‘I journey into the cave, my familiar territory, down through the well and into the earth, feeling first those stone walls and then the earth, sweet-smelling beneath my feet. The pool lies there in the center. Still and calm, the rocks surround it. There is a familiar figure a woman I call Otter Woman who shares her medicine with me and teaches me about the healing ways. She walks with me to the other side of the cave. She talks a little of my past. Some of the stories I have long dealt with. I know in my heart there is a deeper journey to be taken with this and thanking her she honors my need to dig deeper. Wolf meets me, we are becoming very close Wolf and I.

 I feel Wolf’s fur beneath my fingers just as I have felt the horsehair of my angel. Wolf takes me into the forest alongside a lake. We stop and meet with White Swan who hisses for a while and then stands at my side. Swan speaks of women, I am unsure what I am told, I cannot quite hear yet I struggle to take in the words. I am told to go to the other side of the lake to look backwards and see the story from another perspective. I do as I am told, looking across the lake; I see Wolf and Swan together. ‘What does this mean’ Spirit often sends messages in riddles. In time I will understand this I hope.

I want to leave here I want to go home; I feel I am not really getting anywhere. I feel the frustration of not knowing. And suddenly Raven is there flapping in front of me. Raven tells me this is an old old story and it is going to take some work to unfold it and find its true meaning. I want to run. I am tired but Raven picks me up, claws into my shoulders and lifts me high above the trees to a rock high on a mountain. Putting me on that rock Raven speaks to me. This story is full of karmic energy; it is as old as these rocks. You and Ben are together for a bigger reason than you could possibly imagine. It was no accident you came together. There are important things for you to do in the world together, but before that can happen the ‘karmic death’ must be remembered fully and you can move on, until that time the sword will plunge ever deeper. Raven told me to wake up, do my work, be here, and clear what needs to clear for myself and for others. The time is now it has to be done.’

 Coming back to my drum, awakening from my trance I have feelings of excitement as well as some fear. I felt that I had known there was deeper meaning to the challenge I was undergoing. I knew the feeling of finally being heard and being given some advice; I knew it was not just my history, that there was more to this. I needed to find some help. Raven said I could not do this alone and I believed it. Would I find the help I needed? Always look within, I know that teaching but I did feel in this moment that some outside influence could help to heal this perpetual plunging sword.

I needed to dance it out of my system once I knew what it was. I knew my heart would not fail me. As soon as I heard the truth I would be able to free myself from it.

What was the closeness I felt towards my father? We were so able to be together especially when no one else was around. I found these moments to be incredibly valuable to me and taught me during my lifetime the importance of just being with another without the need for that incessant chatter.

My father was born a twin. A little girl who died when very young. I never saw any photos of her or knew anything about her really. But I would have liked to know something. Now I was with a man who was also born a twin.

Ben reminded me so much of my father at times, his smell, his ways of moving and touching. His ability to just be with me and hold my hand, even some of his expressions. And I felt a closeness to him that was stronger than anything else I had experienced. I wanted my father to myself and this pattern was starting to be experienced within this relationship. Was this the Karmic experience I needed to be in touch with that Raven spoke about?

I was the first girl child born to the family that survived after my Grandparents lost their daughter, as well as the brother of my Grandfather who also lost their baby girl.

I can imagine that my birth was quite a big deal to my family and elders. The first little girl who survived. I was given a lot of attention and love. My attachment to my father, if one believed in past life stories, could have been interpreted with great interest. Did I have a connection to my fathers twin sister? Was I experiencing her loss of her brother when ever they parted? Was it true that there was some karmic story unfolding from our ancestry. Maybe my Grandfathers ‘ownership’ of me was some how marked by his own loss. I remember him telling my father off quite severely one day for allowing me to ride a donkey having fallen off at a young age. My father stepping back and allowing Grandpa to pick me up and deal with my wounds and upset in his own way, which involved things that were totally inappropriate out of the view of others. My father was unable to protect me out of his own insecurities around his father.

Once I began to discover the possibilities of this story and the reality that something could actually be working its way through my ancestry I noticed a huge shift in my own energy field around my relationship. Trusting more, feeling less pain and being able to be less dependent on our closeness. Still it would take time and I knew more work needed to be done to lift this. But the most important thing I learned was how effective these stories can be in our lives and the importance of looking into our ancestry for clues as to our own behavior.