Spirits and Shells and Stars... oh my.

Wellllll....

not sure on where to start on this one.

i am so overwhlemed with magic right now i think there might be electric sparks flying around me... in fact, i'm sure there are.

10 minutes ago i watched a huge falling star streak across the black night sky as i was standing with my feet in the sand (where there is service - and several nautilis shells scattered about)... pacing back and forth talking a million miles a minute to my parents... telling them about my revelations today and the magic in nature.

really? the falling star?

okay, okay... let me back up.

i opened a book today about Indonesia as i sat in the kitchen, cross legged on top of the fridge nibbling on left over green papaya salad from the night before... as the chefs spun around me preparing lunch for the guests, occasionally throwing Beaker out of the kitchen when she'd manage to open the door and slide in and try to steal the eggplants out of the pan... i skimmed through the sections on Bali and Padang... which i found out a few new facts... like the fact that the word "PADANG" means "field"... i read about the Minang culture, which i already knew a bit about having spent some time there... and then i got to the Mentawais section and when i got to the section on religion and spirituality, it literally
BLEW
MY
MIND

here is what it said:

"the native Subulungan religion is a form of animism, involving the worship of nature spirits and a belief in the existence of ghosts, as well as the soul. The chief nature spirits are those of the sky, sea, jungle and earth. There are also two river spirits: Ina Oinan (Mother of Rivers) is beneficent, while Kameinan (Father's Sister) is regarded as evil. Apart from these nature spirits, all inanimate objects have spirits (kina/roh) that give them life. Although the sky spirits are considered the most influential, there is no hierarchy among spirits.

The worship of the soul is of utmost importance, being vital to good health and longevity. The soul is believed to depart the body at various times during life before its ultimate escape at death. Sickness, for example, is the result of the temporary absence of the soul from the body; dreams also signify that the soul is "on vacation".

When the soul leaves the body at death it is transformed into a ghost (sanitu/hantu). Mentawaians try to avoid these ghosts, whom they suspect of malevolently attempting to rob the living of their souls. To protect themselves, they place fetish sticks at every entrance to the village. This tactic is considered foolproof, provided no-one has committed a ritual sin or broken a taboo."

Immediately i started thinking about the other day when i got really sick out of the blue and had to sleep for a good 24 hours straight. i was DOWN for the count and felt super feverish and delirious and out of it... and just kept sleeping and sleeping until Yona came to me and brought me this coconut obat -her Mentawai secret herbal healing medicine... and i felt better the next morning.

I slid open the heavy kitchen door and went to sit behind the bar (my new favorite zone these days) - to help her bartend and to show her this entry in the book and get her take on Sibulunganism.

We have gotten really deep in conversation before, but now we sat there and got like WHOLE other level deep... Animism!?
what is this?
it sounds like everything i believe in, and yet i don't know anything about it.
Leaving your body when you are sick?

Yona told me the other day when i was sick she asked my spirit where it was... if a bad spirit was using it, or if it was good... and she said i told her my spirit needed to leave my body for a day... i needed to "jalan jalan saja"... she said i needed to go back to california for a day... i needed to go connect with some friends and family... so my spirit left, and my body collapsed and got sick... but she brought me the medicine to bring me back...

It rung so true and so obvious that this is EXACTLY what happened.

SO then i decided to read about Animism.

As i wikipedia searched and read around about Animism, the only thing that didnt ring fully in my heart was the separation i seemed to read... i see all as one...
"The All" - as the Kybalion and Hermetic teachings would call it.
Then i got to the end and found a little sentence about Pantheism which is close to Animism, but Patheists believe that there is not separation between cosmos and earth, spirit and body... it is one.

OH MY GOD.

my reilgion!
this is what i believe!

So... I guess that makes me a Pantheist.

i clicked on Pantheism and found the most shell shocking image (no pun intended)
The Nautilis shell (which is ALL over this island... in the tides, on the beach, lamps made out of them....)... it is the symbol for pantheism.

Right there on Wikipedia, dancing next to a picture of the galaxy...
drawing these paralells that only i draw (or so i thought)... seeing the symbolism in everything and recognizing the unity between body and soul, nature and God... it's all ONE.

I sat on the couch after dinner looking at the Pantheism site with John E and Ainsley and showing them the Nautilus symbol and marvelling at the philosophy...
and also talking about Jamie, my ex-husband.
I showed JohnE pictures of Jamie and talked a lot about how amazing he is, and how very different we were and are and why i think it didn't work out.
But Jamie always had my back in my quest to find my religion... standing by me as i flew through the cosmos drawing parallels and using arguments like "well whatever... we're all one anyways... so who cares?"

I called my parents after everyone went to bed.
it was early morning in San Diego and my mom picked up the phone and said she had literally JUST woken up from a dream about me and jamie.
Jamie had been playing in a band, and i was so excited i was jumping up on stage and stealing the microphone from the singers.

I told them not only about finding Pantheism and all the magic that was going on.. but about how i had gotten sick... and then gotten better so quickly.
How Yona had helped me and about how dreams were the same thing as this leaving the body and then coming back to it.
and how ironic that i had been sitting on the couch talking about jamie while my mother was dreaming of jamie and i on a stage together.

My parents understand. they get me... probably because they made me.
i am a direct result of their love.
and they are SO full of love... no wonder i am like a bubbling over bathtub of love and energy right now.

After i got off the phone with them, i looked through a tree and saw the glow of the moon.
It was a little cloudy so it was just an orange-ish glow in a semi circle.
and then of course, i burst into tears to see the magic before my eyes.
... the branches of the tree that were in front of the semi-circle of light, drew the exact Nautilis shell design on top of the light.

there it was.
illuminated.

for me.

i can't explain all of this... other then the fact that i am right where i am supposed to be... learning all of this for a reason. and i am so blown away by the majesty of it all.
inching closer and closer to cosmic consciousness and inner connectedness through our dreams as we spiral through the galaxy.


---

this morning i received an email from jamie.
no surprise whatsoever.