Who are we, really?

posted by Mary Lello, Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 AM

Recently I've been doing some work around my own healing with a wonderful friend who is a Shaman. I discovered that I seem to be finding my "freedom" by leaving my body and soaring around while sleeping. For many of you this may sound a) astounding, b) highly unlikely or c) yup, that's Mary.

Regardless of your visceral reaction to this concept mine was "cool". From the time I can remember I use to leave my body. As a little girl I knew at a very young age that this body was simply a house, that the "me" inside was different from the "me" that the rest of the world could see. I would sit and stare at my hands and slowly move one finger, amazed at the fact that "I" could make that little finger move like that. Or I would think about my name Mary Lello and just laugh at the fact that this is what this house is called and "I" will respond to it. And many times when I would do this meditation I would enter a trance and then POOF I was in the corner of my bedroom looking down on my body that was still sitting there staring at my little finger. This never scared me but I knew it probably wasn't normal. At some point I would realize I was suddenly back in my shell because I was staring at that little finger again.

Somehow I always knew I was much bigger then this body, that there was a Spirit housed inside this skin and bones and that due to the parents I have I look the way I do now.

So who are we really? I keep saying how Jim is "trapped inside" but is he? His brain is compromised but is that brain Jim? I guess I'm saying I don't believe his spirit is trapped inside because I seem to understand first hand how we can easily leave this shell and float around. And I see that wonderful spirit of his in his eyes and in that crooked, odd smile he has now and feel it in the incredible love that emanates from his being.

I have a friend who lost the love of her life, John, 5 years ago to cancer. The last 2 weeks of his life when there was nothing anyone could do for him she told me how she would sleep on a pad beside him at night. One early morning she woke up because she had heard him call her name and there he was, a face in the end of the arm chair that she was looking at. As weird as that image is she suddenly realized that John was all around her and that when he died and leaves that body he would still be all around her. And she still feels him there with her, 5 years later. She feels him in the wind, and can see his face in the stars. How wonderful is that?

Who are we really? Am I this aging woman who freaks because she's starting to get jowls or that "estrogen pot" that appears around 50 years of age? This shell, showing signs of gravity and aging. Is THIS "me"? Or am I the ageless spirit inside that can't believe this body is going through all these changes now because I really don't feel older, just wiser.

I'm having a hard time talking philosophy all by myself here and I'm probably going to start really rambling, and maybe drooling too, but these are the thoughts running around in my head on this incredibly dark and storming morning.

My friend, Betsy, died over the weekend. She has been released from her shell. She is in the wind now, in the rain that beats on my window this morning, in my thoughts and my memories. She is and will always be a part of who I am because she touched my life for a few short years.

"Heard it in the wind last night, it sounded like applause ..."

Joni Mitchell, For the Roses

Loving you all back,

Mary