It's July again, you would be 16

Dearest Phoenix on the WEb,
Your sixteenth birthday was a week and a day ago: July 2. Today was the day five years ago that J. moved out. This is a month of anniversaries, births and deaths. It is also the month of the Amazon. It would have to be, hm? Remembering my strength and ability to affect change in this messed up world is a daily act. I wish I knew how to better organize; I think that Patriarchy depends on my ineptness and of course other's ineptness too.

I'm feeling a mixture of strength and sadness today, so I come to write you again. So much intense hatred in the world, violence and hatred against the most vulnerable. It's what killed you six years ago: one man's hatred and violence and gun. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with my own hate and anger. Taking up arms is not an option for me; I must find my own revolutionary path. That is not easy because men's path is so well grooved, guns so readily available and encouraged, violence so well modeled. Hatred of women has never wavered in spite of good things that women are doing for women. There is still rape and as long as there is still rape, there is still male hatred of women. It's not a less or more thing; like somehow we are doing 'better' in the world because there is less rape or some such argument. If any woman is raped, we all are at risk in men's unstable world. The concept must be eradicated from the human heart and mind. And to do that takes men stepping up and saying enough. The burden is on them.  In the meantime, we Amazons continue to protect and defend.

So, that is my feminesto. As Andrea Dworkin said: I want a 24 hour truce of rape. That's all. 24 hours. Seems like that is doable. Wars succeed in truces: guns laid down. And yet, can men do that? Can rapists put down their weapons? Turn off their porn? Stop prostituting women? For a mere 24 hours?

Not likely. No one seems to be trying because that's what rapists do. They rape.

So, my dear Phoenix, this is my cry onto the WEb: despair and clarity and desire to find action that continues to protect and defend.

I love you. Thank you for your presence through the WEb. It/You never go

unnoticed.
M.E.

Six Years Today

Good morning, beloved Phoenix,
Today it is six years since you were murdered, cruelly taken from me. As the years have progressed, I have walked the labyrinth's weaving path of forwards and backwards, inward and out.  I have wept from the deepest grave beside your bones, incapacitated and hopeless.  I have scoured your silken remains and found no bullet to return, no restoration or rightening of this injustice. I have raged against ghosts and madness, having to stay mindful of my safety and preservation in the world. Beetle and I have found a loving shared path together somehow and now, she too, has died. I imagine you two have joined forces and sent me Hestia, my Bassett, who is a blend of your silly gleefulness, Phoenix, and your intensity, Beetle. I have found joy again, companionship and comraderie with this new four legged. And, I still weep at the injustice, the missing what was completely unique to us, Phoenix, and for the natural course of the rest of your life.  Of course, by now you likely would have died from natural causes of age, wear and tear. After all, you'd be 16 this coming July!  And, I still wonder what the rest of our time together would have brought on this side together.

What I know on this day, the sixth anniversary passage ('through the keyhole of the needle I must pass through all alone') is that not everything returns from the Deep.  Not everything takes new form. There are truly some things, some configurations between beings, that just live once. I have said goodbye to my relations with many over these six years since you have been taken and I realize for the first time that some of them, two of them in particular, will never Return. It's a very painful realization for someone who does have some deeply buried belief that Life seeks to return, to repair. I do think that is a natural Law; I feel assured by it just in watching The Wheel turn year after year after year.  And, I also now understand, that some threads of Life are too weathered, too frayed that they easily rot in the Deep. There is no preservation possible, Phoenix, no Repair, no Return. This too is a natural Law. And I'm not even sure about the compost metaphor anymore. In other words, I'm not even sure that the death/end of some relations serves as some ideological 'compost' for something new. It's too abstract a leap, it seems to me. It's a bit New/Toxic Age thinking for me. Some things just end/die/stop.

Clearly, though, you and I have not.  We have this incredible woven web between us that now includes Beetle and Hestia, Ferron and Amoja.  I am so grateful for this, all of this we have worked to create again in our Labyrinth path.  I am not the same womyn because of you,  because of us.  And I see the strength of weaving in this way, daring to go beyond the supposed limits of death, in ways that those relations that have ended/stopped/died did not have the courage or integrity to. I am proud of our tenacity, Phoenix. I am proud of me and of you.

My love always,
ME

Coming to the WEb again

Dearest Phoenix,
It is now 2016, three days now. You came to me in dream the other night, replaying the trauma of your death, though the conditions were different. You, Myrrh and I were taking a walk and I noticed how our path was getting closer to a busy road, so I tried to call you both away. You kept going, not on a leash, and I saw the inevitable unfolding. It was so painful of a re-living that even my dream self couldn't actually show me the event. There was a blank moment in the dream and then I am there seeing you in the road after you had been hit by a car, but you are not dead yet. You are trying to get up, clearly in pain and distress, and I am far away and cannot run fast enough to get to you to hold you in the last moments of your life. There are people around you acting confused by what to do; they are not your person and your person cannot get to you. I         cannot           get             to you. I run and run and run and I cannot get to you to hold you into your death.

It has been over five years now and also not even five seconds since that day, March 19, 2010.  Three weeks ago O's beloved dog Ferron was hit by a car and killed instantly.  The trauma of that is still with me too.  From the other side of the WEb, I have asked you to meet Ferron and help her find her way back to O...and you, along with other beloveds on that side, have done exactly that and more. Thank you, Phoenix. Thank you. We now have Amoja, Female Magic, to love and adore.  And you and Beetle have combined forces to send me Hestia, my beloved Bassett. She is 'the short one' as per Beetle (who died Sept. 23 2014 from tongue cancer).  I am grateful for my life with my life here on this side of the WEb and my life with you through the threads between. It is not always easy, nor does it always/often feel fair. When you come to me in dreams, I remember the pain as well as the lovely comfort of you in my physical life and I am grateful for that as well as the reaching across the veils to me. And I love knowing you are just right there. Right there. Never left my side.  Sometimes you come through Hestia, sometimes now with Amoja, certainly with Ferron and sometimes I just know you are there when I talk to you, your photo. I just know it.  Thank you, my beloved guardian Phoenix. I am so sorry you died there without me in that moment. And I know that all that we have done together over the years since then has been a repairing of that horrific tear. It is what She does...Life seeks to return, to repair.  And so, we continue to do so in the face of hideous and painful rips and tears on the WEb, on our hearts and lives. There is no 'lesson' to be learned, no karma to be paid. There is patriarchal violence/hate, there are terrible careless mistakes and accidents, there is death who comes in many guises all of which are loss.  And there is Life, She Who seeks to return, to repair.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

ME

Anger seeks Justice

Dear Phoenix on the WEb,
There is something I need to know from you that only you can tell me.  Do you think me a coward for not confronting your killer?
I so wish there was something that I did, something dramatic that I could hang onto in my memory for these times when I am so angry at the injustice of your murder and have nothing to show for, at the very least spitting in his face when I had the chance.

Last night I dreamed that I was walking up that hill that led to both our houses. I encountered a horse who was very friendly to me, kept trying to connect with me.  I followed her up the hill; she was leading me somewhere and I lost track how close I was getting to your killer's house.  Suddenly I was right even with one of the windows and I ducked quickly and headed back down the hill.  Your killer saw me and grabbed his shot gun, standing just inside his doorway.  He shouted: "Stop where you are!" I kept walking, ignoring his threats, daring him to shoot me. 

I don't know what that dream means except that it has stirred up again how unresolved this will always be.  I will never know if he has suffered enough, or any, for that matter.  I will never have a memory of spitting my seething anger at him.  I feel like a coward.  I had nothing to lose after you were murdered: what would it have mattered if, after I buried you,  I had gone to his doorstep and looked him in the face and just spit at him.  Just spit and said that he and his family were lucky I didn't own a gun.  Curse him. Scare him.  Give him a memory of me that would linger into his nights forever.  Be the Erinyes. 

No, I did not do any of that.  Phoenix, do you think me a coward? Did I not live up to the ferocious womyn I claim to be?  I know that had I done anything directly ferocious, it would not have changed the fact that you were murdered, dead, gone.  But, it would have given me some sense of having done something in your honor that might have stirred up some regret, some fear of retribution, some stream of justice.  That's what I want: justice. 

So, two things I ask: one, do you think me a coward, dear Phoenix guardian companion? And two: I ask the WEb to send me a sign, some Wu, that there has been some bigger Justice in this matter.  Justice, it's a lot to ask of this world. And I ask the WEb, that which has kept you and I connected these few years, these many days and months, for some information that could only come in these Wu ways.  Dear WEb, I need to know.

Open to the Wu and loving you always, Phoenix,
Me

Day of Mourning, Here Again at the Keyhole of a Needle

A day of mourning, March 19th.  It's been four years, beloved Phoenix on the WEb, since you were taken from me, since Hades pulled the trigger on you life, on the Life that was you and I. The original meaning of the word,  " to mourn" is "to remember."  Today I have dedicated the day to remember all of that Life that was you and I.   I've allowed the day to flow with whatever is needed for the mourning.

Right now, the light is changing in the sky and I feel my insides getting anxious, frantic and agitated, downright shaky, short of breath and scared.  The time of your murder is approaching and even though I was not home when he killed you, my body has some knowing it was around 6:30 pm.  This is the keyhole of the needle I must pass through all alone, to use Chris Williamson's words again.  A keyhole like a rabbit hole into the trauma vortex that feel like swirling rapids, perilous and dire.  I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to condition myself, my little girls, to be ready in spite of everyone's insistence that 'I DON'T WANT TO!'.  It is not possible to bypass this day, this month, this memory.  Simply not possible for this Being.  I am sure others know how to numb, drug out, deny, 'forget' and 'go on' but/and not this Being.  I cannot.  And, I won't.  I go into the keyhole, the rabbit hole, the vortex, surrounded by many images of Udegan, many lit candles, by my beloved Beetle and Myrrh, by photos of you, Phoenix, by altars, by the knowing of survival from the last three years of doing this exact same thing. I am alone,  yes, there is no one to pass through for or with me. And, there is a larger container holding this passage as I go.

Beetle and I took a walk in the woods today and at one point I looked around through the trees and called out your name. I have many photos of you racing free through the trees or standing still so very much camoflaged by your surroundings.  I imagined you were there watching Beetle and I walk and I just couldn't see you because you do such a good job of being undetected.  Phoenix, I miss you. You have come to me in dreams periodically and I have been so very thankful and touched.  May you have a bit of magic for us on this day, this evening? I hope so!

Soon after I imagined you in the trees around us today, I heard a snap of a branch and became on alert.  Then the worst thing happened: a dog off leash charged Beetle and I.  I kicked and yelled while his person tried to get a hold of him and for many minutes was unsuccessful.  In the midst of the fray in keeping this dog away from us, Beetle bit my knee.  Finally, the dog was apprehended.  My body is sore and my little girls are so very distraught. Being bit by Beetle is painful on many levels.  She is my beloved companion, my protector; I know she didn't mean to bite me, and my feelings feel so very hurt.

Interestingly, right before that happened, in between me imagining you in the trees and the dog charging us, I wondered aloud if it would be a good idea to get a puppy in hopes Beetle would help raise her, teach her how to be my companion, before she dies.  I had some good sweet chuckles asking Beetle what she could teach this puppy.  She said she could teach her how to protect me, how to let me rub her belly, how to lick the tears off my face, how to make me giddy, how to be in Circle, how to keep the cat away from me.... Then the snap of a branch and the charge and ensuing fighting off and knee bite.  When Beetle and I walked away finally, I just sobbed realizing that the answer was obvious.  No, I cannot have another puppy now.  There's no way I could have handled things with two dogs. Plus, Beetle's aggression (while righteous in this situation) is not something I want to be taught as much as I love her and want her to be part of the passing on of a lineage of how to be my beloved companion.  I feel so sad right now about that on this day, even though, as I have said over and over, I do not want Beetle to go.  We have a sweet rhythm and Life together.  Now, I am sure, however, it has to just be she and I. 

What else to say to you, love, on this day as 6pm approaches...I ache of this loss, of all that was lost, all over my body. I have remembered you through your photos today your gleeful nature, your intensity, your protectiveness as my guardian companion, your sweetness and goofy antics, your ease in relaxing on whatever surface is available and your ability to move in and out of visibility.  I am most struck by this, this year: your moving between foreground and background.  I greet you, Phoenix, on this day that calls forth into the foreground our last day together four years ago and the first day of my life forever changed.

May we find one another between the worlds always, forever, infinitely. I will continue to look between the trees.  Thank you for your devoted love.

Your beloved companion person,
Me

Back on the bench, oppossum ghosting by

Dearest Phoenix of the WEb,
Funny how just anything can take me.  Take me back.  Maybe it is more like the thing awakens the me who is still there, who has always been there for three and a half years now.  As the Autumn Equinox has passed, I find myself here, there, on that bench holding your broken body.  I am wailing, wailing....turning over all of life to this death. Today as I walked through the woods with Beetle, crying, being on that bench, holding you in my lap, your life force draining onto my work pants, I reassured myself that I see me there, I recognize I have been there for three and a half years and if it's necessary I will be there another of the same.  I didn't try and stop the tears, the deep grief, the remembering.  I simply sat down there beside me.  We wept together.  I am still weeping, whether or not others see it.

Being just past the turn of the Wheel towards The Deep, I have been reflecting on the Outward Time with Demeter.  How we have been together in new ways, how I woke up to Life and Living differently and decided to try and not be afraid of it.  She taught me the incredible joy of planting and tending my garden, creating and fostering beauty around my home, my sanctuary, Her temple.  And, here I am, just past the threshold of The Deep.  It's not an easy turn around from the Outer to the Inner time, even for someone like me.  I am feeling things differently this year, this turning.  As I step through this long hallway, threshold, I greet The Deep and what I left here at Spring when I said Yes to Demeter.  And, it's grief.  Still grief.  Still me on that bench.  I am the bereft Demeter holding the beloved vacant body of her Persephone who has gone into the Underside of the Wheel,  a shamanic Journey to the Grandmothers.  I am Demeter pledging my life, what remains of it, to this holding, this death, this separation. 

And, so, I walked today with Beetle, crying and sitting beside myself on that bench, and then I turn and say, "This story is not over, you know. This is the worst most excruciating part of it." We look up and an oppossum walks by, white and ghostlike.  We can hardly believe she is so close; surely she hears us, this wailing.  No, she keeps walking by, close by.  I say, "There will be more to this story.  There must be.  Persephone is not gone forever.  Demeter holds vigil, tends the broken, vacant body, wanders the land devastated,  refusing life.  One day, though, remember, one day when the timing comes, there is a Return.  We cannot possibly know when that will be.  Until then, I sit here with you. We will play dead in this life as long as necessary."

These last two weeks I've had an oppossum take up residence in my crawlspace.  Finally, we trapped her and have relocated her to a wildlife reserve.   I wonder if this creature has come to remind me, call me back to that bench and sit, hold, remind myself that the story of death is not over. 

It feels better to write this.  To you, beloved Phoenix.  To you.

My total love,
Me

More of Our Mystery...

Dearest Phoenix on the WEb,

     The Labyrinth led me back to you, your bones, your physical remains.  My hands and fingers searched for the violent metal that stole your life from me.  I combed every inch of you, of what remains left in smooth, velvety grey matter and white bone.  We employed a metal detector to find what my fingers and eyes could not see.  No bullet. I was ripped open again...how could this possibly BE?  No bullet???  Am I crazy? How can you be dead if there is no bullet?  How can this be your body here with no bullet?  I felt grabbed into another nightmare of the crazies.  How can this be??? S. and I stayed with the Wu of it all.  I asked her to scan my body with the detector...surely if it was not lodged in you, it must still be lodged in me!  Nothing.  No bullet.

   For three days I left you uncovered, rattling and singing the trauma gone, released and free.  For three days I was with you and myself and the Mystery of this Labyrinth, our Path together. And when it was time, S. and I began the process of covering you up again, but this time, this time, we did it in a way so that I could pilgrimage to you more readily.  S. was deeply present and asked me every step of the way, how would this feel?  and how would that feel? as we followed what would be Right.  Ultimately, the biggest Wu happened.

    I had precisely dug all around the bones, careful to expose all areas so that the trauma could be released.  The shape of the hole ended up being kidney shaped.  We agreed that the element of water would be a lovely conduit between Phoenix and I, so we decided a small pond would be good. We both looked at it and nodded, noting perhaps there was a pond liner that we might find in a similar shape.  We'd just see, we agreed.  So, as it turned out my work canceled itself for that evening unexpectedly and we both had time to go to the store and see what was available and what might be next.  Sure enough, the store had one liner and it was kidney shaped!
  
   Upon returned with the liner etc., I walked around the house out of sight for a moment to check on something.  When I came back, S. was standing with her hands on her hips, a huge smile on her face and shaking her head in disbelief.  "It fits perfectly."  I dropped to the ground in awe.  How could that be?  Exactly?  Exactly. 

   So, with a layer of dirt over the bones and some rocks around the edges, Phoenix rests beneath a small pond of water now,  hyacinths blooming and a small pump circulating.  And, a heron statue, of course.  Hugging the pond, is a snake mound, modeled after one S. and I visited in Ohio years ago made by the first nation Peoples there.

    How does one "explain" such a Mystery?  The search for the missing bullet got me there, but it wasn't the reason.  The freeing that happened was the reason, the freeing of all that was still lodged in those bones and in these bones.  I will never know what happened to the bullet, literally.   Metaphorically, energetically, I have sent it back to its Source.  Where it belongs.

   It is on this day, August 15, which on my personal Wheel of the Year is Companion Day, that I record something of this, our Mystery, here on our WEb.  You will always be the Light of my Light, the spark that I seek.  I miss you, my beloved Guardian Companion.  I miss you.  And, I do feel you closer, our connection dearer than ever.  I do want you back and have begun to feel into that possibility for our family.  Slow steps. Slow call.

 Yours,
Me