Following Rainbows and Finding Peace

Last month, I traveled to a small village in Okinawa, where I met with a new client who flew in for an in-person healing retreat and class. Like I usually do, I arrived a day early to settle into my rental and to do all the necessary preparations before meeting with the client. The first place I always visit is the local beach where I pay my respects to the land and the nature spirits and water and ask for support for the healing time ahead. But after a full day of travel and then getting caught in a downpour, I decided to stay put and wait until the morning. Just as I was about to unpack, I suddenly turned my head and caught a glimpse of the edge of a rainbow right outside my window. It was so close it could have tapped the window to get my attention! It was all so unreal I wondered for a moment if I was imagining it. My curiosity took over and without a second thought, I grabbed my red umbrella and phone and went back outside, following the rainbow’s arc. And I kid you not, it led me to that beach!

The rain had stopped and the air felt hopeful and welcoming, as if the rain had washed the past clean. There was a sense of celebration and renewal all around. Looking closer, I noticed hermit crabs scurrying about, full of life, as giant ancient limestone rocks stood tall and patient, like grandfather protectors. It was clear this place was home to countless creatures, both seen and unseen. The clouds billowed with laughter. The landscape was as sublime as a dream of heaven. I felt deeply grateful—for the rain, rainbow, my curious heart, all that led me to this serene, tranquil, yet lively moment in time. There was only one other person on the beach. We were each lost in our own worlds taking pictures of shells and plants and the water, content and consumed by wonder, like two naturalists quietly observing the bounteous beauty on offer.

Then, like some practical joke, a large black military airplane flew overhead tearing through the sky like its sole mission was to ruin everything. The contrast to the tranquility was jarring to say the least. We each took a picture of the plane—I’m not sure why I did, I really didn't want to but something made me mimic my quiet companion, who clearly had a different perspective. And to my absolute surprise, after I took my picture, something shifted in my heart. It felt like a stubborn old wall around it had finally come crumbling down as if the rippling reverb of the plane's boom shook the final foundational footings loose so that at last some cool breeze could flow through. I stood there watching the plane fly toward a ripening moon, and with clear eyes, almost triumphant after so much searching and seeking, on the eve of this healing retreat (which is always just as much for me as it is for my client) I understood that I was being prepared to bring big healing to my father wound, a very long search was coming to an end finally and forever.

Since arriving in Okinawa each time I'd see, or rather hear, a jet fighter storm through the skies my body would shake with rage. It was like its turbo screams opened an avenue for my own turbo screams to be felt. They represent a war on this land that still isn't over and it made me so so angry. It all leaves such an overwhelming complicated mixed upp-ed-ness in me that all I can do is tremble and maybe sometimes cry. It's taken me years to unpack it all and understand that by taking one side I'm going against and hating on the other. And because my cultural identity is half both sides, I had to find a way to embrace the warring half too otherwise I'd always be in conflict within, and it's just no way to live. And because I was at a real loss on how to move forward I had to trust Reiki to guide the way, because I had nothing.

So I stood there in a lesson, supported by all I had just seen and communed with, including the water spirits and my Okinawan ancestors. They were helping me to understand how to embody peace on a new and deeper level and it had everything to do with my father and his violence. Trust me I'd rather have just enjoyed the beach! But I was preparing for a healing retreat and this was part of my work, I had to heal myself first. 

The love from my surroundings lent its courage and space to speak with my rage, to ask it important questions, and then let it guide me onwards.

So I asked. "What's here for me? What do you want me to know?" 

and it responded, "I am you. If you want to know me, think about where you're from."

I thought about my birth month, the month of March. March is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. Romans would make sacrifices to the god before and after battles and I was born in a military hospital in Sacramento, California. The city was named after the holy sacrament or sacrifice. Was I a sacrifice? I surely hope not.

It was a little much and I wanted to connect with a goddess, a woman. So then I asked about a goddess, which goddess is here to help me now? And all of them rolodex-ed through my mind until the dial stopped on Athena, the Greek goddess of war, and also wisdom. My god I thought, I'm really related to war. Athena's symbols include the owl for wisdom and also olive trees which symbolize peace, friendship, healing light, and reconciliation. And my parents named me Olive-A. So my rage led me to understand peace through war. My way and developing purpose in the world.

There's no beautiful or elegant way to understand war. The best way that I embrace it, and not fight it, is through my healing work. Without knowing how I knew I almost immediately began to do shamanic journeys for my Reiki clients when I was first starting out, going straight into the underworld with their higher selves. I could locate the 'healing point" or the cause of their pain and suffering and either bring light and medicine there with my songs or pull out that which sought to harm them. Sometimes battle was necessary because some forces were so sneaky they kept finding better ways to hide because they did not want to leave the body. So I had to become more clever to catch them. War strategy through and through. I guess we can say it's in my blood. If I had to describe how I battle with demons and evil forces, I'd say I do what any mother would do to protect her family, I do it with ferocity and deep unabiding love. And because I came from a dark place where my dad was overcome by his demons and no one could help him, especially not himself. I also do what I do with passion as I couldn't help my family but I could help others'. And I bring the kind of all-encompassing care I always yearned for as a child, adolescent and adult. So, in a nutshell, I can do what I do because of my dad. Surely in some other reality he was, and still is, my greatest shamanic teacher, and now from the other side, my protector and guide.

So I kept asking my rage, "What is peace anyway?"

And it answered: "Peace is rage transformed. Rage is the emotional intensity needed to move past hate and forgiveness and straight into love. If you can stay with the process you'll never fall victim to your rage again. Rage will become your friend, your ally to peace."

"And what about war? How can I make peace with war?"

"You do not make peace with war. Nor do you hate it. Only understand that it can be used for good. When it isn't, when its aim is merely to conquer and destroy, war is rage unmastered, it becomes violence."

Finally, the hurt from the past began to drop away. I gave it all to the water. I was understanding that this was my father's path. Perhaps his sole mission was to show me what it looked like when you become more rage than love, and also the unfortunate karmic consequences of that. And also that the law of consequence is universal law. We don't have to take it on, justice always comes sooner or later. I walked around the beach stepping in and out of the water and pondered this for a while. 

I had one last question. "How do I fully heal my father wound? How do I let go of the pain of the past and step into a new relationship with my father that's pure love?"

"If you ask it, it is done."

By this time the rainbow had disappeared and the sky was gradually darkening into night. It was time to go back inside and rest. I thanked the nature spirits and my ancestors and also the spirit of my father which was strongly present but in a gentle way, not the way he was when he was alive. I thanked myself too for continuing on this path, for not getting stuck in my rage today but finding the strength to befriend and listen to its wisdom, for the dialogue.

Using the intensity of rage to do clean battle against those forces that keep us from experiencing true love and freedom feels like genuine peace. Because afterward, a supreme gentleness comes into the body that nothing and no one can touch or take away. And to do clean battle we must be clean in our hearts and minds. It reminded me of my shamanic teachers in Peru and Maestra Olivia who would constantly say, "limpia limpia!" Which meant we were to keep cleaning our thoughts. If a dark or distracting thought came we had to immediately catch and clean it to keep our focus connected to love and light.

Peace is more than a tranquil day, it's dynamic and constant and begins within. It's like the creative primordial stuff that gives way to a dancing star. I thought about that plane again and heard an inner voice speak, a child's voice rise up from a hidden place of powerful tenderness: “You keep flying and doing what you have to do. And I will do the same."