Visiting Metheus & Zoharra, Day 1
On October 15th 2016 I arrived at Metheus's and Zoharra's place. I was relieved that they could ramble like normal left-brained people, because I seriously wasn't ready to dive into an emotional whirlwind the moment I arrived. I wanted time to feel them, to see them at the surface before diving beneath the waves. I didn't need much of that - perhaps a few hours - but I felt the need for some.
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I mentioned this in an e-mail I sent to both Hibiscus and Paladin: "They're perfectly capable of left-brained rambles and humored me with such chatter on the way from the airport at my request."
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That day Metheus was very, "May I hold your hand?" It made me feel comfortable and safe. And also . . . confused. Why did he want to hold my hand? Why did he fly me there? Why did he want any of if it wasn't for sex, if it wasn't for commitment, if it wasn't for a gain in tangible resources or services? What was he trying to achieve? What did he get out of it?
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Zoharra and Metheus took me grocery shopping. Zoharra drove. Traffic was bad which made her irritable. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. Anything I might say or do might cause Zoharra to explode - so I thought.
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In the store Zoharra said, "Your anxiety is palpable."
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"That's because I feel anxious about your anxiety," I said.
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Zoharra scoffed. "You were anxious before I was here."
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Yes, on the plane I was anxious about meeting you, I thought. It is hard not to be anxious about someone who would so viciously denounce me on our very first phone conversation.
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I could still feel the pain of the accusation she made over the phone a week ago: "I thought I was going to get to talk to the real you. I can see I was mistaken." She said it definitively, as if there was no possibility that the person I was presenting over the phone was an authentic aspect of myself. I couldn't understand what she wanted from me. I had cried: "I feel like you and Metheus are in some elite club and I'm failing my initiation test."
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"Good," Metheus had said.
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"It is only exclusive because people don't choose this for themselves," Zoharra had said.
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I didn't say 'exclusive', I thought, I said 'elite.' There is a big difference. Will you always twist everything I say?
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The answer was, yes, yes she would twist everything I said. But I took it in stride. Any time I said anything I felt or thought about her, she responded directly as if I had said the statement about myself. She didn't even have the courtesy to say, "I think you really mean that about yourself." She just acted as if the words that had left my mouth were literally something other than what I had said. It was infuriating.
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So it is impossible that I have anxiety about her? My anxiety is all my own, whereas she can have anxiety about me and be validated for that? What kind of bull shit is this?
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But seeing her pain, I couldn't help but empathize. She seemed to be going through the same thing about me that I was about her, except she was more transparent about her anger. I admired transparency.
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After grocery shopping, I watched Zoharra and Metheus exchange some bodywork. Metheus also did a little on me. Their technique reminded me a lot of Oryx. Still, the only person I'd met before who was as energy-focused was Dragon (my second love). I wrote to Hibiscus and Paladin about it: "I'm not used to someone who can directly move energy. I can feel what he does more powerfully than anyone in memory."
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Sitting on the couch, Metheus looked into my eyes. "You seem uncomfortable," he remarked.
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"I feel uncomfortable when you look into my eyes," I said. There was something both piercing and empty in his gaze. Why couldn't I see him? Where was he? Where were his attachments, his desires, his needs? Why did he seem so indifferent?
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"It is because he looks deeper," Zoharra said. "He is looking at your real you, and you don't like that."
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I frowned. That didn't mesh with my experience. Generally I liked when people really saw me. Something in Metheus's gaze was different. It was as if he was seeing eight levels into me, and dismissing the seven levels that came before. The rest of me didn't matter to him. My body, my defenses, my passions - all irrelevant. My previous illusions about falling in love with Metheus were melting away. How could I possibly experience that whirlwind when he dismissed everything that form of love represented?
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I tried to find a way to agree with what Zoharra said and also disagree at the same time. I wanted to put the discord I was experiencing into words, but I felt like I was in a daze. My thoughts were not translating to words. My effort to be present - in the moment, in my body - disconnected me from the clear communication I was usually so good at.
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At one point I tried to explain this: "I'm feeling like it is hard to access my ability to articulate the way I usually do," I said. "I'm more present with my emotions, and with the energies flowing through me, and it is making it hard to speak."
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Zoharra was dismissive again. She reasoned it had more to do with how anxious I was, implying that I couldn't speak because I was afraid to. This made me angry, again. Was there ever someone who made me so angry? Yes, I thought, there have been people who made me this angry. Porcupine, for one. And my parents.
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That night, on the couch, with Metheus between us, Zoharra reached a point where she cried. She was processing things about her past. I found it comforting to see where she was coming from, where her anxiety was coming from - her own family, her experience with Metheus's ex-girlfriend.
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I wanted so desperately to touch Zoharra, to hold her, to make her see that I was a true friend - someone capable of seeing her, caring for her - but I was too afraid. Metheus saw my trembling hand reaching half-way toward her and he nodded, as if his permission was somehow equivalent to her permission. Perhaps it was. I touched her hair gently.
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Zoharra's hair was orange-red and wavy, and her hands were so articulate - more dainty than my own elegant hands. She looked like an elf-version of Oryx. Taller, thinner, yet with startlingly similar features. She was of a similar age with Oryx, with graceful signs of aging. Her eyes crinkled in the same way from that familiar, wry half-smile.
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That night I slept with a purple stone in my hands. My throat itched and my forehead felt hot. Am I getting sick already? I wondered. I clutched the stone, trying to find a trace of the energy that Hibiscus had attempted to imbue it with. I couldn't sense anything, but I held on to it anyway.
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Mom's tarot reading kept coming back to me, and how she'd written: "It is vitally important that you listen to Zoharra. She needs you to hear her."
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I felt like I was succeeding in a large way, but could she tell? It seemed like she dismissed me, so why did it matter if I heard her or not? Perhaps she is just good at pretending not to care. I'm good at pretending. I've come off as cold and confident to others when I felt terribly afraid - and she doesn't come off as fearless, just angry. Trapped. Hurting.
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My heart clenched. I wanted to help her, but she saw me as someone drowning. She saw me as incapable of helping.
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. . .
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In the morning, I wrote to Hibiscus and Paladin at a computer that Metheus had set up for me in the guest room:
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I watched Zoharra do bodywork/processing on Metheus. They have a modality/philosophy that incorporates every energetic exchange in relationships with an aspect of the body and its energy. They talk of past lovers leaving "pieces of themselves" inside different parts of one's body.
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They really are very good at reading people, even at a distance. I think they may be wrong at times, but it doesn't matter. That faith in one's own ability is part of what makes it so strong.
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Watching Zoharra process things from her past, I see that she has apprehensions about me being here because of my perpetual anxiety and because of her past experiences. It really doesn't have much to do with who I am so much. That makes it all feel more workable to me.
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Zoharra looks a lot like Oryx, but more pretty overall. I think my focus and pain around Oryx has caused me to manifest this couple in my life. A do-over to try to get it right this time.
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Metheus is so earthy that he doesn't draw me so much here as Zoharra does. I find it is her that my eyes follow, and her emotions that lead mine. I knew she would powerfully impact my experience here, but I am surprised to find myself so naturally drawn to her.
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Metheus had some insight last night about why I always feel alone, but I've forgotten it already. I feel pretty alone in this morning with everything so quiet.
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The view out my window reminds me of Sunnyland. The entire apartment reminds me of it. Not glamorous, but with its own simple appeal. They have robotic vacuums. I want one.
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Please stay in touch. I want to know I'm loved. More than anything. (Tears.)
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- Nuria
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. . .
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I felt the absence of Hibiscus and Paladin powerfully inside me. I thought about something Zoharra had said to me the previous night: "You feel Paladin's emotions a lot. He is in your awareness more than you realize." I nodded, truly believing and feeling the truth of her words.
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A lot of my anxiety really belongs to Paladin, I thought. I had heard this sort of approach before - asking yourself who gave you parts of your thought-patterns and emotions. Previously I thought it was an absurd way to cop-out of one's own feelings. Later I thought that it was a way to disown oneself and find oneself adrift, detached and incapable of real compassion. At another time I thought it was just a misunderstanding of how we all reflect and manifest our surroundings - so of course it seemed that we borrowed aspects of ourselves from our environment.
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Now I seriously considered that perhaps others were invading me and changing me.
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At some point Metheus had been leading me to paying attention to my anxiety deeply, and then it suddenly let up. Usually I would have concluded that my own focus had lessened it, but I had been focusing on it for a long time and I couldn't correlate its lessening with anything else changing within me. It occurred to me that Paladin might have received my first short e-mail saying that I was safe and alright by that time. How strange an idea - that I might be feeling someone else's anxiety about me!
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And yet, so very familiar, when Zoharra seemed to pick up on my anxiety about her. And perhaps I feel anxious about her because she feels anxious about me. How perfectly circular.