I was raised with three Methodist ministers in the family, and I grew up attending church twice a week and spitting out Protestant doctrine like a good little straight-A Sunday Schooler. Then as I grew up, I sort of lost my religion. After all, how could I even call myself a Christian if I don’t believe that an afterlife is reserved exclusively for those who have made Jesus Christ their personal Lord and Savior? So God and I kept chatting, and I never lost my love for Jesus, but I pretty much started boycotting church -- every time I attended, someone was preaching the sort of intolerance and closed-mindedness that made me want to take someone out with an Uzi. And that definitely violates those commandments.

So I wound up spiritual, but not religious.

As I explained here, I’m just got back from Harbin Hot Springs in Northern California, where I was on a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts after AstroTwin Ophira Edut told me that the stars had big stuff in store for me. At her suggestion, I decided to go on retreat on April 3, when six planets aligned into my house of endings -- a once-in-a-lifetime astrological event. My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to learn the life lesson I’m supposed to learn so I don’t have to carry into the next 12 years, the baggage from the last 12.

Ophi charged me with viewing the retreat as a sort of rebirth, and when she said that, I knew I had to schedule a session of Watsu (water Shiatsu, a type of bodywork that takes place in a pool of warm water, which was born at Harbin Hot Springs). I’ve had two Watsu sessions before, so I know how profoundly emotional these sessions can be. And I know how maternal, womb-like, and birth-ish it can feel.

My intuition told me it would be just the thing. So I did it. And oh, baby…was my gut spot on.