Opening Night - 16/1/1997

 Got the 6.30pm bus which broke down three quarters way through the journey. By the time we all boarded the bus behind us it was around 7.20pm. During my long lonely walk in complete darkness there were moments when I feared that I would never reach the house alive. I was never so scared. Suddenly there was a noise from behind a hedge which sounded like someone coughing. I screamed out in terror then began to cry.

Arrived at the house at about 7.45pm where I met Suzanne coming out of the kitchen. I was never so delighted to see a familiar face, and like a distraught child, ran sobbing to be held while recounting my frightening experience. Went into the loo to tidy myself up and there I met Katherine whom I also hugged and told my story to. Now I felt safe.

The large group had just begun the short meditation so I was quite happy to find a cushion to curl up on at the end of the room. During the introductions, I was aware of a lot of familiar faces which was very reassuring, but I was also looking forward to meeting the newcomers. We finished up at 8.50pm, I rang my husband, then joined the others for a tea break. As I knew I would be in Suzanne’s group this week-end, I grabbed the opportunity to have a little chat, as we’d never really had a conversation before.

Those of us who’d done two or more workshops returned to the session room with Michael for the highlight of the evening, a Shamanic journey. I was really looking forward to this experience as I found my first journey, last October, to be truly an amazing voyage of discovery.

About ten minutes into the drumming, I felt like my body was lifting off the mattress and going headlong backwards down a long dark tunnel.

I was terrified as there was nothing for me to grab onto as I was hurtling through the air, completely out of control. Following that, I became a large black cat, snarling aggressively and feeling so full of anger that I wanted to tear apart everything in sight. Almost immediately afterwards I became very sad, crying quietly to myself.

While several people described their fantastic experiences, I chose not to share mine as I was still too upset to talk.

After most people had left I asked Michael if I could talk to him for a while and he very kindly obliged. I described my journey, especially the part where I became a cat and told him about the dream I’d had over twenty years ago where a huge black cat made love to me and spoke English, saying “fuck” quite a lot while driving me wild with his foot-long penis deep inside me. I told him how my mother started me off on sleeping pills when I was only fifteen and how I ended up attending a mental hospital for over five years.

At this point I suddenly realised how much I was missing Tony. I absolutely panicked when I thought that I might not be able to make it through the week-end without him and cried uncontrollably while Michael comforted me with reassuring words. I was so grateful to him because he’d really listened to me.

I headed off to the kitchen at 11.35pm where a lot of people were still chatting and drinking cups of tea.

I stayed up talking ‘till around 1.30am, but then feeling really tired, although much happier in myself, I headed off up to bed.