How Then Shall I Live?

Dear WEb and Phoenix,

Those words "How then shall I live?" came to me last night after a day of intense emotional pain and distress. I feel like I am beginning to experience myself as that womyn I write about who, after Phoenix was killed, "will never be the same". I knew that was true almost immediately that night, March 19th 2010, when I collapsed to the floor, after hearing what that man did to my beloved. It was a thought/felt sense that registered deep inside and has taken a while to recognize on the surface. The last year, that deep knowing was recognizable through the immediate and constant grief and awareness of loss, being without Phoenix. Being without that Life that was Phoenix and I. Last night, I felt it register at another level as I sat with myself in this new place of pain and distress that has to do with causing pain and distress for someone I deeply love as a result of actions I have taken, words I have spoken, promises I have broken.

I remember distinctly feeling that "oh, this is me now." No, not like: oh, look how I am such a bad person now! (though I have had that voice to wrangle with!) But it was more like, "Whoa, look where I am now. I've not been here before. I don't know the way at all. I am changed. I am different. And now the affect of that is registering around me." I do not take this lightly at all. Just because I am not paralyzed by this like I've been over the last day or so, doesn't mean it's not still serious or profoundly sad and unresolved. I think writing about it is an attempt to tell myself that one level of what is happening here, what I am doing here, is an answer to that question: How then shall I live? After the loss of Phoenix, and choosing to live, there is that question of HOW shall I live.

I choose to live in ways that nurture my Wholeness. Without that, I can be of no service to anything of worth. And, I do want to be in service of Spirit in the ways that my Beingness instinctively knows. And I don't know if going towards this thing that has caused disruption in my life is THE THING, that is, THE end ANSWER. It seems to be part of an answer to the question about how shall I live because it feels like it is moving paradoxically towards Wholeness. It feels like it's moving towards saying yes to parts of me who need this next deepening step towards tending Her/Me and thusly, perhaps, greater service. And the cost of THAT...well, the cost of that risk of moving towards this thing, I pray is not more expensive than not moving.

I am not being specific in detail because I honor the wisdom of discernment. I place this on the WEb as an act of recognition of what harm I have done, what I have risked, some of why and my intent for Wholeness.
And so it is.
And so, Phoenix, this is how I am living now without you. I miss you and your devotion, especially now, but always, forever.
Me
PS...last night my student's dog died. She spoke about how the hardest thing was that B. had always been there to help her through hard things like this...and now she's gone and my student is left here to deal with this huge grief without her beloved companion. No words. None.