The Time I Accidentally Tripped Over an Acupuncture Table, and What Happened Next

If you have ever written a blog, you may share the sentiment that going back to re-read and edit a final blog entry before submission can often be a dizzying and confusing experience.  Perhaps, like me, you start writing an entry and then, as it happens all too often, “life gets in the way.” For me personally, it is difficult enough to find slices of time to write in between both of my jobs and taking out the garbage, let alone in between breakups and deaths and seasons of endings and beginnings and endings again, resulting in inevitable writer’s block.  My final entries are usually a patchwork of paragraphs composed months and seasons and even years apart from one another. Because of these lapses in momentum, when I reach the end of a final blog entry, I sometimes find the need to go back to the beginning and start over, occasionally writing a foreword to make sense of the ensuing prose for my readers (provided there are readers, of course).  So, confusing as it may be, the beginning of this blog entry is where, when writing, I ended this blog entry.

The initial inspiration for this entry was a rather psychedelic episode I experienced while on an acupuncture table, in an acupuncture office that used to be walking-distance from my apartment at the time.  I have since moved from that apartment and switched offices, not because I moved, but because my acupuncturist opened her own office, in an entirely different part of town. This is either an indicator of how much time has passed since I started this blog entry, or, conversely, how much can change in a short amount of time.  

In itself, the experience on the acupuncture table was life-changing; I felt compelled to document the episode and release it out into the universe.  I had written a few paragraphs narrating what I experienced and then the entry came to an abrupt ending; I knew nothing of what to say or where to go after detailing this trippy, life-changing encounter.  What I didn’t realize was how much my life would continue to change in the months following this encounter, how many chapters would come to an end, and how the series of these experiences would serve as a conclusion to this blog entry.  I started by wanting to share a psychedelic experience I had during acupuncture, but as time went by and as this entry took shape, I realized that the crux of this passage is death — literal death or proverbial, as in an ending, and the first story at the acupuncture office is and was just the beginning.

I must preface this by saying that today is Halloween (as good a day as any to have a discussion about death) and the year is 2019.  The following paragraph begins at, well, the beginning, which was January of 2018. A year and nine months ago. And then it picks back up in the spring of 2018, and concludes tonight, on Halloween.  So, here goes:

I am a patient of an acupuncture office nestled in the heart of downtown Chicago, ensconced by the proverbial hustle and bustle; the tempo outside a stark contrast to the meandering adagio within the four walls of the office. Instantly you are transferred to a dimension that is almost otherworldly in its tranquility and peace.  All the women who work there are beautiful, earthly goddesses walking among us, white witches and alchemists. Less of an office and more of a sacred haven, the space is adorned with crystals large and small of various pastel shades, giant plants and coiling vines hanging upside down from the ceiling, eclectic books in all the bookcases, and healing jewelry at checkout which I have begun draping myself in to ward off negative energy, as there is is seemingly never any scarcity of it on this plane.

I recently had a rather surreal encounter in this ethereal realm disguised as an office. This wouldn’t be the first time I was met with a hallucinogenic experience on the acupuncture table, but this particular occasion was a standout experience.  I have never dipped my toe in the stream of psychoactive drugs, but when I described what happened to friends of mine who enjoyed their share of hallucinogens during the halcyon days of their youth, they were astounded, describing it as a “genuine drug trip.”

It started, for the most part, normal, as most of my appointments there do, with me relaxed and face-down on the table, winding down from a probably stressful day at work.  I had been doing a thirty-day detox diet where not an unhealthy bite or sip could get past my lips — no alcohol, sugar, dairy, wheat, grains — the list was extensive, the detox all but draconian.  This detox heightened my sense of mental clarity all month long, which may have attributed to my experience on the acupuncture table. My acupuncturist had performed cupping therapy and moxibustion on me; the former, if you are not familiar, is when the acupuncturist places a series of cups on your back which suction to your skin, to draw out toxins and pathogens and increase blood circulation.  The latter is a treatment which involves the burning of an herb called mugwort at various acupuncture points on the skin.

Mugwort is an esoteric, powerful herb.  In traditional Chinese medicine, mugwort can be used to regulate hormones, fend off colds and strengthen the immune system.  Mugwort has also been used in herbal abortions for many centuries. Essentially the same herb as wormwood, the infamous ingredient in absinthe, mugwort can be steeped in a tea or smoked.  It can also be placed in a pillow to promote lucid dreaming and even astral projection.  

When I smelled the unique yet familiar, earthen smell of the mugwort, I knew there was the possibility of a cosmic experience that could extend beyond the walls of a room slightly larger than a linen closet.  What I didn’t know was how potent the experience would be.

As I drifted off into another dimension of a waking dream, I felt twinges of doom that I just couldn’t shake.  Shortly thereafter, I found myself in a busy office building crowded with people, and my eyes fell on a young man in a suit, who in an instant drew a gun out of of his briefcase and in front of an unwitting mass of people, pointed the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.  The window to his side exploded open and he fell into it, where shards of glass trapped him in his last moments.

Blood, tissue, glass, and horror lay strewn everywhere across the floor.  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t look away. Not because I felt compelled to look, but physically, I was trapped, just as he was.  And then it occurred to me why I was trapped. Suddenly, I was no longer an observer. I had become trapped inside his body. Confined in this tomb of glass shards, I tried to move, but I couldn’t.  There were lapses in my consciousness. And then, I felt myself being lifted up by several pairs of hands, out of sharp glass jaws. Another lapse in consciousness. Then, an overwhelming light and warmth washing all over me.  Peace.

And then I was no longer one but two.  Once again in my own form, in a long flowing black dress, the man in a suit timidly joined me.  I took his hand and we floated through an expanse of endless onyx space, toward a dim light, both eons and milliseconds away.  The dim light was fluorescing through the slit of a door slightly ajar. The light glimmered in intensity as we drew closer, as my astral travel companion grew more tentative.  We conversed without any words spoken; I assured him all was well, let go of his hand, and encouraged him onto the other side of the doorway. As he glided over and was welcomed to the other side, the side I could see but to which I was not privy, I knew he was well again.  He was whole in a way that he not been whole his entire earthly life. And I knew that I had done this before, with others.

And then I heard a door open, and I found myself on a table; my acupuncturist had returned to remove the many needles from my body.  I had awoken from being asleep, the first time I had ever fallen asleep on her table. There were phases to this experience that are hard to quantify.  There was the waking dream, premonition, experiencing sleep through death, re-awakening, astral travel to another dimension, the end of that journey and falling asleep in my own body, and waking up on this earthly plane.  A series of different beginnings and endings. Coming to on the acupuncture table is always a bit of a process, but this time the experience was intensified exponentially. It was as if I had been asleep hundreds of years and missed out on lifetimes.       

Interestingly, in the coming weeks I would be asked to sing at a number of funerals.  Throughout my music career I had performed virtually every type of event you can imagine, save for a funeral.  Providing music for the passing of souls in my flesh form I felt like I was that astral version of myself again, in a long black dress, my voice taking the place of my astral form, floating through the universe, its ascending notes guiding caskets out of the church and souls upward to the light.  I realized that I enjoyed singing funerals more than any other occasion. I began to wonder why I had this inexplicable, morbid inclination for singing funerals. Most musicians would prefer to perform more lighthearted or joyous affairs, but I feel right at home in the heart of a funeral parlor. After all, most weddings I have performed have already ended in divorce, so rather than singing for the beginning of a couple’s new life together, I guess I’m better suited to provide music for the ending of one’s life.

And so I wondered, what was going on in that astral realm?  What was I up to in that astral dimension? Is this some service my own soul provided?  Can the human spirit also serve as a spirit guide while it resides inside the human body?  Can the living help the dead cross over? If so, how so? Are there multiple ways? Is singing one of them?  Are there are episodes where the human spirit vacates the body and travels to unknown realms? Would I ever know any of the answers to these questions for sure?  If there are episodes, and I believe that there are episodes, these episodes are also cyclic, and symbolic, of beginnings and endings. Beginning. Ending. Beginning.  Ending. Over and over and over and over again. An endless halo of seasons changing and then changing back again and again and again.

In the midst of this season of funerals, it was the calendar season of spring — the season of beginnings, where people begin to dress in less layers and the trees begin to dress in more layers, beautiful floral patterns before leaves.  Little white petals littered the streets.  

In this season of beginnings, I received word that yet another person had passed away.  This time it hit much closer to home — the partner of a lifelong friend had died; it was sudden and untimely.  My friend reached out to me with this tragic news, asking that I please pray for his peaceful transition. After the initial shock and tears, I immediately closed my eyes and began to pray.  At the time I had lived up in the sky of the city, stories above a concrete jungle, with nothing above me but sky. When I opened my eyes from prayer, I noticed little white flower petals raining down from above.  I opened the sliding door that served as a window to the outside but led to nowhere, and stuck my head out to find the origin of the white flower petals. There were no trees above me, and I could not find the origin of these petals as they began where the sky did.  I knew, then, that he had transitioned peacefully, and he was well again. He was whole in a way that he not been whole his entire earthly life.

Death is always a significant event, with far-reaching ripple effects.  My friend’s partner’s death had set off a wave of dominoes and the season of spring, known for its beginnings, set off a series of endings in my life.  Endings and new beginnings. Death, birth, death, rebirth. People close to me and far from me continued to die, and I continued to lend my voice to a number of funerals, even amid the throes of endings and proverbial deaths taking my place in my own personal life.  As usual, I drew strength from music, learning daunting arias for these services with little to no notice — a welcome reprieve from my own mourning, which I had begun to pack away in cardboard boxes that to this day have remained mostly unpacked. But I had an important task at hand, and my voice was needed to guide and provide comfort to souls of both the dead and the living, my own soul included.  And so all these funerals were reflected into my life by a mirror, held up to me by the universe, perhaps so I could more clearly come to terms with all that was being ushered out of my own life.

* * * * *

Fast-forward nearly two years later.  Tonight, Halloween night of 2019. A peculiar Halloween, as the ground is blanketed in inches of snow.  Possibly so peculiar as this Halloween happens to fall on the first day Mercury officially goes retrograde in Scorpio, the zodiac sign synonymous with birth, death, and rebirth.  

Scorpio, Mercury retrograde, and Samhain (Halloween) all represent endings and beginnings in some respect. Samhain is the pagan new year, and witches have traditionally observed Samhain by doing spellwork around the symbolism of these beginnings and endings, designing rituals with the intention of letting go.  

And so tonight, I reflected on what I must release in my own life, as it is yet another season for endings.  The contents of those cardboard boxes from the last season of endings have not only remained unpacked, but have begun to collect a layer of dust in a sepulchre of storage closet shadows.  

The veil between worlds in my apartment is always questionably thin, and tonight unquestionably diaphanous. Illuminated by all the orange Halloween candles lit in my window to help guide souls onto the next world that awaits them, I sat in meditation, grasping a rose quartz tightly in the palm of my left hand, because the truth is, sometimes I fear endings, even with their promise of new beginnings.  Having my share of abandonment issues born not long after I was, I always feared that endings often meant something is lost, that something usually being love, and isn’t that what we all long for most — love? So I grasped the rose quartz securely since this crystal is known for its power to chisel away at hardened hearts that have turned into stone, to melt away at the ice that forms when the world turns cold, to clear the clutter of accumulated pain and make room for love.  A crystal that helps transmute painful endings into beautiful beginnings.

And sometimes, like in acupuncture sessions or astral dreams, when I meditate, I receive epiphanies or messages.  Likely aided by the rose quartz I held in my hand, the message sent to me was that no matter who or what has died in our lives, whether physically dead or metaphorically, love never dies.  Love is unique, because there is always room for more love, and new love. Love and expansion are synonymous. Love is expansion; love is not contraction.  Love is light. And light is all around us.  Love is eternal. And sometimes, if we are paying attention, love can return to us in little reminders, as butterflies or birds or flickering lights — as visitation or astral dreams or doors that open on their own and give us a glimpse into other worlds.

While lighting candles this evening I received a text message from a friend of mine, interestingly the same friend who lost her partner in the spring of 2018.  A friend who has a wealth of her own stories with regard to the divine love notes the universe sent her in the wake of her partner’s passing. She asked me how I was observing Halloween and I explained that I was in the midst of lighting candles in my window as a ritual to help brighten the path for souls transitioning from one world to the next.

“You are a true witch, my friend,” her message read.  “Interesting about souls traveling to other worlds… You’ve done that before with the one man when you astral-traveled during acupuncture!”

I started writing this blog entry when the episode on the acupuncture table occurred, in January of 2018.  Tonight is the last night of October, 2019. Over a year and nine months have passed. Several seasons of different endings and new beginnings have come and gone.  Trees sprouted flowers first, then leaves, eventually releasing them to the ground, which froze over, then thawed, sprang flowers, which also appeared on trees, then leaves, eventually being freed again to the ground.  This entry lay dormant the entire time, with a beginning, but no certain ending. Tonight I know one thing for certain about endings. No matter the ending, the proverbial death, or the passing of seasons or souls, love is what persists through all these seasons and dimensions.  It is ubiquitous, even when seemingly dormant, lying just beneath the surface, like unseen flowers in the ground that emerge bright and full of hope — their arrival timely, usually just when we have convinced ourselves that there is no hope. Love is infinite; in no way can it be contained by time or space.  And now, it seems as if we’ve come to an end here, so if you’ll allow me, I must return to the beginning and start all over again, as like all things, the cycle carries on.