Be Real Magazine

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In Issue 13:
Scintillations
Eight Legged Freaks
Cliff Jumping To Freedom
Princess of Crooked Lake
Easy Delivery
Transiting Venus
Different Things
Gateway To Middle Age
Letters to
My Younger Self

Featured Artist:
Andrea Scher
Superhero Guide
to Designing a
Creative Business
Photography
Belly
Funny
Grasses
Liam
Origami
Red Flower
Distance

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Cliff Jumping to Freedom
Copyright © Gail Raborn, CHT

Miserable, lost, trapped: It was 1971 and I was a graduate student en route to a future I dreaded, a future that filled me with terror. I foresaw a future that held a conventional nine-to-five job as a teacher; a home in the suburbs; a “suit” for a husband; and 2.5 kids. A future that would bore me to tears, that I feared would destroy my individuality. The danger of this possible future was very real. My sister had such a life, and flourished in it. In fact, most of the women I’d grown up with would be thrilled at such a life. But me? I longed for adventure, magic, an unconventional life that might take me to the top of the Himalayas , or find me living on a hippie commune. But march to a different drummer? Not me, child of an ultraconservative family. Like an obedient but unwilling sheep, I was marching to slaughter in the kind of future life I was born and bred for.

Freedom arrived in the guise of a hippie leatherworker. Slender, fingers stained with dye, he stood at the foot of my university’s coffeehouse selling his wares. I stood admiring his finely crafted belts, purses, and sandals, tears in my eyes, pain constricting my heart. “God, I envy you,” I said. “You’re a free spirit. Free to live the life you want, be who you want, live on the road. Me? I’m trapped in a conventional world that stifles my spirit and bores me to death.”

Pointing to his homemade camper, built on an old flat bed truck and parked nearby, he invited, “Go see my home. Maybe it’ll help you question your trap.” Inside was a hippie palace of stained glass, finely crafted woodwork, a wood stove, silken and velvet hangings. It was exquisite. His wife, hands busily beading a bracelet, smiled, and told me they’d been traveling for a year through the northwest selling their goods. Waves of inadequacy washed over me. I could never be like her. I could never be so confident, so individualistic. So free.

Returning to talk to her long-haired husband, I told him despairingly, “Your life looks like what I want. But I can’t change. I’m trapped on the path to the American Dream. My entire past has shaped me, wed me to the goals of material success and a conventional lifestyle. The only way I know to make money is through teaching. But I don’t believe in compulsory education. The idea of teaching children who really don’t want to be in school, is horrible to me.”

As I stood there with tears running down my cheeks, the leatherworker told me, “You’re wrong. You can create any life you want. But you have to let go of the path you’re on. You have to listen to and trust the voice of guidance inside you that will set you free. The Divine Spirit will take you where you need to go to find the life you need, if you let go and trust.”

“But how would I support myself, if I don’t teach?” I replied.

He smiled at me and answered, “The universe will support you, show you how to make money. You have to stop trying to force yourself into a lifestyle you don’t fit. Then you’ll find your way to happiness and a life you love. Ask for what you want, then trust you’ll get it. It’s that simple.”

I didn’t understand this hippie garble; it sounded like so much nonsense to me. But my soul understood. That night, my dreams were filled with adventure, magical people, a new life. The next morning, I awoke feeling the shell of my conventional self shattering, as my transformation began. I knew for sure that my whole life had shifted into a new reality when my godmother telephoned that morning, while I was drinking my morning coffee. She promised an incredible gift, something that would change my life, if I could somehow get to her home in Los Angeles within 48 hours. But that was a twelve hour, 500 mile drive away.

“But I can’t,” I protested. “My VW is dead and I’m too broke to repair it!”

“You’ll find a way,” she said calmly. And I knew she was right. A small feeling of certainty filled me, telling me the answer to this dilemma would appear. Just trust, whispered a voice inside me.

“Okay, Aunt Evelyn”, I replied. “I’ll see you sometime in the next two days.”

That evening at work, serving beer at a local bar, one of the other barmaids approached me with an imploring look in her eye.

“Gail, do me a favor and drive with me to LA tonight. I haven’t seen my boyfriend in months, and we’re dying to be together at his place in Venice Beach , but it’s too dangerous to drive alone. Couldn’t I talk you into driving with me after work tonight? We’ll only be gone three days.”

My miracle had arrived. Jammed in her tiny red MG, we flew southward during the wee hours of the morning. And the mysterious gift awaiting me? A nearly new white pickup truck with a pristine, fully equipped camper, complete with curtains and matching towels. As I stood there astonished, shock written all over my face, my godmother told me, “You know, I had the funniest feeling two nights ago. I suddenly knew you needed my camper more than I did. And I knew I should give it to you if you could find way to come get it!”

One dollar gave me her signature on the truck registration. After a brief rest, I was on my way north, driving my new home: my gateway to adventure, freedom, and magic.

A week later, I watched the sunset swirl with purple, gold, and red as I drove away from my university town, into the unknown. With $300 in my pocket, my truck and camper filled to bursting with my possessions, I felt richer than Croesus and filled with ecstasy. I had no idea where I was going or what my life held, but that was exactly what I wanted. Dangerous? Not to me. What was dangerous, was trying to fulfill my parents expectations about me, become something I was never meant to be. I was going to shape my future from now on, with the guidance of an energy far wiser than myself. I jumped from a cliff trusting I could fly, and I did fly: right into a life that continues to this day filled with adventure, risks, change, growth, occasional pain, and magic.

Gail Raborn CHT. is a Transformational Therapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Interactive Imagery Therapist and Life Coach and writer. She works with adults, teens and couples by telephone and in her office in Taos, New Mexico. Call for a free introductory appt.:(505)751-7310, email her at "gail at telehealing dot com", or visit her website: www.telehealing.com.