Tenacious Heart

Dear Phoenix on the WEb, I was awake this morning at 3 am. Now it is 5 a.m. and I've come to you on our WEb. Actually, you came to me yesterday morning at the window, I think. Yes, I think that was you in the form of a wren. The markings on her face were like yours: those sweet dark lines reaching out from your eyes, your shared shades of brown and white, the sweet way you both tilt your head. She got my attention perched on the rose bush, singing so loudly and sweetly. I watched her hop down to the ground then up on the window sill to where she could look inside at me. She really looked at me. Then back to the rose bush, singing. She cycled like this for a while as I watched and wondered about her and about you and I. I've been missing you. I'm always missing you and sometimes the grief just takes me. I do not recognize my life now as a life that you and I would have lived together. I know that sounds strange. Maybe I don't exactly mean that. What I mean is that everything has changed irrevocably since you were killed. I have changed, where I live has changed, my beloved relations with my partner has changed, relations with my close tribe has changed, my life: changed. I cannot even fathom how my life would look the same/different if you were still with me in this, your 12th year of life. And most of the time recently, I just plod along with that sense of irrevocable change. Other times, I am taken by the grief of having lost you and all the collateral losses/reverberations/aftershocks. It disturbs me during those times that I cannot feel/sense you with me. I see your photo, remember your sweet body, smile, greetings, your ways. And, there is a distance that has taken residence between us. I am disturbed by it. And then, yesterday happened with the wren, and I wonder... When I told someone about the wren yesterday, she mentioned that they are industrious, tenacious, and that it might be helpful to look up that word: tenacious. So, I did. Tenacious: not easily pulled apart, cohesive, tough. I wonder now that not only is wren reminding me of my own tenacity at a time I am feeling vulnerable and challenged, but/and additionally she is reminding me of our connection, Phoenix. Not easily pulled apart. Cohesive. Tough. So, I come to you on our WEb with that recognition of us that you brought me through wren: tenacious us. And, I still wish you were beside me, literally. I miss my beloved Companion. Yes, I accept our tenacious love: not easily pulled apart, cohesive, tough. Thank you for staying that way. And there's something that you always brought me during vulnerable times like this now. You brought me a calm confidence in who I am, deep down. I need that right now. Thank you for sending wren. This weekend I will be offering another introduction to the women's class as well as a hosting of another Trance Dance! There is so much uncertainty around both of these 'productions' like who will come, will there be 'enough' women for a class, enough women at the dance to cover the rent on the space, how will things go, will I have the tenacity to overcome my insecurities/self-doubts etc and remain internally cohesive, focused on the energy/reason I offer any/all of this stuff? That is: In Service to something better and greater than patriarchy offers women. To offer a place/space for women to come and experience something else other than what may have been their deficient/distorted experience as women under patriarchy. Even if just for two hours, or three hours,there is a space I can assist in creating that holds back and refuses 'out there.' And I say that fiercely and humbly. I am fierce about doing it and humbled that I can in a way that is meaningful to me and hopefully effective and meaningful to women who come. Thank you, Phoenix, for your tenacity with me, for getting my attention again. You have my tenacious heart. Yours.

Cronewort

Dear Phoenix on the WEb, It has been a long time since I have come to you to write: over a month, I think. Currently on The Wheel, we are on the brink of The Deep Time, marked specifically by the holy day of Samhain. Two days ago was Lunar Samhain, the time when the moon is already in that energy that occurs solarly on November 1st. This particular Lunar Samhain was also a new moon in Scorpio and the sun moved into that same sign last Sunday. Scorpio, Phoenix, is 'your sign' because the energy is about transformation, deep transformation, death/loss, rebirth/reconfiguration. And this week, I feel I have been in that current beginning on Sunday with a Trance Dance. But/And I come to you now not because of Sunday (though at some point I may bring that to you too), but because I felt you came to me last night. I woke suddenly to what sounded like Beetle heaving, like she was needing to throw up. I leapt out of bed and let her outside. I was in such a liminal state of sleep and wake that I became a bit disoriented when I headed back to bed. This is very unusual as I am often able to move around in my dark bedroom in the middle of the night, no matter how I wake up. I usually feel my way successfully through the dark and corners and furniture. So, last night was different in that I was disoriented. I bumped into the t.v. which knocked the photograph of you and I off onto the floor, shattering the glass. This woke me up more, but didn't snap me out of the disorientation. I reached, groped in the dark for the lamp I knew was there. My hand waved like a blindly into space, back and forth, finding my bed, finding your chair, but unable to find the lamp in between. I was perplexed, kind of like that moment last Winter Solstice in the labyrinth when I couldn't find the way, remember? I knew it had to be there, but all I saw were rocks that closed off the path I thought was there! Last night, like then, I persisted and I kept waving and reaching; in the process I knocked the wooden wolf sculpture and the paper phoenix off the stand where the lamp was. Finally, I got the light on and saw the evidence of you there, Phoenix. Our photograph, the sculptures of wolf and phoenix all reactivated. Samhain is the time when the veils between the worlds are thinnest, when the ancestors are close and accessible, as well as losses. Part of this week, Phoenix, I returned to my losses of the last years. You, J., losses of parts of myself, relational beliefs about myself, things I thought I wanted exclusively...on and on. And, then I watched a documentary that threw me more deeply into my Deep time. I woke up this morning with it again, haunting me. The movie is called The Cove and I rented it because on the front there were dolphins leaping out of the water. I've been seeking out movies about the ocean recently. Watching water move calms my nervous system like nothing else. This movie was not that, though. This movie was about the deliberate and systematic slaughter of dolphins in a town called Taiji, Japan. When the movie began and I realized it wasn't what I was expecting, I decided to just watch a bit and see. I was feeling sleepy anyway and thought I'd probably sleep through it; would let it lull me to sleep with the monotones etc. And I did drift off to sleep at one point. Then...I woke up, Phoenix. It was to the sound of screaming dolphins and the color of red ocean water! I was disoriented and frozen there in my bed watching these creatures writhe through the red waters after being repeatedly stabbed by Japanese men in boats. I can hardly stand remembering this. And, yet, how can I forget it? The inhumanity...there aren't even words for it. Our language does not have words for these kinds of things that don't sound legal (i.e. injustice), theoretical (i.e inhumane), racist (i.e. barbaric)...nothing reflects this feeling I have inside in response to that!! I cannot shake this. And..I don't think that would be the right response either. Yesterday a resident where I work told me that there is a current of trash/debris from Japan's tsunami that stretches 2000 miles long and 1000 miles wide that is moving through the ocean now, will reach Hawaii sometime next year etc etc. I can only imagine what kinds of things that includes: appliances, pipes, furniture, lamps, mattresses, toilets, sewage, chemicals, trash, things of people's lives and deaths. I shudder trying to imagine and know all i would need to do is Google for the information and images would be provided for me! Later this morning, Phoenix, though, I woke up in tears. How can the ocean hold all of this trauma??? Not just from these two things, but from lifetimes of similar atrocities, 'natural' or not. Where does it all go??? How does she contain it and still have life????? I am not looking for pat answers about this about how strong She is, how big She is, how miraculous She is! NO! That may be true. And DAMN IT! It's got to STOP!!!!! I hate it when women are praised for that kind of thing. Oh, look how much women have endured: rape, incest, murder of loved ones, betrayals etc etc etc etc ad infinitum. Yes, that is true and DAMN IT! It's got to STOP! It's like somehow there is some justification for all this shit just because we have survived! I cannot stand it! I cannot stand for it anymore. And...what does not begin able to stand for it mean? I went to a book I have by Judith Berger, an herbologist. She writes about Artemisia Vulgaris, Mugwort, also known as Cronewort, the hag of the plant world. She says one time after something really hard happened to her/her garden, she went to this plant and asked what to do and She, the plant, very simply said "there is no killing me." Judith writes in response, "And I learned that for myself, rather than diminish the injustice of inhumane acts, I want to become like the crone, who represents the mature force within us that is willing to see things as they are, and determine what medicine needs to be applied. Regular ingestion of cronewort builds this fierceness within us and allows us to bear unpopularity in order to remain close to what we know to be true" (Herbal Rituals, p. 22). Last night, in the energy of the Scorpionic new moon and Lunar Samhain, I sent this fierceness to Her, the Ocean and her life. I sent it internally to myself. I said, NO to further slaughtering. and I said YES to my fierce willingness to continue to see things as they are and determine what medicine needs to be applied. Do I feel better? Not really. And/but I feel occasionally less "possessed." That's the only word that seems to fit. Since waking up that night to the horrific images and sounds, it possessed me in a freeze state. Finding Judith's words and her teaching of Cronewort I could feel something loosen, thaw in me a bit. It's not a fix. No. There is no fix, right now anyway. Phoenix, thank you for waking me last night and reactivating our connection...calling me here to write/record/reflect. You do that for me so sweetly. Finally, last thing: "In Japan, cronewort's fierce protective quality is well known by household women, who hang wands of it over the door to keep out evil influences" (Herbal Rituals, p. 14). May these wands be energetically hung over the waters of Taiji, Japan. So it is. In and for Her Love, Me

Threshold of Regeneration

Dear Phoenix on the WEb, our web, In readying for a spiritual retreat weekend, I've been reviewing my life...well, my most recent life. I was asked to look at the last year of my life, revisit journals, writings, interactions, experiences, actions etc. And I found myself agitated, really agitated. I thought maybe because time is so arbitrary. What's a year? Why begin it then and not some other time? I got angry and resistant the more and more I tried to artificially look at my last year. Then, I broke down, I fell through a hole I didn't even know was there. I don't want to face this year again. Don't ask me to face this year AGAIN! And this year did not begin just a year ago...this year threaded into the year before and maybe the years before! Unwinding, more unwinding. So, I went. I mean, what is one to do in falling? I can claw whatever edges I can find. Ultimately, though, falling is falling until I find ground again, land somewhere. So, these last couple days have been falling through layers of grief and regret while at the same time trying to maintain appearances and interactions with others, including myself, as if that is not happening deep inside me. This morning, I have been able to give some words to where I am....or atleast what has happened in this "simple" review of a year. I wanted to place the writing that came from that here, in a letter to you, dear Phoenix, on the WEb, our web. Because this life I am reviewing began after you were murdered. It is a life I've been living always in relation to that, to you, to us. I take full responsibility for that life, this life and all that has come to pass. I make no apologies. I look with clear eyes, like that of a Crone, or a heron, or owl. Unblinking. Focused. Honest. Fierce. Compassionate. Refusing to take nothing back. Truth is, I couldn't anyway. What does one do in the face of such sudden violent unexpected loss of her beloved companion Guardian? This is what this woman has done. This is how my life has been irrevocably changed by that sudden violent devastating loss and how I have changed my life irrevocably in response. I began the labyrinth then and still walk it. May never end. Cannot even see how one would end that walk, this walk. This is the land and waterscape of my life since that night. This is my tear streaked face, my clawing fingers, my altars to call meaning back to my life, the infinite candles that have been lit by me, and the choosing, my anguished choosing, the collapse into water, a gentle hand on the back of my neck while i'm standing on the brink, desire for another, altars made by water that stir unmemories, unrememberings, dreams of begging someone to shoot me, please!, her room: walls pained with memories and loss then painted with a black two headed snake who encircles the entire room, holding, containing, a crossroads, well, THE crossroads, making the choice to Live, to survive, to endure, to serve, gift back my life to Her on a snow covered ground, to stay True in the way only I can. This is my Life--my Life is a Threshold of Regeneration. It is not a beginning nor an end, a shore to stand on permanently tho I do need places, land, for rest, ground, restoration even if it's momentary. My Life is the threshold of regeneration...in short, my Life is the labyrinth path which began in the face of incomprehensible loss. So, that is my "review" of this stretch of the Path. I see the relevance of taking stock, reviewing, as it has helped me language where it is I am, what my Life seems to be...a Threshold of Regeneration. I am reminded of what I wrote a while back: Life seeks to Return, to Repair. Yes, that is what is both carrying me and what I carry in my heart. I love you, Phoenix. I seek you. Love, Me

The Last Day of Companion Month

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
It is the last day of this Companion Month. Not sure what that means or what will occur today in representation of such a naming.

I sat down to write about the labyrinth. The physical labyrinth next door. See my neighbor sold the property to someone who I am not comfortable with. This new owner and I have had a conversation about the nature of how our properties are connected. The front of my home looks out to the labyrinth which is the 'back yard' of her house. The arrangement is that of a 'collective' though I am not interested in having that kind of relationship. I've had to say somethings to her about the limits of how I am willing to share myself with her. She is the kind of person, as far as I can tell now, who doesn't have clear boundaries and needs lots of assistance from those around her. I have a pond on my land. She wanted to have access to the pond and I had to say no. So, I've not let her know I am interested in the labyrinth. It wouldn't be fair. So, I've kept quiet about that even when she has prompted me about it. I've been feeling grief about that. Letting go of that sweet Labyrinth who has helped me move through these last 18 months without Phoenix.

The other night, under the cover of darkness, I went out there and began to walk her. I was so bereft after something really upsetting at work that thrust me into a state of hating people and the world, and craved to feel a part of something innocent and loving, like Phoenix. So I went to Her in the Labyrinth. I got midway through the passageway In and my neighbor came home, so I left and went to the pond and listened to the owls talking in the trees. It was a good enough exchange and I did find some settledness and/but...I couldn't help but feel sad about not having that option to be with the Labyrinth. So, I wait for times when she is gone for extended periods. Or maybe middle of the night walks. Granted this may not be the most energetically ethical thing; I wonder if I should just make peace with letting her go, just be ok admiring her from a distance. Maybe I will wait until Fall and ask my neighbor if I may rake her like I did last year...prepare her for the winter. Maybe this offering of service will be a door so that the pond doesn't become the bargaining chip. And..maybe I don't want any further involvement with this neighbor. I just can't see the way right now.

In the meantime, I may walk her 'one last time' under the cover of darkness, say 'good bye' for now.

Phoenix, I love you.
Me

What a lovely date

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
Truly a lovely numerical date: 8:22:11. I was called to write because of that and because I have come to know this month as Companion month. These numbers all herald that notion of companionship to me. Plus, there have been several years with significant things which have occurred in August, the most notable/memorable was my 2007 encounter with the Canadian goose I named Companion. I met her on the side of the road beside a pond near where I used to live with Phoenix. She had been struck by a car and was dead. I could not leave her there, so I picked her up and eventually had her cremated, thereby returning her ashes to the pond and to her beloved surviving companion. It was truly a magical tale of Loss/Separation and Return. Last night I memorialized that experience along with the recent loss/separation of J. who I thought would be my life time companion. There was a beautiful altar created by myself and A.: an aging/fading sunflower, a sculpture of a girl hugging her dog companion, a candle and a photograph of Companion, the surviving one. I wept for all of my companion losses over the years and then met such a well of gratitude for A. who has become a new and important companion to me in my Spiritual work. This month, from now on, will be Companion month.

Yesterday marked another important experience. I moved Phoenix's altar from my bedroom to the room behind me. Where that altar used to be, I created another one to honor another relation: my relation to the element of water and air and to the ways I am being Led/creating of my Life from the ashes. It marks 'the way' I have come to live my life. Also, in moving Phoenix's altar, I took his collar and placed it around Beetle's neck. I assured her that I did not expect her to be Phoenix, she is not. But I felt like it was time I honored our companionship in the Spirit of the Life that was Phoenix and I. That it was time that I begin to recognize her as my companion in the unique way she has been and will be. And I have to say, though it may very well be projection, she looks proud. And she feels calmer to me, just in the last 24 hours.

My love to you, Phoenix. Always. Always.
Your forever Companion,
Me

Grief holds me close

Dear Phoenix,
Grief still holds me close. Last night felt like the night after J. left. The grief felt insurmountable, so I just let it take me. Again. And today, Grief is still there, in the wings. When I get too still, too quiet, Grief is there. She is there in the emptiness of the pantry and silverware drawer. She is there in the gaping empty room that once belonged exclusively to J. She is there in the way I do certain things that J. taught me because they are efficient and mindful of living with someone else. Grief is there when I remember I never wanted to live alone again. I never thought I would. Grief is there when I long for J.'s voice inside these walls.
I miss her, Phoenix. I miss J. How much change am I to bear? How much loss?

I have nothing inspiring to write tonight. One thing i do sometimes let in is that I have survived through the loss of you, irreplaceable you. Though, then I follow up with the next thought of: maybe I was able to do that because I had J. in my life. Now what? No Phoenix. No J. What a damn mess. I am terribly lonely.
Me

Numbers

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
So, the date is 7/11/11. It is the day after J. moved out. To say I'm depressed is an understatement, but it's the word I have. Finally I fed myself today (a dear sister came to me last night with food and loving support). It's amazing how depression persuades so much that is antithetical to self-care. I'll go swim soon too, even though I've talked myself out of it several times already. What am I waiting for? Why am I so inert in this? Some of it has to do with myself catching up, I think. Trying to integrate the emptiness in the house when just yesterday she was here. Trying to remind myself what has happened. Replaying the final good-bye. Remembering the weeks of preparation for this. The long conversations. The wrenching emotion witnessed in one another. The taking down of photos/memories/promises from the walls, the shelves, our hearts. Remember we did all that? Remember, she did not just disappear, vanish. We have walked this long unwinding labyrinthian road together before we said goodbye. Remember?

And yet, the grief has her way that I must follow through more muck of regret, sorrow, missing, anger, begging and gratitude. I follow even though I am weary. What else is there to do? I think of things I could do and every time I play it out, I find grief somewhere. Unhappiness and grief because J. is not here. Even in the scenarios she could be here, I still find grief.

And moments of WuWu. Yesterday morning as I sat in my chair, I was thinking/praying/wondering how J. and I will find our way out of these ashes. I looked up right at the moment that two herons flew over the house. They were higher than the trees, but I could tell they were herons. Two. Then when Beetle and I left for a while so J. could move out of the house, our walk took us to what felt like a new world. We followed a trail we hadn't been on before and came to a lake, no a double lake, surrounded by a path that was literally a figure 8. This is significant to me, this shape of an 8. It has become a symbol, a path of moving energetically between worlds, so to speak. The number itself is a double and of course represents in mathematics, infinity. (and I noticed while signing into write this post, there have been 88 posts so far in this web log as of today!)

And so...I continue to move between the world of grief and other places, through other doorways. My roots however are deep in the wet earth of grief. I promise to be with myself and ask for help.

And...ok, I will go swim now, even though I really don't want to. Feels like there are more important things to do...like sit and stare and cry. I can always come back to that though, I suppose.
Love you Phoenix. I know you are near.
Love,
Me