but there were times it felt so close, I could hardly turn away from receiving yet another piece of the puzzle.

I had to live in multiple realities and understand which timeline I was playing out. I had to be present with my current life, even though I felt like my own sense of self was somewhere else in the future, while simultaneously resolving different parts of myself in the past. All I could do was escape to the inner dimensions of my soul and wait for the sign that would one day change the course of my life.

That night, the winds came in off of the sea, whistling through the trees, and spiraling down the spine of the chimney, shaking the very foundation of our home. I remained calm, but observing on the inside. It seemed like just another night, as I put my reservations aside and listened to the creeks in the rafters. Yet, when my husband gazed out the window, to his surprise, he saw someone looking back at him. “Hun, there’s a… barn owl in the yard” he said, and I perked up and knew in that moment that the sign I had been waiting for had arrived.

We were both stunned at the sight of this beautiful creature that seemed more mythical than real. Neither one of us had ever seen a barn owl in this area. Due to the amount of rain we get, it seemed an unlikely sight. She stood on the pavement below, where the porch light met the yard and stared up at him, as if making sure to be seen. When she turned her gaze to me, I could see the wind ruffle through her amber feathers. I had the overwhelming sense that I knew her, as if I were staring back at my own reflection.

I went out to the balcony to get a better advantage, and just when I thought she had flown out of sight, I noticed her silhouette across from me on a low bearing branch. I figured she was hunting the voles that had decorated our lawn with mounds of black earth, yet she didn’t fly off like most birds of prey. I sensed her arrival carried a deeper message to be read by those willing to listen.

Once again, she flew to the ground, just into the light and looked up at me inquisitively. I could have sat with her all night, but the winds blew me back into the warmth of my home. Had I thought more clearly about this rare opportunity, I would have grabbed a coat and sat with her for awhile, but as fate would have it, she was just delivering a message, that came in loud and clear.

I had dreamt of her many times, but in my dreams she was no omen, rather, she was the love of my life. She came to show me love in its purest form and the power it holds within me. We were one and the same, birthing the creation of my story, and I knew that her gift was to be protected. Just as she protected and cradled me in the span of her wings, across astral skies and underworlds that most will never see. She was my guardian and I carried her magic within me.

I always thought I was cursed. Befriending those who were unwilling to see left me feeling alone and unsure of who I was. Many of them hated me and not even they knew why. It wasn’t until I was much older did I come to understand this medicine. The play between two people and how their energy becomes the unspoken language that shapes their experience. My energy creates the friction that others feel under their skin, when they’re reluctant to expose the wounds they’ve spent a lifetime hiding. The mirror for which they had no interest to look within. My pain triggered their own in moments when we least suspected it. I could see it wash over them like a drape falling to reveal one’s most vulnerable parts.

Nothing can deceive me. My eyes are the x-rays of the soul. I know more about you than you know about yourself. I not only see through the mask that others have been taught so well to wear, I feel their fears and sense when they’re holding them in. Some have feared me for this reason. Those who pretend to have it all figured out have assumed that life is nothing more than a bunch of actions and consequences that they have little control over. Believing there’s nothing more to life, they come to the comfortable decision that there’s no point in questioning why their life turned out the way it did. It’s much easier to accept your fate when you’ve decided there’s no purpose to it. So they choose to keep their heads in the clouds and look down to those who challenge them.

I had always known that this time would come. Shortly after I married, it became evident that one day I must leave him, but I didn’t know when. I heard it, like a whisper that opened my eyes and brought me to my knees. I was madly in love with him, and he with me, but there was more than love curating this story, for he was the thief that stole my heart from the moment I laid eyes on him.

I knew that he would deceive me. I knew that a part of him already had. Not in the way you might suspect, for he’s not the cheating type. Besides, I could probably accept that easier than facing the guards who patrol his heart. He never let anyone in. It was as if there was an invisible wall around him that I couldn't penetrate. He kept me at arms length, and dangled his love just out of reach. He held himself together like an immovable force, armored for battle. There was no softness, vulnerability, or compassion. His stoicism became the silent voice, that I felt judged by. I quickly learned that he wasn’t capable of opening his heart completely.

I often hoped he would let his guard down, but over time, the longer I stayed, his inability to receive me would grow into the very thing that would kill me if I didn’t leave. Yet, with very little evidence of how the future would play out, I was left with a feeling that I couldn’t shake. It plagued me, and rarely left my thoughts, even on good days. I lacked the courage to trust it completely, but this just created a division within me that I never came to terms with. I allowed myself to be his wife and live out this story that we embarked upon together, as I slipped under the illusion of security that he provided. All the while, watching the signs that left me doubting myself.

We built a life together, like any couple would. Doing our best to create a solid foundation, yet from the faulty structures of our youth every brick we laid seemed to crumble beneath us. Neither one of us had it easy growing up. We both carried an aura of unworthiness that diminished our ability to receive the love that we both desperately needed. Two wounded souls needing approval from the other, never able to fulfill the unrealistic needs that we failed to fulfill in ourselves. It was as if we were doomed, wanting so much to be what the other needed for comfort and sustenance, but the only needs we fulfilled were the painful ones. The ones that help us see how much we were hurting. The ones that awaken the knowing that something’s not right.

He was skilled with his hands and found it easy to pave the way for us financially, while I struggled to meet him in this comfortable place. We were building a home together, and I dreamt about the days when we would complete our masterpiece. I thought we were off to a good start, but soon I could see the signs of decay and misfortune that weaved its way through the infrastructure of our home.

The more successful he became in his field, the more he abandoned our home and our dreams. I felt like all I could do was wait, as I watched the distance between us grow. I struggled to prove myself and gradually worked myself into the ground. Though my talents are many, success was no where to be found. It never felt right, work to me was not a means to an end. But for some reason, I persisted for all the wrong reasons, and it began to wear on me and make me physically ill. Before I knew it, the life we had created took a turn for the worst.

The more I tried to live a life that went against the grain of who I was, the sicker I became. Even when I attempted to backpedal myself out of the rut I was in, there was no way to exit gracefully. I was forced to watch everything crumble around me, so I could somehow start again. I lost everything I had built, as it was never meant to be. I lacked the confidence needed to make a career for myself, even when it came to doing the work I love. Because of this I just fell deeper into illness and unable to reignite the flame that would light my way.

Over the years, I felt his resentment rising. His need for me to pull my own weight threatened the life I saw for us, and created a rift between us that could not be restored.

He didn’t understand me. He couldn’t see who I really was and what I needed from him to thrive. He wanted me to succeed and supported me in the ways he knew how, but his expectations were the conditions I could never meet. The support I needed from him was love, not scorn. The person I fell in love with was slowly replaced by his growing disappointment in me. Like a ghost resigned to his eternal fate, it felt like he stopped caring. I failed to validate his efforts every time I failed to be someone I couldn’t be. His faith in me left like abandonment and there was nothing I could do.

I was disappointed too. Disappointed that he couldn’t be there for me when I needed him. That his idea of what it meant to be close to me had nothing to do with understanding what I actually needed. His assumptions rarely hit the mark, and mostly ended on his terms. The rise and fall of his brooding moods kept me in a loop of self doubt that left me wounded. We perfected the art of avoidance, as we both knew we couldn’t meet eye to eye.

The life of a seer is not always a glamorous one. I was ashamed that I could not resolve the weight of my childhood trauma in order to be who he needed. I learned every possible way to heal myself and purge the emotions of my past, but their burden cast over me like a spell. I could see how it all worked, the layers upon layers of beliefs and perspectives that weren’t even my own, impressed upon me like a scar, branding my skin. Yet, I knew my healing journey wasn’t going to be easy. I couldn’t just erase my past, without becoming someone new. I couldn’t be who I really was without forgiving everything that I had been, and this took a deep kind of awareness that I would have to cultivate over time. Integrating everything I had experienced one step at a time, slowly revealing my truth, and lifting the veil that had kept me blind.

To my dismay, the more inner work I did on myself, the further away I felt from him. He was not interested in looking beyond the dark cloud that encased him. While I was cleaning the wells of my soul, he maintained his, by pouring liquor down it. Drowning out the sound of his own thoughts, scripted by demons that spoke through grinding teeth. Erasing his memory, when the treat of recovery is near. A veteran for the cause, disabled by fear

Like stored pennies for a rainy day, I knew he had begun to hold secrets, and make financial decisions without me. I felt empty inside, as I knew he had chosen to put other interests before me. I rarely came first on his agenda, and when I did, there always seemed to be an incentive for him. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, but never invested the energy it took to relieve the itch. He never knew how to be with me; to just relax with me. I don’t even think he knew why he was there. He held onto an idea of who I was; of who we were together when we first met, but this feeling that consumed him was the karmic agreement that brought us together in the first place. A connection so strong that neither one of us would be able to resist it, no matter how tumultuous circumstances would become. He never took the time to unwrap what that was all about. Instead, he just remained complacent, as if the idea of me was enough, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t enough the first time I ever felt his heart close. I knew it wasn’t enough every time he appeased me, as if the tension he felt from my presence wasn’t enough to rattle him awake. He just continued to tell himself he was doing the right thing. But, I knew he was settling because when it came down to it, he didn’t want to start over. I knew he was settling because whenever I opened my mouth, I could feel him cringe.

He always made just enough effort to keep me at bay. Investing in me only when he felt our marriage was threatened, and then as soon as I was satiated, he was gone again, off to tend to more important tasks. Past lives would tell of our common fate, of the sacrifices I made to love one who was incapable of loving me in return. Who was more concerned with obtaining the wealth of my family, than he was with being truthful. And, like a thief in the night, he ran with the only valuable jewels I owned. In this life, I would remain empty, constantly looking to him for my value. Confused as to what I was trying to gain. It took me years before I would understand that I was never going to get back from him what I had lost lifetimes before. It was years before I realized that I had to be the one to give myself the value I had given away.

It was almost numbing, as I sat behind eyes that saw everything. I was able to sense his emotional stirrings like a storm that raged across my valleys, yet he refused to engage in the darkness that held him under. It wasn’t so much his fear of the unknown, as it was simply he didn’t see the point, so he said. But really, I knew he was terrified to go there, and couldn't see past the demons that held their grip on him whenever they felt threatened.

He’s very sensitive too, but you wouldn’t guess it by observing his hard edged surface. Carved to perfection, with a veneer that reflects his glossy finish, while he keeps his shortcomings hidden behind lock and key. Being such a sensitive soul myself, and having learned to navigate the underworlds, his disposition glared back at me like daggers severing the only ties that still held us together.

I felt a darkness take over me. Like a black smoke in my lungs, I was suffocating, making it harder and harder for me to leave. My health issues had become debilitating and threatened every pathway forward. Money was tight, and I was dependent upon him and he hated me for it.

I began to distance myself out of self preservation. I began to mirror the very traits in him that he feared in himself. This was why I was there. To show him all the things he never wanted to see. To awaken in him who he really was beyond appearances. To remind him that he didn’t come here to just be a ghost. That he has purpose and that life is about healing wounds, and not letting them fester.

I knew that we were bound for a lesson that would nearly destroy both of us, but I prepared for it the best I could. Yet, divine timing would have its way with me, and I would have to suffer many years before I could free myself from my own shackles. All while seeing the possibilities of the future, I remained hostage to my own need for acceptance and love. I couldn’t bear to hurt him, so I hurt myself. I couldn’t fathom leaving him when I knew he couldn’t see his own way home. I couldn’t leave, knowing he would judge me for not being more like him. I couldn’t allow myself to admit that I was still hiding and unable to care for myself the way I needed to. I couldn’t admit that I was still there because I was terrified at the thought of never making it on my own. Yet deep down, I knew that the only way for me to succeed was to go and discover what it meant to be me.

Our home became a never ending work in progress. It was as if it was mirroring my own journey, revealing my wounds, swollen and damp, where unsettled arguments seeped through. The more he resented me, the less he worked on finishing our home. I felt trapped in more ways than I could ever imagine. Then, when things couldn’t get much worse, I discovered that the walls were rotting and filled with a dense black mold that whispered ‘death’ through my veins. The very vessel that held our dreams and commitment for one another, was killing me; stealing the life-force right out of me, like the thief that it was.

This seemed like the sign I had been waiting for, because I knew I needed to leave but my life flashed before me and I was older now, and sick with nothing to show for it and no will to lift me out. While I had healed emotionally in many ways, it wasn’t enough to help me accomplish my goals. It didn’t provide me with the courage I needed to live fully. I had sunk too deeply to step out of the darkness I had been bound by. It crippled my health and made it hard for me to support myself. Yet, I would have to figure out how to leave anyway. I knew not to leap prematurely, so I waited for the sign that would carry me through.

Time felt like quicksand, holding me ransom. Would I ever be able to live out my life as I had intended? Would I ever recover and rediscover joy? Would I ever come to find the endurance needed to create the life I wanted?

He couldn’t see the reality of what I was enduring from his own perspective, and who I had become was unrecognizable to who he thought I was. He had decided his own fate, while we both knew that if I left, he wouldn’t be coming with me. He denied every plea I made to save what was never meant to be recovered.

So when the day finally came, and stared us both back in the face. I knew very well what she had come to deliver, but attempted to play naive. He was quiet in his observance of her, yet I knew he wouldn’t allude to anything more than he could prove. The winds off the coast whipped through my mind, as I came to a new understanding of who I was becoming. As I stepped firmly into the woman I knew I had to be, it became increasingly easier to see myself apart from him. We had been through so much, yet through most of it, I remained silent within myself, unable to speak to my experience. I felt invisible to others, who only saw me through the lens of my circumstances. Staying in an environment that proved to be toxic for me, cost me my health. I invested in a love that could never love me back the way I needed, and this grew a poison within me that only time could dispel. It took everything in me to finally choose myself over others, and be who I needed to be in order to heal my darkest wounds. The hands of time had shaped me, so that I could finally be the person I needed to be to let him go.

That night the storms raged on through the seas as savagely as they did through my home. Gathering the momentum I needed to be the wreckage that would cast us both out to sea. There we would find ourselves in our own vulnerability, weakened as we swam back to shore. Now able to find the parts of ourselves that remained, we could start what would be the beginning of our end. It wouldn’t be easy, but we had nothing left to hold onto, only that which needed to be separated and unhinged. Feeling naked, yet our emotions still enmeshed together, we looked for places to hide. Searching for normalcy; something familiar, that would act as a blanket until we felt secure.

I still had so much healing to do. It was nothing I could rush. There was no facade to hide behind. I couldn’t pretend that something didn’t still have it’s grip on me. Something dark and evil. Something that I couldn’t blame on anyone but myself. Leaving didn’t save me, it only made me more vulnerable to what I wasn’t willing to consciously own up to. I was now placed before the deeper work needed to face my fears, that had kept me hiding for years. Demons still followed and harassed me on the daily. Leaving a trail of feathers, like omens I couldn’t dismiss. I felt like a target, a fly on the wall constantly trying to escape the hit. As honest as I tried to be with myself, it seemed as though the lies kept piling up like dirty laundry, and unpaid bills. How was I ever going to get on the other side of this. I was constantly torn between choices; the lessor of two evils, none of which ever felt right.

Months passed and I wasn’t getting any better, in fact I felt worse. I could only hope that the darkness within me was rising to the surface to leave. I knew that if I was diligent that it couldn’t stay in these inhospitable waters. I continued to swell and flood, like a damp well bleeding out into the black soil that held me.

I felt like I was drowning, in every effort I made; in every trying excuse and every story I told myself to pretend things were getting better. Filling my space with things, searching for just the right stuff that would make me feel normal. That would make me feel like I had finally achieved something. But everything remained the same, and nothing made the difference that I was hoping for. I was still lost. I was still sick. I was still unable to pull myself together and make a life for myself.

I was either going to die this way or transcend this darkness into light. The only thing keeping me going was the shame of letting myself give up. The shame of becoming the toxicity that engulfed me was almost more than I could bear. Giving up became something I entertained often.

The poison that thickened my blood, heavy like syrup, stagnated beneath my skin, slowing me down to an unmoving halt. Every vein, artery and ventricle collapsing onto themselves. Drainage, a slow drip from inflamed passage ways where the clarity of air once lived. Pinched nerves and squeezing thoughts like a tension so precise, I could hear a pin drop.

I never did like the idea of ‘Battling one’s illness'. Instead, healing should be about learning to love and forgive oneself and the body, even the parts that seem like they are killing you. Our bodies always have our best interests in mind and are always in pursuit of recovery. We are the ones who choose to expose ourselves to toxicity, and put our bodies into a defensive position towards life when we resist its flow. If we listen to what our bodies are saying, we will hear the warning call to change the pattern, but sometimes life is about the experience of learning how to change. If circumstances cut you off at every angle, sometimes we need to just accept where we are until conditions soften enough to allow us to leave.

At some point, those who are dying stop caring. They stop trying to be in the world. Turn inward to begin their ominous decent. It could be that they have resigned and are giving up the battle or maybe they've finally accepted their fate. I think people waver between resisting life and accepting it. When they are resisting it, they are fighting an internal battle with themselves. When they are able to accept what life has brought them and allow it to be the lesson that helps them live more deeply, then they are in flow with it. But no one can say what this is for each person. It is a journey we must endure ourselves that any one of us will inevitably struggle to face. I think most of us just don’t know what else to do so we try everything because deep down we want to live. We want to see things through and witness more of life, and feel more of life. And sometimes that’s not in the plans. Sometimes we just have to accept and surrender to what is. At this point, we either drift off silently, or something awakens inside of us that we didn’t know existed.

It wasn’t until I did nothing at all that something shifted. I stopped reacting, stopped worrying and wondering. I just surrendered to no outcome, to not knowing and let the forces within me take flight. I was no longer in the driver’s seat. I was no longer in control of who I was or what I became. All I knew was, I was finally free.

In my newly found freedom, I was finally able to embrace a higher level of acceptance for myself. I was able to forgive who I was and who I'd become. All the years that seemed wasted, now had their place in my story and I no longer had to respond to it. I no longer had to play the role of the person who allowed it. I finally stopped running from who I was, and honored her instead. When I stopped running, suddenly the demons stopped chasing me. When I stopped hiding, suddenly people could see me and my body thanked me by healing. When I stopped needing approval from others, I suddenly didn't need to prove anything to anyone, and the confidence I needed to secure my foundation, came in like a force to be reckoned with. Darkness subsided as the light consumed it at will, and the thief that had once stolen my heart, receded with the night.