Jody Rose Helfand

I've been traveling since May 11th on a journey of self love and self discovery.

My first stop was LA to visit a friend I met on Facebook.  On the plane, there was terrible turbulence and I was scared.  I was scared because I wasn't in control and I knew this was just the beginning of what I was going to learn about fear.  I gripped the armrests, closed my eyes, and thought "smooth, smooth."  I repeated this until the only thing I coud think about was smooth air and smooth flying.  It was crazy.  I was going crazy in my head because of this chanting.  Have you ever felt this way?  That words made you crazy?

The turbulence stopped and then started and then stopped and then started, but the curious thing was that it stopped when I was in a trance of chant-- saying "smooth air" and thinking about flying through smooth air.  Did I do that?  Who knows.  My heart thinks I did.  My mind has serious doubts.

When I landed in LA and saw the place I was staying at, I realized my next lesson was to accept and be grateful for what's offered to me.  My friend had done everything she could to make her place comfortable for me, but when I walked in, I felt a heavy energy, and I wanted to walk right out and get on the next plane back to Hawaii where my car, my dogs, and my family were.  But I didn't. 

I stayed, because I knew this journey was going to be about lessons.  My lesson was to lighten up and to not be so self-centered and self-righteous about the way I live.  And to not be so matter of fact about how I will live. So extreme. So neat. So clean. So "perfect".

And I hated LA, but I stayed.  I stayed because I knew staying was another lesson for me. 

I needed to walk through a negative city, a city that held so much negative energy, a city that honks, and curses, that's unforgiving.  A city that doesn't give a shit about you, that teases you and tricks you into believing something is pretty when it isn't.  I stayed because I needed to be immersed in this atmosphere so I could learn to be happy anywhere.

So I walked everywhere.  One day I walked for three hours instead of taking a $20 cab ride.  When I walked, I observed the energy around me.  It's like it was asking to be released, but didn't want to be released-- it was happy in its heaviness, its darkness, its passive aggressiveness. That was the day I went to see The Tim Burton Exhibit. After I looked at all of his drawings and movie memorabilia for hours, I walked through a small field behind the museum, and in this field, there was a dog running with a stick in its mouth.  Something about that dog made me want to walk back to my friend's house. It was the freedom from all things material.  I walked eight miles back to her house thinking about Tim Burton and how for one day I'd like to eavesdrop on his thoughts.

Another day in LA I went to Venice Beach and met a woman who was selling all kinds of stones and crystals, and realized that I had an obsession with crystals and stones.  I couldn't believe that I didn't know this about myself before.  I talked to her for a long time and bought selenite, rose quartz, kyanite, tektite, azurite, emerald, garnet and rainbow obsidian.  I remember her dumping a huge bag of raw carnelian out on the floor for me.  There must have been about 200 pieces of carnelian on the floor and I just knelt down and looked through them.  The carnelian was peaceful and dirty.

One of my last days in LA, I went somewhere that changed me.  I went to one of Marianne Williamson's talks.  I sat in the front row and as people walked in, the seats around me began to fill up.  Before I knew it, I was surrouned by a crowd of older gay men.  The man sitting next to me was familiar.  When we talked to each other, I showed him a piece of citrine I was carrying around with me and he pulled out a piece of moonstone from his pocket.  We exchanged stones and held them for the entire time Marianne was speaking.  I listened to her deeply.  I saw a genuine and evolved person who still struggles with the same issues we all do day to day, but who is intent on making a difference.  After her talk, she went into the audience in a very intimate way and answered questions.  There was a man there whose partner had just killed himself and who didn't leave a note explaining why.  They were raising children together.  The man was there with his partner's best friend, a woman who wanted to know why her best friend did this. They told Marianne what happened and spoke to her for awhile, both crying, and she said a prayer that was long, emotional, and very powerful.  I'm convinced that the entire room was focused on his lost Spirit, sending him peace and a true release from anything he clinged to.  Over 300 people focused on this at the same time.  There was a light.  My heart opened up more.

When it was over, I exhanged phone numbers with the man sitting next to me and gave him back his stone.  We agreed to meet that week for lunch, but ended up meeting for a smoothie at The Beverly Hills Center Mall. 

I was sitting at a table reading when I felt a kiss on my head.  I looked up and it was him.  I grew up fearing germs and developed an irrational fear of germs and sickness as I got older that heavily affected me for years.  I didn't like that he kissed me on the head.  I didn't like sharing energy like that with someone I barely knew.  The interesting thing is that I was going to choose a different seat so I could see if he was coming, but instead I assumed he'd see me. If I would have seen him coming, I wouldn't have let him kiss me on the head. 

He sat down and we started to talk and I found out he was a retired English teacher.  I told him I teach English.  We talked about Marianne Williamson.  He told me the night I came was one of the most intense nights he'd ever been to and he'd been going to her talks for over 20 years.  He told me I had something to share with the world.  I didn't believe him.  He told me he was HIV positive.  He grabbed my hand.  He wanted a sip of my smoothie. 

I told him to do what his passion is in life.  To do what he loves.  To do what his heart says.  I told him to listen to the language of his heart and showed him some things I was learning for my training at The Heartmath Institute.  We talked about listening to the heart, breathing through the heart.  He said he used to be addicted to drugs. I told him I never did drugs. 

I walked back to my friend's house through lots of dirt and smog.  Someone followed me for a little while. I ignored him.  I was thinking about the night before when I had gone dancing at a gothic club my friend works at.  I danced to  Spit It Out, by IAMX.  Precious, by Depeche Mode.  Erase, by delta-s.  I kept thinking about the song Spit It Out.  I was thinking about the words.  "The past is weakness.  Don't beg the question.  When the answer is war.  There are moments when I'm overcome." I thought about my new friend who kissed me on the head and how I wasn't scared after we left each other.  I thought about being scared of things that you don't have to be scared of.  How my irrational fears were as bold as I allowed them to be.  I thought about thought loops and how powerful it is when I forget about free will.  When I forget about the fact that I can make any decision I want.