A Good Friday in Oz
A Fairy Story for Grown-Up Children,
Being the Chronicle of Dorothy Gale and
Her Trip v
to See N
a Wizard, and
What Happened When She Found Him
Monday,
March 21 through Good Friday, March 25
Introduction
Truth is stranger than fiction,
and this story is not fiction, even if it is a fairy story.
Oh, Dorothy is not precisely the first name of the heroine, but it is very close.
The rest of the story is true, and hence strange, and may be difficult for you
to believe, especially in these modern times of television and travel to the
moon. But a beautiful girl and her friend Sandy did travel to see a wizard, and
everything that happened to them when they found him is written here. Well,
almost. You might remember their conversations differently if you had been
there, because even wizards are human, and cannot recall everything exactly as
they heard it—and certainly not exactly as they said it!
Dorothy Gale
Dorothy Gale was beautiful (but
refused to believe it), and competent (but afraid to show it), and loving (but
felt frozen inside and out). She was the most miserable person she knew on
earth. So she acted as if everything was OK.
This is how people act when they
feel so bad that they become afraid
precisely because they feel so
bad. Pain like that is very scary. Dorothy did not know what to do about the
pain except go to a therapist, and she had a good therapist, too, but she had
been in therapy for four years and the pain was still there. So Dorothy began
looking around and found a magical book by Sandra Ingerman that described how
she felt, called Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self. Dorothy felt that her self was fragmented, or at
least folded or crumpled very badly, so she decided to find a wizard with her
computer. She found one, but he was not consciously aware that she had found
him—yet.
The Wizard Blows Back from
Texas
Wizards travel to confer,
consult and confabulate with their fellow wizards. While Dorothy was finding
this wizard on the Web Of The Internet Spiders, he had merrily breezed down to
the great land of Texas to tell his fellow wizards about the magic of Jell-O® brand gelatin, and
had just as merrily blown back again on Monday.
On his trip the wizard realized
that the thirty minutes he spent being the center of attention among his fellow
wizards could not fill up the rest of the three days he spent traveling. Nor
could he sleep for three days, nor did he want to. So the wizard went looking
for people to help in Texas, and he found quite a few. A wizard can always be
of service. Several people accepted gifts of healing oils once the wizard
assured them that the oils would not make them sleepy or woozy. After all,
everyone knows that the Wicked Witch of the West lived in Oz, and she made
people fall asleep with her magic, and even if she had been melted away, well,
there was still a Big Castle left over, and someone probably assumed the lease,
and Big Castles are perfect for bad
wizards.
The Friendly House
Many witches and even some
wizards live in scary, or at least very nasty, places. For example, Baba-Yaga
is a bad witch, and lives in a little hut that stands on chicken legs. She is
so wicked that she refused an offer to live in the Big Castle because Koschei
the Magician found it first. She prefers to live in a nervous, jumpy,
hard-to-climb-into hut.
The wizard Dorothy found is a
very ordinary wizard who cannot afford a Big Castle, and who also knows that he
is too lazy to vacuum it regularly. Nor does he want to live in a little hut
that is always hopping about on chicken legs, and that might decide to take a
trip to visit its friends and relations when he least expected it, so he lives
in The Friendly House at the edge of a wood where rabbits and squirrels and a
family of squabbling raccoons and deer and woodpeckers and bluebirds and
butterflies and mice and frogs and box turtles and hawks and perky, noisy wrens
live. Geese pass through regularly, and once a whooping crane inspected the
property.
The Friendly House makes
visitors feel comfortable. After the wizard’s friends visit, some of them
hope that they can buy The Friendly House when he is through with it. One of
his friends offered to take care of it after the wizard died, if he would only
leave The Friendly House to him in his will. The wizard is still thinking about
that one.
The Wizard’s Laboratory
Bachelor wizards use the
kitchen as a laboratory. Sometimes this means the food tastes funny, usually
when they have been blending magical, flowery oils. You may find yourself being
offered a slice of peanut butter and Damask Rose toast if you visit a bachelor
wizard. You do not have to eat it, but it is polite to compliment him on his
intriguing cuisine and skill in the culinary arts—an act of diplomatic
dishonesty, but conduct that is always prudent when you find yourself in the
company of a wizard!
This wizard had not yet met
Dorothy, nor did he know she would call, but events happen for a reason in Oz,
and sometimes they get started early so they will be finished in time for when
they are supposed to happen later, and Dorothy had found the wizard but had not
yet gotten up enough courage to call him. No matter! On Tuesday the wizard had
a compulsion to recreate the wonderful sunny fragrance of a meadow at the base
of Hawk Ridge, a large esker at the Kalamazoo Nature Center where he spent many
summers as a boy hunting butterflies in the sun among the bergamot flowers. The
sun, the warmth, the flowers, the butterflies and the joy he felt as a child
had a distinct aroma. The wizard set to work to recreate it from his
“palette” of essential oils.
Alarums and Excursions
By Thursday the wizard had
finished eight varieties of oils, searching for a blend that he wanted to call
“Sunny Meadow.” For convenience he simply called the experimental
blends Floral #1 through Floral #7. None of them felt precisely right to him,
although they were very interesting. They did not capture the smell on his
jeans that he recalled getting from running through the bergamot and ironweed
under Hawk Ridge. Also, somewhere between Floral #3 and Floral #4 the wizard
tried to blend the color purple, which was not very successful, either, so he
called it “Weird Floral.” It was. Think of violet vanilla-flavored
butter.
Then there was Floral #5, which
was an impulsive departure from the rest of the series. Instead of a sunny
“middle note” of oregano, the green citrus note and green color of
bergamot seemed to be called for, as well as a very dusky and almost musty
“base note” of galbanum. While the aroma was interesting, it was
nothing the wizard would have cared to wear himself, but he tucked it away as
yet another unsuccessful experiment. He was quite wrong, but he did not know it
at the time.
Floral #7
However, Floral #7 turned out to
be very magical. Why? We will see, but first, here is the wizard’s secret
formula.
Floral #7—Sunny &
uplifting—maybe too
uplifting for wizards!
Drops fill 1/6th dram perfume vial to 26mm vertical volume; all oils 100% pure and
natural except musk, which is artificial.
10 drops Lavender
6 drops Oregano
6 drops Neroli (Orange
Blossom Oil)
4 drops Jasmine
4 drops Helichrysum (Immortelle Blossom Oil)
3 drops Spikenard
2 drops Rose Moroc
2 drops Citronella
2 drops Ylang-Ylang
1 drop Musk
flakes 23K gold leaf for
sunlight! (crown
chakra: gold)
As you can see, there does not
appear to be any magic in Floral #7. The ingredients certainly do not betray
the effect they have in combination.
“My Head Feels Like a
Frisbee”
This wizard used to smell bad
before he took to showering most days and washing his clothes every week (which
is what good wizards ought to do), so he was used to having a personal aroma,
and since his home group in his Twelve Step program is GLBT even though he is
not, he does not mind being quietly fragrant in a nice way in public.
So he put his little vial of
Floral #7 in his pocket after dabbing some on his wrist and doing “the
girl thing,” and set off to go to a noon meeting of The Fellowship of
People Learning How to Be Human. But on the way there, the wizard felt like his
soul was being pulled by a big rubber band out of the top of his head, or that
his head was made of Jell-O®
brand gelatin, or as if his car was a roller coaster going up and over the Big
Hump, fast, and his head and stomach were doing the
“Who-o-OOO-o-a!” thing.
It felt weird. At first the
wizard ascribed this odd feeling to the continued opening of his crown chakra,
and relief that he still had a crown chakra to open after he had arrived home
safely from his airplane trip to Texas, but when the feeling diminished, he began
to wonder if it could have been due to Floral #7. So, he dabbed a bit more on
his wrist, did “the girl thing” again, and fifteen minutes later
his soul was being yanked up and down from his navel through the top of his
head like a yo-yo on a string.
What could be doing this?
Careful checking in several of his Wizardly Tomes about oils showed only that
some of these oils could alleviate depression, among other things, but nothing,
no one, nowhere mentioned that one’s soul might feel as if it was being
played with like a yo-yo. None of the oils were addictive, or came from plants
known to be psychotropic or narcotic or hallucinogenic or even slightly
mind-bending. Jasmine was described as having a “heady, euphoric
odor,” but perfume making one’s head feel like a Frisbee was
something that the wizard had never heard described, and he spends a lot of
time with people who used to drink perfume rather than sniff it for the
intoxicating effects. So the wizard put Floral #7 away (after all, its
“middle note” from the essential oil of oregano made it smell
slightly like wearing a pizza), and chalked it up as a failure.
He was quite wrong, but he did not know it at the time.
Dorothy Calls
Dorothy called the wizard late
Thursday afternoon when she could no longer stand being the unhappiest woman on
earth.
Over the telephone she sounded
flighty and scatterbrained and out of breath, but she had called and that is a
courageous thing to do (and since she had found him on Sandra Ingerman’s
Shamanic Practitioners knot in the Web Of The Internet Spiders, the wizard
reminded himself to remit his annual fee). Dorothy wanted to know if the wizard
still did soul retrievals—he did—and could he do one for her—yes, with her
permission—and how much did it cost—nothing
at all.
“Nothing?” Dorothy
exclaimed in disbelief. After all, everything costs something. The
wizard explained that this work benefited him a great deal, and that being
permitted to help another person was payment enough. If Dorothy wanted, she
could come to The Friendly House, and the soul retrieval would be done in
person and she could ask all the questions she desired and assure herself that
the wizard was a good, gentle and kind wizard. Or, if her expenses and time
were critical, she could have her soul retrieval done remotely without ever
leaving home, and the best that could be done for her would be done, whichever
way she chose to do it.
“Oh!” said Dorothy,
“I want to come! When can you do it?”
“How about
tomorrow?” asked the wizard, “I am free all day.”
“Yes!” answered
Dorothy, “Yes, yes!”
“I will send a map,”
said the wizard, “and bring a trusted friend to drive you home.”
“I’ll be there at 10
tomorrow morning. Thank you! Good-bye!”
And Dorothy hung up.
Dorothy’s Map of Oz
Because wizards are often hard
to find, and this one knows it, he sent Dorothy a map of directions to guide
her to The Friendly House, care of the Web Of The Internet Spiders.
The Wizard Cleans House
Really adept wizards have
apprentices or magic brooms or a little bit of sugar to help the medicine go
down when they must clean house.
This wizard is not really adept.
He must use magical elbow grease and a magical vacuum cleaner powered by
electricity (that strange power so few people understand), and soap and water
to clean The Friendly House. Since Dorothy would be his guest, he cleaned and
scrubbed and swept to make The Friendly House presentable for company.
Friday morning, early, just as
dawn was scrabbling to lift herself over the horizon with her rosy fingers, the
wizard vacuumed the sunroom, the front room, and the kitchen. He washed most of
the dishes and hid the rest in the dishwasher for later. (He no longer hides
dishes in the oven since a plastic spoon slipped through the rack and gave a
frozen pizza a very unusual flavor that did not smell like Damask Rose.)
He scrubbed the bathroom sink,
cleaned the toilet, mopped the floor, and wiped all the chrome fittings and
made sure the mirror was free of fingerprints and that the stray beard hair
that refused to stay in the wastebasket was chased out of the sink into hiding,
probably under the bathroom scale. He put out fresh towels and a brand new roll
of toilet paper and a new bar of Ivory soap, 99 and 44/100ths
percent pure.
He cleaned the windows in the
sunroom and went out on the deck and swept off the dead leaves and fallen
branches. He even trimmed the poison ivy vine he has trained to climb up the
Tulip Poplar tree so that it would look tidy. Then he went inside and fed and
watered the cats, the parrot and fed his itty-bitty Japanese fighting fish.
Why do wizards clean house, when
they are naturally messy and disorganized people?
Because good wizards want you to
feel at home, and no one can feel at home in another person’s mess. So
wizards, even really adept wizards, clean house. It is only bad wizards who
invite you over for tea and leave stray snakes on the floor, along with the
scraps of paper from their failed spells that wander around the sitting room,
snapping at your ankles. You might want to take your leave graciously for an
appointment you “just remembered,” even if tea has not been served,
if you find stray snakes and spell scraps in a wizard’s living room. It
may not be a salubrious place for your healing.
Dorothy and Sandy Set Off on
The Journey
Friday morning, early, just as
dawn was scrabbling to lift herself over the horizon with her rosy fingers,
Dorothy left her home to take a very long journey to see the wizard. Because
the wizard had warned her that the trip back home from Oz might be dizzying,
Dorothy’s friend Sandy joined her on the journey.
Dorothy and Sandy had a map to
The Friendly House, but maps are tricky things, and the wizard had drawn a
shortcut on the map, and wizards are notorious for being just as tricky as
their maps, or at least otherworldly and bewildered. So Sandy decided to take
the longer, more traveled path to see the wizard, and ignore the map and
followed the Yellow Brick Road. She promptly got lost.
Lost on the Yellow Brick Road
Dorothy and Sandy did what any
normal person would do when they got lost on the Yellow Brick Road. They called
Oz on their cell phone and told the wizard that they did not know where they
were. Then they immediately hung up on him.
Being a patient man, the wizard
retrieved a road atlas that hadn’t gotten too lost under a pile of books of magic, and put it next
to the phone for when Dorothy and Sandy would call back. Half an hour later,
they did. This time the wizard was ready. They explained that they had just
left a county in Oz (which they did not know was about seventy miles south of
the Bridge On The Yellow Brick Road near the wizard’s house), and asked
where were they now exactly,
anyway? The wizard told them, gently, that they were taking the long way to The
Friendly House.
Sandy, who was driving, and
Dorothy, who was navigating, were happy to hear that they were not lost, but
simply an hour or more away from the Bridge On The Yellow Brick Road. They had
not realized that it takes a very long time to travel a very long distance, but
were put at ease by the wizard, who told them that he had absolutely nothing
else to do that day but look forward with appreciation to their visit.
Dorothy Finally Finds the
Friendly House
Dorothy and Sandy got lost
again just in sight of The Friendly House when the wizard’s driveway
split into three directions. So they called the wizard on their cell phone,
again.
This time the wizard could see
them in their vehicle, about 200 feet away. He directed them by phone toward
The Friendly House, but the vehicle had a mind of its own and chose to go down
the driveway that led to the Haunted Forest. “No, no!” exclaimed
the wizard. “Back up and go straight! Do not turn right or left.”
Wizards are known to be very
impatient, and this one was beginning to wonder just how much help Dorothy
needed, and whether he would be able to provide it, and whether Dorothy and
Sandy had lost the map he had sent them over the Web Of The Internet Spiders.
But once the two travelers were in his driveway, and he could watch them drive
up to his house, he relaxed because they had reached the point where they had
only two choices: either to enter The Friendly House, or return home. Dorothy
and Sandy chose to come in. The wizard went to the front door to welcome them.
Dorothy and Sandy Meet the
Wizard
After their very taxing
journey, Dorothy and Sandy walked up the long staircase and entered The
Friendly House as the wizard opened the door wide. The wizard was a very plain,
pudgy, clean-shaven man with a huge smile and a gentle voice. His hair was
going a little gray. He was wearing blue jeans and a cotton shirt, but had
neglected to wear a tie that morning because he had been cleaning house.
“Oh,” exclaimed
Dorothy, “You do not look like a wizard at all!”
“I know,” said the
wizard. “That is because I am a professor.”
“What are you a professor of?” asked Dorothy, who was curious about such things.
“Computer science,”
answered the wizard.
“That’s crazy!” said Dorothy.
“It is, isn’t
it?” the wizard grinned. “I sometimes think the same thing
myself.”
The Travelers Are Made to Feel
at Home
When Dorothy and Sandy entered
The Friendly House, they looked around them urgently. They both needed to go to
the bathroom.
The wizard directed them down
the hall to the second door on the right, the one with the bright light
streaming out from under it. Dorothy and Sandy instantly felt more comfortable.
They went back to the Healing Room and sat on the couch.
Dorothy took her shoes off,
curled up on the big cushion and sighed in relief. Sandy was so short, and had
such short legs, that they stuck out over the edge of the couch, and she could
not reach the floor when she sat.
Then they both inspected the
wizard.
He was sitting in his
wizard’s chair and smiling at them. He welcomed them to The Friendly
House. He invited them to look out the window at the beautiful view of the
woods, and asked them if they would like him to open the door for some fresh
air, as it was warm that day. They did. Then the three of them, but mostly
Dorothy and the wizard, began “The Conversation.”
“The Conversation”
When you visit a kind and
gentle wizard, you are always in control. You do not have to say or do anything. That is a Law of Oz.
This Friday “The
Conversation” started out in silence as the wizard gave Dorothy a cartoon
to read titled How Your Healing Will Be Performed. Dorothy read the cartoon several times, while Sandy
and the wizard sat quietly and patiently. At last Dorothy looked at the wizard
and smiled. He smiled back, and asked her, “Do you have any
questions?”
Dorothy did. She wanted to know
if her soul was lost, and learned that it was not, but that when a soul gets
crumpled or folded in ways that it is not meant to be folded or crumpled in, it
certainly feels like it is lost, and
that the folded or crumpled parts may turn up in unusual places. She asked what
would the wizard do? He answered
that, if she gave him her permission, he would make a divination
journey to see only what he needed to see
to help her right now. Then he would make a healing journey to perform her soul retrieval. Dorothy would always
be in control.
The wizard explained that he
would use tarot cards for the divination journey because they told a story in
pictures, but these stories never told
anyone what must happen, but only
what was going on in and around them in their life right now, and that it could
always be changed. The wizard would also see a vision about whatever event in
Dorothy’s life had brought her to seek him. As he had told her on the
telephone Thursday, he did not want to know anything—anything
at all—about Dorothy. He would be told
everything he needed to know during the journey, and if it made no sense to
him, well, maybe it would make sense to Dorothy. And, if it made no sense to
her, either, why, then he was wrong! And that being wrong would be good for his
humility, and he made a wry face that made Dorothy and Sandy both laugh.
The wizard also told Dorothy and
Sandy that he worked for free, first because he had a very good job as a
professor, but second, and most importantly, it took the pressure off both of
them:
•
Dorothy didn’t have to wonder if she would get her money’s worth,
and
•
The wizard didn’t have to be afraid that she wouldn’t!
Dorothy and Sandy both nodded
sagely at this, because it made sense. It also made sense to the wizard’s
mother, who had tutored children with learning disabilities for years for free,
not out of charity, but for the very same reason: it took the pressure off.
The wizard asked Dorothy if she
had any objection to any part of the proposed healing. “No,” she
replied. Then the wizard surprised Sandy. He asked her the same question! She
had no objections either, and was clearly pleased to have been asked. Sandy
asked if she could watch? “Of course,” said the wizard. Then he
told Dorothy and Sandy what they would see and what he would do.
The wizard would turn all the
telephones in the house off so that they would not be interrupted (Sandy and
Dorothy decided to turn their cell phone off, too). There are no clocks in The
Friendly House, so they could take as long as they needed. He would wrap a black
blindfold over his eyes and sit at the kitchen table (the laboratory had been
cleaned up for guests), and shuffle the cards seven times (this has been
scientifically proven by Persi Diaconis, a Famous Mathematician, to completely
randomize the deck if the wizard is honest, and does not try to cheat). Then he
would sit quietly with the cards and wait for a vision. After that he would lay
out the cards according to a special pattern he had devised, and tell her what
he saw. Dorothy could listen, and she did not have to tell him if he was right
or wrong, nor did she have to proceed any further with a soul retrieval if she
felt the wizard was off-track. The wizard remarked that it took a lot of
courage to make a long journey to The Friendly House. Dorothy was silent for a
minute, and sat looking at the floor. Then she looked the wizard in the eye and
said quietly, “Or a lot of pain.”
A comment such as that usually
means that the person is ready to begin their healing, but the wizard asked
Dorothy anyway if she was ready. She said “Yes,” so he explained to
her that the next step would be to write out her “permission
slip”—which she would get back afterwards—so that he could
look at only what he needed to see to help her right now and later complete the soul retrieval, if she chose.
Dorothy decided to take the step.
Dorothy Gives Her Permission
A wizard’s permission
slip is not a legal document. It is a way to locate your spirit, or to see the
folds and crumples in it, in the places that wizards travel to when they leave
Oz.
The permission slip is nothing
more than a 3x5 card on which you fill in your answer to this statement:
I
am ______________________.
You may fill in your first name,
your full name, your nickname, your maiden name, the name you want to change
yours to someday, a description of what you are feeling right now, or what you
want to feel after you accept a healing, or anything else your heart desires as
long as it is your soul’s true name at that moment. If you do this honestly, the wizard will find the
part (or parts) of you that are willing to be uncrumpled or folded back into
place to heal you now. Ethical wizards will see—and eventually can only see—precisely what is necessary, because they
forego their will in this matter, and rely on the Loving Force Of The Universe,
which you may call God, or Allah, or Buddha or Love or Wakan-Tanka. This wizard
calls it The Light, and tries to let it shine through him so that it will
gently and lovingly help others heal themselves.
Dorothy seemed to sense that,
and filled out her slip.
The Light began to shine through
the wizard.
A Vision for Dorothy
Wizards see best when they are
blindfolded. Then they can tell the people who seek them out true stories about
why they came to Oz. A true wizard will tell you your story; he will never ask
you to tell it to him.
As you recall, Dorothy had been
politely asked not to tell the wizard why she was coming, nor did they talk
about it after she arrived. Now the healing would take place in three phases in
the land “somewhere over the rainbow.” The first two phases would
occur in the divination journey. To
accomplish it, this wizard covers his eyes with a black blindfold in which are
enclosed two small quartz crystal points—his “eye
stones”—and two small garnets wrapped in red cloth to keep his soul
attached to this world.
Blindfolded, he riffle-shuffles
the deck of tarot cards and cuts the cards randomly in this sequence:
•
shuffle four times
•
cut and re-order the deck in several blocks
•
shuffle twice
•
cut and re-order the deck in several blocks
•
shuffle once
Then the deck is held with the
bottom card against his “third eye” while he silently goes
“somewhere over the rainbow” to another reality, and for a brief
time becomes a short, plump, buxom grandmother.
So Dorothy’s vision began.
This time, even before becoming Grandmother, the wizard “saw” a
beautiful perennial flower, broken but still alive, trampled into the mud. He
thought this part of the vision was meaningless, probably caused by spending
too much time blending floral aromas. He was quite wrong, but he did not know
it at the time.
“Over the rainbow,”
Grandmother looks to see who has come to her front door. If it is you, and if
you are willing, she invites you inside to a very dowdy parlor with floral
print wallpaper for some tea and cakes. It is a sunny parlor, and you must
leave your bicycle with its muddy tires (because her street is not paved)
outside on the front steps. It will be safe inside the low white picket fence
that surrounds her old-fashioned house with its small, grassy front yard, and
stone walk leading to the front door. Grandmother will ask you, please, to tell
her about yourself, and listen with great attention as you show her your broken
doll or model airplane or, in Dorothy’s case, baseball bat. Then
Grandmother will show you to the front door and tell you to run along and play,
and possibly give you a gift before you go (Dorothy got a new left-handed
baseball glove).
Sometimes your friends may be
waiting outside for you (Dorothy’s were), but never your enemies or
anyone or anything else that wants to hurt you. You are safe when you visit
Grandmother. Very, very occasionally, Grandmother will take you to a place that
you need to see in that land “over there.” Once it was to an amazing
city of the future. That was not Dorothy’s vision, but a vision for
another young person. Grandmother believes she was shown what the world will be
like when that young person is older, long after Grandmother is dead. It was a
gift to see such a bright-white, beautiful world, even knowing that pain would
not be absent from it, because there would be others like herself to help
people heal themselves.
Then the wizard “came
back,” and setting aside the bottom card (the “eye” card),
cut the deck, rapidly laid out the six tarot cards that described
Dorothy’s circumstances, removed his blindfold, and looked at the cards.
Less than five minutes had elapsed.
Dorothy and the Wizard Talk
about Her Vision
The wizard quietly looked at
the cards, and then began to ask Dorothy some questions about her vision and
her circumstances, reminding her again that he could easily be wrong, and that
she was under no obligation to answer any question at all. She remained in control. She could choose what to
say, or if she wanted to say it.
Now, for those of you who are
reading this, remember that Dorothy and the wizard were strangers who met for
the first time on Good Friday. Dorothy was not interviewed, and in fact the wizard refused to discuss any matters
affecting her until the divination journey was complete. Only then did he ask
her specific questions to determine if his vision for her had any relevance to
the reason or reasons that she sought him out. It did.
Was Dorothy athletic as a young
girl, between nine and twelve years old? Yes.
Did she play baseball or
softball? Baseball.
Did she have a bat? She
supposed she did.
Did she have a favorite
left-handed glove. Yes, it was her prized possession.
Did she believe she was not
worthy to be on the team? Yes, her sister got her on the team, but she did
not believe she deserved it.
Did she act in a clumsy way so
as not to reveal her athletic prowess? Hesitation, then, yes, she let
herself be hit on the head by a baseball so everyone would laugh at her.
Did she know that everyone on
the team valued her as a player? No.
Did she know that everyone
admired her skill? No.
Did she know that her friends
always picked her up for the games, and never forgot her? Yes, but she
didn’t know why.
The wizard explained to Dorothy
that she has been afraid to be who she is. It is OK to be good at things! Life does not punish us for
being ourselves. People all around her see that she is capable, beautiful, and
loving, but does not believe it. They also see that she does believe she can stay in control by hurting herself now to avoid getting hurt by life later. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. We cannot
“buy off” life with self-inflicted pain. Acceptance, not control,
is the answer.
During this conversation,
Dorothy had quietly risen from the couch, and walked over to the two steps
leading down into the kitchen where the wizard was sitting at the table. She
sat on the steps, folded her knees and arms together, made two fists with her
hands and propped her chin on them, and in a deeply thoughtful, almost fetal position,
looked at the wizard with two big dark eyes, seemingly become a little girl
again.
Dorothy and the Wizard Talk
about Her Cards
The wizard quietly looked at
the cards again, and then asked the little girl if she would give him
permission to talk about some sensitive matters. She said, “Yes.”
He began by assuring the little
girl that what was shown in the tarot was a “snapshot” of
Dorothy’s circumstances, and that just by coming to see him she was
changing them. What showed strongly for
Dorothy-as-she-was-that-very-Friday seemed to indicate a person who had
financial difficulties, hated her job, was blocked emotionally, and most of
all, was feeling the profound fear of a woman whose biological clock was
running down. She knew no one whom she could trust to raise a family. Dorothy
wanted children, but had been choosing bad, even promiscuous, relationships to
get them.
Quietly, hesitatingly, the
little girl told the wizard that several years ago Dorothy had trusted a man
completely, but been cruelly jilted for no reason she could fathom. She was
left broken, and hopeless. She came to the wizard because there was no hope
left in her life, and she felt that life was not worth living. Sure, she wanted
children, but when a woman has no hope, she does not feel worthy of bearing
them, and doesn’t feel worthy of looking for a man to be her partner and
the children’s father, for without hope a woman—or any human
being!—sees nothing, has nothing, and believes they are worth nothing.
They want only to die, and that made the little girl very afraid.
She knew that Dorothy wanted to
die.
Hopelessness was the key.
Whatever reason lay beneath it, this was enough for now.
The wizard began to talk slowly
and lovingly and quietly and carefully about his hopelessness, and the dark
years of his life. He talked about his pain. He talked about the cruel way he
ignored his wife and children, and how that ended in divorce. He talked about
living in a dark basement, in a home that he helped turn into a set like the
one found in the movie, The War of the Roses. The little girl asked if the couple hadn’t killed themselves at
the end? The wizard said, yes, but that he was fortunate to have survived and
even regained the love of his children and the friendship of his ex-wife. Even
in those dark days without hope, something held out, oh, not hope exactly, but promise. It was a promise that if he chose life, then he
could regain hope.
He talked about his journey into
the Dark House, going forward into ever-smaller and ever-darker rooms until he
arrived at the Last Lonely Room, the room with nothing to go forward into but
death, where there are only two choices: to die, or turn around and leave and
live, retracing one’s path back to The Light. There is no hope in that bleak room, but there is promise. To realize that promise, we must make a choice.
Dorothy had already begun to
turn around and retrace her path by seeking a healing. Did she want to
continue? Sitting quietly on the carpeted steps inside the wizard’s
sunroom, the little girl thought for several minutes, then looked up at the
wizard and nodded. And a grown woman got up and walked back to the couch.
Dorothy asked, “What do we
do next?”
Dorothy Chooses a Crystal
What Dorothy did next was
choose a crystal for her soul retrieval.
The wizard used to choose
crystals for those he helped, but now he listens to the crystals talk amongst
themselves. Several are always willing to help someone, and they are often
quite different from each other. Aren’t your friends often different? And
aren’t they all willing to help you? Crystals are the same. Some are big,
some are little, some are flawed—and these are often the most beautiful
of all. Their flaws are what give them their internal beauty, rainbows, veils,
reflections, ghostly phantoms of the crystal deep inside itself, lightning
bolts, flocks of flying birds, fish, even turtles leaping high above the
ocean’s waves, all of these and more have told him how they can help
others regain their wholeness. While there is beauty in a flawless crystal (and
the wizard has one), being a flawed person himself, he has found that the pure
crystal is too beautiful for him to use—yet. It is perfect. But
“being healing” means being wounded, which is not a way of life for
perfectionists. Perfect is not enough.
He is saving the flawless
crystal to heal a Saint. Someday, a Saint in great pain may seek the wizard
out, and he may be permitted to heal them. The crystal will tell him when it
must leave him. On that day he will give it away, and it will always be with
him, forever, after that. We really do keep it if we give it away. That is a
Law of Oz.
Sitting in the Healing Room, the
wizard brought Dorothy three crystals nestled in a shallow alabaster bowl, and
offered it to her. He asked her to handle each one, and find the one that felt
right to her. She would know. She should not hold herself back, as so many of
us have been taught unwittingly as children: “Certainly you can have that one, if you really want it, but it is cheap, and poorly made—you
will waste your allowance.
It is the first one you looked at. Use your head! Don’t you want to shop
around?”
So it goes, teaching us not to
trust our intuition, and to be fearful of making any very important choice. After all, isn’t
spending your allowance a very important choice? But in the Healing Room, your
choice is honored. You cannot make a wrong choice. Even no choice is the right
choice, because it is your
choice, given to you to make or not make by a wizard who loves you
unconditionally.
Dorothy looked at the crystals,
and held each one cupped in her hands. She closed her eyes and listened. She
murmured something to herself, quietly whispering words to the crystals that
the wizard and Sandy weren’t meant to hear. Nor did they try. Then she
picked a delicate, small crystal similar to the one on the right, and held it
out to the wizard.
“This one,” she
said.
The Wizard Takes a Journey
Wizards must travel to help
those who travel to seek their help. This is a Law of Oz.
This wizard makes two journeys.
You have already read about the first one, called the divination journey, when the wizard becomes Grandmother. The second one
is the healing journey. During
this journey the wizard used to go to one of the three places “over the
rainbow” that shamans and wizards have gone to since antiquity. These
places are called the Middle World, the Lower World and the Upper World. But
some time ago The Light decided to gather this wizard into itself, and make Its
healing work using this arrogant, troublesome, doubtful, analytical, questioning
and insane wizard easier. The wizard would just have to deal with his new way
of life.[1]
Friends and colleagues of the
wizard “saw” what he would become long before it happened to him.
In his first wizardly class with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, he asked
a journeying partner, “If my death is a coin, how will I spend it?”
And his partner journeyed and told him, “That is a foolish question. How
will you spend your life? All I could
see about it was that you were shining with a vast golden radiance.” In
the Five-Day Soul Retrieval Workshop taught by Sandra Ingerman, also offered by
the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, when his partner journeyed to find out who
the wizard was meant to be, she came back and drew a picture of a happy,
barefoot, dancing sun, and wrote, “Dance—laugh—the bursting
of the heart that is you.”
This is nothing special. Many
people get collected into The Light. The wizard has met some. You can, too.
Just look for people who are happy and serene—and who glow!
Now healing journeys have grown
simpler for this wizard. He no longer flies “over the rainbow” to
hunt around for a lost part of your soul—after all, your soul is never
lost. Instead, The Light makes the wizard one with Itself, as all of us are,
and in that vast golden brilliance the wizard “sees” what needs to
be done to heal you, “knows” only what is necessary and precisely
how to explain it to you, and “opens” a window for you into The
Light itself. Your crystal is that window, a window that will never close.
Through it you will
“see” how to help yourself heal, as often as necessary, at exactly
the right speed, in exactly the right way, for exactly the right reasons. This
is the gentlest healing of all, because you and The Light do it together. No
one should ever stand in another’s Light. For this reason the wizard is
not even allowed to be a channel any more. He walks beside you as your servant,
your guide, because any channel—even a loving “little hollow
bone”—still casts a shadow.
The wizard blindfolded himself,
selected a drum (because Dorothy wanted to see him journey just like she had
read in the cartoon), sat down in his wizard’s chair with Dorothy and
Sandy watching expectantly from the couch, explained that he wouldn’t
physically leave, and did not expect any spooky manifestations to
appear—but if they did, please tell him because he would be blindfolded
and couldn’t see them himself and was curious to know about them and what
they looked like, if Dorothy and Sandy saw any—and began to drum rapidly.
The Voices In The Drum began to
sing.
The Voices in the Drum
If a wizard drums for you, you
may hear the Voices In The Drum—or you may not. When the spirits learn
that a wizard heals people with his drum, they will come and sing during
healing journeys. The Voices In The Drum are the music of The Light.
The wizard first heard the
voices during his Foundation for Shamanic Studies basic class, The Way of
the Shaman, taught by Myron Eshowsky. To
him, the voices sounded like an entire Jamaican steel drum band playing
melodious rhythms. They played while Myron drummed for the first journey of the
workshop. Finishing the journey, the wizard took off his blindfold and looked
about suspiciously. There was no Jamaican steel drum in sight, not even an
African finger piano. So he asked their teacher who was making the music, and
where the instrument was hidden, but he did not get a direct reply. Instead
Myron smiled, and asked the class who had heard anything “extra”
during the journey. About one-third of the class had heard something. The rest had only heard the rapid and sonorous
drumming. Myron explained that they had heard the spirits, who come to his drum
after he has healed with it for a long time. They sound like the wind, or
music, or a chorus of voices. You will hear them when you are ready.
You cannot record the Voices In
The Drum, even on a high-quality compact disc. The wizard had used such a CD
many times before he attended the basic course, and has listened to it many
times since. This is one of the facts in his experience that led him to believe
that he is not crazy, and that science
and technology do have limits
that our minds and souls do not. The spirits are not present in the CD. The
drum on the CD may sing, but the Voices are not recorded. They fall through the
“cracks betweens the bits.”
The Wizard Meets a Flower and
a Butterfly in a Sunny Meadow
Oz has many beautiful and
wonderful places in it, where flowers and butterflies talk to wizards and each
other. During Dorothy’s journey, the wizard was collected into The Light,
and became a smiling, gentle sun that looked like this:
He joyfully beamed down over
what used to be the Dark Lands. They are dark no longer. Now they are sunny and
beautiful, even where terrible things have happened. Everything happens for
a reason. If you truly believe that, every
place in that other world over the rainbow is illuminated brightly, although it
may be a terrible brightness.
The wizard’s attention was
drawn to a dark cloud. Beneath it in the driving rain was a beautiful flower,
beaten into the mud. The flower was
important. It was Dorothy’s soul. The wizard realized he had
been ignorant and judgmental—not right or wrong.
This battering could not go on.
The flower needed a sunny place to grow and flourish. It needed to be
transplanted, and he needed help to do it. A brigade of beautiful blue
butterflies came flying through the rain, dodging raindrops. Their captain told
him that they would help because they represented Dorothy’s power animal.
Together the wizard and the Captain of the Butterfly Brigade organized
Operation Transplant. All of the butterfly cadets flew away with the flower,
wings beating in a martial cadence. The butterflies carried her to a sunny
meadow, rich with bergamot blossoms and their green healing fragrance. It was the
fragrance of Floral #5. This was exactly the aroma needed to transplant the
flower safely in its new home. The wizard realized he had been ignorant and
judgmental—not right or wrong.
But the transplant was not
enough. The beautiful, delicate, perennial flower still was broken and limp,
lying on the ground. It needed to lift its spirit, to raise its face to the
sunlight, to grow and to blossom. And the wizard heard a whisper in his ear
that told him to give Floral #7, the “Sunny Meadow,” to Dorothy. In
that moment he knew why Floral #7 had played with his soul like a yo-yo. What
better fragrance to lift the spirits of a flower from its roots to its heart?
What better way to restore the rhythm of its life?
The wizard prays to be of use
daily. Some days he thinks his prayers are granted, and other days he does not,
but he never know which days these are. He does not know why he does what he
does, even as he does it. His life is no longer his own, and he has been slow
to realize it. Blending oils had a purpose other than self-gratification. The
wizard realized he had been ignorant and judgmental—even about himself.
“Man proposes, God
disposes.” The Light will reveal the reasons for its disposition at
exactly the right time. It was time for another lesson, and Dorothy was both
the teacher and the healer chosen by The Light to continue healing the wizard
of his arrogance. That will be a lifelong journey, and will require many
healers and teachers.
“When the pupil is ready,
the teacher will appear.” The wizard was ready, and…
Dorothy came to Oz.
The Crystal City of Oz
The Crystal City is the healing
center of Oz.
It is the place where The Light
shines the brightest. It is filled with the radiance. For traditional shamans,
it is the Upper World. For others, it is the place where choirs of angels and
choruses of archangels sing. It is the source of the Power Greater Than
Yourself. It is a well of healing that never runs dry. It is unconditional
love.
If you visit this wizard, you
will take a window into the Crystal City home with you. During his journey, he
will “look” through it to open your window into the Crystal City.
After he returns, he will give your crystal to you, and ask you to hold it in
your hands. Does it feel right? Is it warm, or cold, or heavy, or light, or
does it smell like menthol, or does it buzz like a honeybee, or does it feel
golden-yellow, or does it speak your secret name, or do you feel as if your
Mother is holding you in her arms like a child whose scraped knee is being
soothed, or are you on your way to the fair with Dad, or do you simply feel
calm at last, with that peace that passeth understanding?
You will know if it feels right.
You will decide if it is the time to begin your healing. If you are ready, then
the wizard will ask you to cup your crystal between your hands. Then he will
suggest that you inhale and exhale four times very deeply and very slowly,
breathing in the first vital essences of your healing. After you return home,
you will probably look through your window again, or breathe in more healing
essence, or simply bask in the warmth of The Light on a dreary day.
Your crystal is not filled with
a lost soul part that can be returned only once, and then leaves the crystal
empty. Remember, your soul is never lost. Instead, you have been given a
connection to a source of healing that will continue to uncrumple or gently
re-fold your soul. Any time you feel the hurt returning, you can use your
crystal to mend your self. You do not have to be thrifty with your healing
essence. The healing power of the Crystal City is infinite, and cannot be
exhausted. That is a Law of Oz.
The wizard asked Dorothy if her
crystal felt right. She held it for a minute, and then smiled and said,
“Yes.” Then he asked her if she was ready to do “the four
breath thing.” She was, and closed her eyes, and began to inhale deeply,
as the wizard reminded her, “Be careful not to let go of the
crystal—you don’t want to inhale it!” and something began to
change in her face. It was a small light, but it was starting to shine.
It was hope.
Dorothy Asks a Serious
Question
After you have breathed in your
first healing breaths from your crystal, this wizard will ask if you want to
hear about your journey. (You can hear about it first, if you want.)
Dorothy was ready. The wizard
told her what you have already had a chance to read, even telling her that he
had been directed to blend her oils before he knew she would be coming. This
did not surprise Dorothy, because it had not surprised Sandy, because Sandy
admitted now that she was a psychic herself, with gifts that were very useful
to her. Perhaps the most important one was this, when someone needed to get in
touch with her or one of her friends, Sandy could “get lucky” and
the people would connect. The wizard thoughtfully recalled how he had just been
leaving to run an errand on Thursday when Dorothy called, and
“nabbed” him just as he was going out the door, and how he had been
free on Friday, and wondered yet again just how much free will we have in The
Light, or if we just believe we have it, or if it makes any difference.
“Brilliant
Union”—everything connected to everything else—is not a one-way link. In the past, some of the people that
the wizard had been linked to had made demands of him. It was novel, but not
unsettling once he knew about it, to realize that people he had never met
before could do the same thing. But then, two photons entangled light years
apart (as described by quantum physics) might feel the same way if they ever
met, and learned that they had polarized each other. (The wizard fleetingly
wondered if quantum particles were intelligent, but this was not the time for
him to reflect on it.)
He looked at Dorothy, and saw
her looking at him. The wizard asked if she had any questions. She did.
Hesitantly, Dorothy explained that in Sandra Ingerman’s book, Soul
Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self, she
had read that some people realized after their soul retrieval that they had
been abused as children. Had she been abused?
The wizard answered that his
intention for Dorothy’s journey had been, “Please, show me
everything I need to know to help Dorothy Gale right now.” This limited what he saw, and focused the healing on
the matters that would best help Dorothy heal herself in The Light—right
now. He had not seen any abuse. If he had,
it would have been what she needed to know. Possibly abuse was a deeper problem
in her life, but if it was, and he was not suggesting it, then Dorothy was
welcome to come back later and the two of them would work together again. From
his experience with many other people, if abuse was the reason for their
healing, then The Light would show him enough, and only enough, to help that
person. Dorothy needed to regain her strength, to lift her spirits and grow
toward The Light, to blossom and flourish. That was what this journey gave her,
the strength to regain hope.
Perhaps later, when she was stronger, more might be uncovered. Perhaps not. But
healing is growth, and now was not the time to pull the beautiful, delicate
flower up to see how its roots were growing. Was Dorothy willing to wait and
see how her healing developed, and decide later if she needed another soul
retrieval, say, three or four months from now?
She was, and gave a little sigh
of relief. So did the wizard, deep down inside.
Dorothy’s
Smells Her Oils
When you permit a wizard to
heal you, he will give you gifts. This is a Law of Oz.
Dorothy was no exception. Her
crystal was her first gift. Her two oils were the second gifts. As she smelled
them, she exclaimed that bergamot was one of her most favorite fragrances.
Then, when she sniffed Floral #7, she gave a tiny squeal and said, “Oh!
This is so-o-o uplifting! It smells just like a sunny meadow.”
And the wizard just smiled and
laughed at himself, deep down inside.
No Tipping Allowed
If you bring someone else to
visit a wizard, he will give you a gift. Nor will he take any tips, even if you
offer them, although he will thank you politely as he refuses. This is a Law of
Oz.
Sandy was no exception. She
offered the wizard a tip. He politely refused it. She asked about his financial
state. The wizard explained that professors are paid well, and that he has
enough money to pay for crystals and oils and the monthly mortgage on The
Friendly House and child support to his ex-wife. She wondered if he needed
anything else to perform his wizardly responsibilities. The wizard told her he
did, and asked her to please wait for a minute.
He went to the den where he
keeps his computer and various odds and ends, and brought back a bottle of
Rosemary and Ginger Lotion that was a gift from the company that sells him
essential oils. He explained that he had seen a pair of feet—nothing
more, just feet—during his journey, and that these feet often were dry
and chapped, and that this oil would make them soft and smooth. Were those her
feet, and would she like the lotion as a gift?
Sandy was surprised, to say the
least! But it is this way when you bring someone to The Friendly House for a
soul retrieval, and sit next to them during the wizard’s journey. You are
sitting at the edge of a Circle of Permission, and if you ask to watch, as
Sandy did, there is a good likelihood that something about yourself will show
in The Light. Nothing will be done to you, and no healing will be performed
against your will, but nevertheless, your soul is visible, just a little
teeny-tiny bit.
In this case, Sandy’s feet
showed, which were hurting more than usual that day. And the lotion was exactly
what she needed. And Sandy smiled, and accepted the gift of lotion, and she and
the wizard both were satisfied.
There’s No Place Like
Home
You can’t go home again,
for when you return, it won’t be the same “you” who left.
Dorothy was not the same person
who went off to see the wizard, and even Sandy was a little different when she
left. As they waved good-bye, the wizard was pretty sure they would be OK. That would be enough, but as
usual, the wizard wondered about it.
The Wizard Receives a Gift
Wizards may be given gifts, but
they may never ask for them. That is a Law of Oz.
Friday night the wizard went to
his home group of The Fellowship of People Learning How to Be Human, and
received a gift. The gift was given to him by a woman who had hurt more and
more for over ten years because she had been unable to offer her amends to The
Dead, in this case, a soul mate. The wizard had journeyed for her, and saw a
place that she remembered very well. She and her soul mate had spent many days
there talking, sitting under pine trees, and playing the guitar. She learned
that this was the place she ought to go to end her pain, so she and her husband
and her children went to that place. It was in a park, which overlooked the
large city where she had once lived.
It was not there.
As far as anyone in the large
city knew, it had never been there. It was not where she had left it ten years
ago. She and her husband and her children spent the day looking for it, but
could not find it, or the road that had led to it, or anyone that remembered it
in the neighborhood, or any map that showed the park on it at all. It had vanished.
So, late in the afternoon, they
gave up and took their children to the zoo, but the zoo would close in ten
minutes, and no more tours would be starting. They were too late. But the woman
asked if, because it was their fault that they were late, they could at least
go see the Huge Gorilla, who was her husband’s and children’s
favorite. A strange look came into the zookeeper’s eyes. He told them to
wait, and made a telephone call.
In a few minutes the Zoo Train
showed up, empty. The zookeeper invited them to get in, and take a special tour
of the entire zoo, since it got dark later now, and they would have time to see
everything. And they did. The family saw the Huge Gorilla, who was thinking
very hard about something, and looked like Rodin’s famous statue. They
saw Lions and Tigers and Bears. They saw the Elephant and His Child and the
Alligator and the Camel that went “Humph.” They saw Fabulous Birds
and Hippopotamuses and, for all I know, a Roc and a Griffin and a Chimera. They
saw everything.
This does not happen often, and
some of you may not believe it, but sometimes, just sometimes, when a healing
is permitted, the world changes. The change may be so great we find ourselves
in a different world and never know it, until we lose something. In this case,
the woman lost a park. There are many worlds in Oz, and they are not all the
same, and we are always leaving one for another. But when we enter the new
world, we will find what we need. As the woman said, “I knew that my soul
mate had been there, and loved all of us, and is gone forever, and I will never
need to go back to that park again, but he gave us a gift before he left, and
my family and I are whole now.”
This was exactly the gift the
wizard wanted most in the whole world, even though he did not know it. With
relentless gentleness, The Light continues to show the wizard that Oz is a
magical, mysterious place, and that he will never, ever, ever, even if he tries really hard, comprehend it.
But he can experience it.
The Magical Land of Oz
Wizards are necessary because we need to find someone to help us find ourselves when we are lost. Most wizards have been lost themselves, and have never forgotten the frightening, cold, homesick feeling that “lost” hollows out inside us, and they always remember that safe, warm, loving feeling that “found” fills the hole with. Wizards recall their change from “lost” to “found” so well that they choose to live in Oz forever, or at least just for today, so that other lost people will have someone to seek in that magical land, and, after they find a wizard, someone who loves them so much—even if they are total strangers—that they will have a new, kind and loving friend to help them before they leave for home.
Yet wizards themselves are sometimes lonely, precisely because their visitors always leave Oz for Somewhere Else That Is Very Important. But because wizards have big hearts (and big hurts), and need the “lostest” people of all to love, Oz is the best place for wizards to live. Everyone who is lost eventually, somehow, some way, sets off to see a wizard, and be healed by him and heal him, too. There are many conversations in Oz!
If you feel lost and lonely and despairing and know that you are the most miserable person in the world, remember that there are many wizards in Oz. And because Oz is everywhere, and you have never left it, but only forgotten that you are living there, a wizard may be nearby. You may be able to see the wizard, who will smile a lot and look very ordinary and occasionally muddle around in a dithery sort of way, and may smell quietly fragrant. Or, you may have to set off on a long and arduous journey to find a special wizard who is Just Right For You.
When you find your special,
kind, gentle and loving wizard, she or he will help you. This is a Law of Oz.
And when you leave, you will know that no one among us has ever left Oz, but
that we have all just been confused. We usually mistake the place we find
ourselves for any of those million-and-one places we think cannot possibly be
Oz. They seem too terrible to be good for us. But we are always in Oz, because
Oz is always in us.
Oz is a magical land, full of
love, Light and healing. If we seek it, we will find it, for, you see…
Oz is never lost.
That is the Last Law of Oz.