I don't know what it was~ the warm July evening that took me back to almost 6 years ago, her voice, or the continuous waves of emotion that flew through me with each cord that was strung on the guitar. I was overwhelmed when I heard Brandie Carlisle sing last week. We all know that nostaligic feeling when we hear a song that takes us back to a time, a place, or a person and we feel every bodily sensation and every emotion that comes along with it. I was standing in the middle of Red Rocks and literally felt the urge to have an emotional breakdown. I kept thinking of how crazy it all was being at one of the best venues in the country listening to one of my favorite musicians and all I could think of was finding a place where I could hide and ball my eyes out. So, here it is~ since that night, all I have wanted to do is write. And just like Brandie says in her song The Story, "All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of where I've been, so many stories of who I am..." Here is a part of my story....
I first heard Brandie Carlisle almost 5 years ago after moving to the PNW from Florida. It was right at my saturn return and one of the most intense and fucked up points in my life. I had left my heart in Germany, along with (at that time) the love of my life. For a year, I would struggle with mentioning his name. I couldn't even watch romantic movies or look at old pictures, but would cry through the hurt and heartache I felt over leaving my true soul's mate. On top of the heartache was all of my own transformation that was occurring, which I was completely unaware of. It was a very dark, intense, and introverted time in my life. I spent many years living alone and really had no choice but to face where I had come from, things I had done, and things that needed to be done. I found teachers and mentors that included modalities such as: yoga~psychotherapy~shamanic healing~and friends who were nothing short of the highest integrity to help whip me into shape. I don't know if there was a day I didn't cry. And, I don't know if there was a day that I didn't think of him and what we could have had together. And then there was Brandie, whose lyrics felt like the story book of my life. I blared her songs as I would write, cry, and process all that was happening for me. So last week, as I listened to Brandie live, it was surreal for me and a dream come true! I was suddenly transported back to that time of loss, deep healing, and integration. I could somatically sense things I had not worked through yet and the things I already had. I felt every pang in my heart of a lost love, all the tears I shed for my family, all of the healing that coursed through my veins from healing old ancestral patterns and trauma. And most of all, I felt grace and gratitude.
For many of the past 6 years since I left Germany, I have probably gone through every emotion that a human can possibly experience. Grief being the most prominent, anger towards men, forgiveness, loneliness... you name it and I have felt it, thank goodness! But in that moment, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude! I couldn't believe that I was in Colorado! I was all of the sudden taken back through the past 6 years to where I was right then and holy shit had I been through and done so much! And it was all because he, my soul's mate, was strong enough, we were strong enough, to let each other go. I felt a love so strong for him, stronger than when we were together, in that moment.
I had never experienced something so heart wrenching, besides my grandfather's death, as the day I left Germany. Two people letting go of each other because they know it is not right and to leave one another so each could follow their own dreams~ now that is love! I will never forget what it was like getting on the train with my head out the window as he wiped tears from my face, telling me not to cry. Well, I cried and cried... hell, I'm still crying!!! If it wasn't for that decision, I would not be who I am today. I would have followed someone else's dream and become someone other than my Self.
So, I stood there, listening to Brandie, thinking of that day and many after. I thought of everything I have accomplished and become these past 6 years. I started teaching yoga, moved to the beautiful PNW where I met my teacher/mentor, relationships with my parents have grown stronger, and I have healed. I met my two greatest teachers, my beautiful brothers :) I've learned to use my voice and have come into my own amazing self (I have to say, I'm pretty amazing!). I've touched the deepest parts of who I am and where I have come from and am ready to keep doing so, and so much more. I am these things and have done all of these things all because we let each other go. He let me go~which is what I used to say in anger, except with an exclamation point..."He just let me go!!!" And now I am grateful because I know it was out of love. I'm grateful for being strong enough to listen to my intuition and my guides and my HEART. It has been one of the most hardest things, listening to my heart. But, it has also been one of the most nourishing and fulfilling. I would never have seen what I have, been where I have, and become what I have without listening to my heart.
I'm grateful for being one of the many of us who has experienced true, real love. And because of this experience, I know I will find it again and settle for nothing less. And, I am grateful for this the most~ that I have broken a pattern that is not only ancestral, but deeply engrained in us all. The pattern of wandering off our own path for another. I share this story because I know others can relate. I share this in hopes of healing the past 7 generations and the next 7 generations that follow. I share this because it is deep and vulnerable and fucking beautiful! I share it to thank those of you who have helped to guide me and assist me on this path. I honor you all: Siggi, Char Sundust, my family, Bob & Ki, Frankie H., Chris R., Adell, and many others.... especially those who have sat in many circles with me over the years while witnessing our beauty unfold with each other. I honor and love each and every person I make contact with, because when I look at another, I am looking at Spirit and I learn, accept, and receive as much as I humanly can in each moment.
In Gratitude and With Love,
Heather
P.S.
I did reclaim my heart and the love I left in Germany. It all came back when I realized it never went anywhere... its been residing in my heart. I just had to remind her where it was and that it never will ever leave.....
