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