DatingGod

Sweet Jacinta

This post is disjointed. Maybe I shouldn't press publish, but I get that I need to write it. Because I need to deal with my grief somehow, and this is all I know to do in this moment.

Like with The Hoon, I've known for months she was going to go. Even as I understood that taking her to the vet wouldn't do anything, wouldn't stop what was coming. But feeling it coming helped me be clear in loving her. Even though before then, for the past few years, I've been loving her like every day would be our last.

That sweet weasel was so loved. And she loved me so deeply, so hilariously and with so much slobber. Kittens are loving, but Jacinta and I had a long time love. 12 years. We knew each other's stuffs. I'll love her for the rest of my life. And if there is something after this, I'll be loving her in that space too.

But of course the past few days, with all I have going on right now, I've been distracted, and when she called to me on Wednesday early morning, when I was sitting here at this computer checking emails or surfing or something equally as inane, I remember kind of brushing her off.

Thursday morning she didn't eat. Thursday night when I got home, she still wouldn't eat, so I called the vet for an appt the next morning. By 8pm though  she was in bad shape. Throwing up bile. In terrible pain. 

1:30 am and $475 at the emergency clinic later, they ruled out liver and kidneys. 9am the next morning and $610 at the vet's they ruled out a cancerous mass, and diagnosed a mild to moderate case of pancreatitis. Almost tapped out for money, they loaded me up with DIY supplies - a hanging bag for sub-q fluids, syringes for pain and nausea meds, and for feeding. They kept her for the day to dole out professional love, attention and meds, and I picked her up after work, took her home.

But she only got worse with every passing hour. By 2am she was crying in pain, and I gave her pain meds, all the pain meds, all five doses for the weekend all at once. It helped. But her breathing grew labored.

By 4am I knew what the deal was. Actually, by the time I set up the first vet visit, before the emergency clinic, I knew. But you have to go through all the steps, right? 

The worst thing would be for her to die in pain, even if it was at home in bed with me, or god help us, by the side of the road like with Cassidy. The second worse thing would be for her to die in that godawful emergency clinic. So I kept a vigil. An all night vigil by the light of the full moon. Watching her breathe. Doing energywork. Speaking sweet words to her. I didn't talk much. Because I finally, for the first time in this life, understood that love doesn't need to be spoken aloud. But I know hearing the tone of it always made her purr, so I when she was in the worst waves of pain, I spoke to her in that language I always spoke to her in, and through her pain she could recognize.

If things got too painful, we'd go to the emergency clinic. If not, we'd hold out til the vet opened in the morning.

I watched the clock go 4. 4:20. 4;45. 5. On and on until we made it til 6:30.

We got to the vet's by 7am. They let us in at 7:45. 

Lungs filling with fluid. Maybe a heart issue. Maybe the pancreatitis was secondary to something else. Maybe Cushings. Maybe there was cancer that wasn't caught by the first tests. But it all requires tests, procedures, money. Lots of it. But would it even help? Would it make her well?

I just realized one of the things that has been so painful about the past couple of days is how I kept trying to distract myself from the fact that she was dying. Is that what I'm doing now? Trying to distract myself from the fact that she's dead? Or am I facing it more clearly by this writing?

But I do what I know to do. So I do this.

I had five appointments with holistic clients today. I cancelled them all, for folks to reschedule for tomorrow or next weekend. The old me would have muscled through them. Let my heart be all raw and ripped open and mythic. But this person I'm becoming understands that there is no need for heroics. I'm grieving. My sister died this morning. 

Then my mind, the cold, evil part of it says I'm a heartless bitch to kill my friend because it costs too much to keep her alive. I let it pierce my heart, because there's truth in that. I have about $2000 left in credit and cash. I know it wouldn't have been enough. I know the most any of this would have bought is a year or two. Maybe. Maybe only days. Or ten days, like with The Hoon. But I weighed all the possibilities, of having three other kitties to care for, a possible move for a new job in a few weeks, the insane debt load I already carry from school, from the first year out of school before I began making money again.

I told the vet point blank: no heroics. If you feel strongly, let's do it, but I don't want to keep throwing things at her, torturing her like she was last night. No more pain for her, no more suffering. We need to do the right thing. And she said doing the kind thing would be to let go. And even though I knew I didn't need her permission, or her approval, it helps me now, in this moment, when the evil part of my mind rises again.

And then my mind remembers last night, the pain, the suffering of my friend. And I'm so grateful I had the courage to tell the vet No More. And the vet said it's the kindest thing. And in the moment I felt an adulthood I hadn't before. Not out of my mind crying. Crying yes, but focused, clear thinking. 

While the vet prepared things, I talked to Jacinta. Just saying all the things I've always said to her, the same phrases over and over the years, the things I'd sing. She purred. And gave me the love look, the first time since before she got sick. In those moments, I felt her understand what I was doing, and feel relief with it. She could feel me loving her, loving her like I always did. Keeping her safe. Protected. 

Even if I couldn't protect her from death, I could protect her from pain. I could help her have a peaceful death. 

And so they gave her a sedative. Then took her in the back to get the iv port in place. Then came out and placed her in my arms, and let us be together for a while. I waited til she and I were ready, then when someone came in, very gently, to check, I nodded. The syringe emptied, and a few moments later, she flinched just a bit, then her heart stopped. 8:32. 

I stayed with her until her body began to lose warmth and I could feel she was gone. I smelled her fur one last time. Kissed her sweet head. Then handed her over to be cremated.

The vet computers went down. Estimated bill $500 more. They say I can pay it when I pick up her ashes.

It'd be easy to post this without talkinbg about the money. But of course this is also about money. About money, love, adulthood, courage, willingness, gratefulness, broken heartedness.

Driving home in the impossibly bright Carolina sunshine. Then to deal with urine and vomit soaked sheets, blankets, rugs. Clothes covered in urine and drool. In the wash. Needed to clean out the parts of her that were only about the last two days. Although a part of my mind inhales the scents, and yearns, because all it knows is this: this is Jacinta.

Malcolm and Emmaline and Baby Wallace, all so extra kind the past two days. To me. To Jacinta. They keep coming and laying on me, giving me love looks. Emmaline came twice last night to keep vigil with us, not scared away by the sound of Jacinta's pain and labored breathing. Baby Wallace keeps checking in on me, squeeking and sending me love. Malcolm is in my lap right now, purring, purring.

Outside my window, birds and trees. The sun feels obscene. But then I remember how much Jacinta loved the sun. And I feel how the sun and Jacinta will always be intertwined in my heart and mind.

I'm the only one left now of my tribe of the Hacienda of Ckats. We were about healing and chasing adventures and being bold and snuggling and snacking and watching tv and being a good family to one another. Brother Calhoon. Grandma Booty. Sister Jacinta. Now just me.

I have a new tribe. Yet we're not sure what our deal is yet. More shall be revealed. We're a young family.

Jacinta.

Can't take it back. She's gone.

I miss her.

I love her.

Baby in the sun, 2005:

 

Baby In The Sun, one last time, taken yesterday evening right after I brought her home, 3/18/11:

 

Glorious Prismatic Twitch

It feels like I'm in a kind of death throes. But instead of more physical spasms, it's energy put into the life, and emotion, and fight. Dreams, compulsions, attachments, ideas, projects, opportunities bloom in technicolor, surround sound, then poof into nothing, or down to mere shadows.

At first it felt disappointing. Then kind of confusing. But as I began to see the patterns, the perfection in each tiny core, I felt awe for whatever it is that powers, fuels these bursts of worldy Yes, these wild flingings of color across the screen of my consciousness, my living. Now it's just fascinating. It's so curious: where will the energies lead next? What will be left behind when they disintegrate into fairy dust or sand or whatever it is you call this sort of energetic compost?

The trick is to give myself whole-heartedly to whatever is moving through me. I watched all four and a half seasons, some 75 episodes, of Friday Night Lights in less than three weeks. Applied to a couple dozen public health jobs. Spent about four days utterly absorbed in Evbogue's minimalist and cyborg-second-self energy. In hindsight, I see how each of these transforms me in some way, turns on a light in my consciousness around some sticking point inside of me. Watching FNL plugged me into some sort of headspace where I could see people consistently, repeatedly making Human Adulthood choices, even when Life was totally handing them a blisteringly raw deal. Evbogue showed me how to release a metric ton of cyber weight. But I don't know until the other side what the benefit is going to be. The trick is to let if flow. And when it's done with me, let it go.

I've witnessed a lot of beings leave their bodies. Some go gently - my grandmother, a baby bird I held in my hands - their breathing slowing and lightening. Some go suddenly, like The Hoon, from the meds they injected him with to save him from a more painful leaving. And two of my loved ones went fighting, tooth and nail, fighting, fighting to breathe up until the very end.

Burned in my brain is the image of Cassidy, fighting for breath as I raced through morning rush hour traffic, trying to get her to the vet. And how I finally pulled over to the side of the road, so that I could focus on her, really be with her as she went through the last few moments of her life. And how the look on her face as she left was one of surprise. As if she were stunned that another breath wasn't there.

Watching a loved one die a hard death changes something inside of you. It makes you vow, solemnly swear to all things holy, to offer up whatever Life wants the next time a loved one is dying, offer up to Life whatever hope or dream or morsel of visceral tissue it cares to take in exchange for a more peaceful passing. When The Hoon began to go, I called the vet and had them come over to end it quickly. People put pets "down" all the time. But The Hoon wasn't a pet. He was my family. Would you be able to inject your 16-year old brother with a shot that ends his life? How about the adopted child you raised from infancy?

And so after these deaths I held the very real energy of death close to me, understanding that I could set it down if I wanted to, but that it would mean throwing away the love vibrating inside of me for them. I understood on some very deep level that it was a package deal: hold the love, hold the death. And it transformed me. Burned things out of me I didn't even know were stuck inside of me. It torched bullsh*t disguised as relationships, crapola masquerading as kindness, and a roiling vaporous mountain of pointlessness dressed up as life choices.

But the trick is to keep the death close. Keeping death close keeps the breathing deep, the eyes clear, the heart open. It reminds constantly: this might be the last look/kiss/word/breath. Too much Life, not enough Death, and the living goes all dewy-eyed and delusional. Too much Death and the only option appears to be to go out onto the front lawn, lay down, and not bother to get up. But to hold both, simultaneously, fills a heart with unspeakable joy.

So as I watch the death throes, these rainbow spasms of I Am Alive! arise and then exhaust its energy, I breathe, and give thanks. Maybe all of this is just another brain party, another flare of made up mythic. Maybe death really is just a doorway. Whatever it is, all I can think about is how I can give my living over to Life even more, let Death wipe my living more cleanly.

Death and Life can both have me. It's their timetable. They let me try my hand at my living for so long, and while I often had a heck of a lot of fun, all I did was f*ck it up twenty-three ways from Sunday.

Now it's their turn. They can have at it.

Why not?

The Wilmington Fur Ball!

For the third year in a row, I'll be doing readings for the lovely swanky folks that attend fabulous black tie event The Wilmington Fur Ball. The first year I got a call to work it, The Glorious Hoon has just shed his mortal coil, and in his honor, when they asked me how much I'd charge to do readings for the evening, I said: let it be a gift from the Hoon and I. And each year, we give another gift. Because the way I look at it, the more cash we raise for the animals, the more Yes we get to keep meowing and barking and screeching and singing in the world. And lord knows more Yes in fuzzy form is a beautiful thing.

If you're local and get a chance, come join us for dancing and a pet fun stuff auction and a painting dog and all the sushi you can eat and me (I'll be that chick off to the right of the festivities, sitting with the folks in their sparkling finery, one by one, as they come to hear a little Psychic Whatnot.) If you're not local, or can't come, take a few minutes to google for your local shelter, and send them a few bucks. A great one in our area is: The Pender County Humane Society.  Even $10 is a huge help. (With the economy all wonky, and the humans scared and suffering, the animals need to have their paw held even more . . . )

 

Hereafter

Last Sunday, after a long walk that let loose a bunch of emotional funk, I felt a strong push to go and see the new movie Hereafter. I took a quick shower, packed a bottle of fresh squeezed lemon and lime and apple water, a slice of gluten free pumpkin bread to sneak into the theater, and drove on over.

Saturday had been a really, really rough day. Some of the emotional stuff sloughing off lately is around money. How it's been showing up in the living is a long reoccurring pattern of getting involved with folks in a financial arrangement of some sort, but right before I sign on the dotted line, or hand over my cash, I get a strong, clear message of the chaos that's coming if I don't back off and say "I've changed my mind". Over and over in my life, I've gone ahead and done it, the ensuing chaos making my life much more difficult. Why do I do it? Why do I go ahead when I get the heads up?

Because I've felt afraid. Afraid that something better won't come along. Afraid that I'll miss out. Afraid that I'll cause someone discomfort or embarrass them, or they'll get really, really angry with me if I change my mind. But lately, with increasing frequency, I've been backing out of things. Often at the last minute. It causes weirdness, folks get angry, or think I'm a kook, but afterwards, when I walk away with my time and money intact, I experience a sense of relief so profound it's like pure joy.

So Saturday was rough. As I back away from the pattern, the emotional energy field around it ramps up. And Saturday morning, after dealing with the tail end of nearly buying a new (used) computer, then backing out, I had an anxiety attack. I haven't had one in a really really long time, and I was out at a farmer's market with my sister. I found a way to maintain until I could get home, drink a greensmoothie, take a hot bath, empty everything out so that I was released and relaxed for clients that afternoon. But that night, it heated back up. And just when I thought my head would implode I got a very clear, very simple directive:

Stop fighting. Stop trying to make things better.

In that moment, lying in bed, kitties surrounding me with their love and fur and purring, the full moon beaming in through the window, I got it, truly got it. What this Letting Go means. What surrender and trust is. What is really at the heart of this Backing Away business. Stop coming up with ways to make more money, or get along better with people. Stop trying to change the negative thoughts into positive ones, the anger into expansiveness. Stop trying to make things right. Stop trying to explain so that people don't think I'm nuts.

Just Stop.

And then I fell asleep. Woke up Sunday, wrote, cleaned, did laundry, then went for a long walk. Then: Hereafter.

I cried through most of the movie. Because I'm that guy. I don't talk to dead people, but I'm that guy, that psychic guy sitting at the table alone, that guy who meets a lovely person, connects, then watches as she runs away, horrified at what he can see. That guy who gets, really gets, that he'll never live a normal life, that no one can possibly understand what he deals with, not even his brother who so obviously loves him, not the folks he does sessions with.

He says to his brother: a life about death is no life at all.

And I thought about how I say it: a life about No is no life at all.

I cried because in the scenes where the woman drowns, when the twin dies, I felt Calhoon. That fat fuzzball that lived by my side for 16 years. I saw him. Felt him. I remembered the Space of Love The Hoon and I drifted in those last 10 days of his life. In those 10 days I didn't write, didn't really talk to people, put most work on hold. When I was in the Space of Love with him, he purred, his eyes sparkling yes yes yes. When I slipped out of Love, he panted from the pain, his eyes hazy. It focused my mind and intention like nothing I'd ever experienced before, like a laser: anything that took me out of the Space of Love with him had to go: food, thought, emotion, distraction. No conversation, no snacks, no tv, no trying to make The Happy happen. For 10 days, it was just the Hoon, and me, and Love. I pulled away from everyone and everything that didn't reflect the Space of Love, which meant with only a tiny handful of exceptions, everyone and everything in the world created by the personality of Katherine had to go. And at the end of those 10 days, when he died, when he left, I found that I'd also lost the concept of love, that crackling full-emotioned energy that roars through a human's body mind heart. When I tried to come back to my life, that tangled weave of relationships and responsibilities, it was for all intensive purposes, gone.

In the two years since then, I've been attempting to acclimate to a living where there are no relationship ties to anyone, other than those connected with pure survival. Can you imagine this? Totally alone. Not shut down. Just open-eyed, an enormous weight of delusion gone, and there's no going back.

There is no Santa Claus. Superman isn't coming. Human love exists only as an implant in the mind.

I spend my days walking through a world that no one around me can see. It's just under the surface of what everyone else is walking around in. But they can't see it. And so they don't believe it's there. It's been weird enough to have all attachments fall away. But to also exist in another world? One that is so obviously HERE, but that somehow no one else around me can see? How do you even begin to deal with that? How do you live?

I've learned to stop talking, to really, genuinely not speak, because not only can't folks see, they think that To See is madness, or meanness, or sour grapes, or stupidity. I've spent thousands of hours trying to find a way to simply pull back inside myself, disappear from the world, but I can't do it, or I'm not able to pull it off, or Life doesn't want me to. It keeps me plugged in, in a half dozen ways. In the face of that Not This Direction, I've relaxed a lot more, just let the waves of folks reaching out to connect to me roll past, not fighting, just letting them roll.

But seeing the movie, watching Hereafter, lit something all up again. The reality of my situation. What happened, and what I continue to deal with. When the insanities of the psychic and holistic work I do would bring me to my knees in grief and loneliness, The Hoon was there, his huge sparkling eyes seeing everything. And then he was gone. And nothing, no one, took his place.

I just do this day to day paying of bills, work in Hiveworld, see clients for holistic work here and there. I watch movies, tv shows, read books. It's like watching a life spiral down, to nothing, to death, to failure and ruin. How will I pay my bills? How will I keep myself sheltered, fed? And my tremendous energy, the one that has always roared into motion to create energy and money and opportunity, kicks in. It looks for a new job, new ways to meet with holistic clients, pushes to finish the novel, find a way to move to an area of NC that has public health jobs I can use my MPH for. 

But then: Just Stop.

I've been working on this post all week. It's long, unwieldy. I don't quite know what to do with the energy behind what I'm writing, the Just Stop. Because stopping is so difficult it makes me want to cry. Sitting here at the keyboard, I want to cry. Because isn't stopping giving up? Isn't it that place that losers go when they finally accept that they can never win? Isn't it the place where sad pathetic people dump themselves out into when they resign themselves to a life of aloneness, of cats and food and tv and a cubicle job? I'm living the life right now that used to be my nightmare. I've spent my whole life avoiding the life I'm living right now. And now I'm supposed to let go even more?

I can't even wrap my mind around it. My living is shredded. And my heart feels savaged.

Why is there no manual for this? Why are there no teachers? The books are bullshit. Have you figured that out yet? And all the teachers are full of it, no matter how well-meaning, no matter how sincere. Every single human appears to be a stand alone unit, and the best a book or a teacher can do is reveal their own personal formula. And it never translates. It never ever translates.

There is just this aloneness. This slowly deepening muteness.

Madness? Waking Up?

Stored Memories / Emotional Vapor Fuel

I'm back to walking again, and I remember why I stopped. I convinced myself it was because I felt sick, and I did, I felt sick and exhausted. But mostly it was because of the emotional funk that rose up out of my subconscious when I walked. It almost always processed itself out by the time I arrived back at my house, but that first mile or two of rage, sorrow, confusion, craziness? Not much fun. Maybe something inside of me decided that I could only handle one battle at a time - food addiction or stored emotional past - not both. Or that could just be the bullsh*t talking. No way to know for sure of course.

But the back pain always keeps me motivated to exercise. I can't go too long without doing some weight lifting and cardio, even with the miracle that is Art and his whirring machine of pain relief. So I'm walking again, and last night's walk showed me something that stopped me in my tracks, literally standing still on the sidewalk in the leafy suburb I live in, the nice, comfortably upper middle class folks jogging and biking and walking around me. It was one of those epiphany moments, one of those moments where a hundred thousand Intellectual Knowings all of a sudden transforms into full body-mind-spirit consciousness. It was a direct line of something from my childhood, carried through into adulthood, that I'm in the final process of dismantling:

The belief in "boundaries".

The backstory: the extreme emotional distance my mother treated me with in my childhood shifted when I reached mid-teenage years into a relationship of listening to her, trying to help her solve her problems. For the next 15 or so years, to keep her attention, I made myself available to her anytime she needed it, usually as long phone calls, sometimes several times a week. This translated into how I lived out my other relationships, by believing my most valuable function was to listen to people's problems, to be nice to them, always flexible, never complain, never say no.

Translation: no boundaries, stunted sense of self.

What I developed to cope with this was anger and energy vampiring. The energy vampiring was what my mother was doing to me, which I only realized when I was in my early thirties, and what I turned and did to folks around me, which I only realized about seven years ago, right before I headed off for the back-to-college extravaganza when I was 38. I'd choose the strongest, kindest people I came into contact with and attach to them, usually a "teacher" of some sort - a therapist, spiritual practitioner/guru, or mentorish folks, but also with close friends. The anger was used to shove people away when the weight of their need became too overwhelming and exhausting for me. I collected lost souls, first just folks I met as my life unfolded, and then clients. It was what I did with my mother - let them call me at all hours of the day and night, spend hours and hours listening to their problems, trying to help them do a Grand Life Remodeling Project. 

I keep writing and deleting the next paragraph, writing specifics about my relationship with my mother, how it ended. But it isn't right to put it here, and it isn't helpful for me energetically to write it. Whatever demons she faces are her own, and my perspective on them is utter bullsh*t. None of this is a blaming of her or anything I believe she did or didn't do. This is the dismantling of Katherine. No one else. Period. 

The important part for me is that this energetic pattern with my mother translated all over my living, and really kicked into high gear when I began seeing clients for holistic work in the late 1990's. I allowed, and even encouraged people to become dependent on me, because I believed I could help them, but also because I believed that being of assistance to other people was my only valuable function. My sense of boundaries was so tenuous that when clients wanted to see me socially, I went along with it, even though it just meant that I no longer got paid for session work, and instead did sessions over dinner, or with cocktails, which seriously, seriously, was not fun for me, what felt like my life force being suctioned out of me via my eyes and ears and center of my chest. But I didn't believe I had a choice. I believed that if someone needed me, I had to be there, sublimate whatever issue and feelings I had, and be open, kind, generous, loving. 

The direct link between the pattern with my mother and how it played out with clients and intimate relationships was that with all of them, if I ever tried to pull away, or tried to change the dynamic into something with more balance, these folks expressed denial that anything unbalanced was happening, then judgment of me for what I felt, then pure rage unleashed at me as punishment, contempt, acts to destroy or discredit me.

Those three patterns of energy coming at me - denial, judgment, rage - kept me locked into the No Boundaries pattern for years, for decades. But when I read the Jed McKenna books, something clicked into place, and I could see the pattern for what it truly was. And most importantly, I could see my role in it, my part, how I kept it all going, and why. The why? Because I was afraid I had no other worth than my ability to be of service to other people, and that if I denied people they'd leave me, and if everyone left me I'd be alone.

But back in 2008 it began heating up, and with The Hoon's death it reached conflagration. One by one, I stopped doing things for people, and guess what? All my fears came true. I denied people, they left me, and I was alone.

But I stayed with it. To face the fear. What was this being alone? What was this no social life, no friends, no support system, no assistance? And the longer I stayed with it, the longer I saw that with only a few exceptions, all of relationship is built on fear. All of it - family, friend, work, community - all of it erected as a scaffolding around the fear inside of us. Of dying. Of being sick. Of missing out. Of being uncomfortable.

As I went through this process, I was continually offered "friendship", offered assistance from teachers/gurus/mentors, but I understood I had to reject it, reject it all, even small assists, completely, absolutely staying away from any temptation to energy vampire off of another person. And also, people from my past kept showing up, coming back around for another pass. They wanted things to be like they used to be, they wanted me to be a holistic practitioner like I used to be, or they showed up as absolute replicas of past folks, Life enticing me to pick the pattern back up. And I did. Again and again and again. I can't even begin to express how hard this last part was, how actively angry people got at me, the browbeating, the sanctioning, the punishing that came at me in person, through email, over the phone. A daily, often hourly onslaught of angry, needy, sad humans, an avalanche of emotion and demands, judgment, rage, and self-pity screaming that it was my duty to fix Their No, my fault that they felt the way they did.

When I look back, it's so clear that the onslaught was occurring to force me to build strong boundaries. It was about keeping folks out so that I could see clearly how to draw a distinct line between them and me, between what they were choosing to do with their energy and time, and what I no longer was. I wasn't responsible for anyone outside of my own skin. And more than that, I couldn't actually do anything for anyone outside of my own skin, not in and of myself.

And I did get to the place where I kept everyone out. With the exception of a small handful of folks on an extremely limited basis that Life showed me was about immediate survival, everyone was out, every single one. And what I began to notice was a sort of drip method of interacting, small bits here and there that felt clear, true. They appeared to quickly fade into funk again, and I'd back away, but I began to get better at recognizing the signals for me to move closer to someone/a situation, and to back away from them/it.

And I discovered that there is no Good Person or Bad Person, only Energy Occurring Now, In This Moment. And so rather than having Friends, Acquaintances, and Non-Friends/Enemies, everyone outside of my skin stands alone, to be moved closer to or moved away from based on the ongoing energy present in the moment of Now. It's a dance of following the Yes. A dance whose choreography is created by something way way outside of my mind, though the mind stores and runs the programming of this human life, with the heart as the instrument the energy plays on, and the spirit interpreting the seeming mundane plodding of a life into both the vast expression of Yes and the tiny grain of sand it is.

There's a decent flow going right now. Still bumpy, still pocked with blank spots and exploding mines, but there's a groove. I can have conversations with folks, go to the movies, assist clients, help someone climb their own looming mountain. I can reach out for help, get it, give something in return, leave. Someone can reach out to me, I can give assistance, they offer something, then leave. Sometimes I give then receive nothing, but only if it feels true. Sometimes they receive then give nothing, but only if it feels true. No good, no bad. No right, no wrong. No rules. Just dance.

And last night I saw the pattern and thought: That's It, the epiphany solved the pattern, it's done. But then I wrote this post, and in the process of writing I saw the next step: dissolving the boundaries.

First there was no boundary. Then there was a boundary. Now it's about removing the wall between Self and Other, not to merge and lose myself, but to allow Life to have me flow wherever it wants me to, letting the new strength inside of me keep me "safe", Life doing the attracting and rejecting for me, me just following along, content to let Life take me down the river of my living.

I have no arrogance that I'm done with this stuff. I can only taste it right now, just the merest hint of its magnificence. But I'm at that Beyond 51% Place, that point of no return, not because I can't go back, but because I see too much truth to want to go back.

Awesome.

And so apparently this is why I still write. Sure, some sort of arrogance that says: record the steps. But also because it continues to clear the path for me. Before I wrote this post, I thought the breakthrough last night was about erecting boundaries, but now, after writing the post, I see that it's about seeing that there is no need for anything as bulky and clumsy as boundaries.

This is what writing has been and still is for me: spiritual autolysis. It's not the only thing I use, but it still has strong function and utility and flexibility and groove. And that's all that matters . . . for now . . . Yes.

So party on, party peoples. May this find you deep inside the awareness of your own choreography, that dance that is yours and yours alone. 

As you sit there, wherever you are on this globe, whatever year and day and moment it is for you, a cup of coffee, tea, beer, wine, smoothie, water beside you, how you are alive inside your body, your mind in whatever state of aware, awake it is, remember:

You are gorgeous. You are full of love and light. (We all are.) You are also full of sh*t. (It's okay. We all are that too.) Hopefully, yours comes with kitties. And green growing plants. And the embracing of sun and moon and night and day and dark and light. Your soul's work is to see that your caacaa is compost. Nothing to be afraid of. Turn the sh*t into fertilizer. The directions for doing this are inside of you. The next step is whatever is lighting you up. What's harassing you via mind or experience? What reoccurring thought or pattern keeps arising in your living? Start there. I swear to you: all you need is inside of you. You don't need anyone to fix you or solve your problems. All you need is to say, to pray:

Thank you Life for my life . . . thank you for this situation, this person that I may not understand now, that may be causing me pain, suffering . . . thank you . . . I trust you . . .  thank you for making the next step so obvious via so much energy, so that my attention cannot be moved away . . . thank you for giving me courage to keep facing this . . . to hold my gaze squarely on This Moment of Now . . . so that I can't help but see the truth . . . thank you Life . . . thank you for my life. . .

Yes.

Ancient Eyes

This morning at 7:30 am, my boss, (the one I spoke with a couple of weeks ago and psychically saw his cancer returning) got into his car to go to work like usual. Two miles from home, he crossed over the median and hit a dump truck head on. The two vehicles hit so hard that my boss' truck door popped off, and since he wasn't wearing a seat belt, he flew from the truck, and was killed, they say, instantly.

Since my Hilarious Coworker and I are outstationed in Hiveworld, the big boss called me to let me know what had happened. His words punched a hole in my heart. And then he utterly broke down and wept, then caught himself, and we spoke a few more words, then hung up. I called my Hilarious Coworker who was at a half-day training at an upstate facility, got her voicemail, then preceded to blow up her phone for a while but finally gave up. She called about an hour later when the messages finally beeped through.

It isn't that I was friends with him, or he with me. He was my coworker, and then with his last promotion, became my boss. He's been supportive with the possible promotions I'm applying for. I brought him books and some research when he was first diagnosed with cancer. He interviewed me and hired me. I saw him nearly everyday for a year, then at least once or twice a week for another year. We made attempts at jokes with one another, and at least attempted to smile at the effort the other made. He was ex-military. I was an ex-card carrying member of the granola nation. He's worked in the office for decades, was one year away from retirement. I was fresh blood brought into the office on the wave of federal stimulus money meant to assist in this current economic meltdown.

For two weeks, there's been death all around. Another spider sister made a home in the exact place that her other sister did last summer. Within a week, another smaller spider joined her, and then an even smaller spider hung up a web, creating an enormous network of webs all over the entrance to my door, but still leaving me enough room for passage. It was magical. But within a day, the smallest spider was dead. The two sisters spread out, one on either side of the door, but then, one morning, both spiders were gone, only a husk of one of them, curled up in on itself by a bench.

The beta fish that my Hilarious Coworker brought in a year ago and I took over its care sometime in the new year, swam sluggishly for a couple of days last week, then went belly up.

The fierce little dog that lives with my landlords, the one I've called The Grey Worm because of his fiery hate of me, how for three years has barked and snapped, growled and lunged whenever I'm near, has lymphoma. It's advanced and cancer treatment won't really do anything other than buy him a few sickly months, so they are letting him go naturally. Now he just lays by the window and watches me come home and walk back to my apartment in silence, his huge black eyes tracking my every move.

As of last night, I'm now officially heading into menopause. No, definitely no babies for this mommychula.

All day long I've been thinking about The Hoon, about how I still don't know where he's gone. I've been feeling that about my boss. Where did he go? After The Hoon died, almost two years ago now, I walked around the apartment for days, days and days, saying over and over: where is he? where did he go? where is The Hoon? There was a hole in my mind but also a hole in reality, where his squishy, fuzzy body and sparkly eyes used to be. And so all day long today I've been asking: where did my boss go? where is he?

I know that the body is still around. But if I were to go and see it, I'd quickly see that he's not there. So where did he go?

Maybe this seems like a simplistic question, but it seems very very important to me. Where?

My Hilarious Coworker tried to talk to me about faith, how faith is when you don't have practical proof of something, but you trust that it's there, trust that God has it taken care of. I just wanted to know where the boss and The Hoon had gone. She said faith made you stop wondering and simply trust that they were taken care of. It didn't ring true to me, but then again, I'm someone for whom faith, whatever remnants remain, doesn't see it as a strong enough coat for heavy storms like the ones we had today filling the sky with lightning and the roads with flooding. Invoking "faith" looks to me like invoking voodooo or the sky god or the ghost of George Carlin.

A week ago, I had a nightmare. I was walking through a town I didn't know very well. A small town. At dusk, the light quickly fading. No streetlamps, no cars on the roads. Just me, walking. Where to? I don't know. Just walking, trying to get somewhere. And then night began falling quickly and as hard as I strained my eyes, I could only see shadows, and then in an instant, I saw nothing, only pitch black, darkest night. I stood there, somewhere in this town I didn't know, alone, in total darkness. Utter darkness. No more light. I struggled and fought to see, trying to will visual purple to kick in more deeply. Nothing. And then, in a flash of a second, I got, let there be light, and in a whoosh of a moment, the world was filled with daylight and I could see every single thing. Everything.

And now with all the death around again, the night time lover has returned, that ever changing Man who visits me while I sleep, is kind, tries to explain things to me (I can't ever remember what, just that he's trying to get me out of the crumbling building, help me navigate the winding woods and streams we're climbing over, the miles of trekking we need to do to get There. Where? I don't know). I know him, he's one of my soulmates, though I don't recall him from this life. He always smells so good, his muscley forearms make me feel joyful and secure. I like his face, and how he smiles at me, gently, with sweet humor. I'm just always so happy to see him, to lean into him, know that he knows what he's doing, but that he also knows me enough to give me some shit, gently, about how I need to put a hitch in my giddyup.

Who knows what any of this means? If anything at all?

I just know that my eyes feel ancient tonight. So utterly full of the grief of the world, of holding this state of No so much of the day. I could have just dropped it, gone into cheerful, or blank, but would that have been true? I watched as my Hilarious Coworker slipped in and out of all three, much more comfortable, accepting of it all than me. Me? I let myself grieve and analyze - why wasn't this bastion of responsibility wearing his seatbelt? why did he cross the median? Then I came home and took two at*ivan which didn't do anything but make my head cottony, leaving my heart untouched and raw.

No answers. Just kitties. And couch. Kingdom. Burn Notice. Then bed. Then maybe, if I'm lucky, another day  . . .

Kaput(ish)

One of the "surrenders" of the past year or so has been to stop fighting the mind, instead allowing it to run its trips however it feels to, but to take no real action around them. For instance, it's okay when the mind decides it wants to go back to school, to get a PhD in Public Health, or a Master's in Psych Counseling. I research and choose schools, begin the application process, but am also okay with letting it all go when I wake up one morning and don't move forward with it. I read all the incoming public health job notifications from the list serve I joined for the Raleigh area, but don't apply for any of them. I do preliminary applications for different jobs within the NC state Cubicleland system, but don't fight or complain when odd issues disallow me from pursuing them further. 

I think about a new car (a Toyota Fit!), a new home (a homestead with chickens!), an iPhone, a new computer, a video camera. But I don't buy anything. Unless my phone or car or computer dies and I need another, I don't buy. There is no mental need, only physical. The need must be obvious and clear, then I can take an action. 

Every month, after I pay bills, whatever is leftover, I put in a savings account. It means I have no extra money, but it doesn't matter. I've never really had a savings account before. Now I do. It's tiny. But it's there. Proof of my lack of action. It's there so that if an action presents itself as DO THIS, and it requires some cash, the cash is there. Though of course I understand that if Life wants me to do something, it'll also present the cash, the means. 

And so now it's the weekend, and there is no action that needs doing. Usually I work Saturdays doing sessions, Sundays doing the shamanic journeying class, but the past few weeks I've been winding down, agreeing if someone reaches out and asks, but not sending out emails, not planning or announcing. This weekend, two days stretch out before me with no agenda other than one, maybe two phone sessions to do. 

And today? Utterly exhausted today. Just plain worn out. By what? Demon wrasslin'. It's hard work, you know. And the mind ran several very intense trips the past couple of weeks. Very, very intense. Very, very consuming.

This is not a complaint. I have no complaints. I'm exhausted, but I also have two days to rest. I'm tired, but I'm totally taken care of. How can this not be obvious?

I post about the demon wrasslin' and kind folks send emails or comments, telling me how badly they feel for me, how they wish things were better for me. And I look at these emails and comments and wonder if my writing and story telling is so poor that it has folks so completely missing the point.

I would not change a thing in my living. I would not have The Hoon be alive, or a job that brings in 50K, or my health to be stellar and issue-free and golden. Unless Life wants that and brings that. I am absolutely clear that I am not being punished or am cursed or unlucky or even having a bad day/week/month/year/life. 

What I'm doing is watching. What I am doing is allowing the truth to make itself known. How in the world can we ever hope to be clean if we can't even admit to ourselves how covered in sh*t we are? 

That's the first step. The real first step. To stop fighting circumstance. To stop blaming the people, the situations around us. To stop fighting the NO and instead turn and let it have us, let if work itself out, play itself to the end, then see what's left. 

So don't feel badly for me. Or if you feel badly for me, turn that feeling around, see what it illuminates inside of you. That judgment is where you start. It speaks the truth, not about me, or what I'm going through, but where you are, where you can take your stand, to surrender, to let go into the Yes. 

Because I'm enjoying my living more than I ever have. I've been freed of so much suffering, heavy weights I carried around my entire life that are now simply gone. The health issues I deal with now are child's play - annoying, will lead to an early death, pernicious, but nothing like my now long gone addiction to buttheaded/manipulative men, or victimy/needy sidekicks. 

Can you even imagine how free it feels to no longer need anyone or anything? To set down the need, hand it over to Life, knowing that Life will remove someone, and then bring you whatever it is that it wants you to have? That there is no sadness, or Not Fair, or loneliness? 

I'm single, no kids, no friends in the way they portray it on tv. And it is good. I'm not responsible to anyone. I make 31K a year, have 90K in debt. And it's good. My choices are limited, so it's much harder to make bad choices. I'm fat and in pain and addicted to allergens. And it's all good. I know the experience of what is actually occurring in my body, and what so many folks face in their bodies. 

Everything is perfect. Nothing needs to change for me to "be happy". "Happy" is to choose what Life chooses. Thank you Life, for taking such good care of me, bringing me such an interesting story to live out.

There is only what is occurring right now, enjoying it, until Life brings the next thing, either through an action you must respond to, or a feeling that an action needs to be taken which is met by Yes from Life. Other than that? Endless time . . . stretching out before you . . . 

For me? Right now? Alias reruns. The latest Party Down episode. Eggs and millet/flax toast. Because I have nothing to do. And my body and mind are tired. And I'm okay with that . . .  

And later, maybe Life brings me something that requires energy and movement, and even though I might still be tired, I'll do it, because I'm okay with that too . . . 

On The Move

While I was in grad school, I quit exercising. I tried, but I just couldn't make myself. I was so exhausted, so verklempt, that I just couldn't do it. I can look back and think something like "I would have felt a lot better if I could have made myself exercise", but when I look back, all that happened when I exercised was some body part of another went wonky and painful and I'd quit. And it never ever made me feel better. The sh*tstorm I was in wasn't about exercise. It was about burning the muthaf*cker down. I'm glad I didn't force myself to exercise.

When I got to Wilmington, I did a soul retrieval with a woman in California. Afterward, I was able to start exercising again. I rode my bike, did some light weightlifting. It was that same old way I'd always exercised, full of high mythic push, supercharging mixes of adrenalin and serotonin, always a feeling of aggression, of Just Do It shoving me on, a feeling of arrogant accomplishment, a kind of smug satisfaction with myself afterward. But there was also something different in the mix. Anger. For some reason, as I exercised, rage would roar through me, thoughts of hate and pissiness, belligerence at everyone from the mothers who blocked the paths with their enormous strollers to the cars who passed on my left mere inches from elbow. I'd arrive back at my apartment wanting to punch things, but instead I'd lift weights.

Then The Hoon got sick. And after he died, I found that I couldn't exercise anymore. At all. Even the thought of it caused nausea to roll. It felt like an obscenity - to pursue joy and UP when The Hoon was dead. I walked around my apartment asking over and over "where is he? where has he gone? where is he?" My bike rusted into immobility on the porch.

It took a year before I tried to exercise again. I don't remember what it was. I think it was a walk, or some light weights. But my body hurt too much. I backed off. Art and his machine helped break up a lot of the scar tissue, and that brought less pain. Then I did the journey, got the directive back this past March to get out and walk/run, so I knew the practical aspect of what I needed to do. But it wasn't until I had the endoscopy and got on the IBS and ulcer meds that the physical pain diminished enough for me to start moving and keep moving.

It's been a couple/few weeks now. I walk four or five times a week. I started out with a mile. And was aching and sore afterward. But not so much that there was injury. I kept it up, a mile and a half, two miles, two and a half miles, three miles. And that's where I'm at. I do a brisk three miles, come home, do a few sets of upper body and arm, back and shoulders. Takes a little over and hour, spit spot.

And the payoff is marvelous. All that remains of the excruciating pain I was in just three weeks ago is down to a some very mild aching in my back, and a swollen stomach that looks kinda weird - is my sigmoid so relaxed it's expanded several sizes? - but isn't painful at all. But the best part? The sense of super chill. You know the one - it's as if someone dialed the radio station in and all the static is gone, like a resounding gentle hum of Ahhhhhhhh vibrates through the body, like tequila without the hangover, like, why yes, the dance of the happy serotonin that we all know and love.

And surprise, surprise, the Waking Up stuff is ramping up again. There's something about the walking that is causing this huge release of stored past. As I walk the anger kicks in, but instead of turning it into a Kick Ass/Take Names exercise routine, I just walk, and watch. No running, no pushing, just walking. Sometimes brisk walking, sometimes my arms are pumping, but there's no manic drive, just motion.

I don't try to stop the thoughts, or change the thoughts. I just watch, follow them to their conclusion, and a new one arrives and roars down the canyons of consciousness. The meds make me tired in the mornings, so I lay in bed for a while before I get up, and the past does another big dump. Things, people, situations I haven't thought of in years arise. Even in the middle of the night, suddenly awake at 3 am, thinking about the series of sexual abusers that started in my early teens, that I just stopped letting into my body a few years ago, or the people I loved and trusted, who walked away and couldn't have cared less.

There is no Poor Me in any of this, just remembering. It's simple to say: stop being aggressive, negative, fighting. It's quite another to realize that rage is an effective tool to chase ass*holes away. It's one thing to say: lose weight. It's another to understand that fat makes great armor against possible romantic advances. And these huge releases of past show how it all fits together, the connect-the-dots. And then it's gone, and another begins opening up.

It doesn't matter to me that I'm not a Nice Person anymore. I could care less about soul mating. And while the fat is bothersome on a health level, I'm fine with it otherwise.

But I get that the walking and pieces of past that are rising up out of me are changing me. I'm ready to let her go, this person I've been for so long, who isn't me, but someone I wore for a while. But I'm okay if it takes another direction. I trust the process. If I fully Wake Up, fine. If I don't, if the rest of my life is spent with stuff like this, this peeling of Katherine one layer at a time until the day I die, I'm okay with that too.

What I get now is This Is It. This is the deal. This really is all there is. Publishing a book, or losing thirty pounds, or having the holistic stuff I'm creating gain traction and substance - all of it might change the sheen, the reflection coming off my living. But it won't change what occurs inside of me. It is the freefall to the inside that's important, and the only function, the only worth of what occurs outside is how it cuts me free to fall.

I think it's hilariously funny that this part of the Waking Up journey is comprised of western meds and 3-mile walks in leafy suburbia, a job in a cubicle and hours and hours of silence with kitties in the sun. Life's sense of humor with all this stuff is just so awesome . . . Who needs enlightenment on mountaintops when there are so many split level ranch houses and their azalea and roses and pine tree filled yards to breathe in and feel the Yes over?

Yes.

Emmaline Takes A Header and Lives to Tell the Tale!

For many years all the weasels were fine. A ding here and there. Stuff as they grew older. And then Grandma got sick and died, then The Hoon. And since then, all the kitties here at the Hacienda of Ckats one after the other, have had various ailments, all of them either serious and life or body part threatening or chronic and requiring all sorts of intensive daily care and whatnot. For you hard core long time readers of DG, see if you can Name That Kitty:

1. Several times a day, had to have the hardened snot wiped off/out of his little kitty nostrils so he could breathe, blew actual snot bubbles out of his nose like a cartoon, could sneeze 13 times in a row and come out raring to put someone, anyone in a headlock (he can and does still do the latter).
2. After the implantation of a radioactive seed to stop the growth of the thyroid tumor she spent 3 days in an isolation room, and was so distraught over the whole process, that instead of keeping a 10-ft distance between us like recommended for safe radioactivity levels, she spent the next week suctioned onto my body like a barnacle.
3. Spent six months having pills pushed down his throat, bad goop wiped out of his eye, good goop squirted into his eye, sneezing snot all over me and the furniture and the food, two seperate rounds of kitty paw swollen like a spatula, and many months with enough herpes mouth sores to qualify as a gigolo.

The answers are 1) Malcolm 2) Jacinta 3) Baby Wallace

The only kitty in the bunch who was the radiant picture of health was sweet Baby Emmaline. Tiny little Emmaline, with her sweet face and even sweeter tiny tongue up my nose in the mornings. Bright flying Emmaline, biting the heads of Malcolm and Wallace with equal fearless ferver. Bodacious brave little Emmaline and her bold quest to get high.

As of Sunday at 4pm, our girl has been benched, joining the rest of her small tribe here in the Hacienda in our long standing membership of the Badge of the Walking Wounded.

She took a flying leap off a window sill, caught her back hind leg on a towel rack, and fractured her knee, breaking the kneecap almost clean off the bone. Then commenced over the course of 18 hours: one hysterical katmama, two trips to the vet, another trip to the feline orthopedic surgeon, one surgery to reconnect the knee with metal rods, a $1500 credit limit increase from Care*credit tp pay for the estimated $1400 surgery and recovery, and one very stylish red cast.

She had the surgery yesterday evening, the surgeon called me afterward to tell me all went great, and I went to see her this morning before I came into Hiveworld. She was high as a kite, her eyes enormous sweet inky pools of infinity. And sweet. So very sweet. Did I mention how sweet?

She can't come home until Wednesday or Thursday and then has to be immobilized in a small space so she won't be able to run around for 6-10 weeks, but she's okay! And there was fundage to pay for the surgery! And Life is good!

Crazy, strange, wonderful, rollercoaster life . . .

(I'll post a pic of her in her stylish red cast later on this afternoon . . . :)