Rebirth | tales from the scorpion

There’s hardly been a time over the last few months when I didn’t think about picking up this blog again. I couldn’t decide where to begin. You see I stopped writing when my phone was stolen in Barcelona back in November. It seemed I lost my words when I lost my photos. I felt detached, uninspired, all around less confident because my images speak in ways words tend to fail.

I promised myself I’d catch up after Grace flew back to the US in December. Then it was going to be when we were chilling with the parents for a few weeks before jaunting off to warmer climes. Or how about when we’re waylaid in San Jose before heading down to the Costa Rica house?

Yeah well, didn’t happen. None of it.

Cue the spirit animal.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye while sitting at the dining room table. Something black and ominous scurrying up the white couch. It was enormous [it wasn’t]. An enormous, deadly [nope] scorpion.

My people don’t do bugs. Not ants or spiders or dragonflies or grasshoppers or moths. A scorpion was going to be their undoing.

I casually excused myself from the table, grabbed a few paper towels and launched Mission: Seek + Destroy. Except I couldn’t find the wily beast. By this time, the crew’s curiosity couldn’t be contained. Curiosity swiftly turned to terror once I confessed. Drawers removed, tables flipped, instruments of death assembled, plans hatched. One soldier [Annie] pries apart the couch cushion, another [Joe] sweeps it out, another [that’s me] sets up for the kill. The girl child is on video detail. Because something tells us we might win $1 million on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Or end up on Tosh.

And let me tell you something. The plan was brilliant and we executed it flawlessly. One super dead critter.

I thought that was the end of my dealings with the mighty scorpion.

Meanwhile I packed up the killing crew [by this time we’d faced a grasshopper the size of my fist that looks like a dinosaur and wails itself against the doors to your bedroom, a spider much bigger than the size of my outstretched hand sauntering up the wall, katydids and praying mantis and crickets longer and wider than two thumbs] and headed off for a road trip to the Nicoya Peninsula to rendezvous with my soul sister Marisa up in Nosara. Just a five hour trek. Each way.

I had no way to reach her, technology-free yogi that she was. I’ll be on the beach every afternoon, she said before leaving Boston. I will find you, I said like a well oiled stalker. Forgoing the beach, I went straight for the yoga center. There was something weird about my need to see her, a tug that I couldn’t quite place. And when she saw me, there were no shrieks of joy, no cries of amazement. She smiled wryly, nodded and said simply, I knew you’d show up. Then we hugged it out and dangled our feet in the pool.

 

The women in my life have been in transition. We are feeling our way through the fallout from a betrayal within the ranks. There’s disillusionment, confusion about what was, uncertainty around what comes next. Feeling stupid or bitter or angry or sad. For me, it was coming on the heels of some serious boundary work that kicked my ass. Necessary, wholly doable but seismic. The ripples had just stopped when I found myself back in drama-rama land. I was ready to bounce.

Marisa showed me the way out. What are your dreams for Costa Rica? What are your doorways to joy? What do you love?

And just like that I was grounded in the truth.

Cue the spirit animal.

It was sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor. How I saw it blended in as it was with the dark blue tile I don’t know. Another scorpion. This time it really was big, black as night, its tail curled and raised and ready to sting. I backed out of the bathroom, grabbed a shoe, pleaded for it to still be there when I returned, raised my arm and let loose the footwear. It took two whacks.

I tell my women and receive the following reply:

If Scorpion has scrambled across your path you are being asked to remove and cut out those things in your life that no longer serve you. Evaluate your surroundings with a critical eye to releasing old baggage, letting go of objects that are cluttering up your home, and purging the clinging energy of those that are co-dependent to you. Focus on minimizing the enabling of others not to move forward as well as taking your own steps towards death and rebirth. Re-establish your boundaries, make clear decisions about which direction your next few months will take and move on.

Well ok then. I’m equal parts freaked out and smugly satisfied. Message received oh wise insect kingdom and shamans everywhere!

And then we found another one. And then two babies [females have up to 34 at a time]. And then one in the shower. And then one outside on the patio. And then one on the sticky pad under the bed post [don’t ask].

Why thank you very much universe, but I think I’ve got this lesson down pat by now. You can stop delivering me freaking scorpions. Plus I don’t think I’m supposed to be murdering my spirit animal guide. There’s got to be some consequences for that.

So Kristen says, what if you bless them and send them on their way. Sure thing maven of the woo woo, I’ll get right on that.

But I did. Because desperate times call for desperate measures.

Zero scorpions ever since. #ofcourse

There are moments when you awaken. To the teachings that abound right in front of your fat face. You sit in the place in the heart where everything meets: awe and gratitude and noticing and knowing and joy and surrender and love. Where you can honor the death and embrace rebirth.

 

Here’s to the wonder of it all.

And to the power of the scorpion.