CHOD Practice Journal (Work in Progress)

Feeding your Daemons.

Day 1  (6/21/17) (3:45 am):

1:  Find the Daemon:   Setting the stage:   Nine breaths, facing the empty chair.  Dedicate the practice to all beings.   The daemon was immediately felt.  Unlike other times where there was a distinct sensation in my body, this presence was completely separate from me and sitting in the chair.  The only bodily sensation I had was a tingling of fear.   The daemon was a tall brown tentacled creature--something between an octopus and an alien.  Its tendrils flailed out in all directions.  I asked what the deamon wanted/needed from me.  There was no response but I started gagging as if the tentacles were shoved down my throat.  My neck was thrown back.

I felt like I was choking and stopped the connection.  I remember thinking that I would do this tomorrow.  Baby steps.  What was particularly disconcerting was similarity with the same gag reflex I experienced during the last Reiki session.  When the throat area was energized, there was the memory of crying out for "mommy."  Then a white light and a huge (as reported to me) energy release.  It was like a hard boot on a computer.

2.  Personify the daemon and ask what it needs
3.  Become the daemon
4.  Feed the daemon.
5.  Rest in awareness.

Day 2 (6/22/17)  (2:43 am)

1.  Woke up to a dream involving the louver.  We were in a room filled with drapes and carpet. There were other people around.  She was being cold to me.  I was trying to appease her.  There was money around, I was trying to collect it to give put it on a small collection bowl on a shelf for her.  M from work kept trying to interrupt what I was doing and I became angry with her.  Eventually I yelled at her.  Then I woke up with a pain in my midsection about 3 inches above my navel.  It was the pain I felt with the louver.

Unlike yesterday, this was a body sensation.  There were no daemons. This was just me.  I felt that I needed to be kind and gentle with my pain to give it a voice to speak.  I was very tired  so I laid back down and attempted a gentle conversation with it, softening at same time.  I thought of how my relationship with the pain has changed.  This is the reminder that I am alive. My friend.  My loss.  It was not ready to speak with me, but I felt its deepness and how it touched me on so many levels.  I only feel the grief of the pain because of my love for her and how much we shared.   I am not ashamed of it or turning it away.  It was real and it touched me deeply.  It was part of my life for a significant period of time.  The intensity of my grief over the loss is a reminder to what it meant to me.  May I love all of life with that same intensity, and feel the pain of living/reminder of living always.   May it overwhelm me and take me in its loving arms.

I went back to sleep and had more dreams.  When I woke the pain was still there, but it had spread out to my entire body.  I will try to give it a home for as long as it wants to visit me.

Day 3(6/23/17) (4:00am).  The reins did not hold.  The horse was out of the barn into the pasture, down the road, up the trail, and down by the beach.  It is still running.  Maybe if I'm lucky, there may be a nap time in my future.