Burying the Dead

When I was little I could communicate with and often see the unseen world of ghosts, poltergeists and astral beings. 

Growing up in a '60s home built on top of a Native American burial ground and reincarnating into a family with no shortage of ancestral baggage, I was primed in the best training ground possible to develop sensitivities to navigate the unseen world.

 

I remember sitting on the living room couch watching the shadowy silhouettes of Native Americans and the hunters and trappers who occupied the land. Seeing my mother’s deceased cat Puffer Belly mosey on by from the corner of my eye. Pushing a paw away from my left shoulder as I was writing up a school paper on my laptop.

 

Lynn Drive was exactly half a mile long, and I lived at the dead end, the lowest foundation on the street. During my middle school years, the school bus would drop me off at the top of the long hill after school, and I was the first one to reach home in my family of four. Because I had the house to myself, I took advance of the space to make pizza rolls and lounge in front of the TV watching Doug and Even Stevens.

 

For a series of months or years — time is a blur at this point - I witnessed a strange occurrence during my daily pizza role ritual. It happened at the same time each day. The clunky faucet in the side half bathroom would turn on and run for about five minutes, until, Chachum, it magically shut off. I would sit there frozen on the couch, listening and observing, thinking that as long I didn’t move, the ghosts wouldn’t bother me.

 

Throughout the years, I witnessed many objects move from place to place as if portaling through Narnia’s lost and found or moving spontaneously without human intervention. My mother’s purse handles moving. Lights flickering. Objects flying off shelves.

 

And then there were the angelic and demonic beings. I remember occurrences of witnessing seven-foot-tall bursts of light or light apparitions swooshing across the room. I felt comforted and awed by their presence. The dark silhouettes were less welcoming. Seeing shadowy figures at the foot of my bed made me freeze and bristle like a porcupine. I would squeeze my teddy bear, drape my blankets tight over my body wrapped up like a cocoon, and pray the Hail Mary until I could fall asleep.

 

Fear was one of the predominant themes of my childhood, as was escaping from fear through dissociation and a wild imagination of fantasy, getting lost in books and spending hours and days swimming through my emotions in music and dance.

 

In equal measure, I found some of my greatest joy, solace and comfort spending time in nature — picking blueberries in the summer, talking to trees, plants, birds and animals, wandering endlessly through the Cleveland Metroparks trails, and visiting my animal friends at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Almost every summer I looked forward to three weeks of camping and learning outdoor survival skills with my Ukrainian scouting friends from all around the country.

 

Through my love of the outdoors, I communicated with the nature and devic spirits, the animal and plant kingdoms, the guardians of the land and the fairies. And of course, the dragons were always with me, even when I didn’t know it.

 

•  •  •

 

By the time I reached my teens, I had shut off my sensitivities to the unseen world. Through fear, conditioning, harsh self-judgment and the sheer desire to belong in a world that did not include a context for the kind of being that I am outside of the dogma of religious doctrine. I shut myself out as much as I felt shut out by the world.

 

When I was 18, I experienced a car accident and traumatic brain injury that blew out my protective filters. Over night, all of what I had known and witnessed as a child, the fear included, came back to my awareness. Ghosts, demons, memories of past lives, future timelines, alternate timelines and split dimensions. My orientation to time and space in relation to my human body, which I was not inhabiting at the time, became so disconnected from reality, that I was forced into a healing crisis of magnitude.

 

This is where my healing journey truly began. And it took me 15 years, thousands of hours of self-cultivation, introspection, treatments, workshops, academic studies, professional degrees, mentorships and experiential wisdom to get to where I am now.

 

And in that 15 years, I lost family members and loved ones; got married, divorced and separated again; faced radiation sickness and serious illness; lost all my material possessions in a house fire — and I never stopped searching for answers and meaning.

 

I got to practice Zen meditation in sangha in Milwaukee, Buddhist traditions in temples all over Japan and kriya yoga with the Art of Living in Denver. I got to learn about the transformation of trauma and grief through my interactions with clients as an acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist and craniosacral therapist. In participating and facilitating over 100 Family Constellations, I got to learn about the intricate nature of ancestral trauma and how it can be passed down in the form of health conditions and emotional patterns. I got to travel to beautiful sacred lands and experience many natural wonders in nature. And I got to learn about human biofield mechanics, subtle energies and somatic transformative practices from many teachers and mentors.

 

In the process of my continual becoming, I set up ceremonial and ritual spaces for myself, thousands of times. I dug through layers upon layers of multidimensional traumatic memories, clearing energetic distortions and physical toxins. I am grounded, centered and in my human body. It wasn’t a walk in the park, but I am grateful beyond measure because the depth of my human experience has made my personal insights and transformation that much more magnificent and fulfilling.

 

• • •

 

What does all of this have to do with burying the dead, you ask?

 

As someone who has spent 33 years observing every facet of death and dying, I have come to understand the necessity of the cyclic nature of release in order to allow in new life.

 

We can hold on to the dead in more ways than merely grieving our loved ones who have passed.

 

Holding on to the cellular memory of traumatic events - whether they occurred in utero, in childhood, in major life transitions, in past lives, through ancestral trauma, or even off planet - affects the way that we carry our energy everywhere we go, day after day. Dragging around the past - that which no longer exists, i.e. the dead - into the present moment, truly affects our health, mental clarity, enjoyment of life and overall sanity.

 

Grief and its various nonlinear stages are important in the cycle of transition into new life experiences and must be honored and felt, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. We honor the process by taking the time that is required on a soul level to feel and release in a healthy way.

 

It consciously occurred to me only in the last six months how much I had been carrying around the dead as an emblem of my own victimhood. Exacerbated by the world events of the last four years, I carried around so much suffering and loss, including that which I inherited from my biological ancestors, that I got to a point where I lost sight of reality.

 

It has taken me some very bold choices to change the way that I see myself and the world to step into a radically new path of self-love. This includes witnessing myself in old negative thought patterns and making a conscious decision to say ‘No’ to the old ways and asking my vaster self what my other choices are (because we do always have a multitude of choices).

 

As within so without. As above so below. When we redesign our inner realities, the external world shows us what we are releasing and attracting.

 

Last week, I held myself a funeral ceremony for all of the old versions or aspects of myself that were carrying the dead or reluctant to be with the living. I gathered two bouquets of flowers, one for myself and one for my ancestors. I then created a sacred space with candles, sage, palo santo, art and journaling to acknowledge and express all that I was energetically releasing. I cried and scribbled and danced to express my grief and felt profound chills of release all over my body.

 

My final ‘aha’ moment came the next day, when I decided to go to a dance class at the YMCA. It was called Dynamic Dance, a name that caught my curiosity. As I entered a room full of people, the instructor looked at me and asked me my name, greeting me with a warm welcome. I thought, “Oh, how nice. I’ve never been to a dance class at the Y before where everyone was so friendly.”

 

As I acclimated to my space in the room and the class began, I quickly came to realize that over half of the participants had Down’s Syndrome and were there with their caregivers. With each Zumba-like dance sequence, I watched my fellow dancers sway, laugh and bounce to the beat of each of their own drums. I watched in admiration as each individual stepped into such a completely uninhibited self-expression of joy.

 

In that moment, I remembered myself over a decade ago. After having experienced a traumatic brain injury, where for years of my life I had the coordination of a fish flopping out of the water, there was no way that I could have imagined keeping my balance and coordination to dance again. And nowadays, I ballroom dance regularly. Gratitude washed over me as I acknowledged how much I have healed in the last 15 years.

 

In the next sequence, the instructor told everyone to lift their arms over their head and walk and shake every limb like a Halloween skeleton. In that moment I could see the holographic reality of what I was releasing at a DNA level from my energy field. I laughed at myself and exited the room, feeling complete.

 

Through this process of death and rebirth, the release and receptivity, relaxing and contracting, inhaling and exhaling through each life cycle, the more that we can create a space to be gentle with ourselves and know that there’s no right or wrong way to feel it, after each choice to transform from within, life gets that much easier and lighter.

 

If you made it this far in my long-winded storytelling, I thank you for hearing my story and I invite you to share yours. While healing is a self-initiated internal experience, it never happens in a vacuum. Witnessing each other in our human suffering allows us to feel and acknowledge our own vulnerabilities with greater compassion and self-love.

 

We activate each others’ conscious evolution through relating and learning.

 

My invitation to you is to Release the Past through your Expression and Creation.

 

Honor how far you have come, and make room for New Life.

With gratitude and respect,

Melanie Adrianna

To learn more about Melanie Adrianna and receive support through your transition into new life, please visit MelanieAdrianna.com.