MY 20s WERE A WILD RIDE!

BY RAQUEL REYNA

My recent Facebook post has inspired me to share my past in a little more depth with my community. My 20’s were definitely a wild ride, an interesting exploration of spirituality, success, creativity, and bravado, which I have up until this moment, tried to forget.
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So this is actually a part of my life most of you don’t know much about. In my 20’s I created a wild and quite successful performance group.
If you want to read more about the group we had a chapter about us in a novel by Rachel Bowditch:

On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and Ritual at Burning Man
(Seagull Books – Enactments)

Due to what I now know as a common 1-5 projector (in Human Design) experience, I needed to run to the hills after this experience. Those of you who know Human Design will understand.  Most 1-5 Projectors who don’t know they are Projectors will enter into life circumstances with the wrong strategy.

We are taught to manifest, create, and make things happen.  We absorb and amplify this energy until we learn it is a dangerous way for our auric fields to be in the world (poor projectors have it rough figuring this stuff out). If our auric field is uninvited we definitely push people to reject or create distaste for our insights.  It is not something one is regularly taught…to wait to be invited.  But until then, when you enter into situations without the invitation you experience many unpleasant after effects that no one ever explains to you until you find Human Design.  Things like people stealing your work, not being heard or recognized for who you are, and extreme burn out.

This is very painful for a Projector.

As a 1/5 you tend to be a leader, but without understanding that you really need to monitor the hopes and dreams of those you lead, your people will tend to turn on you and projector their inner demons onto you.  This was definitely not something I understood in my 20’s.

So imagine a motorized projector in her 20’s (me) leading a group of creative, artists, and talented performers on a wild ride of instantaneous success. Through shamanic dream practices and ancient mystical teachings we unleashed an energy in our performances that many described as magical; and the group experienced often as mystical.

It all started in my living room with a group of 3 friends.

Actually prior to that in my travels to Egypt, I had a vision of a performance band and went to San Francisco to manifest this vision.
In a few short years, we became an underground sensation, a cult-favorite, and actually revered in several different communities including the prestigious Eureka theater downtown where we performed sold-out shows for several weeks in a row.

Why I still, 16 years later, get FB posts and messages from the group that they are still dreaming together in vivid color is because I learned dream work from a well-known shaman. I used this process to create the performances and our shows.

I learned how to lead mitotes (all night dream ceremonies) from my first teacher, Don Miguel Ruiz.

Yes, before he wrote the book, “The 4 Agreements”.  He led small groups of students in his living room in shamanic training and all night dreaming mitotes.
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Miguel with his sister-n-law, an old friend of mine, Joya.

So, imagine a group of about 13 creative souls in their 20’s doing all night dream ceremonies, visioning, meditating, led by our drummer all night long…it was magical!!!
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We would write down all the images, colors and visions we saw and then we used this to inspire the performances we created.

In the end, like most things in your 20’s, it ended in severe drama.  Like you would imagine for a Projector, my ideas and work were stolen, I was not recognized by the group as the leader and creator, and I was pushing way too hard and suffered from adrenal fatigue.

I had to leave, without much notice, and pursue work more aligned with my inner spiritual guidance.  Because of the success and notoriety we had accomplished; my leaving did not go over well with the group.  And like most 1-5’s I fled to the hills to run from the projection field.
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I was in complete spiritual, physical, emotional, and relationship breakdown with my head spinning in a million directions.  The inter-personal dramas would take several novels to explain LOL (actually several were written about this time including a book of my own) and years to recuperate from!

When I left San Francisco I needed to completely redefine myself. So I pushed down, lopped off, and shoved the past into the past.

Now almost 16 years later, I am finally ready to reclaim the joy, brilliance, inspiration, magic, and extreme beauty of the creation for what it was…my first spiritual business venture and creative journey.
People always ask me if I miss performing, dancing, or choreographing…my answer is absolutely NOT.

The truth of what I was seeking then and who I am now are the same, just in a new form; spiritual union, creativity, divine connection, self-exploration, deep inner dives, and a fully inspired mission.
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So in honor of the past, and in fully embracing all aspects of myself, I share with you these images to enjoy.   As I continue to launch into my leadership again, this time only by invitation, I seek to fully reveal my colorful past and awaken my even brighter future.

Thanks for sharing in my fantastical Throwback Thursday…lol
with love and blessings,
Raquel