QiGong Prison Ministry

In my commitment to being more transparent in this blog, I offer up my personal process of coping and rebalancing after the afternoon of trauma told in  the Onion Tears blog entry. You might want to read it first.

After visiting just one of the 6 or so students I originally intended to see, I quit.  Hearing the inner voice, that enough was enough, I left.  As I walked out using a “think blue sky, think body mantra that comes from a QiGong I practice.  Gazing into the heavens that were such a beautiful blue that day, then feeling my body, back and forth with each breath. Knowing I was held in the infinite, knowing all of us were, the men, the guards, this wretched place.  That got me through the gates and to my car.  

Hot from the sun the car was not the sanctuary I needed, but it represented home, a bit of my own space.  I felt the rumblings of a overburdened heart and knew I wanted to cry.  The tears were wimpy and choked.  Let me really get clear of this place.  I drove to the City park just outside the prison gate, found the bathroom I needed, drank some water, laid on the grass, tossed and turned replaying the stories of the afternoon, knowing that my terror was a pittance compared to the terror the men and guards were living with.  I was only hearing stories.  This was their life.

But it wasn’t until I was back in the car with a mournful piece of music playing and making the motions to drive off that the tears really came.  So I parked again, this time in the shade, turned up the tunes and let the tears rip.  When they eased up I would invoked a image from the stories I had heard, and get them moving again.  I wanted to keep crying for at least 10 minutes. I wanted to exhaust the tears, at least at this level.  

Spent, I kept that song playing as I drove to the Meeting House.  I like to go there and garden after prison.  The Quaker Meeting House can hold any small suffering of mine. Quaker Meeting Houses have provided sanctuary for slaves, disenfranchised women, draft resisters and political refugees over the years.  Although our Meeting House is knew, prison service has always been a part of Quaker history. I fussed a little, deadheading the cosmos that still grace the entry, then went inside to seek consolation in some sort of prayer or meditation.  I had barely settled down and asked for guidance, when a strong knowing arose.  

The stress of the afternoons stories had taken me out of alignment on many levels.  Start with the physical, get the body back in alignment to provide the “back bone” needed to heal on the other levels.  I have a deeply spiritual chiropractor,  Desiree Crusade, who welcomes the spiritual and emotional challenges I bring with me.  She adjust primarily at the top of the spine, Atlas and Axis, so that the full flow of information can leave the brain.  From there the inner healer takes over.  I walked in at 5 minutes to 3, not knowing that today the office needed to close early at three.  Thanks be for the guidance that got me there on time.  I was severely out of alignment.  She take a temperature reading along the upper cervical. And the relief that came from the adjustment was quick.  I was still emotionally traumatized and did not want to replay stories during the 45 minute rest we take after adjustment.  So I asked her for a mantra.  She was not sure what I was asking for, so I said. “Listen ... What does God want you to tell me?”  “Let go of all expectations and seek the potential.”  Was what came quickly.  So I lay with my prayer beads and got most of the way around using this until I fell asleep.

Frazzled and unable to bear even the radio chatter when I had arrived at the office, I found a chair off in a little nook, on the table was a couple of books.  Needing to keep my mind off the stories, I opened the smaller one, a essay on Evolution or Revolution by her teacher B.J. Palmer in 1957.  On the page I randomly opened to I immediately recognized a familiar message about awakening the inner healer.  It seemed to be a message addressing my concerns over the nature of this blog.  He wrote about how important it is to tell the story of personal transformation, but how much greater it is to “tell every person who reads your work that lying buried, almost forgotten, deep within him, are the same great dormant potentials which, once aroused, awakened, can speak of the greatness ... carry him to great heights also. Genius is not a secret of a few.  It is buried in all.  ... Each person has the same right to turn on the internal faucet between “Innate In him” and permit it to flow into his (mind), the same as the Christ, Buddha, Therese, Shogni, ...or any other individual.” ( pages 92 and 93)  My take home was to feel comfortable telling more of my transformational story, and find a way to tell the transformational stories of the men inside.

Unfortunately there was no dance tonight.  My plan was to go home and see if I might be able to release on my own dancing in the living room.  I was drained, the treatment had released the tension energy and left me very tired.  But on the way home my daughter in law called inviting me to dinner.  I hesitated saying that the prison had been very hard today.  My son called and gave me the “family is good medicine” lecture, so after spending some valuable time documenting the day drafting the previous blog entry, I went.  I hoped that writing about the stories and pain would help release them from spinning over and over so in my mind.  I could choose later whether or not to submit it as a blog entry.

Driving over, I kept editing what I had written in my head, so I jotted down a few things in the driveway.  My mother-in-law in her typical cheery nature asked me how I was.  I said “horrible.” She wasn’t expecting that answer and was taken aback.  I told them I really did not want to poison our dinner (we had gathered to see pictures of her month in Switzerland) with the ugly stories, and they were OK with that and took the conversation to other family topics.  I practiced holding my attention in the present moment and enjoying my choice to be with them. Driving home, I noticed a shift had happened.  Residual agitation was still hovering, but an internal calm had taken over.

I have to say that I share more here in the blog than I do with my family.  They support me, but their lives do not offer much common ground to understand my challenges.   When the going gets tough their first suggestion is to quit. They are uncomfortable seeing me suffer, and confused by my willingness to keep moving toward rather than away from suffering.  They love me.

Home, alone (my husband away on business), I took a long shower and began what became two hours of spiritual practices.  I do a round of my prayer breads with a special breath and chant routine, then sit in the immensity of the stillness that arises when I let go of the focus.  I was satisfied that I could stay with the practice and the stories did not invade.  I could feel my core strength rebuilding.  Then I did a self-Reiki healing session on myself, calling in all available spiritual support to clear away the debris from the day and refill my inner reservoir.  I listened to some chanting in bed before sleeping, hoping to fill the sub-levels of the mind with holy words that would tend to my night’s dreams. I gave thanks that the rebalancing had happened within 6 hours.  I slept well, gratefully.  

Friday I slept in, then fussed over a promotional handout for the QiGong Conference this weekend.  As I moved into the energy of the conference, sleeping that night in the meditation hall of my friend’s home, the last of the trauma energy seemed to dissolve away, leaving me with the story minus the twisting knife in my heart.  Thanks be.  The conference was full of healing energy and QiGong masters from all over the world.  I was moved into a much wider perspective of my efforts and the men’s challenges.  

As more layers surface in my return to oneness with the universe, the process itself will offer what is needed.

PS:  More layers continue to surface, even as I edited Onion tears and wrote this piece.  Then dancing this week I worked out more feelings and practiced shifting internally from fear to balance.  Onward ...