I am a devout Dabbalist.
Meet Catholic School girl, turned Presbyterian by choice in middle school; intrigued by Native American Shamanism in college; honorary Jew as a counselor at a sleep away Jewish camp; moved to Woodstock -seeped in Buddhism, Holism, Kabbalism and crystal worship/healing; worked at the Omega Institute, which started from the inspiration of a Sufi teacher –Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, and has since hosted thousands of workshops in every faith and spiritual practice imaginable.
What did I find in all that exploration? Truth, God, Faith, the Eternal -can be found EVERYWHERE. The prophets and teachers that came with love in their hearts are all messengers with a common thread. I have learned to be very wary of people and traditions that claim that their way is the ONLY way. I am also leery of healers and spiritual leaders that ask you to give over your power to them. This could look like a divisiveness between you and your family and friends, trying to take over your assets, or simply telling you that you will only advance to the next stage of development if you sign up for this lengthy course and purchase all of their books and recordings. Dude, the truth is already inside YOU!
When I was a good little girl, I prayed to God all the time. There was something so mystical about the Virgin Mary statue in our church, the smell of incense, the confessional boxes where we could speak to god through the priest. I prayed for forgiveness, I prayed for my family, for small special favors -promising to be good. Something happened in the pivotal teen years of my life that turned me away from the Catholic tradition and started me on a hard path of really looking for answers about the truth of my spiritual nature. When I was a sophomore in high school, after we had moved to Kingston, it hit the headline news that a young teen of 16 had been molested at my former church in Poughkeepsie, NY. This was probably a boy I went to school with since kindergarten, but I will never know. This priest had only taken up his post the year before, so he wasn’t in fact there while I attended. I was so shocked that a man of faith could do such a thing, and after years of feeling guilty about my own sexuality, it just boggled my mind. I stopped talking to God for awhile.
As a girl blossoming into a woman, the changes in me brought me closer to nature. I had always resonated with the notion of the Holy Spirit, and I could feel this deep connection growing in me between the earth and her cycles and my changing body. My Stepmother was the first person to bring me to Woodstock, NY. She introduced me to Native American Shamanism, to numerology and crystal healing, and now Sally is a fully committed Buddhist. From this point forward, my conversations with God became more like an inner inquiry or a written, poetic exploration. I didn’t ask for things, or pray for specific people or situations. I felt inward for a nudge or a calling. I looked for signs in the clouds and the streams and the animals. I was honing my Gut Feeling and trusting my inner compass.
When first Julian had been screened and found to be on the Autistic spectrum, and a year later the cancer diagnosis struck our family, it was all just too much. I found it incredibly hard to find my connection to Source. I felt like I had been abandoned, and that God had turned his back on me. Was I being punished for something… for turning my back on Him first? I’ve always thought of myself as an essentially Good person, not perfect, but good. Over the years, I had volunteered in various ways, I tried to eat mostly organic, I was a vegetarian for years and years, I cleansed my body once or twice a year. Cancer? What the hell?! In spite of my family history, it was not going to happen to me. How could I have been more wrong!
Before the surgery, as I tried to scan forward, there was only a curtain of blackness which I couldn’t see beyond. Today marks a full 9 weeks… in fact as I type this, at 11:15 AM on 9/16/14, this is the exact moment they were wheeling me in for my life saving double mastectomy. Only now am I slowly finding my way back to a peace with Source. I still can’t find the words to pray, but I have found so much encouragement, support and love in the Faith of all my family, friends and strangers who have reached out in kindness. I have Faith in humanity, and I know that this is where the true Great Spirit resides, in the seeds nourished in each of your hearts. Keep feeding those seeds and sharing your gifts with the world. So much love, kindness and faith is needed now. ❤
Melissa's Healing Hope 
I am speechless
Thank you thank you for sharing this! I hear you!
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Melissa, you nailed it again. “Dude, the truth already resides within you,” is a sentence I will use in my life. Your journey is heroic, and at the same time common. You eloquent writing and vulnerability allows us to be on your journey with you. You story reminds us of our own unspoken and at times unrecognized journeys. You are the voice for all of us. Thank you.
Dear Warrior Princess,
Your words are so inspiring. I love you so much.
Love,
Mom
So beautifully expressed!
This journey of committed dabbler is such a mountainous and rocky road.
I remember being young and seeped in so much to dabble in, hearing one thing that stood out for me at my grandmother!a church. To me the church was a foreign and strange place within my spiritual findings to that point…
I heard this one thing stand out… “The Kingdom of Heaven is within”
I decided that was all i needed from that school, and went about my way.
I ended up on in a Buddhist dharma center for several years and i noticed a similar thing.
The Buddha said it too.
And yet all of the hundreds of thousands of commentaries on simply that, the same pithy but simple teaching of looking inward, spoke of fire and brimstone, similarl to the other extreme faiths i had encountered.
With all of those teachings and society too, we are led to believe that karma or destiny or cause and effect are all led from some bigger force and punishable by some great power other than our own mind.
So the guilt and the shame and the weight of past “misdeeds” become future opportunities for justification for our “wrongs”
And yet when we look into the core of those teachings as you are now, we find tht although, while accountability is tantamount to self work, that putter judge, society, schools of thought, the great god in the sky can never fate a defeating.
Only we can.
And as we come to find, when we dig deep, those of us who dig deep find our power in the strangest of ways.
You, Melissa, are quantum. Leaping into your fucking power and it is absolutely an honor to be able to read your words and feel you lock into your magnificent and glorious center.
I don’t know why we hit the hard places to find the power that comes to pull us out of them, but to see it happen is utterly inspiring.
You are an incredible writer Melissa.
I had no idea.
You are a source of knowledge and understanding.
I knew that, but what you have been sharing here, with us, as you take this journey is going to help many women of all walks, on theirs.
When you first told me what you were processing, I couldn’t for a second see this as a worst case scenario situation.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is part of your journey for a bigger reason than we know in this moment.
Interesting you should be thinking about Christ and all of the great teachers you have communed with in your lifetime, because you are taking this journey for more than yourself. And you are experiencing fully, what it is that you are going to teach others to do with grace and spirit.
A story comes to mind…
When Miriam Makeba was a girl, her mother became very ill. She almost died numerous times. When the Sangoma (medicine woman) came the first time she told her that she was a Sangoma too and she must release to the spirits and carry the message to heal the village.
She resisted.
When she finally accepted her role as medicine woman, she was well again.
She was a very respected in her craft as Sangoma.
This journey is showing you something very big.
And at the other end of this leg, you will have. Birthed something more precious than we could imagine right now.
We know that you are a healer.
You are finding that out now.
Please accept the invitation from the universe and remember that as you take this journey.
You are a gift.
Thank you.
I love you.
Please keep writing. Even if you don’t share it all with us here, on this blog
Keep writing and processing your journey with the written word.–you are a healer, we knew that. And now that we know you are an extremely gifted writer…
You will touch many souls with your experience.
You are certainly touching mine.
Your writing is so very Honest …… Your words are easy to read and feel so good to hear and understand….
ThankYou so much Melissa , for sharing Your Love and Pain .
Thanks for reading Jon, helps make this voyage a little less lonely and scary.