Friday, December 31, 2010

Eve of a New Year


Dear WEb,
I need to write on this last night of 2010 because it is the last night of the worst year of my life and the last night of the last year my beloved was alive. Bittersweet. Another layer of letting go. It's been unexpected. But I can feel the thread connected to the year stretching stretching moving farther and farther away. It will never be 2010 again.

This morning I woke up remembering something from last winter. It was strange: something last year late fall, early winter struck me and I was fraught with the fear that Phoenix was ten years old and that he would die soon. I remember going to work that day and the days following in a fit about this, talking to a co-worker who deeply understands loss and the love of animals. I specifically remember being so troubled by this awareness of what I thought was his age--10 years old! And then I went to his vet records at some point and realized no, he's not 10--he's 9 years old! It changed everything. I relaxed and was relieved that he was not 10. I don't understand or remember why his being 10 meant anything much different than being 9, but it did then.

Now, I can look back and see the significance of that. He turned 10 on July 2nd. He was dead by that birthday. It's eerie to think about some part of me Knowing what was coming. And that's a double edged sword to think about that. You know the guilt that wants to ride the tail of that "knowing". If I Knew...why couldn't I stop it? Shouldn't I have stopped it?? Etc. Etc. But if I hold off the guilt, it's pretty WuWu to consider my panic about him being 10, because being 10 meant being dead.

So....the other layer of this is that he was killed in this year--2010. Perhaps that is some of it too. I pay attention to numbers--it' s a thing I've grown into doing. Not Numerology...as in the ancient and very detailed official system of meaning with numbers. But over the years, I've begun to pay attention to my own 'unofficial' system of meaning and numbers. And the number 10 is a 1 and a 0....which signifies to me a loss, one being left. Of course none of this was conscious a year ago. A year ago I was conscious of the panic that was happening around Phoenix being 10. I didn't know why except I thought it made him older and our time was nearer to the end than the beginning. This is all retrospect and attempts at making meaning.

All of this is part of my saying goodbye to 2010, a horrible and wonderous year.

Again, Phoenix, I love you so and miss you so and pray for more wonder in 2011--eleven is double ones: a much more comforting arrangement.
So much love in my heart for you,
Phoenixx

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Devotion


Dear WEb,
I just allowed myself to come back to my grief as I was listening to Lisa Gerrard. I moved in dance around my altar I created last week. It is my devotion. I am totally devoted to this Love and this Loss of Phoenix. I can busy myself so easily... and then if I just allow a moment to be moved by some piece of music that puts me there...I go. Wholely and willingly.

Is this pathological to be so devoted? My partner might say so. Maybe some therapists. Some part of me may agree. And...in the larger scheme of things, I say NO, absolutely not. There's nothing pathological about such deep Devotion. I am a living prayer when I allow this devotion to come through. Not a prayer of wishing, which I do do, but more of a prayer of...something else. A prayer of loyalty. A prayer of remembering. Remembering a pact. Remembering Phoenix. Re-membering myself. Re-membering Spirit and Her presence in this Devotion.

That all might not be expressed exactly like I mean. It's close enough. Devotion.
Devoted,
Melissa

Monday, December 27, 2010

So much


Dear WEb,
There is so much that could be recorded here on the WEb. I've not written because of the so much. Plus, sometimes things defy words/expression for another's eyes and ears. The experience sometimes feels like it's just for me, my insides, my innermost world, my womb.

I've been on retreat. There were two days I was off from work last week after the Winter Solstice and before the Christian holy day, so I decided to be on retreat. No computer, no movies, no reading books/stories, no going anywhere, no chit chat, minimal conversations of any sort. The only music I listened to over and over and over again was a cd made by a sister in honor of the Winter Solstice gathering we had last weekend. I was transported deeper and deeper as I listened to this mostly instrumental music. I cleared out a closet and a room that had begun to get cluttered. It was a room where I have my art supplies, it's a space I've done art but not in a long time. I organized and cleared. And when I was done, I created an altar on the floor. It's an altar for me and for Phoenix, our love, our undying connection, the pact between the dead and the living that I am still learning to trust. And outside on Phoenix's gravesite, I created a matching altar. It felt important to honor as within, so without.

Also on this retreat I had loads of fear come up. This is part of the process that defies expression really. Suffice is to say, I am grateful to have had the phone support from a sister to get me through some of the deepest darkness again. I am learning more and more about myself, my losses and my fears. I'm learning about the biographical loss of my twin and the transpersonal loss of someone like a twin. I'm learning about the desperation that accompanies both losses. It's big. And each time I visit this place, I feel such fierce compassion and want to frantically DO something to help such inconsolable loss. Such ferocity to not live one more second with this kind of pain.

Today there are 12 inches of snow on the ground. When I am outside in it, I still feel I am in that altered state of my retreat. I am grateful for all the support in having such a retreat from the fray of the world. I am most grateful to have time for myself with Phoenix. And...I know he was here...the night after I created the altar, in the middle of the night I was awakened by one of the sturdy rocks around the altar fall and roll. Yes, fall and roll. When I looked the next morning, it had in fact fallen over, but no evidence of rolling! Ah, Phoenix, you are such a funny boy!

Love,
Melissa

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Walking the Labyrinth, Lunar Eclipse, Winter Solstice 200010

Dear WEb,
It's a quiet night, early morning--2:40 am. My alarm set, but I am already dreaming of the eclipse, so I am not startled too much. Warm clothes on, layers. My feet move through the dark, the grass, leaves, chestnut hulls, limbs blown to the ground by the North wind so many times these last several weeks. My feet move to the circles of stones they know so well.

I enter...for Femaleness, for the Return, for Phoenix, for my Beingness. I take the walk into the dark. The darkest of the dark. A full moon lunar eclipse above me behind heavy cloud cover on the longest night of the year. I circle, wrap back and circle again into the layers of dark, the layers of this path, guided by these rocks once again, guided by these rocks on this path...My feet know the way.

And then I reach a place I cannot see a way. How can this be?...there is always a way on this path. But the darkness hides it. I feel with my feet and every way seems to be closed off with stones. How can this be? Did someone move these stones? Why would they do that? HOW CAN THIS BE! I stay present to the discomfort, knowing there are many layers of reality here happening. She is teaching me something. Ok, so I retrace my steps back a bit to reorient. Find the heart stone near by and let my hands rest on her. I approach again what seems to be a dead end. Still, it's the same. There is no way. I am at the 'end' here in the middle of the labyrinth. I consider turning back, making meaning of it later. I consider ignoring the rocks, stepping over them and going on. My feet search and search, tapping for the opening. I feel a bit concerned, but mostly intrigued and befuddled.

Finally I see. What looked like the DEAD end was not. The way opens up. And I go on with a wry smile to myself and Her. As I continue on, allowing the sound of my feet through leaves and on the Earth to create the altered state again, I hear the message about illusion. It's obvious, I know. But, I can be 'dense' sometimes--my body needs an experience to understand such platitudes. And I know it's not just a platitude to say 'the end is not the end, it's an illusion of an end'. It sounds so, so, Buddahist of something like that. But Buddah doesn't own that notion. Neither do Christians with the notion of resurrection and heaven. The Earth has her own ways of teaching me, here and now with Her body, Her rocks, Her way. Her way told me to just keep moving in the way my instincts say in spite of what looks closed. And I found the way, through the 'end'.

In reaching the center, I paused and looked east to the mountains and resting light. I say aloud to the Earth, "I am here in your Darkest of Dark hours. I have lived through my Darkest of Dark hours. We move together now. Forward." and now in the recalling of this I will add: "We move together now. Forward. Through what looks like an end."

Blessed be,
Melissa

Monday, December 20, 2010

"I Create from my Womb...

World of my Inmost Self...."

Dear WEb,

This is part of quote I have had for over a decade, written by a woman (whose name I wish I knew/remembered) about herself/women. It's been used to honor that place in us from which we can literally and metaphorically create. I encountered it the other day in my files of many accumulated things when I was looking for things about my process with my womb 6 years ago. I am struck by the number 6--my grandmother was one of 6 sisters--I cannot explain the significance of that except to say that it is significant. Plus it feels like a very important revisiting because as the Winter Solstice nears (aka Tomorrow!), I feel called to pay attention to the things that 'are up' for me right now. My womb...world of my Inmost Self...wow. That's pretty core. What is growing in there now are tumors and a cyst, foreign matter. It is not time for purification. Right now I don't feel threatened by these foreign matters. In fact I am impressed by the stableness of their growth during the last nine months which to me speaks something of another strength/presence down there. No. I feel like it's time for some 'being with' my womb as the world of my Inmost Self.

Another way of saying who my 'inmost Self' is is my Beingness. Who I am meant to be. The energy/consciousness of the Goddess/Femaleness/Life force that is expressed uniquely through me. My womb houses this consciousness. Whew. And it's been nine months yesterday since Phoenix was killed...Nine months. A gestation time. So, I am sitting with that too. Wondering and trying to not be expectant of what will come with that spark of light just past the deepest place of darkness. What do I want to come in that spark...yes, that is a question. What I want to come is energy to enhance the expression of my Beingness. And what I want to come back is Phoenix. Both those things I want with fierce tears in my eyes.

I am not Artemis with an arrow now, full of intent and outward action, in this place. No. I was asked this weekend about the upcoming cycle on the Wheel, "What needs to be protected?" My answer now from this place here on the Wheel is: my inmost Self, my Beingness, my womb. How do I do that? It's like a dream right now...it's like the answer is just behind the veil...it's in my body...I just have to wait and make space for my body to tell me the rest. I remember so many times these last 9 months how I didn't know what was happening in me until my body told me...my mind had to just wait for the story to unfold through my body. So, that is how I will be with this.

Trusting. Creating a space. For my womb. For my Phoenix's bones. For the Mystery.
Love,
Melissa

Thursday, December 16, 2010

What's growing in my womb?

Dear WEb,
Six years ago today, to the date, I had abdominal surgery to remove my uterus because she thought there were multiple fibroids growing in there. When she opened me up, she saw one very large fibroid tumor attached to the main artery that fed my right ovary. Because I had emphatically told her before going in that I wanted to keep my uterus if at all possible, she honored that and just took the fibroid. She also removed my right ovary because the tumor was too close to the ovary and I was losing blood rapidly. I have been tremendously grateful to still have my monthly cycles for these six years!

Three years ago they checked my womb and they found a couple small fibroids growing again. We agreed I'd keep an eye on things. So, I put if off long enough and yesterday I went back for a transvaginal ultrasound to check on how things are 'down there'. Still the two small ones, one is even a bit smaller, and she found a small cyst on my left ovary. While it was an uncomfortable experience, I am grateful for the information. And I am just now beginning to reflect on what this means to me.

The giant fibroid removed six years ago meant something to me back then. I had danced with this thing for many years, holistically. Made meaning of it, tried various treatments and finally reached the point where I'd had enough carrying it around, supplying it with my life force. Plus, I believe it ballooned in size it's last three months of existence because it was an extremely difficult time in my life. Unexpectedly, a former partner had betrayed me and stolen things from me. I was an emotional wreck for several months before deciding it was time to have this abdominal surgery. So, this time in going back to my womb to see what was going on, I was quite nervous. These last six months my stress level has been at an all time high having again been unexpectedly betrayed in the worst way. Last week in anticipating yesterday's appointment, I broke down in fear that if I 'grew' a giant fibroid the last major stressful time in my life then no telling what they will find now!!!!
And I assured myself that I have been tremendously supported these last 9 months by myself and my so many others. Surely that will make a difference!

It has. Something has. And I am grateful. So grateful. And....then last night, I began to wonder: so now I know what is growing 'down there'/'in there'....what do I WANT to be growing in my womb? And I began to get scared. Yes, the fear arose fast. The fear of not knowing what I want to grow. The fear that because I don't know what to grow, these things will take over again. Or...if I do know what to grow and can't/fail somehow, then the space will be invaded again. Or...if I do know what to grow and do...what if they still take over?? When all of this was happening at work, I had to make myself breathe. I could feel a familiar anxiety attack coming on...one like would happen at work after Phoenix was shot. So, I breathed my way through. And tonight I am revisiting those very important questions from yesterday and from years ago after that surgery when a practitioner asked me that very question: What do you want to grow in your womb?

I don't know. Certainly not tumors or cysts. That's for sure. Then my dear K. sent me things to read about Winter Solstice and in the packet there were writings about the pause, the still point of Winter Solstice, when the growing darkness comes to an end, when fear can crop up with the unknown, when we face the longest night. Well, I'm on the Wheel this time. Right on time.

Blessed be. The end of the growing Dark. I can certainly welcome that this year!! And...winter is just beginning. There are still cold dark nights ahead. Time to be with/in my womb.

Love,
Melissa

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Mid-line

Dear WEb,

I am wondering about my mid-line...no, not my waist line...go vertical from there...yes, my mid-line up through the center of me. There have been some interesting related things that have happened over the last several weeks that I'd like to record officially 'on the WEb' here.

Several weeks ago, I went to my new chiropractor for an adjustment. My low back often flares up with spasm and I thought I'd go to be proactive about what was feeling like another flare up. I do not like chiropractic adjustments. They often freak me out. I tell my chiropractor that I am a crisis client--I only go when there is a crisis. The somatic experience of feeling someone's weight on me with the intent to move my bones is triggering to me. I feel like I am going to be crushed. It takes a lot of conscious energy to relax and trust her and what is happening. And above all, above ALL, I do not ever want my neck to be manually manipulated (aka my neck cracked). There is no amount of conscious energy that I can summon to relax myself for that. It's out of the question. So for years, my old chiropractor has used those woodpecker things to adjust my neck just fine.

I'd been going to this new chiropractor off and on for several months now. I felt like she knew me well enough to remember my strong aversion to the neck thing, so this most recent visit I didn't mention it when she began stretching my neck around. I felt a little anxiety come up and then I talked myself down reassuring myself that she knew/remembered and was just stretching my neck: Ok, I can let go into these stretches, relax, relax. Then...she did it. She forgot and did it. It was swift. And, there I went...big time into reaction. I flashed on a time sometime from long ago, another lifetime, someone broke my neck by twisting my head like that. It was gruesome. I thought I might pass out. I thought I might throw up. I did neither and left the office with as much composure as I could manage. Then the emotions came...tears flooded out...had no name...just flooded out of my eyes. There was a purity to the emotion and tears, but I didn't have a name for them. I thought about Phoenix...how I wished he was there for me through this. And..then I thought nothing..just sobbed.

Oh, another piece in this is I'd been feeling strong grief going into the appointment. I haven't told this chiropractor about Phoenix and wondered if there would be a time to do that or if I really wanted to get into emotional stuff with her. Anyway, I was wearing a sweatshirt that I got at the wolf-dog rescue place and on the back there is an image of a wolf's head. When she was adjusting my back, she place her hands on the middle of my back and told me to take a breath. Then she said the oddest thing, "I've got the spot right between the eyes here." At first, I didn't know what she meant and thought she was talking about just my shoulder blades since that is where she was. Then I realized she was talking about the image of the wolf's face. Right between the eyes...the reference to being shot made me shudder inside, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Then she moved onto my neck...

So, the next day, I noticed something odd. I had three pimples on my face down my midline--forehead (between my eyes), upper lip and chin. It wasn't odd in someways because I was getting ready to bleed and that often happens to may face. It was odd in their placement. The next day, I noticed a pimple on my upper chest, also near my midline. Wow. How strange. I wondered if something integrative was happening inside and this was a sign on the outside. And, I very much wondered what was unleashed/released after that adjustment. My head moved so much better for a few days but/and...and, I didn't feel right inside. I found myself on the floor several times that next week, sobbing. Right back where I had been so many times, but this time I was riveted to that image of the bones/skeletons which I've written about. It felt severe and scary. My will in this place was gone, as you recall from previous posts. And throughout, my back has been weak, hurting and in general I've not felt well at all.

Moving on through time, yesterday I was down in the crawl space getting some things and I stood up too soon, banging my head against a beam. The impact was so hard it knocked me down on my back. I don't think I lost consciousness, but I may have for a split second. It was a very hard hit and I fell like a felled tree going down. I had no control even though I struggled to keep myself upright. My legs are so sore today because of how hard I was trying to keep myself standing. I called Beetle over and she stood by me, my hand holding onto the scruff of her neck. I breathed and told myself I was ok. Then I got up and iced my head.

As I was talking to my partner about what happened, I said that I banged the crown of my head--the soft spot. She said, "No that's just with infants." Then she said something about that spot in babies has to be protected until both sides of the skull grow to meet in the middle. Oh, the middle. The mid-line. Of course.

I am not sure what all of these pieces mean, but I can say they are related. And intriguing. To top it off, when I was at the ocean on vacation about a month ago, my attention was riveted many times to the sight of two tide pools at low tide, particularly where one had water and the other was dry. As the tide moved in there was often a channel that formed between them, bringing the dry side water, through the midline, evening them out. That is what the photo above is. There's something there/happening for me. Integration? Whatever that really means.

Whatever it is, I trust the intelligence of it/me/Her. And I follow. Through the pain. With curiosity. At least that's how I feel right now, today.

Love,
Melissa

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving

Dear WEb,
Above all, I am grateful for my Phoenix and the life that was us.
Blessed be on this day of giving Thanks to Her.
Me

Monday, November 22, 2010

Solay

Dear WEb,
I haven't processed the experience in its entirety, and I still wanted to acknowledge some of it. Today, a sister, C, rattled and 'held vigil' for me as I lay on the earth near that photo of the skeletons, a photo of Phoenix and some 'bones' that I've been keeping on my altar to honor Phoenix. As I lay there and dropped into that deep place of inconsolable grief, at some point I noticed a small spider creating a web that connected all of those pieces--the bones and the pictures to the blanket I was laying on. It was truly amazing to watch unfold right there, inches from my heaving grief. No lie.

Afterwards, C. had to leave, she left her dog, Solay (sorry that is not the correct spelling, but phonetically it is correct) with me. Solay has always been a dear to me--large red lab looking dog. C. told me one time he is part Rhodesian Ridge back. After the deep time on the earth, I wasn't ready to leave and knew I wanted the kind of non-verbal deep connection only dogs provide. So, Solay stayed there with me, sat with his back to me, leaned into me and I wrapped my arms, legs and hands around him and cried some more letting my whole body feel Solay's solid presence--his fur, his muscles and fat--the life in Solay. I wept for the life of Phoenix--his fur, his muscles, his fat, the softness of his ears, the solidity and assurance of his presence there always in front of me, watching, guarding, blocking, protecting. I held onto Solay like my life depended on it. I prayed he wouldn't leave, that I wasn't too intense for him. Solay did not leave. He let me hold on. Solay let me hold on.

It was the closest I feel I've been to Phoenix's body since that night holding him or that dream I had when he raced around the corner and fell into my arms. Goddess smiled on me today. I am deeply grateful to both C. and to Solay.

More about it later.
I am Loved,
Me

Thursday, November 18, 2010

To The Bones


Dear WEb,

There is a skeletal (pun intended) Truth here in this photo, a Truth that captures all that I have been writing about these last 35 Fridays. We don't know the literal story behind this excavation from 12,000 years ago in Northern Israel. What we do know is that the human is a woman in her 50's and the animal is a young dog. Her left arm and hand are reaching to this young dog, touching what is left of the paws. Both skeletons are curled toward one another in fetal positions. They were found this way.

This Truth is about Devotion, Love, Loyalty and Refusal to be separated. I have been holding this picture on my altar to Phoenix. This Truth that is crystalized in this photo has brought me to the floor again these last couple of days. It reaches and speaks to me beneath any and all words, even the words I have already articulated these last 8 months. So I will not be saying anything further about this image....

Except...I have fallen into this deeply excavated ancient burial beside these two skeletons. I need them right now.

Love,
Me

Monday, November 15, 2010

Flashbacks

Dear Web,
Flashbacks are symptoms that affect people who are suffer from PTSD...it's caused by a certain part of the brain that doesn't register linear time. These flashes take us back to moments of the most poignant trauma and register in our bodies as if it is literally happening in present time. There are several flashback scenes that happen for me, but the one that haunts me most recently is that irreversible moment I wasn't even physically present for--the moment Phoenix was shot.

I believe I know what that moment was, even though I wasn't home at the time. How I know came from a vision I had later that night as I lay beside Phoenix petting him, singing to him, sobbing, keening. At one point I drifted off into a stupor that might have been a moment of sleep. I woke with a start because I literally heard D.'s wife scream: "SHOOT HIM!!" followed by the gunshot that killed Phoenix. My heart was pounding and I was so scared and sure that this was what happened. I felt like that dream/vision was a gift from Spirit so I would know.

These last several days I have been assaulted by that scene, that flashback. It's not like I cannot still function while it's happening, but it derails me for those seconds and it's like I cannot quite dodge the flood of what I am seeing/hearing. I try to focus on other things, the trees around me, something to redirect the flood. I pray for help to not be held captive by that moment. And I have to admit that as painful as that moment is to experience and I am grateful when it passes, it's the one point of sanity, of Truth of why everything feels so wrong and unfamiliar in my life. It's the sobering slap that undeniably says: Phoenix is gone.

Today I had to go to the branch of my bank on the side of town where I used to live. As I drove there, I could feel the urgent longing for the time I lived there...because, you see, then Phoenix would be alive. In fact, this time last year, November 15th, there I was...there we were...in that home. See, I tell myself, all I have to do is drive this familiar way home and all will be well. I wanted it so bad...I had that Desire for it, at any price, I heard myself negotiate! I will give up everything that is good since then, EVERYTHING!!! just to go back and see Phoenix there alive. Can't I just drive home to find him in his yard. We could play with Mr. Quackers (his favorite toy), maybe take a walk. AND.... Maybe there is something I can do on this day that would alter the course of the future events. Maybe I could do or say to these people....something that would erase the growing hate that ultimately yelled, "Shoot him!" and then pulled the trigger!

Hate...there is a Holocaust survivor, actually the oldest one in the world, who spoke about hate. If anyone deserves to hate, she and all the others like her do, not to mention every woman who has ever been violated in anyway. And this particular woman/survivor, her name is Alice, she says she doesn't hate the Nazi's. She says hate eats away at one's own soul. She lived through Nazi hate and saw not only what it did to millions of Jews, but what it did to the Nazi's themselves--to their humanity, their souls.

I am not Alice, nor do I forgive like she has. Sometimes I wonder how these people who killed Phoenix live with themselves. How they might be haunted by their hate that destroyed a precious life. How their own lives will forever reflect that somehow back to them. How maybe in the night they may waken to the sound of those two words and one single irreversible gunshot.

Lastly, I've been listening to James Taylor's Greatest Hits and have been taking his advice literally when he sings about having a friend, winter, spring, summer or fall...and all I have to do is call. I hear my own voice call, "Phoenix, I miss you. Phoenix, come . Phoenix!"

Phoenix!
Melissa

Monday, October 25, 2010

Just a Monday

Dear WEb,
It is just a Monday...and I have felt so sad again. Again I am struck by moment after moment of disbelief that Phoenix is gone, that something this terrible has truly happened. In the shower, my sobbing almost took me to my knees. If I'd given into the collapse, I may not have gotten up to ready for work. We've past the 6 month mark and have moved into the next half of the Wheel turning for this first cycle since Phoenix was shot. I can hardly still believe it. And it slips farther and farther away from the present day and I keep reaching, reaching for Phoenix.

The holy day that is coming up is Samhain. This is the day those who have come before us are honored. It is a day of grieving the losses of the year. I have spent 6 months in this energy of Samhain and still I feel there is more grief, the same grief, deeper or not. Grief.

Allison Kraus sings a song that I played over and over and over this morning. The lyrics that still ring in my mind are: "The smile on your face let's me know that you need me. There's a truth in your eyes saying that you'll never leave me. The touch of your hand (paw) says you'll catch me if ever I fall..."

I am falling, Phoenix. Again.
Melissa

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Beetle and Mommy


Dear WEb,
If you look closely in the top left corner of the large photo of Phoenix that is beneath the title of this WEb Log, you will meet Beetle. She will be 10 years old on December 7th also known widely as Pearl Harbor Day. Beetle is fierce in her sometimes aggressive behavior towards other dogs, though she is getting better as she ages. She has been struggling for four years now with digestive absorption issues, so she is thinner than most dogs and stronger, actually. Being part Plott Hound (the state dog of NC who was bred to hunt bear) and Lab, she has intensity that is unmatched by many dogs I've known. She takes most everything very seriously!! Between the two of them, Phoenix most definitely had the sense of humor!

The other day in the car, Beetle spoke to me. I know, I know, there are those of you who think that is crazy projection. It might be. And...sometimes it just feels so real. Here's what she said quite matter of factly, "Mommy, do you wish it was me instead?" I knew immediately what she meant--do I wish she was killed instead of Phoenix? I immediately responded with what I thought she or any surviving sibling what want to hear, "No! Of course not..." As I began to babble on, I stopped myself--or maybe she stopped me, in my tracks. Tears welled in my eyes and I spoke the truth to this brave girl: "Phoenix was my Guardian. You and I have a different relationship. So, yes, I wonder why it wasn't you. But we never have a choice about these things." Bravely, she continued: "I can be your Guardian." And bravely I continued, "We are getting to know one another again. Let's see who we are."

Whew! I am so touched by the direct honesty of that exchange.

Since we have moved and Beetle has settled more into her place as "only dog," she and I have had some interactions that are new. We've sat together by the pond, laid in the grass together in the warm sunshine and walked our daily rounds. I've noticed how our calmness can feed one another--when I hear her sigh, I find my own breath deepening and vice versa. We have established routines in our morning walks that make me smile. She has grown to respond with eye contact when I say, "Look at Mommy." This is very important when I notice she's beginning to tense up around another dog or some uncomfortable situation. And, just tonight, I met a sweet Being in her as I planted bulbs on Phoenix grave site.

I sat at the site for a while. Beetle stayed in her fenced in area, even though she could have been free. I cried and talked to Phoenix for a while and Beetle watched. When it was time to begin, Beetle followed me to the shed to get my tools for raking and clearing the old growth. She happily followed me back and sniffed around the area. After I raked and cleared, she found some chestnuts and began to snack. I laughed at her and she wagged her tail, delighted that she was making me laugh. As I dug each of those 50 3"-4" deep holes, she began to get interested in the smells coming up from them. I wonder if she was smelling Phoenix and I envied her ability to be so close to him that way. She was very curious for a while and then...then she settled and laid down, just outside the rocks that marked the border of the grave. And she watched. She watched me place a bulb in each hole. She watched as I planted 50 promises and prayers for Phoenix. Beetle watched. Calmly. With intent.
When I finished, she followed me inside. Our work was done. For Phoenix. And for one another.

What is unusual is not once did Beetle wander off, which she is prone to do with such a strong nose. And, she did not pester me to throw something so she could fetch it. She was WITH me each step of the way. A companion. And I honor her as such. Relating is not easy for her. She doesn't really like to hug, definitely doesn't like to snuggle--it's not in her genes as a hound. I recognize that now. So, when there are moments of intimacy like this experience in the garden, Phoenix's garden, they are worthy of respect.

Thank you, dear Beetle, for surviving with me.
I do love you.
Mommy

Monday, October 11, 2010

Remembering and Loosening


Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
I wish I could write the entirety of what's happening inside me recently. Somehow words just don't seem efficient. Images...not even really there either. It's a felt sense inside me. A felt sense of something loosening. Let me try to language some approximation....

I walked the labyrinth the other day and connected with the season that has passed/is passing, the season of walking that same labyrinth seemingly everyday these last six months. I could feel the essence of that same walk underneath my feet and around me as I walked this time through the leaves that have dropped and beneath the sunlight that comes from lower in the sky. I could 'hear' the echoing tears of such deep despair of a woman who was/is me: a wandering, grieving me following the only path I could in front of me, guided by these stones, round and round, in and out and back in, winding me outside logic. I remembered a large white dog come to meet me in the winding path and walk beside me for a while, a companion. I remembered to touch the rock who calls me everytime I pass her, a large heart shaped rock that both of my hands fit comfortably on. My hands always smile at the warmth she's stored and shares. I have become this labyrinth and She, me. We have wound ourselves around one another these last six months. She calls to me, I call to Her. This loosens my heart.

I look at photos of Phoenix and I also feel a loosening...it's a sense of living on...not leaving behind or forgetting...but living on in Memory of. Because I have been so vigilant with this walk these last six months, I don't feel like I am leaving Phoenix behind or forgetting. We've walked this path every step of the way together. I have fought for these last six months to be exactly that way. And now...I am still together with Phoenix (he's let me know he's still here, just last night--two times when I called) and...the loosening has to do with maybe...something like acceptance? Not necessarily acceptance that Phoenix is no longer in the physical...that is still very tender...and it's not acceptance that everything is hunky dorry now, you know the 'it's all good' toxic brainwash that infuses every outrageous event. No, the acceptance is something like...accepting that I am still alive with a life to live. A sister sat across from me some time ago and spoke about 'letting go of the life I would have had'. She was speaking about a tremendous loss she survived. The phrase zinged me like an arrow because it cut to the heart of where I definitely was NOT and thought I'd never be. Maybe now, though, that is some of what I am experiencing as a loosening.

I still cry like I did six months ago, wailing at the incomprehension of it all, of the violence, of everything that was taken. I still am not sure what to do with my anger towards the injustice. I still pray for Justice and wonder if I am a coward for not taking it somehow into my own hands. I still go back to that night on the bench, Phoenix in my lap, the wolves howling at my back and me, changed forever through time, forwards and backwards...knowing I will never be the same. And, you know, all of that going back and staying true to everything about it in it's entirety, keeps me from forgetting.

Amnesia is a double edged sword...it can numb one from excruciating pain so that she can go on...and it can also be a fog that masks Reality, the ability to remember what is True. Here's a perfect recent example. My parents came to visit us in our new home recently. While they were here I invited my mother to walk the labyrinth with me. As we walked, she behind me, I could feel my mom's ordinary, unimpressed energy toward this extraordinary place. I felt myself go there too, telling myself this really isn't that big of a deal, this labyrinth. It's just stones placed in a pattern leading you nowhere special. I couldn't feel anything special at all about walking this thing. Then on the way out, I noticed that heart rock who made me smile and remembered a gesture I would do each time. I didn't do it then, with my mom, but I remembered it and felt more connected to my deep experience with this labyrinth. My point is that amnesia started to insidiously creep in. I started to forget and couldn't access what I Knew and have Known these last 6 months. When I look at Phoenix photos, I feel that slight fog sometimes--like a veil between the photo and I--like I am looking at someone who is just an image. It takes devotion not to let that happen. And I think allowing myself all of my feelings, as intense as some of them still are, is an important part of this devotion of Remembering. With the devotion, I remember who I am now...in this Present moment, with all of the Life and Death behind me and beside me. This Remembering is important/vital to me. When I begin to forget...I begin to numb out...or maybe it's the other way around. At any rate, all of this Remembering plays into this loosening I am experiencing now. Blessed be!

Finally, C. a dear sister came over a week or so ago and we raked the chestnut seed pods from the paths of the labyrinth--they are so spiky and not friendly to my feet. It felt like a dear thing to do for Her too. It was something I wanted to give back to Her, this labyrinth. Twas the least I could do.

Gently loosened,
Melissa

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Stay.

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,

Today is my day off. I have done most of my 'day off duties' (ie housekeeping and cooking and such) and I look ahead at the "so- much-ahead of me" in this next month beginning with this weekend into next week and the following long weekend. I am at a pause place right now, taking stock...or not. Actually, just pausing before the storm...or whatever this flurry of movement ahead is in the next month or so. There is nothing I will be doing that I don't want to be doing...it's not busy-ness I will be involved in. All will be things/doings that are heart-centered. And...there is much. And now, for now, I am pausing, turning towards you, my dear Beloved Phoenix.

I miss you. Still. Always. Forever. I am being with how life is without you, how a relationship with Beetle is without you, who she is without you, how a relationship is with Myrrh without you, who Myrrh is without you, who I am without you and who/what my partnership is with J. without you. Sometimes I am delighted at what/who I find, sometimes, terribly disappointed and sometimes just neutral, unimpressed, gray. And the most challenging thing of it all is compassion for myself, for the other and for the situation as a whole. Shame likes to creep in and put a body cast on me, making me feel trapped, fixed, without choice and freedom. I slip into ways of being that are not honoring of any Truth, they are ways of fear, shame, and guilt. I forget who I've known myself to be in my Integrity and I become obsessed with two things: hiding and pleasing. It often is such a familiar disconnect that I hardly recognize it anymore until I suddenly begin feeling checked out, depressed, depleted, dull and uninspired. I have found myself here this week again after such a big opening last weekend where I felt a prolonged sense of happiness in the Living. Dark and Light...moving through the shadows....of the labyrinth.

Meanwhile I am seeing myself in all of my complexities, all of my depth and all of my breadth and trying to hold all of it, all of me in tender arms and hands, cradled, with gentle eye contact and humming or rocking. Like I would and have held you, dear Phoenix, through those nights of loud thunder and bright lightening...trying to calm and reassure you that no matter what, I will not leave! And I recall too that sometimes on those nights, it was important for me to be firm with you and tell you to lay down in your bed. It was almost like sometimes you got so freaked out by the sound and light, you forgot where to go, what to do, where to seek some ground again. And when you did come to your bed, I sometimes would have to just firmly hold you there, saying nothing but "Stay" feeling your whole body tremble with each next clap or flash. I must be like that for myself now too: reminding myself to go to my bed, to my room or outside by the pond, or to walk the labyrinth, or write to you, my Love, here on the WEb, telling myself "Stay" firmly and with assurance that this will change, my body will settle.

I love you, Phoenix. I am here "Staying" with myself without you.
Thank you for "Staying" with me in the ways that you do, both that I recognize and that I don't/cannot.

Melissa

Friday, September 10, 2010

The 25th Friday


Dear Phoenix on the WEb,

I am home tonight early from work so I am here at the time you were shot 25 Fridays ago. I look at your photo on my dresser/altar and what I remember in my body is what I have come to name "The Life that was you and I." The relationship: the eye contact, the inadvertent leaning against, the reaching down and feeling your ear in my hand when our we walk side by side, the feeling of you racing around the corner when I call you and your weight into my arms and against my legs as I lean down to greet you, the leaping of all four of your paws in the air when I arrive home, the love beamed back and forth, back and forth between us, no matter what.

Someone at work this week was recalling the time her father dropped dead right in front of her. They tried to revive him at the hospital and while she waited, she prayed to Jesus for one of two things to happen: first, she prayed that he would be healed, and if not that, she prayed for the strength to bear it. When she told me, I wanted to just weep right along with her. Her father died twenty years ago and she said that she still feels broken by it. I cannot believe how we go on on with such seemingly normal lives after this kind of loss. How do we do it?????? How do we have the strength to bear??? And this from women who live in a relatively peaceful, very privileged life? I can only imagine how it is for women in places and situations far less privileged than mine where the violence persists day after day. HOW DO WE DO IT? HOW HAVE WE DONE IT OVER MILLENNIA??It's astounding. I don't understand it really.

So, here I am 25 Fridays later, changed in ways that are noticeable and changed in ways inside that no one will ever really understand, including myself. And Phoenix...your body is gone, forever. Buried in my back yard, probably decomposed beyond recognition now. Your Spirit...well, it's somewhere...occasionally makes appearances through particular songs, periodic dreams, a sense of you sleeping in my room (or is that just really strong wishing?), synchronistic sitings of deer, heron and fox, and through this palatable Love I call "The Life that was You and I." I don't know much about death, really. I know something more about life because of death. Maybe that's all we will ever really know until we go ourselves.

Living the Life that is me forever missing my beloved Phoenix,
Melissa

Friday, September 3, 2010

Both And

Dear Web and Phoenix on the Web,

I have passed through the threshold again...the one that says I must choose to live or cease to thrive. This time I reached a place of deeper recognition of myself: Because of my Beingness, I choose to Live. To extinguish my life is not my Will. Not because someone says 'it's wrong' or 'bad' or 'selfish' or whatever the doctrine is. I choose to Live not because I am expected to or because it's 'the right' thing or the 'good' thing or the 'selfless' thing. It is my Will as the Beingness that I am.

After that...I cannot say anything else for sure right now. Phoenix has remained elusive in my dreams. There have been few signs of his presence. I am worried about our connection. I do not know what 'to do' about it. I've begged, asked, prayed for something...some way of knowing we are still together. It's not the same sense of absence like in the beginning of things. It's more a sense of his silence and/or withdraw. And I wonder if this is him helping me shift my focus to Life.

And I say to you, Phoenix, if that is why you are withdrawn: "My beloved, thank you for your Love, for wanting to help me along. Can we do this together? That is, why wouldn't it be possible to have focus on Life and on us? I cannot let go of you, of our connection, ever. And I cannot fully let go into Life without our mutual exchange with one another. I need that. I want that."

I will never let you go. And I Will to live.
Melissa

Thursday, August 19, 2010

At the Crossroads

Dear Web,

I am
I am a nest
I am a nest of dried herbs, rose petals and the shell of single monarch butterfly in a cauldron.

I am.
I am a match on fire.
I am a match on fire igniting the nest.

I am.
I am smoke.
I am smoke rising.
I am smoke rising and drifting through the air currents.

I am.
I am a Priestess.
I am a Priestess Doula with a snake shaped athame.
I am a Priestess Doula with a snake shaped athame casting a circle around the burning cauldron,
fiercely on guard and speaking the truth: "The Fire has begun."

I am.
I am smoldering, my body heaving and curling
through the heat.
I hear the chants that
I cannot turn back.
I heed them
and
I also know
I can halt
this birth.
With my will to die.

I must know this place of will,
I tell the scared voices.
I must know I have weighed my options
so as not to be another unconscious living
dead.
I must know my own Will here
at the crossroads,
the most honest place I know right now.

I am.
I am here without Phoenix.
I am here without Phoenix and
this may be as far as I want to go without
my Beloved.

The Priestess Doula firmly reminds me to consider,
"If you do not want to go any further,
the new life will die with you."

I am.
I am sitting.
I am sitting at the crossroads with a burning cauldron,
knowing all life must pass through this threshold.

Love,
Melissa

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Where are YOU?

Dear Phoenix on the Web,
WHERE ARE YOU?
I haven't had a sense of you for a while. No dreams. No WuWu moments when I know you are there. Your photos feel farther and farther away from me...that is...a sensory memory is harder to access through them! I hate this. Where are you, Phoenix?

I feel like I am in between, not here nor there. Not in the past, nor the present. Relationships feel mostly blah. I have moments sometimes of feeling ok in this place. But I cannot feel you here. I don't understand. Have you left me? Are you trying to teach me something? I need to keep a sense of you, Phoenix. I don't want 'to go on' without you. It's no kind of life for me.

Please, give me something.
Love,
Melissa

Saturday, August 7, 2010

The 20th Friday

Dear WEb,

Last night was the 20th Friday since Phoenix was brutally shot and killed. I have been distraught about this. How can it be 5 months that I have lived beyond that experience!!? I am one month away from being directly 'across the Wheel' from March 19th! In now looking across the Wheel, I see myself one month before he is shot. We are together. Phoenix is alive. We are alive together. I am alive in a way I may never be again. The whole thing makes me weak with sobbing and despair.

So, this morning as I hand form turkey patties to bake for Beetle, I sobbed great big tears of despair. I wondered if I have already lived the best part of my life and now it's pretty much over, or at least the joyous part. I'm in the cross-current of Life insisting on going on (The Wheel does keep turning!) and the intense currents of my overwhelming grief that is screaming STOP this turning--I cannot go on! This living is unlivable without Phoenix! It's empty and it's profoundly alone, no matter how many are loving me fiercely through.

And, yet, I pick up another turkey patty and form it, place it on the pan until I have 12, then into the oven. I wait 18 minutes until the timer goes off, then I retrieve them from the oven. I look out the window and see my lawn being mowed. I see a slight breeze through the green. How can this be? How can this be? Growth, Wheel turning AND profound desolation that only seems to deepen, not lessen.

I have been listening again to Rosanne Cash this morning. She has an album called "The Wheel" and a song about rising from the ashes("I'm gonna rise from the ashes...") that played during my deep sobbing and cooking for Beetle. How absurd, I think, this notion of rising from these ashes of desolation that I feel. I have risen many times from others, but this one...this one is different. I do not think I will ever recover. Yes, I do remember all I've written over the last many months in this WEb log...the hope and the despair. And...I do not think I will recover in spite of the more hopeful places I have been. I am that sure today. And still, as Rosanne Cash sang those words of being a Phoenix rising from the ashes, I let myself be slightly, ever so slightly, open to the radical possibility that somewhere across the Wheel I might look across at some point and glance at myself rising, somehow. The notion is quite absurd. And...

And, I go on somehow to the next thing to do or see or experience. Without Phoenix. And I fall into more tears, more sobbing, more despair. Remember, this is still walking the labyrinth, I hear myself.

Ok, dear one who keeps going on The Wheel,
Melissa

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Dream Response


Dear Phoenix on the Web,

Thank you for your exquisite response in my dreams: I face a beautiful scene of green trees, grasses and some wild flowers, all framed by an archway. Through the archway you appear: you are floating and your fur is an incredible design of mosses. As you float, you shed pieces of your moss coat and I effortlessly catch them in a white teacup I am holding. Then I see you (or is it us?) down on the earth in a play bow position. There are two of you (twins) face to face, you recognize yourselves/one another and begin to gently nuzzle and paw one another. Then you begin to play together. Exquisite.

When I began to surface out of the dream, I had a sense of awe, like someone had just gifted me something sacred. Like you, Phoenix, created a deeply beautiful altar just for me.

I love you. Thank you for your deep and abiding love of me.
Melissa

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Wildly Lost

Dear Phoenix on the Web,

I am wildly lost today. These are the words that come with the sobbing on my drive home from work. Wildly lost. Living is biding time until....I don't know when. There is nothing I can imagine from this place that will soothe this pain, this desperate and frantic sense of being wildly lost in a way no one can understand and/or more importantly...no one can fix.

I begged you last night for another dream where you come to me, where I can experience you again. Where are you? How will I ever make it through?

I am wildly lost without you in my life and living.

Love,
Melissa

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Going back again...


Dear Web,

Repair calls for going back. Not just once, or twice....multiple times. Ask any spider. She knows what's required in repairing her web. She'd say it's not just about moving forward across the web, it's about moving in all different directions, crisscrossing one strand or another made yesterday or last week. That means...going back.

So, today a sister and I went back to my old house. My intent was two-fold: I wanted my eyes to see that I do not live there anymore and I wanted to collect any remnants of me who might be still lingering there, waiting for me to come back. On the drive there, I prayed there would be no one around, particularly D., the murderer. As it turns out, all cars were at all the neighbors' houses, including his. And...I saw him 4 times. 4 times as he walked in front of the car several times. I like to think he was nervous by our presence. Anyway, enough of him. He's so not worth the print on this page or the energy to type it.

What is more noteworthy is how the land looked so much in disarray! The grass was overgrown, the weeds had totally taken over the sunflower garden, and the new owner had cleared a bunch of land beside the house and piled it in the yard, so there were tree limbs, an uprooted tree, knarled branches etc. The place felt dead, spiritually. He'd poured a concrete slab beside the house and placed a camper there where he must be living, so the house literally didn't feel lived in. We didn't get out or walk about because of the lurking D.. I was not prepared for a confrontation; it was not my intent, tho my sister, C., had my back if it came to it, she said! (thank you, C.!!! I couldn't have gone there without you!)

We did drive down the driveway before leaving and looked closer at the house and the land closer in. Uncared for. He has forsaken this land. I feel tremendous sadness about that. We loved that land. Our hearts were there. And this guy, this new owner, has totally forsaken Her. And...you know...how appropo. The house had the feeling of an abandoned house that you might come across and immediately have a sense of 'ooooh, what happened here??'. Something horrible happened here, after years of wonderful happened here. The weeds are totally in consumption mode. And...there's something very natural and right about that, actually. If I can get past the sadness.

So, after we left I felt mostly disconnected from myself. Later in processing the experience I wore myself out crying, sobbing from down deep again. That is ok and a totally natural response. And...you know...there was a moment when I got on the highway and headed east towards our new house where I felt relief and comfort that THIS is where I live now and that Phoenix visits me in my dreams HERE.

That place is no longer my home or where my heart is. She is in Her own state of reclaiming. I send my gratitude for all those years of being held by Her. I did not forsake her. We enriched Her and She, us. May She hold those years of Love deep down and drink from it, when thirsty.

Blessed be,
Melissa

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A Dream for my Arms

Good morning, dear Web,

Last night I had a dream: I hear Beetle barking outside. I go to the door and call for her to come in. Around the corner races Phoenix! He leaps up onto the deck and there at the doorway he comes right into my arms! I can hardly believe it and pray that it will last more than just a moment. I am aware this is a dream, but real, so I pay attention to all the sensations of Phoenix in my arms again.

My arms still recall everything this morning.

Blessed be Phoenix in my arms. Thank you Beetle for getting me to the doorway.

Love,
Melissa

Monday, July 26, 2010

Just writing to see what comes...

Dear Web,

It's been many days since I've last written. I am writing now because I want to feel close to Phoenix. I miss him everyday whether it registers as tears or not. I miss his sweetness. I miss his jolly sense of humor. I miss his attention. I miss giving him my attention. I miss the way our bodies seemed to just enjoy being around one another. It seems that no matter what else I may be experiencing, it's all held in a container of grief. I may be feeling inspired, happy, laughing, angry, disappointed, self-judging and every time, just below the surface, is the grief, is the reminder that I am without Phoenix for companionship, for comfort, for understanding, for just not feeling so alone on the planet in the unique way only Phoenix provided.

This weekend we went to a sanctuary for wolves and wolf-dog hybrids. They are only open to the public for tours periodically, usually on full moons. So, we went to check it out. Phoenix did not look like these beings there, though there were some mannerisms that I saw that touched me. They made my heart ache and something else more deeply stir. It was a familiar wildness in the way two of them brushed against one another or placed their head on the other's back, for examples. They were quick gestures, but had a timeless recognition to me. I had my sunglasses on so there was no one to see my tears of longing.

How then does one live after the loss of this kind of companion, this kind of wild relationship with another? There was one wolf who was in a pen inside a pen because she had such a compromised immune system that exposure to the others could be deadly. The tour guide told us her story: when she came in she had terrible mange and was very ill. The vet told the owner of this sanctuary that this animal should be dead, but is holding on. M., the owner, took her to her home (a few miles away) to keep her in isolation and treated her everyday to try to nurse her back to some strength. Every day this sick wolf would howl and the other wolves who were at the sanctuary would howl back. In spite of everything M. did this wolf would not respond and she got closer to death. Finally they called an animal communicator and the message was simple: "If I cannot be with my people, give me the blue needle and let me go." So, they moved her to the sanctuary to be near the others into this pen inside a pen, and she has improved ever since.

Maybe that is how one lives...near one's people, best we can, even if it's a pen inside a pen. My grief certainly keeps me feeling I am in a pen of sorts, a container. I choose to be in this container because I want to be truest to myself. People have intimated to me that I can CHOOSE to be free of my grief-- I just have to want to choose to be free. And that's probably true. Feeling is almost always a choice. And it's a choice I always move towards. To not feel my grief would certainly make things easier for others, particularly if they have little tolerance for their own grief. I am learning though that I can be in my grief and in many other things too. And to forsake my grief is to forsake my love.

So, here I am...in my container of grief, surrounded by a larger container of Love. Perhaps, this is Phoenix's greatest legacy to me.
Blessed be you, my dear Phoenix.
Melissa

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Waking up

Dear Web,

Last night I had a dream that Phoenix was at the Vet's office waiting for me to pick him up. That's where he's been all this time. I'd just forgotten.

Of course, I woke up and sadly remembered he is gone and why/how. But this notion of 'waking up' has been strange.

Over the last months I have been having strange experiences of something in the house getting my attention and I feel I am waking up from something. I have an odd momentary sense of myself, "Where am I? How did I get here?...It's lovely. The pond, the light that comes in the windows. The roses.... But how did I get here?" It's like I am waking up from something. And sometimes in the morning as I am literally waking up, I wonder similarly, "Why do I keep waking up in this place? Where is my old room?" It's all very subtle and quick. Like if I wasn't paying attention, I'd miss that sense of 'where am I?" and "how did I get here?"

Another one of my tenderhearted memories with Phoenix is waking up. Very, very rarely did I wake up in the morning before him and get to watch him wake up. He almost always beat me to the first look! Even if I didn't stir, he'd sense me waking up. I don't know if he would hear my breathing shift or what, but almost always when my eyes would open, his would be looking so lovingly at me from his curled up nest. And of course each night I enjoyed just watching him let go into sleep. He was such a peaceful sleeper. Perhaps he thought the same of me and that's why he like to be the first one to greet my eyes and heart each morning.

So, this notion of waking up has my attention today, particularly because of this morning's dream where I was dreaming that I just hadn't 'woken up' to the fact Phoenix was simply at the vet waiting for me to come get him. Am I in a dream, a really bad dream, right now living without him that part of me is struggling to wake up and find my beloved companion in such an obvious misplaced place? Or is it because this new home feels so idyllic and dreamy sometimes that I am confused by being in such a place without my beloved Phoenix? Or are those parts of me, those tender deeply terrified parts of me, who are still in shock slowly waking up to what has happened and who hasn't survived?

There are philosophers/writers who have written about the notion that there is someone else who is dreaming us to life and when that someone wakes up, our lives are over. I don't know about that, though it is an intriguing notion for someone like me who dreams vividly. I also recall Demi Moore who starred in a movie called "Passion of Mind" where she played a character who dreams of herself waking up into another lifetime each time she goes to sleep. She is terribly troubled because she is not sure which lifetime is 'real'. In those quick and subtle moments during the day when, say for example, the top of a doorway catches my attention, I share that momentary trouble of disorientation. But every time, I wish for only one thing: Phoenix to gallop into my arms. If that happened, it wouldn't matter where I was, I'd be wide awake at Home.

Love,
Melissa

Monday, July 5, 2010

Heron again

Dear Web,

Almost every night over the last month or so, after I get home from work, Beetle and I 'do our rounds'. I let her loose from her fenced in yard and we go down to the pond to check the water flow. Then we check some other things, make our way back around the pond from the creek and back up the other side of the house to her yard again. We both really like this and so far Beetle hasn't seen or chased any wild animals (ie the bears who have been visiting recently).

Tonight though, Beetle stirred up a heron who was down in the creek! Her awkward squawk and huge body jumped up into the air and she flapped a few strokes only to land a bit away. I called Beetle immediately not wanting her to pursue this exquisite prehistoric looking bird. And strangely enough, Beetle came to me. Usually when Beetle goes into her chasing mode, she's hard to break out of her trance. But she came right to me this time. I was stunned both to find this incredible creature so close and because Beetle seemed to just stir her up so I could see her, nothing else.

Herons have been long associated with the legendary Phoenix in some cultures.

In Love,
Melissa

Friday, July 2, 2010

July 2nd

Dear Web,
I have to write this whole story today. This is so exquisitely private and intimate and vulnerable. There are eyes who may read it and not understand, so not understand. And it's a story that needs to be told because it's true and real and powerful. You will understand it all when I am through. The pieces, they are many.

It is July 2nd....this is important. Bear with me.

On June 28th, I reported the following about a dream: "Phoenix appeared first time in full body. He looked like the photo I have worked with...In the dream, he looked like this photo, intact. He was on the deck of this house. I wonder if it means he's telling me he's here! And is together....The other dream was interesting too....(at one point) there above our heads came sparkling lights. At first I start to run then stop. She (teacher in the dream) says, 'What? Can't you appreciate the responsiveness from the other side?!'...I wonder if the two are related. If they are a response to my despair last night."

That's Monday I woke up with that dream. Then the next few days I was in a strange state of disbelief and unsettledness. Hadn't told anyone anything. Then Thursday, a sister tells me that she saw a truck called Phoenix Transportation and wondered if that was related to Phoenix from the other side. Nothing clicked for me since I was in a daze really. Then later that same morning, three herons showed up at the pond--two teaching a young one to fly. Later that same day, I see a deer on a walk. (This I believe is in yesterday's entry, yes). Ok...

So, last night I am settling down to go to sleep, turn the light off and Beetle doesn't settle which is very unusual. Finally, she lays down beside my bed, nearest to me while her bed is on the other side of the room. This is extremely weird. The floor is hard, she likes comfort. But, I go to sleep anyway.

In the middle of the night, I hear Beetle moving around over by the bathroom door. Again, very unusual behavior. She's not asking to go out. Just moving around. This door is beside the altar I've set up for Phoenix and my mind begins to wonder if he's got her trying to get my attention, tell me something. I look at the time--it's just after midnight. It's just become July 2nd. (this does not dawn on me yet) Waking up at midnight is unusual for me, so I take note. I figure maybe Phoenix is getting Beetle to tell me it's time to put the pieces of this photo back together which I had cut up in honor of the information I got from S., the Shaman, about his fragmentation.

This morning, I get up and spend some quiet focussed time piecing the whole photo back together. Still in a daze, really, but sensing something big is happening with all the pieces. I walk the labyrinth in honor of the wholeness of this photo and this thing that seems to be happening, but still I cannot fully 'see' it or trust it. You know what I mean?

At work, I do my usual things. And as I am leaving for the night, a coworker wishes me a good July 4th. In my head I begin thinking of what I may do that day and what it means to me. And how really, it's just a day, like any other. I mean, like, today is July 2nd. What's so special.....about........this......day......

AND THEN I SEE!!! TODAY PHOENIX IS 11 YEARS OLD. IT'S HIS BIRTHDAY. HE CAME BACK TO ME ON HIS BIRTHDAY. AND IT'S FRIDAY.

You see, Friday is the day of the week he was murdered. Every Friday since then has been a memorial of anxiety, sadness and grief. Several months ago, my dear sister, C. said to me, maybe one day Phoenix will give you back Fridays. I sobbed then, unable to imagine the possibility that it could be anything other than deep heart sorrow. And here it is. A Friday. His Birthday. Our beginning, again. This is something hugely different.

Thank you, Spirit. Thank you Phoenix. I love you, deeply.

It's July 2nd. What a gift I've been given again on this day.
Love,
Melissa

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Fearless Love

Dear Web,

I've been quiet for some time, not because I lacked anything to write. I've felt quiet, private, with some of my experiences. And then, I've also felt some disconnection from myself and Phoenix. Moving in and out of both of those things and many others, of course. Right now I'm feeling more connected with myself and wanted to write something from this place.

There have been things that have happened where I feel Phoenix's side of the conversation between us--his communication of his presence here in this new home through an explicit dream and his communication of sending me a deer siting just today. Phoenix had a deer quality to him--when he'd sleep he'd fold up his long legs and curl up like a fawn sometimes. He was a real mixture of energy--deer, wolf, dog, coyote, seahorse...yes, other times he'd sleep in a position that looked like a little seahorse! T'was soooo sweet. I so miss his sweetness. Have cried much today about missing his steadfast sweetness.

I've recently discovered Melissa Etheridge's new album called Fearless Love. She sings, "I need a Fearless Love. No need to fear the end..." And I've been listening to her sing that song a lot recently. I turn it way up in the car and scream along with her. She has been through her own labyrinth's of fear, the unknown, facing death through cancer etc. I respect her greatly. She and Ellen were very important to my courage to 'come out'. And I've been thinking a lot about courage recently as I continue to navigate my way through this labyrinth with Phoenix and also continue to mourn what's happening in the Gulf to the creatures and the water. I think that losing Phoenix to malicious murder is about the worst thing that could happen to me, to my heart and soul. I cannot imagine anything worse, actually. This has challenged me the most about choosing to stay on the planet, more than anything else I've encountered. Melissa sings, "I am what I am, I am what I am afraid of....WHAT AM I AFRAID OF!?" I ask myself that question several times a day when I feel myself cower in the face of someone, something, some situation...you name it....and I am reminded....WHAT I AM AFRAID OF HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.....and I am still Here.

And the cowering lessens. What am I afraid of?
Truly....deeply....nothing. anymore.

Striving for acts of fearless love,
Melissa

Thank you, Melissa Etheridge for your courage again!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

As Within, So Without...As Above, So Below

Dear Web,
Just wanted to add an addendum to yesterday's long letter regarding this 'catching up with The Wheel.'

I really don't know how any of this "works" actually. And, I am wondering about the interaction between my process and Phoenix's process. I am inclined to believe that my process and his process of piecing ourselves back together is linked. I mean if we are on The Web, then any flutter of change for either one of us is felt through the threads. Does it mean that my shift will create a shift for him and vice versa? Or does it mean that when one of us energetically shifts, that causes a ripple in the other's "environment" (for lack of a better word) and something else can be created. That something else is the wild card, the unknown, perhaps. This is not cause and effect: I don't think that if I heal, he heals. But/And I believe there is a relationship between us that seeks Wholeness. I believe that because that is how we felt together, energetically: Whole.

And I also recognize that it's not just about Phoenix and I. As a deer sister pointed out to me, he was 'of two cultures': he was part wolf and part dog which means he carried much struggle and much history of violence in his body from thousands of years of wolf hatred that still lives on. So, there is that, perhaps, which is also part of the fragmenting that's occurred. That is outside our relationship. And I'd imagine when one's soul has been fragmented, there are lifetimes of healing and mending that are needing to occur. I've promised though to hold the thread for Phoenix as he traverses the ruins. And, perhaps, my shift (aka my sense of 're-emerging' energy) can help facilitate energy for him to do this work. And...perhaps some shift in his process has rippled to create the environment for me to experience a shift in my own energy. It's a conversation...it's just hard to tell who's turn it is. And maybe it's not like that at all...maybe it's just a constant flow and exchange of mutual energy and certain alchemical mixes change something within, without, above and below. I am learning to trust that.

So, there's a bit of trying to intellectually sort out what MIGHT be happening. I Know something IS happening/has happened with me and The Wheel. And because of my cosmology, I believe that nothing is in isolation. I believe in the power of this Love between Phoenix and I.

So it is,
Melissa

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Catching up with "The Wheel"


Dear Web,

There has been a shift. I've only experienced this kind of shift one other time that I can remember right now; I've come to call it 'catching up with The Wheel'. Let me explain.

I live my life with The Wheel of the Year. That is, I pay close attention to the Earth and Her movements through the year from season to season. And, I notice my own movements/changes internally in the context of Hers. For example, when Fall Equinox comes around (that is the day when the length of day and night is equal), I take a look at the concept of balance or imbalance in my life. I examine what harvests there are in my life to celebrate, like projects that have reached fruition, or not. It is a time of assessment: what will I keep (relationships, patterns of thinking/being, objects etc) and what will I honor and let go? Anyway, you get the idea. So, I follow this way of Living in relationship to the natural world around me. Sometimes there are big ways I am in sync with what is happening on the Wheel and sometimes I am very much not there. Although, any way I am however that is, I mark the day and celebrate it. I celebrate Her place and mine.

So, last year around the time of Spring Equinox...actually just a couple of days before Phoenix was killed this year....my sweet cat Companion died. He was over ten years old and was a stray from the island of Lesbos in Greece. Long story, short, I brought him home with me and we enjoyed such a lovely cat connection for many years. His death was difficult, though not because it was traumatic like Phoenix's, but because I loved Hekati that much. So for the rest of last year's March, into April and beginning through May I grieved terribly. Plus, beginning January of last year, my partner had a bout with cancer! It was a difficult year too!!

The movement of the Earth and Her seasons is such that Spring Equinox marks the time of re-emergence. You know, here in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the United States, Daffodils are some of the first ones to bloom along with Crocus and of course, there's the return of Bloodroot's incredible white flowers! If you live in places where the winters can be long, cold and dark, Spring Equinox is especially a place of great celebration. "We made it through!" can be a common sentiment.
Well, because of the intensity of the events before and around Spring Equinox last year, I fell into a state of what I understand as "internal stunted growth." Spring Equinox came and went with me in a heap of great grief. Spring went on without me. I did not re-emerge with the Earth, I stayed deep, deep within my dark cave. For months.

By May, though, before my partner's second surgery, Phoenix and I went to the ocean for just three days. I needed to re-Source myself and when that is called for, I often find my way to the ocean with Phoenix. It was there, that I finally emerged. Between Phoenix's exuberant joy of life and our time beside the water, I finally 'caught up with The Wheel' and could Return. It was my Spring Equinox in May, instead of March.

So, this year, there was no trip to the ocean just all the stuff I've since recorded. And, somehow, by the Grace of Spirit, this shift has seemed to have occurred again. Though because of the different circumstances of my grief, I am not fully confident that I won't slide back into my cave. It does feel extremely important, though, to acknowledge that for the moment, for the last three days actually, I feel I have 'caught up with The Wheel'; I have re-emerged in a Spring Equinox way here at Summer Solstice. And I still feel tentative like there could still be a spring frost....

And...I think I am going to Live. And it just may be an OK thing.

In Her Love,
Melissa

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Seventeen Roses


Dear Web,
Thank you for the seventeen roses...I recognize them from you, though the 'logical' circumstances say otherwise. They are 17 magical miracles from you to me.
What a sweet response to my cry for connection and Ground.

Thank you.
Yes,
Melissa

Friday, June 18, 2010

Fear

Dear Web,
I have been feeling great fear the last few days. Fear that there are no boundaries to what can happen to me, to the world. I think Phoenix being shot has to be the absolute worst thing I can think of that has happened to me. It's hard to imagine any worse, really. And yet, I feel something worse is coming. And I am grasping for Ground. There are moments when the fear is at bay and I can sense a ground. But it's temporary and I slip again into this place of Groundlessness.

And it's not that I am not Spiritual...I am a Soul-full woman. I have great amount of Faith. And...there's this place of Groundlessness I keep encountering.

Is it PTSD? Is it a place of transpersonal memory of a time that I've lived through, or not, before?

It is 13 weeks today since Phoenix was shot. I come home every day mid-day to feed B. and M. because I am still scared to be away that long from my home. So, I know that some of this is what is called PTSD. And...it feels bigger.

So, this is a prayer to you, Web, to hold me close. Keep showing me those magical, miraculous things that remind me of Who I Am and that I am Connected to something that will not take me out....something that is my Ground on which to rest, peacefully.

In Love,
Melissa

Monday, June 14, 2010

Double Devastation

Dear Web,

There are days when I plod along. The plodding lasts throughout the day sometimes and sometimes the plodding is interrupted by experiences I can only describe as being felled like a tall tree. For short, I refer to these times as "on the floor." Oftentimes this is literal as my grief takes me to the lowest point possible, which, barring a deep passageway to an underground cave (which sounds quite wonderful), the floor is the collapsing point. Sometimes I am figuratively on the floor. During these figurative times, I may look like I am standing or sitting or not weeping my heart out, but really I am and either my body hasn't caught up with this state yet or I am not in a situation where I can drop into it yet.

This weekend my partner returned from South Louisiana where she witnessed first hand what is happening to the water. She said she could smell the fumes of the oil on the beach as well as see the immense spread of oil, both what was already bagged up and what was still coming in with each tide. She showed me her photos. Dear Web, there I went again...felled...on the floor.

Like so many of us, I can hardly stand this. And I am paying attention to the double devastation for me personally. My beloved Guardian Phoenix has been taken, shot, killed, murdered. I/we are picking up the pieces that are shattered from that and reweaving....something, sometimes wonderful and sometimes unrecognizable. And now, beloved Ocean who has been, likewise, a constant source of Source for me is being killed by this oil. My partner told me that the oil is so deep in some places (ie 4 ft) that the fish have had to dive deeper and cannot sustain that depth for a long period of time. I think they will suffocate. And here I go again...felled. And the beloved pelicans...with all the effort of trying to clean their wings....she was told they will die anyway because of the toxicity already in their system.

I am not a Christian. My cosmology does not include Armageddon. And...if anything personally looks, smells and feels like the beginnings of a big end of something, this double devastation does. And..I do what I know to do...I fall to the floor, seeking the lowest point on the earth, and wail, feeling the magnitude of everything. And..I hold on to that Thread to Phoenix and to the Water, to Her Wholeness and to All the Love I have in my heart that currents right along with the Pain.

Ooooowheee. These are the days we are reminded Who We Are and Must BE.
Holding on,
Melissa

Friday, June 11, 2010

Adult Guilt and Baby Steps

Dear Web,

Well, I stepped out of my comfort zone and had dinner over at my new neighbor's house last night. She was very kind to invite me and while I didn't feel too nervous before, I was up most of the night afterwards. Nothing really identifiably wrong. We spoke of mostly 'safe' topics like our animals. She loves her ten year old dog Grady, of course. She told me again how close she was to the people who lived in this house before; how they each moved in and out of one another's house freely, took care of each other's pets, shared dinners together several times a week etc. I can tell she is anticipating that kind of relationship again with us.

So, I was awake much of the night with nothing glaringly getting my attention. I didn't have any of my usual PTSD symptoms, like racing heart and escalating anxiety. It wasn't until very early this morning, around sun rise, when I realized the shock state I am in. You see, if I had had a better relationship with my old neighbor....even IF I had given him my number at work....you see where I'm going?... I could have saved my Phoenix because my neighbor would have called me at work instead of leaving a message on the home machine and.....I would have dropped everything to come get Phoenix and bring him home. I AM SO SORRY, MY LOVE. I failed you. I failed you because I hated my neighbor and wanted as little to do with him as possible. And YOU, my darling Phoenix, MY GUARDIAN, paid the price! How will we ever find forgiveness of me for THAT! (I need to let that hang in the air for just a bit...)







And here I am in a new home with a new neighbor who is NOT the old neighbor. And...there are things about her/who she is that make me leery and there are things about myself/my home that I hold sacred and private which complicate just opening my doors fully to her. I do not trust her to understand me, nor really see me for who I am. Our home houses not just our things, but our Spirits. It has been and always will be a sanctuary. So the thought of her just rambling through the house, scares me. Not because I think she is criminal or pathological. No. Nor because I think she would harm us. It scares me simply because I do not trust her. I don't. For good or for bad, I do not trust her. Perhaps that is PTSD. Perhaps that is instinct. Or something else. Whatever it is, I will honor it and not be pressured or bullied by social expectations to just fling open my door to her.

And...there's always an and....How do I let myself relate differently to her than I did the other neighbor, the murderer? How can I let myself see her as a different person who did not kill Phoenix, nor would ever consider it? I started last night by giving her my number at work.

Baby steps.

Love,
Melissa

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Today, part 2

Dear Web,

Two things for this addendum for today. One: there is often very little that happens cause and effect; actually, probably nothing does. So in reference to my last post re: my hair and how cutting it led to me feeling more unbound--this is really not accurate and doesn't do justice to other factors. This may seem like a hair splitting point to some, and/but it is not. You see, in the course between the time I got my hair cut and today, many things have happened--some I have reported and many I have not. All of these things have unbound me, not just cutting my hair. For example, during the weekend I spent some time with my Tribe--these are folks who I consider family in those deep and unabiding ways. Often when we are together, I come back to myself in ways that are unique to being with these women. As a combined result of that and all the other pieces of the weekend, reported and unreported, I have received the gift of feeling unbound. Ok, now I can let it rest. It's just important to me that I give credit where credit is due to the multiple identifiable sources.

Last thing....I cannot believe Phoenix is gone. (PAUSE...let that just hang in the air...)





This is something so profoundly inconceivable that today I've launched into tears and sobbing several times. All I want to do is reach my hand out and feel his ears again. Have him here to say the things I only say to him in the tone of voice I only use with him. This pain will never heal. No matter what. It flows right along side everything else that I write about. So, dear Web, just because I don't talk about it each time, know that this pain is ever present. Phoenix is my Heart. And somehow this 'going on' will never be totally right. And I will never love like this again. I know I sound so tragic. It is. Profoundly so.

Love,
Melissa

Unbound by my hair

Dear Web,
As I sit to write, I do not know what to write. Yesterday was the first day I did not write after 12 days in a row, since the beginning. There was no obvious reason for this. I was busy working etc, but that cannot be it totally because there have been other days in the last 12 when I have been as busy or more. So, I am curious about the quiet. And..wanted to at least give myself a chance to write something today, if desired.

My hair. That's what wants attention. Last week, I got my hair all cut off. Well, not all, but mostly. The day after we returned Phoenix to the Earth, I woke up in a fit. It felt like latent madness. I felt numb and like I was bumping around doing different usual routines. Then I sat down in the room where the night before I had slept on the floor behind Phoenix, holding on to him all night. I recall feeling sadness, but I also recall feeling a bit disconnected from myself. Then my eyes fell on a painting I'd done many years ago--a small self-portrait of Phoenix and I. In the painting, my hair was short, so it must have been 8 years ago, maybe more. And something in me snapped, like in that dream when I was asking "Where's Phoenix?" so innocently totally forgetting what has happened and then the rock inside me dropped and I remembered. I felt an intense anger and...something else...I don't know what. Madness has so many horrible connotations for women. And, I wonder if that names this wild, angry state. And in that wildness, I knew what I had to do.

I stood up, found scissors and walked outside to where Phoenix was. There on the site, I fell to my knees and keened. Wailed my heart out. Didn't care who heard. Hoped they did. Hoped someone other than me knew this wild pain. My partner came out, of course, in response and stayed at a distance so as not to disturb me or what was happening. In fact, she brought her drum and began quietly drumming. She knows how to hold sacred space and does it very well. So, while she drummed and I keened, I cut my hair. I didn't care about anything except that moment and all the moments from then on out when I would be without my beloved Phoenix.

Days afterwards, when I returned to work, my coworkers took great notice of my hair (which was asymmetrical and shorter) and said how much they really liked it (I wondered if their authentic enthusiasm was be/c they were responding to the clarity and purity of the state I was in when I cut it). Every time someone commented on it, I was transported back to that moment outside my house, wildly wailing. It was almost like their comments were a cue to myself, a thread that pulled me back into the reality of loss and what happened to me/us.

So, for a couple months, I refused to touch my hair (ie even it out or change it). Then I went in and allowed H. to trim it some, but not change the shape at all. I was adamant and she was so understanding. Then last week, I knew it was time to cut it again. This time more drastically. So, that is what I did. And I can honestly say it has felt so freeing. It's not that I feel less weighted by my grief, or by my memories...they were never a weight (having to go on sometimes felt like a weight). Phoenix has and never will be a weight of any sort for me. I am really not sure what I let go of in this drastic cutting...or what was in those locks that I sent down to the Gulf to help soak up some of the catastrophe there. I am really not sure. But, what I can say is that I sensed without a doubt it was time to cut off my hair (to change my appearance drastically) and that I have felt unbound since.

I am not my hair, I hear myself say to myself. People's reactions (which by the way have been a hoot to watch/witness) have not shaken me one bit. I listen to their processes they go through in seeing such a big change and struggling to find the words to....I don't know...make me feel ok?...I'm not sure what. But, I have felt no shame, no awkwardness, even in the face of some of their awkwardness and obvious dislike of my hair cut. I feel calm and strongly connected to who I am and why I am here on the planet. That's the best way I can describe it. It's big for me to feel this way in the face of another's judgement/assessment of me/my appearance.

So, I write into the Web, from this unbound place, knowing who I am. And I send that too to my dear Guardian Phoenix.

In Great Love,
Melissa