Plant Medicine Retreat: Part 4

Integrating the Divine Feminine, meeting Sigourney Weaver, and undergoing spiritual surgeries from "doctorcitos"

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This post is Part 4 (and the final installment) of a multi-part series. If you haven’t yet, I recommend reading Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, because they provide significant context for this post.

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My intention going into the third day of the retreat was to embody aspects of the Divine Feminine, namely, intuition. Intuition is such an important guide; it helps us tap into the “vibe” of everything around us and is a really powerful way to balance strictly logical approaches to making a decision. While intuition is a key element of the Divine Feminine, logic is a trait of the Divine Masculine.

My experience kicked off similarly to the previous day. As I lay there reflecting on my intention, slowly but surely, I began to feel a gentle presence nearby: to my surprise, it was Grandma Zaharo (yiayia in Greek). My yiayia passed away at her home in Greece in 2019 surrounded by family. She had suffered numerous strokes throughout her elderly years and had various minor-to-moderately-severe handicaps as a result. Miraculously, she had retained her sharp mind and wit through it all. But, her physical health took a turn for the worse towards the end of her life, and she chose to pass rather willfully. First, she stopped eating and eventually stopped drinking. She was stubborn, and she was ready to go. And so she went.

But there she was next to me. As real as it feels typing these words, she was really there. I started crying silent tears of happiness because I was finally able to talk to her. Before this year, the last time I had been in Greece was 2019 for her funeral, and before that it was 2013. Prior to 2013, I had summered in Greece nearly every year since I was born, so I had a unique opportunity to spend time with my yiayia and grandfather growing up, despite the distance.

I asked yiayia what she was there to teach me or talk about, and eventually my tears of happiness turned into ones of sadness: I tapped into the feeling and realized that I had a lot of guilt over not having seen her during that big gap of time prior to her passing. I had been carrying that guilt really deep within me. I hadn’t given it much thought leading up to that moment, and so I did the only thing that I could think of — I apologized. But she told me that she didn’t need or want an apology; rather, she wanted to help me release all that guilt that I had been carrying unknowingly. It took me a while to muster it, but I inhaled a long and deep belly breathe and let out all the guilt in a big whoosh. I sat in the silence for a while, savoring the feeling of her presence. I was so grateful for her help and was sure to thank her for all of it. She smiled back at me, and then she went (again).

Abuelita (the spirit of the medicine) reappeared soon after and invited me to tap into and integrate the Divine Feminine from any woman that I wanted. So I thought about my Mom and my “work mom” from my last job (shoutout to Nora if you’re reading this!), and all the feminine things that I love about them. I had a lot of fun “downloading” and integrating their femininity and natural intuition, which in that moment felt like energy being “deposited” into my body. At some point, I realized that I was surrounded by what seemed to be an entire committee of women or feminine spirits. My body then began shaking as if it were a hefty duvet that was being shaken out on a bed. They were shaking me out so that all the new feminine energy deposited in my body would distribute evenly. What a funny concept! This carried on for a bit, and then, one by one, the women slowly stopped shaking me and gradually faded into the distance.

Suddenly, Sigourney Weaver appeared at my feet! My first thought was — what the actual F is Sigourney Weaver doing here?! 🤣 She appeared to me like this:

I kept hearing her say “Get it?” over and over. I’m a massive Sigourney Weaver (and Alien franchise) fan, and I happened to recognize the line from Avatar. At the time, I didn’t remember exactly what the line was referencing, but having researched it for this post, it’s only now dawning on me how wild it was that she appeared to me as a character in this particular scene, from this particular movie. The screenshot is the moment in the film where her character, Dr. Grace Augustine, is explaining the importance of the sacred trees in Pandora. I’ve copied the dialogue below because I think the context is really significant given that she appeared to me like this while I was on a plant medicine retreat:

Dr. Grace Augustine : [to Selfridge]  Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can't imagine.

Selfridge : You know what? You throw a stick in the air around here it falls on some sacred fern, for Christ's sake!

Dr. Grace Augustine : I'm not talking about pagan voodoo here - I'm talking about something REAL and measurable in the biology of the forest.

Selfridge : Which is *what* exactly?

Dr. Grace Augustine : What we think we know - is that there's some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora...

Selfridge : That's a lot, I'm guessing.

Dr. Grace Augustine : That's more connections than the human brain. You get it? It's a network - a global network. And the Na'vi can access it - they can upload and download data - memories - at sites like the one you just destroyed.

Excuse me because I think my head just exploded. 🤯 Anyway, I was BEYOND excited to integrate all things Sigourney Weaver, and as if on command, she started floating towards me. Simultaneously, one of the ayudantes — AKA the “real” humans who were tasked with watching over us throughout the ceremony — walked over to me and crouched down over my head. She began singing softly and waving her chakapa (a shaker or rattle constructed of bundled leaves) directly over my face. Chakapas are some of the most important shamanic tools for healing. Clearly, she had tapped into what was going on and understood, even before me, that I needed help. But what was wrong?

I asked that question to myself, and instead of thinking through it, I felt through it. What feels wrong here? I quieted my mind and tapped into my heart space (where intuition lies!). What came back was that something was just off and I wasn’t meant to integrate Sigourney. But why? She plays a totally badass “boss lady” in every single role. What woman wouldn’t want more of that energy? More answers came back: Sigourney’s characters who you so admire don’t represent the Divine Feminine; they represent the Divine Masculine — structure, logic, taking charge — and that’s not what you’re here to integrate.

WOW. I thought about the Alien movies that I loved so much. Sigourney’s character, Ripley, was originally written into the script as a man. It was actually suggested by the then President of 20th Century Fox, Alan Ladd Jr., that the role be given to a female lead instead. Supposedly, not a single one of Ripley’s lines was altered despite this 180.

So that’s why the ayudante came over. Somehow, she knew about my intention and she knew what was about to happen. That was really crazy. Also, I realized that I had forgotten to ask Sigourney a very important question when I first saw her: are you my teacher? In some cases, the spirits that appear to you aren’t. While that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily malevolent, it does mean that you can kind of waste your time or engage in a way that doesn’t really serve you. So I asked her the question, and she responded simply: '“no”. As if on cue again, she began to fade into the distance.

Bye, Sigourney!

The next phase of my experience was markedly different and involved Abuelita herself, along with many other spirit doctors (called doctorcitos) of all shapes, sizes, and temperament, who I would soon come to find were there to perform surgery on me. Abuelita was first up, and she appeared to me in the form of a massive black snake. She informed me that she was there to operate on both of my eyes. I was a bit alarmed because I didn’t know what agreeing to this really meant — as bewildering and as awesome as the entire experience was up until then, I hadn’t yet experienced surgery. Even so, I agreed quite enthusiastically.

Before I realized what was happening, my entire head stiffened and turned every so slightly to the right, so that my left eye was positioned completely parallel to the ceiling. My left eye (and left eye alone) widened immensely, as if it was being retracted, though it didn’t hurt. I saw the snake peer into my eye and then reach inside (with its hands?!). Then, I felt something stir behind my eye deep inside my head. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, and I haven’t felt it since. Naturally, I asked her what she was doing.

I’m removing the gunk from your eyes that was getting in the way of you seeing the beauty in everything.

Wow, thanks! She said she was ready to move onto my right eye, and you guessed it — my head turned to the left and my right eye widened. I noticed that when she reached in again to start scooping the gunk, the sensation behind my eyeball wasn’t as intense. She paused. I asked her what the matter was.

I don’t have to go as deep in this eye. You have astigmatism in this one, and this allows you to see better.

*Cue tears of joy*. What a lesson to reflect on! I already knew that I had astigmatism, so that wasn’t the part of this experience that was mind-blowing. It was the fact that an ailment that literally makes your vision blurry or distorted was being described as a helpful aid. It made me think about how we rely on our vision to label and make sense of the world, and part and parcel to this is a lot of judging. The next time you walk into a coffee shop, try to look at each person around you and avoid labeling or judging them. It’s really hard!! Things “look” much more beautiful when you drop the labeling and judging, because by simply appreciating, you see them for what they are. I was grateful for the gift of True Sight from Abuelita and still think about this experience often.

There were a number of additional spiritual surgeries from a couple of different doctorcitos, including an operation on my brain to help with my migraines (all performed by a pretty scary looking creature) and an inspection of my thyroid from another, with a recommendation to get my annual scan soon (I was overdue).

Some of the more significant surgeries actually involved me being an active participant such that I surrendered conscious control of my hands and they began to move on their own. There was a lot of cleaning involved in my stomach area, and I (or whatever/whoever was controlling my hands) performed a lot of dusting, sweeping, scrubbing, and polishing motions. It was a lot of this:

The next operation that came with a big lesson was back surgery, which was performed by a group of doctorcitos who were rather urgent about getting it done quickly. I was flipped on my stomach and suspended by who knows what at that point. They cut into my back and opened up a massive square-shaped cavity. Then, they began to remove black tar from really deep within my body. Oh, this is sweet, I thought. Don’t need any of that! When it seemed like they were wrapping up, I asked them how much they took out. They answered ~85%. I was kind of annoyed! Well, what the heck. Why didn’t you take all of it? I asked.

If we were to remove all of it, it wouldn’t serve you. We have to leave some behind for future lessons.

Ok. I trust that. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, I was about halfway through Pema Chödrön’s book, Welcoming the Unwelcome when I came across a section that really shook me in a good way. There is a chapter called “The Path of Non-Rejecting” in which she describes the Buddhist analogy of the lotus and the mud. The lotus represents our basic goodness, growing from the sticky mud — our ego and shadow — and blossoming for everyone to enjoy as a full, beautiful flower. The lotus represents our full potential as human beings. The analogy can be misinterpreted, however, because one might read it as needing to reject the part of ourselves that is ugly (the mud) in order to get to the pretty part (the lotus). I’ve added an excerpt from her text that resonated deeply with me, largely due to the message I received from the doctorcitos months before:

We may hope to get rid of all the yucky and keep only what we consider beautiful. But this approach will only intensify our struggle with ourselves and add another layer to our emotional inner conflicts. And it will hinder our practice of bodhichitta [the desire to realize enlightenment for the sake of others] because it will prevent us from connecting to the universal human predicament.

I read this while I was on the beach and started tearing up right then and there. I couldn’t believe how similar the message was. And I had only started reading Pema’s work because of an off-hand comment from one of our ceremony leaders on Day 1: that I was a bodhisattva in the making. A bodhisattva is one who significantly delays the pursuit of their own enlightenment for the sake of others’. That was the first time that I had heard the term, and when I started reading about the bodhisattva path, it all clicked for me.

One of my deep patterns is over-accommodating (I write about this specific pattern and others in an earlier post). I imagine it occupying one side of a coin, while the bodhisattva path occupies the other. Over-accommodating — like abandoning myself, not communicating my needs, not charting my own path — serves my ego and reinforces negative thinking and falsehoods. However, de-emphasizing or de-prioritizing pursuit of my own Enlightenment (which is a form of accommodating behavior) actually serves…everyone! Both myself and those who I help, and in turn, the greatest good for the world. I’m still exploring this concept as its a relatively new worldview and framework for me, but I’ll be sure to revisit it in a future post.

All told, I was grateful for this final part of my journey in which I learned that there were yet more lessons to uncover, that I was being guided in the right direction, and that I could call on all the wisdom of the Universe (and especially the Divine Feminine) in moments of uncertainty. Ultimately, my goal is to trust so fully that doubt does not even exist in my world. Yes, you can discern, analyze, weigh, compare, and contrast as the world demands in certain situations, but you don’t have to doubt. I know that at any given moment, I’m in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and that gives me a comfort unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And I plan to keep it that way!

As for Abuelita, I don’t feel the calling from within to knock on her door any time soon. There is still so much growth to experience and so much to unpack and discover about my inner world and its connection to everything, that I would probably be a bit overwhelmed if I revisited her. For now, I’ll continue sharing my never-ending journey of exploring the countless facets of consciousness with all of you, and hope to help you move the needle on your own exploration — even in the slightest! — by laying everything bare.

They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Until next time, dear readers! 🙏