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