Weeding the Labryinth

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
I am on retreat here at my home for several days from work, from the world.  We have just passed the two year anniversary of our last time together in the physical.  This year it was the day before you were murdered that felt the most significant.  I played Patti Larkin's version of "Heavenly Day" over and over and sobbed my gratitude for that day, two years ago. 

Today I went out to the labyrinth and began weeding.  While I don't walk the labyrinth as much as I used to that first year when I was walking The Wheel for the first time without you in the physical, I still feel connected to that path.  It was a direction, a way for me to move literally through that troubled year and still offers itself to me generously as I need.  I wanted to pay homage by weeding it, keeping it a clear and distinct path.  As I weeded, Beetle was near by, resting.  She was really calm there.  Unusually so because she didn't keep pestering me to walk or engage with her.  She just sat and watched what was happening around us.  And there was much happening around us: birds moving in pairs searching for nesting materials, perhaps food.  Turkeys and their brood scuttering in the near distance.  A pair of ducks came in for a landing at my neighbors very small pond, then waddled towards the labyrinth not seeing me until they were quite close.  They watched me weed for a while then took flight to my pond.   It is a time of pairs, twos.  And I was touched not only because I have been seeking experience of you and I together again, but also because I realized, here were Beetle and I together in the labyrinth.  She and I have found a bond than is different than before.  It doesn't replace or even mimic what you and I had, and it has its own life of sorts.  Serious.  Playful. Patient.  Without grand expectations of affection (this one I've had to adjust to).  Protective.  Sweet.  My SweetBeetle/Sweetle.

I have come to write you, Phoenix, because I want to remember..  I want engagement with you during this time of my retreat.  This is Spring Equinox...the threshold of death and life.  The shifting of the Wheel from the Deep Inner Time to the Outer Time.  It marks the time, you were taken.  It marks the time that I, too, was taken.  Much of me has returned.  I am seeking the me that is still with you, feels you, knows you, hasn't forgotten and still is in the ashes of a life incinerated.  Not because I want to force anything to change.  No, not that.  That never works.  I am seeking that me to be with, to be closer to you. She holds you close in ways that I cannot do and still go on.  I do not wish to leave her and you behind.  And I won't take her.  But/and I want to remember how to get back to her/me there with you.  I do not want the path to be overgrown, so I cannot find the way, no matter how far I have to travel. 

Originally I was not going to be on the computer at all during this time.  No media, I said.  And, I make the rules; I can break them.  I needed to come here and write you on the WEb, put the Call you to you and to me.  I will continue to clear the path, following the leads back, ok?  So much keeps happening, growing, expanding as the Wheel continues to move and I with it.  And there has been good in this continued moving with the Wheel.  It's not that.  But/and literally and metaphorically I have so much stuff out in my home from teaching etc classes  that I need to put away and/or organize.  Clear the space.  Find my way back,  I want to.  I am not afraid.  This is part of my agreement with myself to live a life worth living.  This is how I have chosen to live a life chosen.  A Phoenix life.

My deep love to you.  I will keep calling for us to meet on the Path backwards.
Love,

Me