ApocALYPSE

This is a very special, very mystical, very magical, very shameful and astonishing date for me. 

On this date: March 27th, 2005 I was in a self induced altered state. I was “out of it”, lying in a hotel room having taken three handfuls of barbiturates and having drunk a fifth of alcohol, trying to die, the previous day. 

The previous day was a Saturday eighteen years ago; the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I woke up that Saturday morning at the absolute end of my rope, untethered, in abject fear and exhaustion. I could spend another few paragraphs explaining how I came to that dark night of my soul, but I hope in 2023 AmeriKKKa that it is sufficient to say that I was a Black female M.D. in overdrive, in deeply dysfunctional family dynamics, and very much emotionally exhausted.

My life and my lifestyle were killing me. 

Little did I know that the voices in my head (NOT literal, reader/listener; that’s just the best way I can describe my fear, as I tell this story) were messages from my ancestors. “Trust Us”, they whispered, over and over again. 

“Trust us”  they said, as I moved through my Saurday 9 to 1 p.m. office schedule manically determined to clear every last chart off my electronic medical record before I died.  Which I did. 

“Trust Us” they pleaded, as I booked a room in my favorite hotel; better not to have a friend find me, but hard on the hotel housekeeping staff.

“Trust Us!” they begged, as I went into that hotel room, cut off my shoulder length dreadlocks, showered (a most delicious experience even as I remember it close to twenty years later), and began drinking. 

I was a determined little girl inside a huge gigantor robot pushing all the buttons and pulling all the levers in sheer holy terror. As the ancestors murmured, I put my fingers in my ears and hummed.

Systematically and obsessively, I carefully drank a fifth of liquor; but not too fast. I might vomit, which would defeat my intentions and screw up my suicide plans. I smoked two bowls of cannabis along the way, to make sure I didn’t vomit. In between the drinks, I swallowed three handfuls of barbiturates. 

If I tell you, reader/listener, that I timed this all perfectly would you believe me? Because I AM a doctor; I could check my own vital signs. I was barely able to stand up and get myself from the chair in the room onto the heavenly bed (yes; that IS he trademark name of that Westin hotel special feature). When I lay down, my breathing was agonal.

But I wasn’t on my way out” as I had intended. I was on my way WAY OUT”, into the place o mystery and miracles. A space I couldn’t speak of, for all these many years.

I went to an “out of Body” space.

Here’s what happened in my story.

Just as I lost consciousness, Something came in to the room, got my out of that bed walked me to the toilet (where I vomited what was left of the pills and alcohol in my belly– obviously getting rid of enough that I didn’t go on to DIE), walked me back to my bed, positioned me in exactly the same position that I had been when I lost consciousness (very Egyptian Mummy like– hands across my chest and flat on my back) and said, “Now come with me”

That was the archangel Raphael. I left my body to go“Somewhere” with him.

As I was on my way Somewhere Else, I could look down on my body, and see it had become a portal for souls. They were all exiting through my body and heading into The Light.

The Somewhere Else was a place where an ebony black, white bearded man in long white robes sat on a throne. Actually, he wore an agbada. It was Obatala a father orisha, in the Ifa religion.,

He took me onto his lap, where I was about the size of a six year old. 

“We know that you are tired. You can rest. But you have more to do and must go back.  You will be our priestess when you return, with Oshun and Obatala on your head…

NOW WILL YOU TRUST US?” My ancestors, angels and Spirit Guides asked me.

Now, I do.

As my world becomes increasingly chaotic and apocalyptic, I move forwards as a priestess who will keep my head (while those about are losing theirs) honoring Obatala, and who will cultivate honey in the hearts of all, in honor of Oshun.

That is the best that I can do for now in sharing in words a space, a place and a time best left in the ineffable realms of the non linear. 

It is with joy and a mantra, “I live my life spherically, in all directions at once” that I can hold the strangeness of what I have shared. 

With clarity and a commitment to transforming my own shame, I share amusement at my own adventures. The archangel Raphael AND two African orishas? What???? 

I really couldn’t make this up. 

I can look back, after these many years and do a reality check on the amount of moral injury I had suffered as an M.D.  Twenty years of a rewarding (and TOXIC) career as a conventional family doctor in a deeply misogynistic and racist conventional medical system. I look back, and I see no other way from “there” to “here” for me. Here is the powerful place of eclectic healer, active and caring listener for the sharing of Difficult Stories in Challenging times. 

I also see with increasing discernment the difference between using my life experience to seed ideas, cultivate community and support emergent strategies and just chasing my own tail around in circles. 

Spiritual “Emerge-and-Sees”can be a real bitch. But what a life, on the other side of the veil!