Thursday, March 31, 2011

Ain't nothing but a hound dog


Dear WEb,
As I am readying for another class tonight--this would be the exact week that I came back to teaching last year after Phoenix was killed--I feel called to write.

Earlier I was combing my music for a song for the opening to the class where I invite the students to begin the process of separating themselves from the outside world, from distractions of the day, things that are hounding them still, stealing their energy away from having an experience in the next three hours of circle. This week I will have twine for them to cut and symbolically tie around themselves to represent those things that are still pulling on them. As they are doing this part and thinking about those things, I needed some music to play. After a while, I stopped looking through the typical cds that have more spiritual music and got more outlandish. Finally, I found it and when I did, I busted out laughing: Etta James' rendition of "Hound dog'!

As I listened and danced to it, I smiled because I knew who stepped in and led me right to this song. Dear beloved Phoenix, my wolf and houndog mix! Just like he always could do, I found myself happy, knowing this was it! Spontaneously IT! And, my dear Beetle, who was watching me dance also smiled. See, she is part hound too, and no doubt had her paws in this doing too!

Thank you dear Loves.
Thank you.
Love,
Me

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

My heart still weeps

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,

Not much to write at all except: I miss you. I miss the way you light up when we see one another. I miss your ease. I miss my ease with you. I miss your body against mine. I miss your wildness and playfulness. I miss the integrity of the Life that was you and me.

I have passed through the keyhole through a needle and I still look back and miss you so much. Tonight it's pouring out of me as I feel the motion of my life continuing to move. I grieve this life without you still. Even though much has been made over the year that is good. Goddess good. My heart still weeps.

Love,
Me

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

On the fence with something wild

Dear WEb,

Last night I dreamed of Phoenix again. This time he and Beetle were in the back yard of this house together. I went outside to see them. It was dusk and we all stopped in our tracks watching a squirrel right there at the fence. Beetle and Phoenix were on alert, but not moving. Then just as the squirrel jumped through a space in the fence, Phoenix and Beetle lunged toward the fence, unable to keep still any longer. The squirrel shapeshifted into a coyote as she passed through the fence and came out the other side both as coyote and squirrel. The coyote had caught the squirrel which really now seemed like a rabbit (sorry, are you keeping up?) and killed it. We all watched, and I felt grateful for her mercy killing because the rabbit was crying loudly once caught. Then the coyote turned and placed her paws on the top of the fence. Phoenix did the same from our side. Their noses were close to one another, sniffing. I watched, so in awe of this connection and exploration. I said either aloud or in my mind to Phoenix, "Good boy. You're doing so good." A few moments he would sniff closer then do a sudden quiet growl and pull back ever so slightly. I could tell he was drawn to the wildness, curious and also still on guard. It was such a sweet moment because I felt he was still alive and we were having this experience together here at this new home. All seemed magically possible and wonderful.

While I didn't wake up sad, later on the way to my dentist appointment, missing came again. And while the dentist was drilling my filling out, I took refuge in that moment with Phoenix at the fence, calling him forth from that dream to me there in the chair, saying, "You're doing so good." I don't understand why this makes me weep then or now. It does. The dream captures moments like Phoenix and I would have together when he was alive. I miss him. Will always miss him. I am grateful for the dream. It reminds me of the texture of the fabric we wove together. I pull it to my cheek and cry...and hear myself, maybe him, tell me: "You're doing so good. It so hard to be there on the fence with something so wild. Go ahead and growl. Then sniff. You're doing so good. I love you."

Me

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Path of Return and Staying


Dear WEb,
So, I come to this writing to reclaim again, something of myself. The clouds yesterday, on Spring Equinox proper, spoke my name. I may never know fully why nor fully why the wind picked up and howled against the window beside me so suddenly last night as I was finishing that post. It didn't sound like that the rest of the night. I am on the Web. That is certainly clear yet again. And for some reason, perhaps, it was particularly important to be reminded of that yesterday, the day of Return, Spring Equinox.

This weekend was an intensive experience of Return. Friday night, I ritualized an important piece of reclaiming myself from the trauma of Phoenix's death 52 weeks ago. Before that actual ritual, I broke down. The terror came back and I could not go forward through the eye of the needle. I was at that familiar precipice where it felt like going forward would be to go into insanity and to stay still, hold the Wheel from turning, was of course not in my control. I raged and wept, tantrumed and twisted myself in such despair. All the while a sister sat behind me, quietly, lovingly. At some point, the raging calmed and I opened my eyes totally disoriented. Where am I? How did I get here? Where is my home and my familiar things? In my hand I gripped a small wolf sculpture my partner had gifted me that morning to commemorate the anniversary. It was a touchstone. I remembered that/her root. And still I looked around me and felt like a ghost trying to remember her substance.

I reached my hand up to my face to remember myself, what I felt like to myself. Then I let my hand touch my heart, my arms, my legs, the back of my neck...slowly, slowly remembering my physical substance. Eventually, I took my sister's hand and tracked the same path of myself, feeling what it was to feel another's touch. As it seems to often happen, there came another wave of sadness, terror, despair and I let her hold me close while I wept again. At some point (all of this happened outside of time, so to record it like there was some linear sequence is actually inaccurate) I touched the pain again, there on the edge of sanity. And, somehow when at the same time I felt the pain there on the edge, I felt something else that was distinctly not pain. It was Love. And, without trying to sound dramatic, I think somewhere in me decided to Stay because of that touch, that moment.

This past year has been filled with moments. Moments of deciding to stay, or not, and everywhere in between. There has been no linear progression. I have experienced the Wheel moving in increments and with every increment I have met myself. And on this particular increment, of 52 weeks, I met myself again at that precipice and 'felt myself go free'. Maybe that is what the clouds reflected. I really will never know.

Last night Phoenix was in my dream. He was in the home of my childhood, beside the family card table. Maybe that means he is there in that dimension with me, the dimension of my childhood where perhaps I most need him now to be with those young parts of me. Those young parts of me who are playful and miss their beloved companion, especially since something deep has shifted and I've more fully decided to stay.

And, I wish the story could stop there with 'And I lived happily ever after'. I would certainly welcome prolonged peace and settledness. I did have some lovely stretches this weekend like that. Yes, I did. For them, I am tremendously grateful. They linked together to perhaps create the beginnings of a path for me beyond the eye of the needle. Staying is complex. I can tell that already now at this level of things. Staying in connection with others is even more complex. I've encountered how hard that is already--how do I risk intimacy again when my grief has held me at bay from others? how do i not be consumed by intimacy? how do I regulate that closeness? Wouldn't it be all dandy if I didn't have to pay attention to that? Where it could just always be a 'love in' like they preached in the 60's. No, I would not like that at all. I am way too particular with who I love and how I love and how and what I let in to love me. Call me what you will--prudish, tight, controlling etc etc. And, what I know is that my love is precious---not everyone deserves it. And, I don't just want everyone's love either. No matter how seemingly precious. So, call me what you will. I call me, me. Or, the what the clouds call me!

Finally, today this day after the actual Spring Equinox, that resident at work who I saved from choking months ago came up to me today and said: "I love you". I smiled and blushed and thanked her because I knew she meant it. (there is a story here to tell another time too). She then said, "Honey, you have the world by the tail." I laughed and said, "Actually I think She has me by the tail!" Not sure what that all means, but it rang true. We both laughed.

Thank you, Web. You've got me by my big bushy tail, no doubt!
Love,
Me

Monday, March 21, 2011

My name in the clouds

Dear WEb,

Well, I have to just tell this because it is so stunning. It's the thing many of us crave--a sign from Spirit that is unmistakable.

I was driving on the highway to see C. for a session. Nothing in particular in my mind. Listening to the radio. Mulling over some things from the weekend, probably (which deserve some recording here, but cannot now.). I look to my left, across the highway to the sky and there is my name written in clouds. I know, I know. You might be thinking that these clouds just LOOKED LIKE my name. No. It was not like that. None of the letters looked like they might be something else. They were printed letters clearly formed into my name complete with correct capitalization of the first letter. There were no other clouds near by. Just these letters. For real.

So, I believed then and now that this simply means that there is much witnessing me right now through all I am grappling with and continue to grapple with. That there are forces larger than my pea brain taking shape around me. That I am being reflected somehow by forces larger than I could control. That I am Seen right where I am.

Whew. Cannot write anymore right now about it. And right now, suddenly the wind has picked up from the West. Is howling against my left side at that window. Whew. I hear You! I hear You.

Thank you for Hearing/Seeing me through.
Love,
Me

Friday, March 18, 2011

I've been kissed by a rose on the grave


Dear WEb, Dear Phoenixx, Dear Goddess,

When does one recognize one has turned the corner? I woke this early morning of the 52nd Friday and the following came flowing to me...or maybe it's been flowing to me all along and I just now woke up to these swirling waters:

You are my power, my pleasure my pain!
Hands, hands, washing and holding hands that have held so much, touched so much.
C., you were one of the last hands to hold/touch Phoenix before we buried him.
My hands remembered. Life and gratitude poured out. How did/do we ever survive such pain? We do/did.
A/O, where did you come from? Have you been here all along? Feathers of comfort and love flow from you.
Owls hooting outside my window just after I hear the first birds sounding.
Two geese flying, soaring, then one...shot and drops, totally letting go. I am shaken by this image because it touches a truth I know in my bones beyond here and now.
Your roots, J., drive deep into the ground around me as your drum tells me not to let go of my sanity. Go to the edge, but don't let go....I witness your pain there on the edge of the grave.
K. beisde me on the floor as I cry into the hardness, the unnegotiable death and loss. She is not scared I will drown.
B.creates an altar of death and rebirth--wings and bones, ancient symbols from our Ancient People painted on cloth.
A rock heart, a heart rock insisted to be taken. you will need it, Phoenix says.
On March 15th, the Ide's of March, a white truck ahead of me, I grow agitated I am behind it/him. I weaken and weep when I remember the killer and the betrayal that followed. The unthinkable. I feel no longer any part of his world. There is so much more....
Myrrh's warm body against mine during the night...in all the years I've not known this feline comfort. And I've needed it so this year.
C.'s belief in me, in the Life force in me.
C.'s beatbox rendition of happy birthday left on my cell phone.
The sound and shaking of laughter in circle.
How can I possible deserve this love? I must.
So much more than writing this down can ever touch. Somewhere I've begun to live again. Somewhere Life found me. Where was that fateful corner? Where was that twist in the labyrinth that i recognize this morning? this 52nd Friday?

I wish I could express this place i woke up to. It was like a collage of the year. and it feels like a year. i have walked this year deliberately, truthfully to myself, for myself and Phoenix, the life that was my Beloved Guardian and I. i have not swayed from the worst and have tried to allow the best to touch me and everything in between. nothing is over...and, to memorialize this moment like all the others feels vital. I turn this corner and allow the current to carry me into the rest of this day and evening, into further depths of Life and Living.

That line from the Seal song that Phoenix sent to me last summer...the one that came on the radio several days in a row after I asked for communication from him...says it best:
"I've been kissed by a rose on the grave."

Kissed,
Me

Thursday, March 17, 2011

52nd Thursday


Dear WEb,
I am readying for the Return. Return to the 52nd Friday and the actual date of Phoenix's murder. I've noticed so much of my own inner responses, have been tracking and self-soothing, ritualizing, releasing, caressing, expressing etc etc etc. And just these last several days I've noticed other's responses to me. There are wimmin close to me who I think are quite uncomfortable with my Returning stuff. I've noticed an energetic pulling away when I broach the subject of the approaching dates. It's subtle. I don't think I am projecting. It's a slight turning away...a subtle attempt to shape me. It's not working. I am still being shaped from within and...I am noticing how perhaps for some they've reached their threshold of grief tolerance, or don't want me to stay in the trauma anymore or just are tired of the ride. I don't blame them, really. At one time I would have been just like that probably. Now, though, I will linger however long with myself and anyone else there in that space.

Time is funny. In some ways the actual day/night will be important to be Present to this weekend (which is Saturday, March 19) and in another significant way tomorrow being the 52nd Friday is vital because it is the night I came home from work to find Phoenix killed. While it's not been officially the full 365 days, on this 52nd Friday, I will be ritualizing for myself a Return to that part of me who also was killed. I'll be singing Life to myself, honoring and connecting with that part of me still back then, in shock, in a state of suspended animation. There will be no coersion to Return....no subtle expectation that I be Whole or be shaped a particular way. It will be a conscious connection, a conscious reaching and tending to my tender self there, back then.

And so, I turn the corner tonight. I believe it was 52 Thursdays ago Phoenix and I took a hike and he found that heart rock for me. I turn the corner with that and so much more in my hands and heart.
I love you, Phoenix.
Always yours,
Me

Friday, March 11, 2011

Gift of Life on 3-11-11

Dear WEb,
I am quite tired and want to go to sleep. Have had a big day on this eleventh day of the third month of the 11th year of the new millennia. It is my 44th birthday. And the day has been full of such love from those who love me so. I've felt it. And even more particularly, I've felt the Essence of what they have gifted me: Life. They give me Life back in a way I've not experienced this past year. It's the most precious feeling to feel the Life Force from one who loves me. Truly precious. And it began the day and eve before my birthday. I believe that that was essential on levels I don't quite understand. Something I do understand about it from a biographical perspective is that this last year has been so hard, so horrendously hard that I think it was vital that I feel that Life Force the day and evening before the anniversary of my birth. Almost like I needed that/those flushes of Life Force to sustain the final journey/return out from such depths of loss and despair.

So this is an Honoring of yesterday and today when particularly both A. and J. and so many others helped infuse me with the Life Force again. Thank you, dear wimmin. Thank you. I accept your Love.

And gift you mine.
And so it is on 3-11-11.
Me

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Fit

Dear WEb,
Tonight I was awakened by the IT, that is: everything that is in this current carrying me, the good, the bad the ugly. It took me an hour to finally allow some feeling to surface and then maybe another hour for compassion to set in and tell me: 'Of course you are awakened and cannot sleep. Cannot eat. Of course you feel numb. Of course you feel overwhelmed and scared. Of course. You are an emotional Being facing the MANifestation of your worst fear.' I'd have to be dead not to have some experience out of the ordinary, right?

Speaking of dead, the other night during another intensely difficult moment, I heard the words in my head: "I'm not fit to live." The amount of pain I have felt this year and continue to feel has been unbearable and yet each time I find a way through. And...it still keeps coming. Of course. Yes, of course it does, speaks Compassion..... And...I wonder how is someone fit to live and be in relationship with Life if she feels so much pain on a regular basis? The end is no where in sight, except in some sort of memory and then faith that there have been moments of not pain and therefore will probably continue to be similar moments. So, I go on. And...is there a threshold of pain? Where she would somehow not qualify to live? Where all who say they love her will leave her no matter how Amazon their love is because they don't want to be affected anymore by her colossal pain and relationship with unresolved loss??? When they decide they cannot live with both her pain and their own? If they did, I wouldn't blame them, actually.

Fit to live. What else does that mean? It means living in Integrity. It means if I am going to go ahead and risk being left, risk enduring pain that feels like it could choke the life from me, risk loving in spite of everything that has fractured my heart then I will do it in Integrity, Wholeness, Honor and Truth. Yes, these are big words, even bigger concepts that most people strive for. They are not just things I hope for to feel better about myself, I don't think. Though I do want to feel better about myself. I do want to feel relief from the pressure of living. Because it is pressure to live when she feels like dying or like she is not "fit", as in: inherently born, to not live.

Now, I ask myself: do i really believe those words I just wrote? Do I really believe I was born with an inherent flaw that makes me unfit to live? Yes, no, maybe so. It makes me uneasy to consider that. And...the words were there. They came from somewhere in me. Deep in me. So, I listen. And I listen to them in the context of my upcoming birthday and wonder if these words are important information about my beliefs in the womb.

See, i believe I am a twinless twin. That is, that I had a twin in utero. There's no proof. No testimony from my mother. Nothing except my 'knowing' of this. So, anyone could challenge me about that and probably "win" on my lack of evidence. So what? The point here is that it makes perfect sense that Being a Twinless Twin would explain such a deep seeded question: am I fit to live?... in this world.... alone. And yet, there is all evidence to the contrary. I was born, raised by good parents who took care of me, loved me in the ways they could, I look at photos of me as a little girl and I see happiness, not sorrow, not aloneness. Not yet. (that comes later in the photos of adolescence) But happy girl-child. And yet, now as an awakening woman, I feel such sorrow and i feel the little girl-child from those photos totally broken hearted. Totally in despair in losing her beloved Guardian, Phoenixx. The pain is the insanity. Inconsolable pain. The only option being to wait until something comes in, like Compassion, like Beetle's licking face, like rustling leaves, like an unexpected song that tells me to 'stay alive' , like the hand of a sister....on and on ad infinitum. Is this how I live now from this place? Is this being 'fit' or learning to be 'fit' as a twinless twin?

I have gone on this morning about this. More so than usual. I am not in a usual place, the day before my birthday when I will be 44 on the day of the 11th in the year of 2011, And, of course which happens to be the 51st Friday. Damn. And I think normal eating and sleeping and relating are expected???

Phoenix, I miss you. Living without you is excruciating. Impossible. for me. for this emotional Being. And I am living some sort of life: good bad and ugly.
Nothing else to say right now.
Love,
Me

Saturday, March 5, 2011

50 Fridays plus one day

Dear WEb,

This morning when I stepped out into the hallway with a yawn and "Good morning" to my partner, I heard the words that my sister's beloved dog of 14 years had died last night. My legs gave out, my hand went to my mouth, and I fell to the steps below me crying. This is too much. I cannot stand this anymore. I have reached my threshold, Goddess. STOP! STOP! this entourage. My heart cannot take it. I cannot continue to hang out in this colossal world of loss. STOP!!

My partner sat beside me as the shock melted away more and more. I felt the familiar dark currents beginning their swirls around me and inside me. J. took my hand and pulled me up to our altar where I had created a mini altar for my sister and her beloved companion, Tess, who this week had not been doing well after a routine surgery on Tuesday. J. said we had to light the candle. She did. I continued to let the tears fall and tried to focus on her words of 'the story' of how Tess died.

I could not breathe and try to continue to distract myself, this flooding against the gates was too much. I could not contain and continue in that world of distraction. I went to my altar, our altar...Phoenix and my altar. The altar that has contained me all winter. These rocks in a circle around dark brown earth. My cave there. The nest with the single feather. The ashes in the shape of Phoenix's bones that rise from "flames" . The single candle in the space between where his snout meets me right outside my cave. I go here. I am inside this ring of stones, protected and held with my Beloved. This is where we have met during the Deep time. This is where I am untouchable by the outside. Where only Phoenix and I are together. Without distraction. It is a clearing. Just for us. No one to explain to, hide from, mask the colossal loss or try to temper their inability to join me there. I laid here for a while. I asked J. to drum for us and I dropped deeper into the ground. Feeling the weight of myself, of all of this again.

And Beetle came to me there. She licked my face entirely, so gently, while my hands rested on her ears. She stood over me and let me touch her legs, feeling her standing, while I could not. And somewhere in there, in that clearing and that collapse, I understood what it is that most others do not, or I don't think they do. There is a space that exists between those who love one another, who are Beloved to one another. This space has a life of it's own...it's what I have called: The Love/Life that was Phoenix and I. It's a space, a Beingness, for lack of a better way to describe it. And when there is a severance here in this space, this Beingness....well, that is what I feel that brings me to the floor. It's not just that Tess died unexpectedly at 14 years old. It's the death of that space Tess and Julia shared. And you can get all philosophical about death and say that Tess really isn't gone, just like Phoenix isn't gone etc etc. That's not what I am getting at. It's like trying to explain death to a 2 year old. They do not care about philosophy. It's an annoying distraction from the most obvious thing which is this absence of this precious space/Beingness that no longer is there tangible, audible, visible. It's the gaping absence. The negative space.

So, I have been feeling wrecked again today: knocked around into boulders in this raging river that feels like its careening me towards my birthday next week and then the anniversary the following week. Through the keyhole of the needle, I must pass through all alone.

Chris Williamson also assures me in another one of her songs on that same album, "Ashes": She stands steadfast and She stands on her own. She stands her ground and she stands all alone. She stands the pressure and She stands the pain. And She stands the crazies again."

Me

Thursday, March 3, 2011

3/3/11


Dear WEb,
I sat down to write today because I was feeling that 'call', even though not sure what will come and there is much to be doing to prepare for tonight's class. Then when I noticed the date, I knew the beginnings of that 'call'. I can't help this thing I have with numbers. I have to just smile at myself and Spirit. It's some part of our language that we speak to one another. You see not only are there two 3's in today's date, there are also two 1's and my birthday is 3/11. I'll be 44. See? Smile.

So...I'm here, Goddess. What needs expression?

Tomorrow night will be the 50th Friday since Phoenix was shot and killed. I can hardly believe it. This morning when I was waking up, Beetle came up to the side of the bed and stretched while making a sound that was so characteristically Phoenix. I cannot describe it except to say the sound goes right to my center. I had my eyes closed and I saw him drop before my eyes: that tiger striped long legged body darting around me. I saw him run as fast as he could up the hill towards me. I saw him leap off the porch, his back end twisted like and extra 'hurrah!" in the air. Tears fell from my face. Beetle climbed up on the bed beside me, her body stretched out long against mine. I said aloud, "How have we made it this far?" How? How? And, yet here we are two weeks from the Return of the best and worst Friday of my life!!

These increments of time, these individual 50 weeks, have been some of how I've made it so far, I think. Week by week by week: where am I now?... Now?... And now, another week?. Forever locating myself on the Wheel, week by week, sometimes day by day, moment by moment: Is this an "on-the-floor" moment? Is this a "I'm-really-not-alone" moment? Or a "deer-in-the-headlights" moment? 50 weeks of moments. That's how I've made it. And it sounds so damn greeting card-ish. Yes, it does. And...when I say/write it...I know it's no greeting card sentiment. It's the truth from my tissues, my blood, my guts. It's the shape of me which both can and cannot be seen by others. It's the cadence of my voice, the flow of my thoughts, it's the blueprint of every tear that falls for the rest of my life.

Perhaps, to have these increments is the saving grace of it all. I've raged against the moving of the Wheel over and over this turning. It's made me crazy to not be able to halt the movement of Life seeking to return, to repair. The audacity of that in the face of such devastation. I've felt overwhelmed with the approach of this Anniversary that at one time was across the Wheel and now is just two weeks away. I will feel that overwhelm no doubt again and again in this unhalted/continuing intensified approach. The channel is narrowing, I feel the overwhelming pressure of the banks against the current, I am being shunted into facing this more Deeply again at the exact time on the Wheel last cycle when the light was the same. Remember, through a keyhole of a needle...I must pass through all alone. There is no room for anyone or anything else. This is my loss, one that no other will Know like I do even though they may feel similarly from their losses. I feel woosy just thinking of it, want to collapse and give up. And...I have 50 Fridays that join me and say, "This too is possible."

Love,
Me