I recently read about Angel's walk in experience and felt compelled to write about my own.

I haven't done much research about this, and the idea is very new to me, and I feel I could do a considerable amount of thinking/meditating on the issue and notion. However I can relate to the experience and have recently felt an intense and dramatic change that is worth thinking about and investigating further.

The last couple of months have been really strange and crazy for me. It was like chaos. I would go days without sleeping. My whole life was all about art. I kept myself so occupied and busy that I didn't have space, time, energy to think about who I was, what I wanted, what I thought, felt or even cared to know.

There were several incidents that were quite striking. One evening, I felt very intense and chaotic. I drank a lot of alchohol, smoked 2 cigarettes, and I haven't smoked for many years. I remember throwing a glass of liquor over the deck by the swamp where I was living at the time. I was so confused, lost, scared, angry. I cried and cried. I ran to the water's edge as I lived on the creek at the time. I went into the water and sat on my knees and poured out layers of emotion. I didn't know what my life had come to, what I was living for anymore. I really wanted to swim away into the water and find a new world. I felt alone. My heart longed for love, something more. I didn't know. I had all this passion that was fiercely crying to get out. This night was magical. I finally stopped crying and sat very very still. I was breathing hard. I felt overcome by this mystical feeling, this living, breathing spirit that was alive all around me. I put my hands in the pluff mud, listened to the sounds in the creek. It was so beautiful. There was a big tree, I looked up and felt this eternal sense of a female spirit alone with nature. It was like, there I was, whole for the first time. I thought about the ecosystems around me, all of the life that breathed beneath. Here is this whole world I had never thought about. I stopped crying and just breathed. It was going way late into the night. I was completely alone and knew that when I got out and went back into my life I would be different. I didn't know how or what was to come, all I knew was that I was meant to be where I was and it was good.

The next morning I "dropped the ball" on anything I had to do. I spent the whole morning/afternoon painting on found cardboard. I wrote the words, "The aggregate material of man. The esoteric realm of the universe. The binding agents of the earth." I glued found objects to the cardboard and started painting a bird, something more of like a phoenix, I was thinking about the "return of Hephaestos", the god of forge, artisan, craftsman, a mythological story I am intrigued by. I splattered old house paint everywhere and painted with sticks. I put my hands in it. I didn't want to stop. It was exhilirating. I didn't eat all day.

Then I got really sick. I layed on the couch for days. I didn't do anything. Turned my phone off, didn't correspond with the world at all. It was a good week or two of this. I pulled out of an art show I was in, cancelled appointments, put off moving as I was relocating at the time. I really didn't talk to many people at all for a good week or two. It was like I died. I've never quite experienced anything like this before. I knew my life would be different.

I went through a period of loneliness, depression and isolation. Then a change happened. I was overcome by this great new calling. For the first time in my life, I let go of everything I ever thought I knew and said, "here I am, what's next?" I just let go and looked up. "What am I supposed to do, I'm here." I was so tired of everything. I was just so tired.

Then it all just went away. The old was gone. Now I feel like someone new, someone better, someone with purpose.

I feel like my name Tina, just doesn't feel like me anymore. Tina is a name I have been called my whole life. My real name is Fotini, after my grandmother who is a very strong woman who immigrated to the US from Greece. This name means, "light of the mind". I feel a closer connection to this name. Like, Tina is something old, something scared and unsure, something self-doubting and childish.

After I came out of this sick, dark period, I felt a vibrant, light energy about me. Like a joy that I knew everything was ok. Now it seems more clear, what I am here for, what my work is for. I don't claim to have answers or really know much of anything. But I do know that through this process I changed, I became someone new, and I feel this is for a greater and higher purpose. I feel that a lot of things that I thought I wanted or that I thought interested me, I don't want anymore. Like, I don't care about art school books, I don't care about events and happenings, I don't care about promoting anything for anyone, not even myself. I am now looking at all these aspects of my life, breaking them down, criticizing them, analyzing them, so that I may know my own point of view, my own perspective. It really does take this kind of separation from it all to think about it and know it.

I care about getting to know who I am. Falling in love with myself, so that I can give my gifts to the world and answer the call from within.

This is my story. What I feel now is a light and more compassionate energy for the world, a need to really look life in the eye and honor the beauty that is everywhere.

I'm not worried anymore. I don't feel a need to worry. Just a need to go down the river, find the flow and listen very carefully.

wow.. thats quite a powerful change you got there. seems like you figured out some quite important lessons regarding the world, and all life itself, through this shift. its pleasing actually to see how much truth and (self-)knowledge there is in your words and therefore im glad youve come to get out of your rough time in such a way.

this doesnt need to be said, since its rather clear, but that is something to be really proud of

lately i've been thinking about the idea of a walk in experience, my own personal experience, and the point i am at now.

i've realized how hard it is to go through such an experience, to change your identity and way of working and living and thinking. i'm coming to a lot of realizations now about my life and where i am. i've clung to the old, and i realize the old simply isn't working anymore, it wasn't meant to. i feel an incredible time pressure right now. i'm not sure if it's just me, my calling in life, what i must learn and experience incredibly quick in order to achieve my goals. i feel that i must do this now, and not hesitate any longer as i have been.

it's abundantly clear to me at the moment. it's hard to change one's mind about life. it's hard to accept the new ways into one's life, but i know from the bottom of my heart, that this is where the truth will come from and i am grateful. the is where my love and passion will come from.

it's hard when i'm living in the life of the old me. the projects i've set up, the work i'm doing, all the bad habits that have always created anxiety. but i believe that the new me is powerful enough to see this and change fully. i don't have to be afraid anymore of changing and growing. the new is a stunning asset to this world, a brilliant fire that will affect great change. i know it.

i will overcome the pain and weaknesses, the damage and the hurt of the old me. i will learn to heal and from this i will have discovered something new.

a new passion, dedication, reason to work. i'm accepting all of this into my life at the moment. i believe, emotionally, i haven't been ready to honor, accept and believe this shift in my life fully until now. i've been stubborn, blind, even though i know in my heart/mind/gut what is true, what i want, what i have been to do. the time pressure is too intense for me to hesitate anymore. whether or not the habits of my former self are ready or not, care or not, like it not, i'm making this swift change. i have the vision to see the neccesity of it. i will accept this into my life now, slowly but surely, it will feel more safe, more like home, more like something i know as my own, the more i work, believe and accept.

it's a new way of working, living, and experiencing this life. all for the good of the world. all to affect great change. i see this now.

it's takes time to heal, it takes time to learn these things and fully accept them into my life. i have to honor this and be patient, but at the same time i can no longer hesitate, being stuck, going nowhere, any longer. i know better than that.