MY (MAGICAL) PURPLE COAT

SUNDAY IS FUN DAY (Special)

Miracles are fun.  I love it when I experience them.  Sometimes sad things that happen can result in very happy events after time.  When I became a spiritual warrior, someone who fights for justice through truth and non-violence, I was given a purple coat by a group of strangers, people that I hardly knew.  It was not until 30 years later that I realized their gift was magical!

The Warm Springs Indian Nation is located in Warm Springs, Oregon in the USA; and I worked with a spiritual elder there, Lucinda Green, who was one of my spiritual teachers.

Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, my Guru who was living in India, performed a long-distance miracle at the Warm Springs reservation with some Vibuthi (sacred ash from his ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam). On one of my visits to the reservation, I gave Lucinda some Vibuthi blessed by Sai Baba.  She got a plastic sandwich bag out of the kitchen and put the little packet, about the size of a stick of gum, into it.  Then she nailed the plastic bag to the longhouse wall under a round mirror with three feathers stuck in it (that is the symbol for the Warm Springs religion: THREE FEATHERS).

We said our good-byes and I promised I would visit again before I left for India.  When I returned to the reservation, a few months later, the plastic bag was still hanging on the wall under the mirror.  BUT it was overflowing with Vibuthi. The Vibuthi was just piling up by itself, multiplying right in front of my eyes.  It had changed from grey to deep black.  I walked right up to it to get a closer look.  It just kept deepening as if there was an invisible faucet dripping the sacred ash into the plastic bag.

Then I looked at Lucinda.  I said, ‘It's black now!’ She stared right back at me and shouted, “Don’t you ever question the ways of God.”

I had never told her that I believed my Guru, Sai Baba, to be God.  However, I understood that she knew this increasing Vibuthi was coming from her God, who she called, The Creator, and that He was making it black instead of grey for His own reasons, just for FUN perhaps.

Before I left the USA for India to end up living here, which I had never anticipated, The Warm Springs people invited me to a few special gatherings, most notably a private healing dance where they removed all sorts of negativity from me—energies that they could see,  but that I could not.

After that they asked me to give a talk on incest to the whole reservation.  I felt weird and I told Lucinda that I didn't believe anyone there would identify much with a white middle class woman's story of childhood sexual trauma.  But, she assured me that she and other elders had been guided to me in the first place for just that special purpose.  I forgot to mention that they had contacted me by phone in California where I had been living; and they paid my airfare and all other costs to meet them on my first visit.  When I kept asking how they could possibly know me, how they had gotten my phone number, Lucinda simply said, “We have our ways.” This was before Internet even existed!

I touched the beaded necklace I was wearing.  I had found in a grocery bag one day—a necklace that I had tried to return to the store but the manager insisted he would not keep it in the lost and found—a necklace that I had worn everyday after it came to me. Lucinda replied to my unspoken question.  “It’s Apache, and yes, that was one of the ways…..”

Indeed!  Now she was assuring me that I was the most convincing person to relay that incest and sexual trauma happen outside the reservation.  Perpetrators are from all walks of life, all religions, and they are not lurking in the shadows; they are often living right inside our homes, working in our schools, preaching in our churches….

The victims as well as the perpetrators of incest and childhood sexual trauma at the reservation never imagined that "nice white people" had this particular problem.  Anyway, I did give the talk to a very crowded longhouse and the result overwhelmed me.  Mostly, everyone—men, women, and even children got in a line to come up and cry with me and tell me their stories. It was a humbling experience.

Later, the beautiful and original hand-painted, all-weather purple coat was presented to me. Lucinda explained that the designs were actual copies of the ancient cave paintings of her people.  “She who Watches” is the female deity or primal spirit who sees all and observes all in silence—The Witness. I understood that I was being gifted this for my willingness to share my story.  Lucinda said, “You will wear this as you travel around the world and it will make people happy.”

Her words came true. That’s the magic part!  The coat has crossed many oceans and visited many lands; and people come over to me and ask me about it.  They like hearing about the Native American Warms Springs Nation, about my travels, about Sai Baba, and about my complete recovery from the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder I suffered for years as a result of the abuse.  As it turns out, my magical purple coat has literally made thousands happy.  But I am the happiest!

Have a Super Sunday filled with Lot’s of Fun!!