Spider Lady Needs a New Gig

Some time back I fell into a kind of despair I had never known. I awoke at night with the nightmare of being chained to a labyrinth, and dogs chasing me. What the hades would bring on such a dream? Thank God I woke up...PHEW! Well, let me analyze this. HUM.... (Scratching my chin.) I was in a philosophy group that was studying Dante's Inferno, that will do it. I spending my work days is a 4X4 office with dim light. HUM... Let me analyze this one, some more. My office was in a prison behind two different sets razor wire fences and several set of locked metal doors. It was at the end of a noisy dark hallway. My clients where sitting in a metal folding chair behind me, watching over my shoulder as I typed info about their Paranoid schizophrenia on the the computer screen. There was no ventilation . If I propped the door open the sounds of the industrial complex impaired my ability to hear the person seated behind me, and we got to breathe saw dust. When door was closed the heat that beat on the tin roof over the water heater above my head made it feel like hades. The door to my office locked to the outside and if some became unbalanced during the interview, few people in the facility would have a key to get in. I was juggling a caseload that had been cover previously by 3 counselors. There was evidence each morning that the mice danced at night on my desk. Gad, I was doing time on the investment plan; one day at a time in one of the oldest correctional facilities in the country! Yes, Virginia, I was chained to the labyrinth.

In my dreams I would escape, and I would run through a field of reeds and newly planted rice fields until I reached the ocean. I would get to th ocean, and get chilled to the bone cold. I clearly had no way to swim across the ocean alone. So, I would surrender and return to the labyrinth. So, each day I got up and returned to the dim office. I the room with no light and no windows, I became depressed. (Now legally they couldn't keep offenders in this environment , but employees appear to be quite disposable. In fact if employees perform poorly is will be a good reason to privatize. Yes, the commission "just loves the look of dew on the razor wire in the morning." Could it be cause his buddies are making such a profit off contracts for more of it? If we keep locking up the mentally ill and the Marijuana smokers half of the population with be incarcerated and the other half with be their caretakers...)

I felt more than ever compelled to to spend my free moments dancing with my "sisters of the drum". We would meet int he womb of a new age book store and dance in this secret place. The space is used alternately for meditation and church services. We would enter through the store of brimming with powerful stones and incense, and say good night to the angles when we left. We had no way of knowing that we were all going to be reborn.

My mother will confirm that all my life I was the last to bed and the first one up. She believes the way children come come out of the womb will later reflect on their personality. I was early. I was supposed to arrive for Christmas, but decided on Turkey and Pumpkin pie instead. I was always hungry and early. I now found it difficult to get up on time to go to my rewarding job.

The prison I worked in built a Labyrinth, but they choose to use it as a amphitheater instead of the spiritual tool it was designed to be. Why? Well , the powers that be in government keep pushing the protestant work ethic lies and believe that anything outside their fundamental spiritual believes are evil. I on the other hand know from my 25 years of substance abuse counseling that those beliefs have failed the addict, and that ALL healing is spiritual. I bucked the system and taught offenders to use the Labyrinth. I couldn't teach the lies about criminal thinking and continued to talk about God and the 12 Steps as a tool for recovery. I used goddess cards as an oracle for teaching synchronism and using affirmations. And I took time to breathe in a system that thrives on persecution, punishment and perpetuating lies. I refused to call the guards and have someone is a manic experience sent to lock, because they said the wrong thing. An I continue to speak out about the barbaric mental health practices of taking people off their meads, waiting for them to fail, then having them need twice the dose that result in long tern health problems like diabetes. I continue to speak out when individual are labeled conduct disorders so the system dos not have to provided mental health medications.

As long as the dog and pony show looks good on the outside it doesn't matter who dies from the lie. Those who have followed the birth and the saga of Spider Lady might laugh when I relay my expense of joking about spider myths and encountering a group of people who missed myth in their education.

So now I evoke Ariadne the mistress of the labyrinth thats helps others seek freedom. I have become willing to swim the oceans because I can't go back into the darkness. I have entered the path of the Crone, and know I have wisdom I must share. I wonder how to weave the red fleece free myself and others from the Labyrinth and I am open to approach a road less traveled.

So, I put it out on the either that I have need for a new path. If you have interest in having a Spider on the Path with you please contact me. Happy Holidays and a very Joyous New Year to ALL!