I saw it coming, although I didn’t quite know what “it” was. My friend Linda, a shamanic bodyworker, gifts me an egg clearing session for my birthday in August of 2012 at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. I trek to a little town a village away from where I was staying at Villa Sumaya. Linda is like a spiritual mother to me. We met on my first trip to the lake, just after I packed up all of my belongings and left North Carolina. Each time I return to the Lake, a highlight of my time is catching up with her.
She learned this energy clearing practice from the Jaguar lineage whom she trained with in Mexico. I don’t ask too many questions of her craft, I just let her do her work, and trust her completely.
After she rubs the chicken egg from my crown to my feet to absorb the energy that I am carrying, she cracks the yolk into a glass of water. Before she could even turn around and begin reading the message in the egg, I notice a black granular spot inside of the yolk.
“What is that black thing in there?” I wonder out loud.
She turns around from what she is doing and gasps.
“Oh, that is bad.” Linda blurts out of her mouth, not realizing that the statement that she just made freaks me out.
“Shit, do I have cancer or something?”
“No, but it is not good,” Linda continues. “Who is out to get you?”
“I’m not aware of anyone.”
“Well, it’s in the egg. You have a hex.” She is completely serious.
To most people, this information would sound a little woo woo, but to me, I take her caution seriously. Every bit of guidance she has offered me before this has been spot on, and she has no need to sugar coat the information that is coming through the reading. After all, I am the one who asked for it.
“What about this boyfriend of yours?” Linda probes. “Can you trust him?”
My mouth was saying yes, but my heart wasn’t so sure. I wanted to trust. In fact, I was working hard on trust, but it seems as though I may have been attempting to trust the wrong person.
“Well, at least it’s out of you. Whoever wanted to harm you will have a harder job doing it now.”
I guess that makes me feel a little better.
A few days later, I am on the plane heading back to Costa Rica. Marvin was waiting for me as I get off the shuttle, and that night, we drive the golf cart to dinner at the pizza restaurant in Playa Pelada. On our way home, I feel something behind us. I glance back into the thick blackness of the jungle night and can only see a headlight of a motorcycle blinding me. I have a bad feeling about this light.
We slow down to let the bike pass us, and it’s her: Marvin’s ex-espousa. Her evil eyes make contact with mine. “I hope you had a good dinner,” she says sarcastically, and drives off in front of us down the road.
As we pull into the gates on the property of the Yoga Spa, we have the feeling that she is waiting, so we pass the house, and head up the hill to the hotel. We are right; she was waiting, and not happy.
After an hour, we head back to the house to find glass shards slashed and thrown on the bed and floor and my red dress in the closet torn to shreds.
I wasn’t scared. I was pissed.
“Marvin, it’s time to do something. She can’t get away with this.” I convince him to finally file a restraining order. Of course, since this is the jungle of Costa Rica, it takes a little extra juice to get anything accomplished. After a day’s travel to the nearest town of Nicoya, we arrive home by sunset to settle in and finally relax.
I leave Marvin swinging in the hammock on the front porch while I go to the kitchen for a beer. He has been reading Light on Yoga by Iyengar, and is trying out the eye and ear wrapping techniques, so barely hears me as I let out a scream when the snake falls from the top of the refrigerator onto my foot.
I jump back, not realizing what it is at first, until I see a beautiful snake curled up in front of me where my left foot was just a moment ago.
He must have caught wind of the commotion in the kitchen, because, before I knew it, he was out of the hammock, rushing into see me standing in front of the snake, wondering what just happened.
“It just fell from the top of the fridge, and landed on me,” I report. “What should we do?”
Marvin leaves the decision to me. “We can kill it, or send it away.”
Well, it’s a no brainer, we tell it to leave.
Marvin puts his rubber boots on and finds a broomstick.
“Thank you for coming,” he repeats over and over again, as the snake begins her journey out the back door.
I grab my iPad, that is close by and begin filming the scene.
“So, is it poisonous?” I ask as the camera is rolling.
“About an hour,” Marvin estimates.
“An hour for what?”
“If it bites, it will kill you in an hour.”
Of course it will. Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I have a feeling that this is the hex Linda was speaking of.
We usher the snake off into the jungle behind the wood house, and I still have no fear that she will return. The next time I see her is the day I return in November, after the rainy season. I let go of my relationship with Marvin months before. Irena got what she wanted, Marvin returned back to her side, and the day I moved into the wood house, I see the snake slither up the hill towards the empty lot just yards from my back door. She still does not scare me. She is there to remind me of something bigger that lies ahead.
It is now 6 months since I last saw Linda, and I am back in Guatemala, sitting beside magical Lake Atitlan, envisioning the next step ahead of me. I look up from my journal to see Linda walking towards me on the wooden path that circles Villa Sumaya, and greet her with my hands
waving wildly.
I take my iPad, show her the picture of the snake, and fill in the pieces of the story that left off with the black speck in the egg yolk.
“I knew that something was coming for you.” Linda calmly remarks. “It’s a good thing we cleared you before you went back into that mess.”
“I know, now what?”
“Your time in Costa is coming to a close.”
“Yes, I guess it is. It’s time to start dreaming again.”
“At least you are in a good place to do just that,” she reminds me.
She appears again in my heart meditation today. She is what cracked me open. I don’t fear her presence. If I do and resist her, she will bite and bite hard. All I can do is ask for the lessons and open to the bigger mystery that waits for me on the other side.
The Snake
From the depths of the heart’s chamber
the snake appears.
Well before the heart cracks open
she slithers on
beaconing the spirit to follow her into the abyss of the mystery.
And then it happens.
The heart cracks open like an earthquake
Shaking the spirit of the teenager into the reality of the woman
who didn’t know any better.
She knows now
that there is no returning to what once was.
1.23.13 Lake Atitlan, Guatemala