This article is the ending to this series, and yet it is not an ending at all. Having gotten word that my lumbar spine is rapidly losing its ability to walk, I now face more spinal fusion surgery, not at the spine’s top but at its bottom. Walking is a priority, and I welcome the assistance metal will give my empennage in remaining stable. That coming operation is one which requires as long a period of recovery as the previous one did. So you may consider this series on down time a work in progress.

I could not disembark from this train of thoughts without talking about two seemingly wildly disparate thrones – the throne in the bathroom and the throne of Jesus the Christ, King of Love.

First, let’s look at the throne in the bathroom. As a spiritual seeker, I assume that everything that happens to me, whether exalted or humble, seemingly positive or seemingly negative, is something to which it is worthwhile to pay the honor of my attention. Therefore, I feel that the lessons offered during this period of down time are valuable and to be considered at length and with respect.

This period has been characterized for me not only by the pain of healing a surgical wounding but also by my need to visit the bathroom with sometimes amazing frequency. At least once an hour, all day and night, every day, I must use the bathroom. Sometimes the spells are so frequent I do not make it back to my Mama Chair or bed before the need occurs with insistency again. It is a constant dynamic, and it would be easy to see this only as a nuisance.

But there is more, for the serious seeker, to nuisances than the aggravation or discomfort of them. There is the deeper self, communicating to you in the only way it can – in images and figures.

This homage to the throne within the restroom started for me during a teaching trip to Britain in 2005. I was working with my angels one morning in East Sussex, praying as always, as I bathed in the dawning, to dedicate myself in service to the Creator. I was given the distinct impression that it was time for me to become more fully incarnated into Earth’s vibrations. I immediately set my intention to spend the remainder of my incarnation doing this, feeling that it was the key to my serving in a fuller capacity.

That night I had a very clear dream. In the dream I was a secret agent in Paris, carrying a message to the United States of America. The message, in the secret pocket of my trousers, was folded. I had just a glimpse of it. Its entire contents were the one capital letter ‘B’.

In the dream I was invited by a noble Comte to his villa. There we had tea, and it was very charming and civilized. The gardens were lovely; the conversation scintillating. But I became aware that something was wrong; that this façade of civility held a darker aspect. The edgier I got, the more the Comte’s henchmen gathered around me. When I finally tried to leave the party, the Comte ordered his men to imprison and torture me to get the message I was carrying.

I broke away from the threat and ran hard, through all the precincts of Paris. A gamine joined me, perhaps nine years old, dark and pretty as a gypsy rose. She assured me she could keep me safe from the henchmen. She led me to a butchery at the edge of the city.

It was a deeply soiled shed with newly butchered carcasses hanging from the rafters and piles of excrement and discarded inward parts lying on the ground. Although the charnel house was open entirely on one side, my helper assured me no one would find me there. The dream ended with me bedding down in the straw next to all the awful offal and seeing the Comte’s henchmen surrounding the butchery, but never looking in, never seeing me. The gamine was right. I was safe. No one expected me to be there, and I was virtually invisible to those who wished me harm.

I have inferred that whatever agents of psychic greeting follow me expect me to dwell in realms of higher-density vibration, not in the travail of third-density, human life, chained to the bathroom and honoring that period of indenture as sacred work. Yet I firmly believe that, having learned these lessons of humility, I shall serve far more adequately as channel, writer and teacher.

The ending of the dream was another dream. My companion for this trip had her own dream, after I told her about mine. In it, she was disturbed repeatedly by an insect buzzing around. Finally she awakened to discover that she had a wasp at her window trying to leave her room. As she freed the frustrated insect, she realized what the bee was trying to tell her: the message I was carrying was “B”, or “Bee” – or, centrally, “Be”

To be most fully myself is to become accepting of the vibration of Earth, my chosen planet and the arena in which my service takes place during this lifetime. And so now, as I visit the bathroom yet again, each time, I recall that to B myself, I need to love the part of myself that is thoroughly and completely a creature of Earth – my physical body. I need to embrace this humanhood. Interestingly enough, I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, the root cause of my need for the bathroom’s throne on this frequent basis, upon my returning from Britain that year, after I vowed to become fully human.

It is a big, big lesson! But I feel most grateful to be going through it aware of the value of this lesson. And apparently it is not over yet.

There is another throne to which I wish to give homage as I reflect upon this time of being down and dysfunctional in the usual, physical sense. And that is the throne of Jesus the Christ, King of Love, my brother, my shepherd and my example.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16, Peter is horrified to hear that Jesus is planning ahead for a ghastly fate, being killed and then raised again on the third day. Peter says, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.”

And Jesus responds, “Get thee behind me, Satan! Thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”

Then Jesus turns to His disciples and says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.“

I do not believe Jesus was indicating that it is necessary to suffer. Denying oneself is not necessarily suffering. It is, however, a serious discipline to turn from the ego and deny it its usual demands to live and thrive as it sees fit.

For instance, in my case my ego would like to complain about being so tied to the bathroom. It would like to find a place of no discomfort, of ease and forgetfulness. I refuse to complain, choosing instead to offer gratitude for the gifts folded into this period in my life. And I accept and manage this discomfort, staying attentive to my own emotions, both negative and positive, hoping to deepen myself thereby. To my mind, this is how I “take up my cross” and follow my King.

In a May 1, 2005 channeling of Quo’s, the group says, “Each of you has a suitcase full, shall we say, of real gems of pain and suffering that are neatly packed away, waiting for you to return to them, and, with love, to lift them to the light and to work with them.”

Later in the same session, the Q’uo group observes, “Before incarnation, everything looks pretty easy. Standing outside the incarnational miasma of what this instrument would call the world of Maya or illusion, your memory is intact. You understand who you are. You understand the goals and the missions that you have set for yourself for this particular incarnation. You understand the use of pain and suffering and the necessity for it, the gift of it, indeed. For it is this very displacing pain that alerts one to some situation that needs to be worked out, some pattern that needs to be resolved. You see it all very clearly and as a whole.

“Then you plunge into the womb and the parents’ arms, and everything clouds over and nothing is simple. Until you enter through the gates of death into larger life and again regain your complete memory and are able to see your life as a whole, the incarnation itself is spent with at least a substantial portion of your time being given over to trying to figure out what the situation really is, what is really going on, what you are really seeing, what you are really hearing, what is really coming into your perceptive web.

“Here is where faith enters in. By faith, you can simply affirm that all is well, that what you need is coming to you, and that what you have to give is something for which there is an audience.”

In this period of down time, and in the one to come, what I have to give is my attention. Uriel, archangel of the gifts and powers of Earth, is strong to assist me as I offer my attention to the matter of becoming fully incarnate, embracing the earth vibration and letting the light and love of the Creator shine through me while I serve and learn.

I open my arms and embrace your spirit. Join me in knowing that all is truly well, especially when things don’t appear to be that way. Let us together live in the faith that all is well, and rejoice and give thanks for all things.