Duck, Death and the Tulip

Dear my beloved Phoenix on the WEb,

There is a children's book by Wolf Earbruch (2011) called Duck, Death and the Tulip.  Duck feels a presence near by, has for a while, but one day she notices how close this figure has become. It is Death.  At first, Duck is frightened and befuddled then she relaxes and they become friends.  They romp together and rest together quietly.  One day, the inevitable happens and Duck dies.  Her friend Death takes her to a stream, places her gently into the currents with a tulip on her chest and nudges her on her way.  This has significance again in my life, more so than ever, it seems, in the last several days.  I think I see where I'm going a bit more clearly.  Strangely enough.

Thursday of last week I walked into the kitchen at work and there in the large sink was a dead pig, skinned and pale, legs straight up, gut exposed ready for some sort of extraction.  I gasped and almost threw up then I cried.  I cried, Phoenix, for what humans do.  I cried for liking bacon (which I will never eat again).   I cried for the life that was that pig and her tribe.  I cried for you, Phoenix, for the shell that was left for me to find that night you were shot.  That shell that had been brutally murdered then dragged to a spot for me to get.  I cried right there at work amidst coworkers who were uncomfortable with the emotion.  Later that same day, I went to see a friend who was dying of cancer in hospice care.  When I walked into the room, I think I gasped quietly so as not to alarm anyone.  I've not seen anyone so close to death, skeletal and drawn.  I spoke to her, sang to her and gradually adjusted to this living life in front of me.  The next day when I saw her, she had just died.  I was there for 4 hours with her and her sisters and as time passed, I watched her face change, let go, relax into the death.  I too relaxed into her death.  And, something else.

My grandmother died this year.  She was 103 and I sat with her in April.  We sat and stared out the window, watching the wind blow leaves, flowers, branches and an American flag.  I have never felt such peace with anyone like that outside of circle.  She remarked to me how much she appreciated just the quiet and not talking.  When I left her that visit, I knew it was the last time I'd see her and I knew it was time for me to follow through on a long time interest in hospice work.  In fact she died two months later and I began hospice care work shortly after that.  It was time.

Phoenix, I am aware of this current carrying me.  I have felt this with me for many years, much like Duck: this presence and knowing of something lingering nearby.  I've had glimpses. And then long stretches of not knowing, feeling lost.  Now I feel like Death has laid me down into a stream of life, handed me a tulip and nudged/pushed me on my way.  I feel the flow and see how maybe all the trauma, death and divorce have some how woven this stream/current for me.  I am beholden to Death in this way.  I do not know how else to speak of it.  Beholden to Death and Life in this way.

And what must I let die in order to let go?  Guilt.  Not responsibility. No, I will never not feel responsible for the devastation I have caused another.  I see now, though, I cannot hold myself back from living a life I chose.  Death has showed me something of the way in Life.  I am truly grateful. 

Love,
Me 

YOU!?

Dearest Phoenix on the WEb,

Ok, what is the deal?  On my way home from work today, I took the long way home, a scenic route through the mountains so I could feel the elevated air, see the leaves beginning to change and feel some change inside me in response.  And, I did. I had the sunroof open, the windows open and I looked down at your sweet face on my dashboard and remembered you so dearly: how it felt as a "We" together that is most unique, the energy that was exchanged, the settled joy of us, the love that was you and I.  All of that was gently and powerfully blowing around and through me as I sped along.

Then, the blue lights and I am pulled over for speeding.  I can hardly believe it; I mean how could this happen tangentially to being in such a state of connection and peace with you.  Aren't these bonds supposed to be practical? preventative of anything bad happening?  Where was your influence here?  Why a speeding ticket when feeling you and your presence?  Really. Why?

While I waited for the verdict of how much I would be charged for speeding (I really did believe you could influence this), I calmed myself down again by swimming through more connection with you as I looked at the photograph.  I remembered the times when I wanted to take you for a walk with your backpack on and you did not want that.  You would leap off the porch and into the yard barking at me to come chase you, daring me to.  I would grow more and more impatient but/and you would always make me laugh because of your persistent rascal-like playfullness.  I would try to be serious and say: "Phoenix, I am serious, come here. Hurry up!"  And you would trot towards me only to leap again into the air off the porch just out of my reach!

So, there I was languishing in those memories when the officer returned to tell me that my ticket would not be reduced because my speed far exceeded the limit.  I was bereft, how could you not affect change in this situation, pull some strings, make something wuwu happen to reduce this ticket that I got because I was communing with YOU!  Then I heard it: "Ma'am you were speeding 22 miles/hr over the limit."  Oh, there it is.  22.  Two twos.  Sigh.  Ok,  Phoenix, there you went again, leaping off the porch laughing at me like you do.  Ok, I accept, I was speeding. I'll pay the fine and slow down.  But, you owe me 100 bucks.

I love you, Phoenix.  We are a match forever.
Yours,
Me
PS....When I went to locate this photo above that is the one I keep in my car, I had to search thru all my photos by date in my file folder on line. There are thousands and I had no idea what date it was.  After looking at three other random dates, I found this one.  The date?  3/22/08  Yes, 22.  Ha, ha.

Back to back cranes

Dearest Phoenix on the WEb,

Thank you!!!  You are here.  In my despair, I could not see the language, our language, you send me.  It's amazing that I just don't see what's right there...

These last few days have been rough again.  Someone close to me has a dog who we think had a stroke because this weekend he couldn't walk properly.  It was a scary thing as the vet was trying to figure out what was happening and it seemed like he was getting worse quickly.   I stayed close to her as she plunged into her nightmare of losing such a close companion suddenly.  I held the line.  Finally, things began to shift and her beloved companion turned some corner and mostly has come back.

I was fine throughout, felt ok like I was totally present with what was happening inside me and still present for her and her process.  I am so glad I was there to understand the level of fear that was happening for her and to hold some line of groundedness.  As things settled for her, I began to plunge into my own depths.  Both today and yesterday, I came home from work, put my pj's on and went head first into bed.  I've been weeping the last couple of days sporadically and then today it was full force again.  I called you, Phoenix, called you to come to me.  Come back!  I need you.  Where have you gone!  You've not been in my dreams, I don't have any reported sign of you...you have vanished!!  Then I went back to this web log we have written together and began to re-read our journey.  I could feel myself both drop deeper into the grief and then something else met me there.  It was a line, maybe, that you hold for me.  I begged you to show me a sign, show me you still are there, something undeniable.

Nothing.  Silence and your photographs and our story.  But nothing current.

Later, I went to the living room, feeling a bit more grounded, but still discouraged that I must have made all of those other signs up because the magic has run amuck.  Then, as I was talking on the phone, Heron flew up towards my window and over the top of my house!  Oh, yes, is that you???  Then that reminded me of something from earlier today: a resident was wearing the most lovely shirt of two cranes standing back to back with one another so that it looked like it was a two headed bird!  It was so unusual, I thought then, but hadn't connected it consciously to you until later after I saw Heron fly towards me.  That was you and me at one another's back.  How sweet and just like you.

Thank you, dear beloved friend/guardian/companion.  Thank you for being there even when I am not seeing you.  Thank you for flying towards me to get my attention.  Thank you for not leaving me, especially now.  Thank you for being at my back.  I need you there with me.

I love you so.
Me

PS...I just read that cranes take this position of back to back as a protective posture.  Of course.  This is the kind of Wuwu I so needed and called you back for.  Thank you, dear one.

Next Day

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,

Good morning.  Woke up wanting to write some more to you.  The labyrinth has been overtaken by weeds this summer.  My neighbor has totally neglected the path.  I've been trying to stay detached and not get involved with her about it as our relationship is tenuous at best.  I've not been walking it at all because of all the weeds and such.  It's been so hard to watch the path be consumed.

Then last week something different happened.  One of the lawn care workers began to weed eat in the labyrinth.  I was so relieved! Then he stopped and moved on to another area of the yard before finishing!  I hollered at him to ask him to finish, but he could not hear me over the mowers around him.  I figured maybe it was just as well not to get involved, so I let it go.  For now.

Then the next day the person who mows my lawn came and I asked him to go ahead and finish weed eating the labyrinth.  He used to take care of that yard when my former neighbor lived there, so he said he'd be glad to for no charge!  He was equally disturbed by how she had abandoned the care of the labyrinth.  I came inside and wrote a letter to my neighbor reporting what had happened and that I went ahead and finished the weeding in the labyrinth because I care about that sacred path and that I would be honored to continue to take care of it while she got caught up on the others things she's trying to get done.

Yesterday walking this labyrinth was the only thing I felt like I could do from that place of the sinkhole.   The hardest part was walking through a large area where there used to be a Lamb's Ear plant.  M. mistakedly mowed it down.  All that is there is black earth and white flecks of the plant.  It looks like ashes.  I shuddered then and now as I recall.  Lamb's ear: Phoenix's ear.  I am shaking inside.  Still so much grief and devastation materialized.

And, it's raining this morning.  I am seeing the rain sink down into the roots of the Lamb's ear and soothing the trauma, the sudden decapitation of leaves and life.  The roots being calmed, their shaking quieting.  The sound of the gentle rain, a sweet humming into the earth, into the Lamb's ear roots.  I ask for regeneration also from this rain in time, from the soothing deep in the roots.  In time.  I know such things take time.  For now, I pray for just soothing.

I am grateful for the Path again being cleared.  Truly.  It's 'just' a configuration, but it's one that leads in and out again.   I need to know that Way even if I'm just wandering feeling oh so terribly lost.  Thank you, Goddess for this Path.  For the clearing.  For the soothing.

I love you, Phoenix, this day of the Crossroads when I decided to live the life that would never have existed if I decided otherwise.  I am quaking with that Yes.  So unsure.  So so unsure of my way.  The other night I dreamed that I went to visit a young person in an institution.  When I came in the room, this young person was sitting in their bed, facing the headboard, howling.  I sat next to them and howled too.  What else can one do?  That is my siren.

Love,
Me

Not a single siren nor arrest

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,

Last night and today have been the worst times so far that I can remember since the nights and days after you were killed.  I have felt so very lost, like I don't know what I'm doing.  I feel out of control of my life.  And the grief has been huge and growing/deepening, like a sinkhole, dragging me further and further in.  At one point in one of the huge surges of grief, I heard an ambulance in the distance and I went right back to the night you were killed and I lay beside your lifeless body, waiting for J. to get home.  There were no emergency vehicles to come help you or make any arrests.  With that awareness, I almost came undone.  I do not know how I will ever recover from this.  I know I've been saying that for over two years now and I still cannot quite convince myself that it is simply True.  I will never recover.  I can stop trying to.  It will never happen.  Not in any way that I will recognize 'normalcy' as I once knew it.

I have left a way of life, I tell myself over and over.  Not just a relationship.  A way of life.  And I've left a womyn who quintessentially is such a good person.  I miss her and her ways of thinking and understanding life, of making me laugh and feel safe.  They were home to me for a long time.  And in this sinkhole now, I feel lost, directionless, without a touchstone of home, of roots.  I am desperate for connection and contact with her. 

That is not to deny any of the new relations I've been growing or what they bring me.  They are not roots.  They are something else that I don't quite know yet.  They feel mutable.  I do not lean very hard on them.  Not because I don't trust them, because I do not trust myself.   Not now.  Maybe not ever again.  I am not looking for a replacement of my relationship with J. in person or in structure.  I've left that way of life.  And this new life now...well, right now it doesn't feel like much of anything that I can hold on to.

And...two years ago tomorrow was the day I met myself at that Crossroads of life and death and I got really clear about choosing life.  That I will not and cannot take my own.  It's not who I am in my Essence/Beingness.  I never knew that for sure about myself before that day.  I am grateful to know this, especially for someone like me who falls into many sinkholes.   Yes, I am grateful and distressed because it means I am staying on the planet, no matter how Lost I am and remain.  No matter how undone I come from the lack of sirens and arrests for atrocities in my life and for wimmin all over the planet.  I honor that Knowing.  And the Work I face most days to endure.

I love you, Phoenix.  Thank you for calling me back to our WEb.
Love,
Me

The Day After Summer Solstice 2012

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
     It is one day past the Summer Solstice and I have been reflecting.  Yesterday, Summer Solstice,  there were two roses in full bloom: one at the back of my house beside your grave site and one right outside my window in the front of the house.  This one is on the rose bush that I've identified with you during that first year in our move here.  Remember, the one that was so beautiful and was such an anchor of beauty for me as I traversed that first year without you!  She is dying, bugs are eating her no matter how much I try to tend her, she is dying I think. But/And yesterday there was one beautiful full blooming rose.  From you?  The other one there by your grave site is from a bush, also dying, that work acquaintances gifted me after you were killed.  Again, was this other beautiful fully bloomed rose from you? 
     Today I've had a quiet morning to myself.  Facing me most often when I get quiet is the grief, still the grief, forever the grief.  I sat down and leaned into it listening for what it had to bring me this time.   Why?  Why did all of this have to happen two years ago?  and one year ago?  Why all the loss?  Why cannot I be in full bloom and still have my beloved companions/Guardians in my life? Why the disconnect?  Why the letting go of such beloved Beings?  Why the cost?  I just don't understand and inside I feel crazy trying to face it and explain the inexplicable.  I don't believe in cosmic exchanges, that is the sacrificial giving up of one thing to gain another.  I don't think the Divine/Life Force works that way.  So, I don't know how to make meaning of this, to try to settle this unsteadiness about it all.  Most of the time nowadays I just keep moving, facing the next thing knowing that this cradle of ruins and grief also live inside these walls with me.  And there are times like today that I am called back to the cradle to cry and ask why, ask for answers and insights to explain to myself and others and to just sit with the incongruities, the urgent incongruities.
     Thank you for the roses, Phoenix.  I know they are from you. I've been kissed by a rose from the grave.  Again.  Two times this time.  I wish that it made everything better.  It doesn't.  But it does make me weep in gratitude for you on the WEb with me and hope that there is something deeply being rewoven and repaired that I will get to see/experience soon.
My love to you always,
Me

Watching night fall

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
It is the last day of May 2012, a mostly quiet day with myself and Beetle.  I have been feeling so depressed the last several days that today I spent the day doing physical things around the house that need to be done as well as being outside as much as possible.

 Beetle and I went for a walk, our usual path into the woods around the local college.  We came up to a place along the creek where a large tree had been washed off the bank, her massive roots still somewhat clinging to the eroding slope.  Beetle made a spontaneous jump down the bank and then couldn't get back up.  In fact, her whole body slipped down into a hole through the decrepit roots that sunk into a muck that she could not pull herself out of.   I slid down onto the unstable root surfaces and pulled her back up.  It was precarious.  My footing was not secure and there were only a few places where the space didn't collapse with our weight.  Once I got her up from the hole, she went down into the creek bed, shook and then climbed back up. I wasn't sure what was going to happen and I was still very precariously positioned and worried about what both of our weights would do to our grasp as I pushed her up the rest of the bank, then followed her, my feet slipping with each placement.  Once back on solid ground, I felt the adrenaline and then later down the path the emotions came.

You see, Phoenix, these last several days I have been praying for some sense of rootedness again.  With J. gone I am struggling with feeling a sense of ground.  In so many ways, I have not only let go of J., but also a way of life: partnership.  And for all of the ways that structure was not good for me, it was also very good for my sense of place, my sense of home, ground, root.  So, to literally find myself trying to balance myself on roots whose base had been and was currently being eroded, dislodged, was, well, a bit wuwu.  It was like materializing where I am internally.  Not only was I there trying to secure myself, I was there trying to save Beetle.  And, I'm not being dramatic.  I think had I not been able to get her out of that hole, she might have drowned.  So, the desperate imperative to save Beetle added the perfect physical manifestation of how I feel inside.  Freaky.  And...some of the tears that came later came with the words: the roots held.  We are safe.  The roots held for me.

So, the end the day, Beetle and I went down by the pond to watch night fall.  For several weeks and nights before J. moved out last July, J. and I would sit beside one another outside and do the same thing: watch night fall.   I distinctly remember appreciating those times and thinking: I want to remember this, how this feels to simply sit beside my beloved J. as the inevitable happens.  Night falls.  That can be counted on.  So, Beetle and I counted on that root tonight and watched her come through the bats, the sounds of crickets, frogs, birds and water flowing.

I feel like I am facing again the reality of our breakup and all the desperate imperative emotions that go with being so scared of the inevitable and the unknown.  This no doubt is part of my felt sense that my ground has been eroded again and my roots are desperately searching and clinging.  I am so scared.  And, Phoenix, today was a gift, I know.  A gift that there is something that anchors me by reflecting me.  It's not another person.  Or even an animal.  Something more mysterious.  But/and that Mystery certainly works through animals and people sometimes.  But today She was there in the Earth.  In that tree's roots that held my weight, my desperation, my fear and my heavy depression.

My love always to you, Phoenix. wherever you are...
Me