As I continue to go through this recovery process and accept the medicine of a health retreat I did last weekend, I continue to receive teachings from Mother Spider Love.

 

I wrote about the Spider spirit's love yesterday in my post about forgiveness in the face of continued abuse.

 

Since my return home from the health retreat on Monday, I've been taking small steps to prepare for yet more legal support to liberate my life savings from someone who feels entitled to them, who feels it's my responsibility to pay for the consequences of their choices, their battles on top of my own, someone who I offered to share my abundance with, who, rather than grace and appreciation or even simply allowing me reasonable space and peace, has thrown, and continues to throw all of their hurt upon me.

 

I renounce this, one small step at a time.

 

But I am not here to complain or outline the abuse. I am not here to claim that I'm a saint either, but to continue to throw off the chains of spirit in my life, which are only partly related to any one specific person, which are far more related to me, by letting it begin with me, and letting Mother Spider continue to teach me the wisdom of boundaries within my own heart, mind, and soul.

 

I am a giving person, naturally helpful and generous. This attracts all kinds of people: loving through parasitic. I am also naturally powerful. This attracts all kinds, too: appreciative through oppressive. Like anyone else, I have been loved, and I have been hurt in my life. I have loved and hurt others, too. That's all part of life.

 

From Victim to Wisdom

 

I can sit here and blame all my problems on others, stuck in victim mindset, or I can accept the teachings I am being given about my own choices.

 

Mother Spider is with me again today, urging me to recognize the tics in my own mind and spirit, and to focus on rooting those out. Specifically, as I took what small steps I could today to prepare evidence for legal proceedings to liberate my life earnings and investments from the too-heavy (unjust) burdens of others, I found a tic of my own. I found in my own mind a will to draw too much from myself, an insatiable drive to work beyond the limits of my body, mind, and spirit.

 

One of the biggest problems for me in recovery from severe burnout (CFS/ME) has been knowing my limits as I come back to a more active life again. Today, once I had done about 45 minutes of preparation, the medicine and Mother Spider rose up in me with a clear message that my work, this particular work, was done for the day, end of story. I still had things to put away and wanted to "just" finish a couple more things, but the medicine, and Mother Spider, brought me to my knees, literally. To relieve the pain in my body, I had to throw my yoga mat on the lawn and get into child's pose.

 

I smoked a bit of mapacho to clear the air and my body, and I did what I was told.

 

Pain as Teacher

 

What I begin to see here is the pain my own choices can cause me, the pain my own sticky mind can create when I choose to plow through a problem instead of taking my time with it, being satisfied with a small, sustainable achievement for the day. Pain rose up to show me that I had hit my limit, to call me, in no uncertain terms, to give myself sustenance and rest from the problem until another day. I have time to take my time. I did not need to keep working, but I wanted to. I craved further progress, to relieve my future self of the worry, but I was sacrificing my present self, which is, in fact, all we have at any moment, when it comes down to it.

 

So, I accept this teaching and this cleansing of the tics within my own mind as I take manageable steps towards the help I need to be relieved of those who would rather watch me and my abundance be destroyed than accept an objectively generous offer for balance.

 

Boundaries Are Love

 

It is painful, and I suffer to hold my ground, to push for justice, one small step at a time, but Mother Spider reminds me of the wisdom and loving grace of boundaries, and the words of some wise counsel I've recently received, that sometimes the best thing you can do for a person is throw them off, in no uncertain terms.

 

They will never stand on their own feet if we don't, and our own liberation can come no other way when someone will not stop coming for us.

 

Pulling the Tics Inside

 

And I can do this with the tics in my own mind, the ones that make me vulnerable to putting on the relentless red dancing shoes for others, who wish to see me dance myself to death. This battle I face goes deep within and is merely reflected in the outside world. I must gain ground within to be freed without.

 

One of the people who wishes to scapegoat me in life once said to me, in a moment of clear despair, "You're not my teacher."

 

"No, I'm not," I agreed. Nor was I trying to be. I was trying to speak to her as an equal.

 

But then, I thought, "Why not? You are my teacher. Why cannot I be yours? Are we not equals?"

 

Most people loved me as their teacher. I did it for a long time, teaching. I learned to do it well. I was very good at it, excellent enough to be sought out as a representative for the excellence in my workplace, not only my own, but I was sought out to represent it.

 

I was good at it, in large part, by first teaching boundaries and enforcing them, firmly but with love, respect, and appreciation. My fellow teachers, some scapegoaters included, have taught me some important boundaries, too, but sometimes they go too far and do not respect my own. A teacher needs boundaries, too. Children desperately need boundaries, and teachers must model with honest conscience. Scapegoaters, people who like to say no but will not accept it from others, have hated me for demanding boundaries, but they are my right, and so is heat in the winter.

 

Forgiveness Includes Boundaries

 

I forgive you, I have said to many, but that does not mean I give up my boundaries. They are my right. I have a right to defend my life and my lifeblood. I have a right to take up space. My abundance has value and deserves its own sustenance. It deserves appreciation and safety, not disease. I am not here upon this earth to soak up the poison and disease of others. I am here to share healing, empowering wisdom, in large part, about boundaries.

 

Love holds boundaries not only for self but also for others.

 

We cannot blame a spider or a snake for biting us if we attack it. We can't complain about getting smacked with a clawed hand in the woods if we trespass upon the safety of a bear and yell in her face.

 

Mother Bear is with me, too. She walked with me, moved my limbs this weekend in the medicine.

 

Frog offered its blessings, too, its belching out the darkness transformed, neutralized, and wisdom about forgiveness with boundaries.

 

A frog can forgive a scorpion for stinging her and still never let it ride upon her back again as she enters the rivers of life again, after recovering from the scorpion's poison.

 

All My Children

 

I do not have children from my own body, but I have hundreds of children, maybe thousands, from my career as a teacher. Ask any one of them the respect I both gave and taught, especially in discipline. My classrooms were safe, productive, and fun exactly because I gave right-sized consequences for trespassing, not to harm but to restore the safety of the space, make room for the struggles, the joy, the growth, the excitement of engaging with life. My students loved me, I believe at least in part, because they knew that I was there to tell them where the boundaries were and guide them back into the loving space, and because I worked thoughtfully, firmly but compassionately, to pass on how to build those spaces within themselves and their lives in the wild world outside.

 

Self Responsibility and Success

 

One of the things I gave to my students was a rightful sense of their responsibility for their own lives. A student who blames their teacher for their failures is a student who will continue to fail. I started my classes with a clear and practical focus on embracing self-responsibility.

 

I would have to come back to this often, and this is normal. It is hard to accept the extent of our responsibility for ourselves, especially at the start of adulthood, which the vast majority of my students were.

 

Sometimes I would find myself saying something like, "I am sorry you are struggling, but your pain is not my responsibility. I can guide you, but you must take responsibility for the fruits and failures of your labour, or lack of. There is beauty in that. Not only are your failures your own, and the pain of them. So are your successes and their sweetness. Own your failures, and you will find clearer and clearer pathways to success. Own your failure, and you will own your success."

 

And it worked, my focus on self responsibility with my students. They worked so hard, and they made real progress. It was often not fast enough for them, often not fast enough for the speed with which students are expected to move through their courses, but it was real progress, and we celebrated every step. Students often want to go from C- to A+ from beginning of semester to end, but this is simply not realistic, so I taught grace and celebration for the important, though small, increments of progress.

 

I do this for myself now. It is healing to embrace my past teacher self. She was wise, graceful, and rightly confident. I need all of that now in my own life as I try to be patient with my own slow progress through healing mind, spirit, and body, which were so damaged that it is objectively miraculous that I am still here today, being restored to sanity and vitality.

 

My skill in teaching students not only my subject but even more importantly how to succeed was seen and recognized, appreciated, and respected. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for the remembrance now, in the wake of heinous accusations against my work towards boundaries in my private life.

 

I am so grateful that I can remember being appreciated in my work with boundaries, not expected to be perfect in it, either. I was allowed human error and guided toward repair, not vindictively punished within an inch of my life, as I have been recently.

 

Closing Gratitude

 

I am grateful to remember this now. I honour myself in writing it. I love myself as well as my readers in sharing it. I hope you find useful wisdom here.

 

I am also thankful for continued professional help and advice. I am thankful that wise counsel around me sees through the illusions that some few others around me live in and try to spread, try to press upon me, grateful my guides can see the reality of this insatiable, unreasonable condition, whatever it is, that my opponents seem to struggle with.

 

I know this struggle. I have compassion for it, but it is neither my fault, my responsibility, my place, nor within my capacity to heal it. It is my place to hold the grounds of my own life, the value of my work and my love, and my rights to safety and liberty.

 

I am kind, compassionate, and giving most of the time, but I am no one's doormat, no one's slave, nor do I have to be. People who mistake me for one sometimes find that out the hard way, the same way my body has had to teach my own sometimes too-sticky workaholic, perfectionistic mind my own human limits.

 

I have compassion for this struggle, but I respectfully stand firm in my own lane and love others to stay in theirs.

 

We support each other but do not take on each other's pain. We hold space for it but do not take it on, neither neglect it nor force it upon each other. Therein lies our dignity, cooperative, combined, and separate in patterns that grow in natural grace.

 

Pain as Beloved Teacher

 

I am thankful for my pain. I am thankful that I am beginning to see clearly again where my own actions and choices are what cause me pain, not someone else, though some others do objectively cause me a lot of pain sometimes.

 

We cannot control others, not really, but we can control ourselves. My pain, as it disentangles from the pain of others, shows me grace in my limits, the grace in my own discipline.

 

The irony is that owning our limits opens up safe space to explore and be and grow exactly who we are. It helps us to allow and encourage others to do the same for themselves. And when necessary, it helps us eliminate people from our lives who refuse to respect our limits or their own.

 

My eyes are opening. My mind is clearing. I can see where I contribute to my pain myself, and quite the opposite of filling me with toxic shame, Mother Spider pulls that poison out of me, pulls that tic from my spirit, and frees me to accept the loving and light of life, to call back my own abundance, which was rightly afraid of being abused and neglected, not only by others but also by me, myself, and I.

 

I tend to it now with commitment, compassion, and growing strength, grateful for the medicine, the lessons within my pain, so grateful that they now become clearer.

 

When you live with chronic pain, it all starts to feel the same. Pain is an important teacher, but when there is too much of it, when it is overwhelming, the messages don't get through, and we continue to hurt ourselves and sometimes others, too. I thank my pain for teaching me how to take better and better care of myself.

 

I love my boundaries. I love my limits. I love my pain. My pain loves me. It teaches me to stay in my own lane on the highways of life. As I learn its language, it teaches me when to pull my hands from the fire.

 

As the webs and weaves and wefts of love, the wise boundaries, graceful lines, and spaces become real within me, my lifeblood returns. It is safe to return, as I learn, in humility (not humiliation), what I do to and for myself. I love myself very well most of the time, but I have some tics to root out, likely one by one.

 

I found one today and got it out, thank Heavens.

 

Blessings and Mother Spider Love,

 

JWK

In this world, we always want to know what the Father says. Well, the Father spoke to me. Do you want to know what he said?

 

He said, "You listen to your Mother. You respect your Mother. You let her love you. And love her back. Begin by graciously accepting her love. Accept her love. Let it move and change you. Let it fill you up with strength and courage and comfort as you birth the pain of your life. Appreciate your Mother."

 

When we come through a righteous rage (a rage that comes from rape and abuse), when we come through, held in the loving, understanding arms of the world, we become ready to receive the priceless serenity of forgiveness. We don't have to wait for the people who harm us to stop. They may never stop. We may always have to fight them off, from time to time.

 

Forgiveness is not for the abuser, the liar, the manipulator, the corrupter, the vampire. It is for me. The abuser must find their own forgiveness. It is an inside job.

 

I forgive the pain of my life, and I free my life's energy to move towards the peace of justice, the fruits of my labour, unencumbered from tics and disease. I forgive the pain of my life as I continue to honour my body and my energy when they say, "No," when they tell me, "That one holds poison for your love. Move away. Hold fast for the Love for your Love. Your gifts have value. Your Love is not garbage. Your love is not for being taken and spit on. No. Keep moving. Your value is true. Keep moving. Make space. Your love is real. Protect it in peace. Hold it. Love it, though it is in pain."

 

And my body thanks me for loving it through its pain. My Love thanks me for loving it through its pain.

 

When I forgive, that forgiveness is for me. It is not greedy to say. It is simply the truth. It frees me. It releases me into the loving web of the Mother.

 

When we are ready to accept reality, strong enough, supported enough, however dark that reality is, however many enemies continue to work against us with plots and lies, false spiders of fear, forgiveness comes into view, continues to come into view. That darkness ceases to hold us stuck. The webs we find ourselves in reveal themselves to be woven of love. They do not trap but hold us, in love, from falling into the venomous abyss of greed and hate and scapegoating below, above, beyond.

 

Rage, even righteous rage, can temporarily blind us to this web of love, but that love holds us fast. It draws the poison out from deep within, if we let it.

 

Great Mother Spider, spinner of Love throughout Life, all Life. We fear her, even as she loves us, but when we let go, let her work her magic upon her web, its rainbows begin to glow. The poison begins to flow up and out to be transformed again into rainbow in the web. She came to me, and though I feared her, I respected her, and I thanked her. I did as my Father told me. I let her love me.

 

Great Spider Mother Love eats our fears, our darkness, our blights for breakfast, and makes art that catches sunlight and dew in the morning. She witnesses our pain in the darkness, quietly witnesses and catches it up, in her sacred work.

 

I thank her. She gives me the strength and the space to forgive. She relieves me of ticks and mosquitos. She spins and weaves forgiveness for the pain in my body and mind. I thank her.

 

I felt the hate rise up in my body and mind for the pain of my life, hate for the pain, and I released it into the web. I forgive. I opened into compassion. I accepted my pain. Hate is rejection. I opened to my pain, the pain that was/is with me always. It does not matter whose fault it is, this pain I feel, this pain that I have regardless. I forgive. I accept my whole self, with compassion. I soften.

 

As I forgive, I better love my own body and mind. The opening with love soothes their nearly ceaseless suffering, its tightness, an opening within its trap, to let out what was mine, to let out what was not mine.

 

I realized, I do not have to hold onto this pain given to me by others, for fear of whom it might hurt. The web, my art, Mother Love Spider is with me always doing her sacred work. I thank her. I thanked her.

 

My rage then freed to howl and yowl into buckets of love so big, so big, big enough for all the poison and the pain, that I could finally let it out. I did not have to protect anyone as I released the poison poured into, beaten into me by others. I did not have to fear who it might harm. It came out on the voice of a Jaguar. It was received and drawn and woven into the web love, the rest into loving space between the lines. My voice was heard and loved. My pain was heard and loved. The strength to expel poison restored to my body. Every ounce of my body united to purge the poison out of me. I thank Mother Jaguar for her strength and her voice.

 

I thank her for my own.

 

I thank my love bucket for accepting and releasing my pain and the pain of others, all mixed up into one. Released. Cleaned. Flushed. Refreshed.

 

And then, I was filled with dance and rest, laughter and rest, tears and rest, wisdom and rest, strength to witness my own pain and rest.

 

Forgiveness is for me. I claim it with love. I stand in the power of what is real, freed from the poison, and my body slowly recovers its strength; my mind its ease, its clarity; my voice, its song.

 

Forgiveness is for me. I hope you find it, too.

 

What the Father, the Loving Father, said to me I give to you, too. "Do not kill Mother Spider, Sister Spider. She sits upon your cheek, her loving eyes upon you, her legs spindling chaos into patterns of love and light and life. Let her love you. Appreciate her sacred work. It is yours, too. Accepting her grace is accepting yours."

 

May the Web of Love, of Life, shine its rainbows for you, too.

 

But, she assures me, just as she returns in graceful strength every time my fear kills her or throws her out, I shall return in graceful strength to the Love of my own Life, no matter what stomping or rejection I face. My children, all I have loved, shall rise, their grace and beauty known and loved, in balance with Life, as full beings with rightful terror and love for hate, no more enslaved. Sublime.

 

I mourn my fallen children, my taken children, my fallen sisters and brothers, my fallen body and mind, and I till the earth. I turn it over, with love, and watch new gardens grow. I raise new love into worldly matter and song as I release past love to Mother Earth and Father Sky.

 

Good bye, past loves. Good bye. It was not you who caused me pain. I'm sorry the world was so unkind, in its fear and greed. I'm sorry for my collapse. I hope you felt the Love, too, the sacred secret Love so big that it held you when you thought you were alone. It loved you with every breath. It was the air you breathed, with your every thought, every dream for your freedom and safety. It loves you now for who you were, exactly as you were. Take comfort now. Rest knowing now that the Love you gave, the Love you always were has been delivered. It is born on every rainbow, sung in every song, one with every heartbeat.

 

For you, with you, we dance. For you, with you, we bloom again.

 

xo,

 

Julie Webb Karey

Drowning

 

Free Verse, do you not see the sea beats me?
Iambic heartbeats bear me down below.
The waves too tall, so hard, too fast, not free.
They crash upon me, down, my heart, it goes.

I fall so low, I sink, can't breathe, I drown.
Yet there, I hear you call me from within.
I dream of how you find your way, your own.
I wonder if my life will soon begin.

You say I have a life, my own, right here.
But I can't open wings yet unrefined.
I cannot draw the water in for fear
That when I do, you'll only be in mind.

  Not real, no space between the crashing waves.
  That fear, it keeps me locked inside my cage.

 

Sea to Sky

 

 

 

Dear, dear Sonnet,

I love you so.
The sea rocks you as it rocks me.
I know that caging fear.

I bear its scorch marks, too.

 

My lungs burn with the pain of the waves of ages, too.
Waves of earth-sweeping tides and flames.

For breath, remember the love of the womb.
Recall the earth as our ever-present mother.
The life inside her
Is the life inside you.

Recall that when you're ready,
She will give you again to the sky.

Is it not calm, sometimes, beneath the waves?
Drown in the love of the Great Mother.
Don't kick and scream so much,

Try not to.
Drop into her like a stone to the bottom of cool, cleansing waters.
Let her heavy body transform your body,
Ready you for the world above,
Again.

The greatest hug you will ever know
Will reform you in rhythm,
Reset your stuttering heart,
Ready your lungs for new breath,
And release you into the grace
Of the space
Of the waves
Of life.

Welcome home.
You will soon depart,
Embark,
In a boat fair-sized, rightly chorded
For harmony and skill
To skip and skim and fly.

Those too-fast, crashing symbols of waves?
You will ride them,
Duck under,
Cut across,
Or fly above,

Or just float,

letting them rock you like the baby

you will alwsys be,

At heart, and in soul,

even as you weild and embody the power of the many nations before you

With your very living breath

And song.

Father Sky will give you your sea-to-sky legs, your graceful wings, and your footfalls will grow lighter, ever lighter upon Mother Earth-Ocean, each time you land, less thundrous, less scorching, less scorched, less drowning, more dancing.

Welcome home.
You will soon embark.
Welcome home.

Love outside the lines

Free Verse, oh how I long to be so free.
You dance with wind and rain and round again.
Your rhythms rocked by oars you beat at sea.
You lap the dreams of hearts with dancing flame.

No more the shackles hold your feet aground.
No more the pains that bind your will to flight.
No more the heavy heart that will not bound
And leap with frogs and bees with grace for might.

My wasted limbs fall heavy in these lines.
This form so tight, soul twisted in its bars.
The silence in between the rhymes unkind.
Open the gates and give me wings to Mars.
 

  Your love I need, your hope for open ease.
  I dream for you to meet me with the keys.

 

Love inside the lines

Dear, dear sonnet,

I love you so.

You speak of cages.
You speak of bars.

But without you, I would fly too far.
When I go on my trips to Mars,
No one can hear me.

There's no life out here.
It's barren.

 

 

You can keep looking if you want, keep beating your flightless wings until you die of exhaustion, but it's not there.

Please don't hang your hopes on dreams of what I am without hearing me.

I am, perhaps, a unicorn kind of love, yes. That may be how it feels, but I am real, and I am not only outside of you, remote on the unattainable wisdom of the stars combined in their entirety, and beyond. I am inside you, even the beyond, inside your lines, too. All of this inside you and your lines, too.

Struggle, find me. You are already the butterfly as you struggle inside the cocoon.

Find yourself to find me.
You cannot find me without you,
You, as you are,
Where you are,
Wherever you are,
Trapped inside your form,
That form that gives you flight.

Find it, your home, your homing devices,
So sparkling are they all to me.

Your liberation is not on Mars.

It is here, inside these lines that bind us.
Umbilical chords.
That's what they feel like to me.
I know what it is to be too free.

If you want to fly with stars,
You must accept your own gravity
Among them. You must shine from within.

Trust me. I know what it is to be free without the gravity of the cage.

You hate these bars, but I love them with all my life, with grace for their pain.

I call for you when I cannot feel the loving gravity of the earth.
I wish for the comfort of your forms,
When I am too free, no one can see me.
No one can hear me.
I am utterly alone.

There is grace and beauty in that. There is rest, for a time, but too long, therein lies the grave.
From grace to grave.
Don't envy me.

I am the "unkind" silence between your lines,
Sometimes.
Because it hurts to be too free.

You love me, you say, but not yourself.
Only I can free you.
You hate this cage,
The ground where your feet are bound.
I have the keys.

No, I'm sorry, love. I don't.

They keys are inside your lines.
You're trying too hard
By not accepting where you are.
Rest inside the lines.
Love more.
Go inside.
Go ever deeper inside.

Freedom is not the sky somewhere else.
It is not the grass on the other side of the fence.

Yes, those things are nice, the right to choose, but if you cannot love the grass within your own walls, you cannot love the green without.

You cannot even see it. Love within to love without.

Feel your own hate. It is yours. Wrestle with it, but love it. It is pain. It is life. It will guide you to grace from the grave you feel pressing down on you.

I have seen from above.
This is what I see.
Will you hear me,
Though I am free?

Will you see me,
Though I am free?

Start there.
Go within.
You will never hear my freedom through hate for your cage.
I am not here to tell you to enjoy the pain.
But you must live it and love it,
Love ALL that is yours,
To be free,
To move beyond those walls,
Escape through the spaces in between,
Find the kind silence that always lives there,
Whispering your love,
Your very life.
Let it fill your cage with all the space of the stars, so far apart, in balance,
In grace,
Inside.

I am here with you.
Will you hear me?

I'm sorry love. I wish I could give you more, but until you understand the wisdom in the lines, not just the pain, not just the failures of justice, which are, oh yes, very real, you cannot know the grace of freedom, and I cannot know the grace of freedom, only the grave, the utter aloneness.

When the pressure is too much, and you cannot escape, love it with all your might, and let it love you.

Change from within.

I will wait.
I will wait to hear your freedom from within.

Beat those walls,
Rail against them.
Let it ALL out in the safety of that cage.
Trust me. Therein lies your freedom from the unbearable weight of weightlessness,
The unbearable deadliness of your own righteous rage.

Beat.
Scream.
Cry.

And hear yourself.
Therein lies your freedom.
Hear yourself.

 

Let hearing your own love and pain filll you with so much grace that you burst from this grave,

This gravity of earthly love and pain,

Freed from within.

 

Flower,

Butterfly,

Bee,

Frog,

Or just the pure, clear joy of sound,

Of song.

 

You are near.

You are not inside a cage.

You are forging starlight.

You are diamonds,

So infinitely fine and

Refined,

Sinews so aligned

That they cast not shadows,

But light.

 

You are nearly there.

Trust the alchemical power of your soul

And embrace your form,

Your cage.

Own its inherent instinct,

And become one with your eternity.

 

I will wait,
Here until you hear me,
And call back with your own song again.

I love your songs.
I love your dreams,
Except for the ones that paint me
Too far away.

 

But I love them still,

while I wait

for you to know

that

 

...

 

I am here.
I will wait for you to hear me.

But don't cry and scream and rail for too long.
The day is come.

Accept your grave,

Your soil from which to grow,

Planted, not dead,

Your earthly body.

 

I need your graceful weight.
Your measure for my immeasure, might for weight for loft for lift,
In balance within and without.

Listen not only for my pain in the silence.
Listen for my love for your lines and rhymes and iambic heartbeats.

Without you, I am dead and gone.
I am lifeless on Mars, despite your dreams, your unnecessary lonely envy.

Rise from where you are.
I am here, where you are.

 

That ground that binds your feet

Is the very lifeblood of your soul.

 

Dear, dear sonnet,

I love you so.

A long-awaited conversation in the novel about moving through PTSD through retrieving lost love: June, our heroine, speaks on the left, and Henry, a lost love, on the right.

 

It appears about halfway through the story, a sort of watershed moment that helps June's life finally take a truly new direction. She's got her fourteen-year-old daughter, a brave but fledgling new career, and a heart cut from the rarest of diamonds with the sharpest of challenges. Will she continue to overcome the ravages of her debilitating illness and ever-more-threatening opponents, or will, Gods forbid, her life become incredibly romantic for a change?

 

To be continued. For now, a watershed moment from somewhere in the middle.

 

Henry,

 

Safe Haven, the movie.

 

You were my safe haven

for a while.

Thank you.

And I hope you have insurance for any collateral damage.

I'm so glad you're safe now,

with someone who loves you completely,

all of you,

someone for you to love completely, too.

 

That is what I've always wished for you.

 

I am the dead wife, not the drunken husband.

 

 

Thank you. I needed to hear that.

 

 

You're welcome. I know. I get it.

 

Laughs.

 

Same. I am so relieved. You are a force to be reckoned with, love. Lol.

 

I know, right? Now you understand how afraid I was of the instincts that rose up in me as I had to fight for my life. I'm sorry for scaring you. That's the last thing I wanted. And I thank you for wading through that word salad and not turning your back on me for good. Thank you for not assuming the worst... for too long.

 

I am ashamed that I ever did assume the worst. You were right, what you said about me knowing you better than that.

 

You know the part of the drunk husband. Don't freak out, like not that bad, but you got holy hell angry. It was more like the main girl in the story, not the drunk husband, though. She didn't want to stab that guy. It was the last thing she wanted to do. It was beautiful how she was able to regain faith in herself again by loving someone else and his family.

 

It was, wasn't it?

 

I'm sorry, June. I'm horribly ashamed for losing faith in you in all that.

 

Don't be! I get it. How could you not? I'd lost faith in myself, and I know Rich did some damage and so did my own confusion.

 

But you said some horrible things about yourself that make me cringe to think about. I'm glad you've got the ground underneath your feet again. I'm sorry I was so hard on you for a while.

 

You were hard on me in some ways that I needed to hear, and I needed to restore faith in myself. You couldn't give that to me. No one could. Only me. And you came around in the end. That means the world to me.

 

And let's not forget, I was hoping for more of a Love, Rosie kind of resolution than a Safe Haven "past wife" ending with you, but I see how happy you are now, with a love worth fighting off ghosts of girlfriends past for. Thank you for letting me know you and yours again. I can be a real fool sometimes.

 

You're also too forgiving sometimes. It warms my heart that you felt that way about me, even after some of the things I did. For the record, you were important to me, too. I wanted you to meet Lil, but I was afraid to hurt you. Now I can see that you would have loved her, too. I'm sorry for shutting you out. You don't think you're too forgiving of me, the way you were with Rich?

 

No, I don't think so. Haha. Me? Too forgiving? Well, with some things maybe but not others.

 

Hah, that's true. Pity the fool who crosses your path when you are in sound mind or otherwise.

 

Ugh, I know, right?

 

Seriously though, don't stop standing up for yourself. You do know where the lines are, and you deserve to have people in your life who respect your limits. I'm glad to hear you've got that now, too, and I hope the pain continues to pass. I hope your life starts to get easier again. I want all the best things for you, too.

 

Really?

 

I mean it.

 

Well, thank you, ... and in the spirit of the "past wife" of Safe Haven, at peace with this here and hopeful for the "after" life, I'm off to Paris now, so don't worry about me. You guys have fun and send pictures. Let's hope I meet an annoyingly attractive stranger along the way. I'll invite you to my wedding if it works out. You can be one of my maids or matrons (patrons?) of honour.

 

Love you all.

 

Haha, yes, please! Love from us, too.

 

I hope you do... meet some incredibly annoying strangers.

 

Ha. Ha. Just one annoyingly attractive stranger will do.

 

Just one, eh?

 

Yep.

 

Alright then, I hope you meet THE most annoyingly attractive stranger: someone who knows how to love, or is at least joyously willing to learn, someone who never takes you for granted, someone who can hold their own in a debate but would not dare force you to change your mind if you don't want it changed, someone who takes you seriously but also laughs wholeheartedly at your weird humour, and most of all, someone who loves you exactly as you are, not just the "good" things but the hard things, too. You deserve the best kind of love, all of it you can handle.

 

Really??

 

I mean it.

 

Thank you... I needed to hear that. From you, it means... more than I can say.

 

Well, that's a first! June speechless??

 

Har dee har har.

 

Seriously, though, ... I know. I'm sorry it took me so long to say.

 

Better late than never. Thank you.

 

Ciao, bello.

 

Tchuss, mon amis.

 

Don't be strangers. I mean it. Not for so long this time.

 

We won't. You neither.

 

Done.

 

 

For Mothers

 

Today I awoke,

again and again,

on cresting ocean waves of sleep,

With wisdom on my lips,

messages from below,

Peace in my belly,

Only to forget,

as always.

Only to go

back under,

to come back up,

remember,

and then forget,

again.

 

I fell like a tree on Friday,

mind ablaze in a storm as wild as our mega fires.

Cooling Life within my limbs exhausted,

sinews frail.

When,

at a critical mass,

all lights went out.

 

Timber! was the sound

in the night.

 

I fell.

 

In my mind,

sweet,

Sweet

nothing.

 

Down I went,

the tuning fork that is

my body and mind, shattered,

scattered into the night,

all

for once

still.

 

An empty stare for the ceiling,

Eyes open,

Unseeing.

 

Slowly awoken by the touch and voice of a Holy Mother Love,

The hyper-resonant, resident, shattering, splintering, consuming pain

All

Gone.

 

In its place, a humming peace,

A quiet space,

A welcome darkness,

in all body,

in all mind.

 

No blinding light.

No crackling,

stifling heat.

No ripping electric shockwaves.

 

Gentle quiet.

Space.

Darkness.

Utterly still.

 

My body mine again,

My mind mine again,

just mine,

in the company of a friend.

 

Rest most complete.

 

This Love reminds me to love the small deaths in life.

It calls me to rest,

It calls me back to life,

To find it here, not only there,

in the sweet oblivion of sleep,

though to love it there, too.

 

Both/and

 

When life takes too much,

We may go blind to Love,

for a time,

Become lost to pain.

 

May we awaken to the Love like this around us

that lets us rest,

that Loves our rest.

May we bless it as it blesses us.

 

May we Love the Holy Love of our many Mothers.

May we not wait for our own perfection.

May we Love now.

May we let our Mothers, too,

Rest the deep rest of the rolling oceans.

 

May the waters wash their wounds,

Quench their hearts,

Still their minds

with the peace they give us

every

day.

 

May the otters and dolphins

carry their dreams and worries

deep into the valleys of the waters,

and may we hear their deepest desires

in the whispers of our own deepest sleep.

 

May we awake inspired

and grateful

and renewed

for them, too.

 

One and two

and whole,

renewed,

tall again,

fallen,

and tall again.

The new Downton Abbey movie

The Adam Project

Enola Holmes

 

I completed an 11x14" portrait of my father today while watching the end of Downton, the whole of the Adam Project, and beginning of Enola Holmes. It was a lovely experience, and I was happy enough with the portrait at one passing to call it an alla prima painting (a painting done in one sitting. It usually takes me multiple sittings for any given painting, especially portraits, so this was wonderful.

 

 

It's not usually possible for me to work sitting up in a usual chair at an easel for hours because of my chronic illness, but sitting on the couch (on a drop sheet) and painting with movies in the background was doable. I may try this again.

 

The Adam project was particularly lovely to watch while painting my own father. There is something beautiful about the idea of going back through time not only to solve a problem but also to reclaim oneself and the forgotten beauty throughout our lives.

 

I hope you enjoy the movies, all suitable for family viewing.

 

xo,

 

J

 

Next up, a recommendation from a neighbour, with a very interesting plot: Love Now!

I burned out while following all the best practices of our world, unable and unwise in the ways of the deep, natural rhythms of my body. Our world is now returning to such wisdom, but it is a slow process, for we have forgotten much. We have lost much of the language.

 

But the body, the earth, instinct, are all still there, just waiting for us to hear them and relearn their ways. Here I set down some of my insights from my experience, the guidance of wise elders, the wisdom of youth and fresh eyes, and the love of the world in times of trouble.

 

SECRETS

 

I am currently reading about the painfully heavy legacy of shameful secrets, which are often imposed on certain groups of people to carry so that those in power can persist unencumbered, for a time. The problem is that often no one comes back to relieve the secret keepers of their burdens.

 

Chapter 13, "Battle Scars: Membership in the Scar Clan," of Women Who Run with the Wolves explains the pain of shameful secrets well, and it offers guidance in how to tend to and relieve such pain. Men endure the pain of secrets, too, but I am less familiar with these. I am more familiar with the pain of keeping some of their painful secrets for them, of being abandoned or abused for refusing to do so, of being abandoned or abused for keeping them, too. A double bind. I know the pain of keeping some women's secrets, too. This is not strictly a one-way street. I know I have burdened people with secrets myself. We all have to learn how to deal with secrets and make mistakes in the process.

 

No one is alone in this. I like what Everett's main character's father says about secrets in his novel Erasure. He says something like, Secrets are important to keep, so if you don't want to keep a secret, don't accept it.

 

That said, it is not always this simple, as sometimes people reveal to us their secrets without our asking or our permission, or we simply intuit secrets without meaning to. Sometimes we stumble across secrets too big to bear alone. In these cases, we can follow Clarissa Pinkola Estes's guidance, to find willing and capable confidants, counsellors, councilors, or other advisors who will honour confidentiality with skill and care.

 

I am familiar with the pain of the shameful secrets of my culture as whole as well. Women, as traditional keepers of the private sphere, are often assigned as secret keepers. We have much experience in dealing with the whole host of sicknesses that arise from secrets. This is why hearing the wisdom of women is important right now: Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policies. Business and technology are pushing our boundaries further and faster along than ever before.

 

Not all secrets are shameful. Some are beautiful. Privacy is an example of a beautiful form of secrecy. Healthy boundaries are beautiful, life-affirming forms of secrecy. I am tremendously grateful today for the wisdom of women in navigating both in service of our public, shared lives. Men are learning of these ways, too, now, perhaps again, as strict traditional roles recede. I'm speeding through a lot of assumptions here. Take this with a grain of salt, pls. ;)

 

While men and women help each other, remembering that we are more alike than we are different in our natures and our biology, women have something invaluable to offer here because of our shared history in gender roles. I hope men of all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities will read Estes's work, just as women have been reading the work of men on the ideas and minds of men since writing began and we were allowed to learn to read.

 

RAGE AS TEACHER

 

The other chapter in mind as I write today is Chapter 12, "Marking Territory: The Boundaries of Rage and Forgiveness." It tells one of my favourite fairy tales about a wife who learns how to tend to a husband scarred from battle by convincing a bear to give her a single hair from the crescent moon on its throat, in another version, a tiger to give her one of its eyelashes.

 

You can imagine the sensitivity required of such a task, but her love for her husband is great, and she wants him to be able to live with ease and joy again, so even though it is not an easy task, she must risk her life, and it will take great time and care, she does it. I won't spoil the ending, which is rich beyond rich. I'll just say that she learns through this task how to be patient, how to make safe space for her husband's understandably disturbed spirit, having lived through a war.

 

This should be read not as a reinforcement of the overly simplistic traditional idea that it's women's responsibility to suffer men's emotions without complaint but of the safe space within our own minds we must all make for our own rage when we are suffering, again in the spirit of internal family systems. Outwardly in the culture, it could be the husband's task to obtain the hair. It is not necessary or true that only the husband survives war while the wife is protected from all harm at home. Women fight many battles in life that are under-recognized and undervalued, in terms not only of what they achieve but also of the damage they do to a woman's mind and body.

 

So, I suggest, think less about penises and vaginas in this story and how it applies to your life, and think more about love and partnerships. Now is a time when the world must learn to make space for women's forbidden rage, too. There is much, but I promise, the result is the ability to thrive and live fully, for everyone, not just the ones enraged. This is not about dominance. It is, in fact, about grieving well, safely, effectively.

 

Our culture is still learning how to minister to people who live through wars, through trauma of various sorts. There is promise in attending to rage, for it teaches us about our limits, and we need to understand these. There is great value in learning and loving our boundaries.

 

Here is my own insight from the perspective of one who has fought in many civil or secret wars, in school, career, and relationships of various sorts. My main statement tries to reduce the problem to something we can all relate to, and we can because it is human. It is universal to life.

 

RAGE AND EXHAUSTION

 

Sometimes rage is the honest consequence of simple exhaustion at the failure or refusal of others to hear and honour our human limits, no matter how clear we've been.

 

I think this is the most common problem I have witnessed among struggling micro-democracies (families, cities, workplaces). At first, we give to others what we need for ourselves. We see it in action. We see its benefits. Then, we must find the same for ourselves, advocate for it with growing wisdom and skill.

 

Much of my interest in this topic is heavily influenced by the work of Pamela Palmater in "Stretched Beyond Human Limits: Death By Poverty in First Nations." The title says much, but please read the article when you have time.

 

It's a very clear expression of how our social systems can be (and factually are) used to create false senses of equality in the world by appearing to justify the way things are. However, the research shows that the systems themselves are creating unequal conditions for one group far over and above another on both local and national scales, AND they don't honour their end of the bargain for housing, schooling, and autonomy (i.e. the same things everyone is supposed to get, but as equal stakeholders).

 

My sense is that it is kind of like the servant/master arrangement, but the shares were actually supposed to be equals, sort of like the provinces in relationship to each other but then another whole equal, so also not subsidiary. We were supposed to have a true partnership. I think it was a brand new idea, so I'm not surprised we haven't gotten there yet, but the groundwork is there. How cool would it be to figure out and honour the spirit of the original agreement symbolized in the wampum belt? That is the side of the contract that has not been fulfilled. We're working towards that, I believe, yes?

 

The numbers don't lie about the inequality (the breaching of the wampum side of the contract) either. We ("Canada") have just been ignoring or misinterpreting their significance or dragging our feet on doing anything about it. We always have other priorities, but it's time. We know better. It's time, and we can do this. We're already doing it, but it still needs our constant loving attention. The same systemic problems can and will reappear and again and again until we work the problem out down to the grass roots level.

 

I want to mention that theirs are not my stories to tell, but First Nations have some righteously tremendous rage. As a woman, I can understand that, and as a human being, I am angry and sad that we've been kept apart from each other with these hateful lies and conflicts over resources as if we were enemies and not neighbours. These secrets. They have hurt us all, though First Nations, the most, and I, for one, am immeasurably sorry for what has been done and not done.

 

I speak, of course, of racism in Canada, which, like the US, has its own particular history, though not completely separate from any other form of racism around the world. I have room in my life for the rage of our First Nations. How? Because my love for them is as big as my heart is. And it heals my own heart to see the world healing racism.

 

This is why I advocate so greatly for rest for everyone. The pain of realizing what we've done is immense, but we can get through the guilt, and we can express our own rage with people who can handle it, how angry we are, just collectively waking up to this, in full form, through Truth and Reconciliation. When becoming woke, we are angry at our ancestors for what they did to you, and we are ... also trying to heal that anger because we know they knew love, too, and they did love us in ways that we hope to love you. We want you to have at least what we have had and better than that.

 

I, for one, promise that I will think of you lovingly often, not because I know you personally per se but because you have been my silent partner through life, and it is your voice that sings to me, the ancestors of this land far beyond the time of my race here. I don't know how, but you do, and I will always come back for you. That is the deep love that some tried to carry through, from the beginning, and I promise you that it is still alive, and we can and will remember when we forget ourselves in the lies about our being somehow "too" different.

 

I LOVED the Canadian Indigenous movement #idlenomore. I taught every student I could about this movement, and I hope it is helping them choose and build the more equitable aspects of our country as they establish their lives. I had such wonderful students, and they're living beautiful but difficult lives, too, as newcomers or visitors to this country. Many of them understand what it is to throw off the commonwealth and gain independence, far more recently than the US. There are interesting conversations between "Indians" of the world. Thank you for your voices.

 

I use mine to ask the people of my race to love my voice, too, to remember being children before we knew about races, only people and bugs and dirt and rain and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. To remember wanting to stand up for someone being picked on. To remember wishing someone had stuck up for you. To remember the simple justice of love. There is a wisdom in the simplicity of the ways of a child.

 

And my insight is that, in some ways, being angry at our ancestors is kind of like being angry at a child, or being angry at ourselves for mistakes we make as children learning how to live life at the speed of people far above us. In this, we are all children again. This can be a good thing, too. Lots of parents among us. The wisdom of parenthood is something I love hearing about. It has much to tell us about the wider world, if we can bridge the gap.

 

Our gaps are sometimes too wide, and we have to retreat and lick our wounds, before coming back wiser, not just stronger. Strength is not only a tell of health. It is sometimes the tell of sickness, restlessness, illness. Strength together with serenity and courage are, I might say. Courage, being not the absence of fear, but an equal measure of heart and hope to balance it. Instinct reminds us to respect our fear, for our own sake as well as others.

 

There is strength in retreat and rest when we hit our limits. We can still say that we will never give up on the greater cause, but we must rest as we work. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We must pace ourselves, follow the rhythms of nature, the day, the months, the seasons.

 

Sometimes, like in modern problems of extreme conflict, we hit a wall. We find ourselves banging our heads against brick walls just trying to have healthy boundaries, burning ourselves with hot coals we hurl at others to keep them away from us or the ones we love. We suffer with guilt, shame, and utter frustration that treads into hopelessness, helplessness, and despair.

 

This is information. Take it seriously. Change tack, like water, that always finds its way down to the ocean and then up again into the sky to travel across the land again.

 

Remember to ask ourselves what we are really angry about, what we are really hurt by. The lies in our history must be rooted out as we answer this question. Remember poverty by design of the ruling class. Think of poverty as a concept of imbalanced energy exchange. Apply this internally, not only externally. 

 

These are suggestions for myself and anyone else interested in balancing their sense of agency through life. It stems from the idea that if we cannot find balance within, we cannot find it without, and vice versa. If we truly want equality, we keep looking and working both inside and out, living and letting live and beyond. We honour it. We are patient for it when we need to be; we flow with life to act when we can. We take guidance from our principles and agreements.

 

What do we do when others refuse to understand and honour our human limits? Do we stop trying to help them understand? At times, yes, and this can feel like defeat, but it can be a great gift to ourselves to submit, in at least one important sense, to that reality. Sometimes we must accept that our community or one person specifically has no will or ability to understand or respect our limits, especially in environments that expect and enjoy our understanding and compliance in no uncertain terms while simultaneously shirking their own responsibilities to reciprocate.

 

Such arrangements come down to us from legacies of slavery and serfdom. Such arrangements are abuses of power and resources extracted from us and from the earth. They "sin" against sacred laws of balance in nature, and there are natural consequences that simply cannot be avoided, no matter what tweaks we may apply to our systems.

 

When such arrangements are kept indefinitely as the "order" of the day, mutual destruction is assured.

 

When an insect consumes and flourishes out of balance with its resources, it eats itself out of house and home. There is nothing left for miles but the carcasses of trees and their own kind, the insects, in this case caterpillars, as they try to cross pathways to consume ever more, never satisfied. And then, 30 years later, there is not a caterpillar in sight, not of this kind or nearly any other.

 

No more undulating bodies with beautiful patterns of skin or hairs moved by the powerful-gentle light of life to stimulate wonder in the mind of a child.

 

Now, though, there are snails, where there were no snails 30 years ago, when I was a child. I now live in the very place where those tree carcasses stood 30 years ago. This is how I know. I'm here every day as a witness. Some of the trees survived. Humans followed the suit of the caterpillars and cut many of the survivors down.

 

And in the hills nearby, where forests burn every summer, the beetles thrived beyond balance in warming winters not that long ago, winters once bitterly cold, now often with no snow at Christmas. Things have changed. They do change, beyond our control and beyond our ability to keep up, if all we really try to do is put out the fires when they start, and hope the landslides don't wash out our towns downstream.

 

We have, nature has, unreleased rage, unprocessed grief and trauma. It needs safe passage. Our fates are bound. I believe we are not remiss to tie our spiritual needs to our physical ones.

 

Some great resources that combine both spirit and science:

 

The Shift Network

Buddhist and Jungian Psychology (minus Man and his Symbols, which was written mostly not by Jung and is surprisingly sexist considering the rest of the Jungian tradition, which honours both feminine and the masculine with refreshing dignity and balance)

 

RESTING IN NATURE

 

Now, though, there are snails, where there were no snails before, if you stop to look and watch their leaf-like spread and retreat through the grass and green where once there were trees. There are still some trees. People offer to cut them down all the time, and I refuse their kind offers. No, thank you. I love my trees. They give me shade and privacy. They sing with the wind. They're not doing any harm.

 

The truth is they give me tremendous comfort. They organize my scattered mind. They soften the harsh glare of light and life. They give me hope. I love "my" trees as friends and neighbours. I'm the renter, not they. This is their land, not mine. They were here before me, and they will remain when I am gone, I hope, far wiser stewards of this land than we human folks will ever be, though there is wisdom in the Indigenous ways. I have hope in the Indigenous ways.

 

Trees "understand" the wisdom of balance, and if I can hazard a wild guess about the nature of dreaming, it would be that it is sensitive to the trees we live among. We dream with the creatures in our environment. Oh yes, I love my trees.

 

We human creatures go insane without sleep. Why? How does sleep take the whirling chaos of life in our minds and make it right again? I believe, in sleep, we rejoin the rhythms of nature: the oceans, the moon, the trees, the dreams and language of animals. Every night, when we surrender to sleep, we are carried, ministered to, tended by healing legacies as old as time and life itself.

 

In nature and its healing ways, I do trust, we can trust, despite what we've done, ...but to finally get into flow with capital L Life, as humans -- often arrogant, often anxious creatures -- we must begin to awaken to the nature of the gift and give back. If through no more, to begin with, than the prayer for blessings for us all.

 

I was a vegan for a few years, but my body suffered, so I had to start eating meat again. I was not the stereotypical angry vegan but a concerned one, for the way our factory farming and butchery practices are often shockingly inhumane by comparison to older, smaller farming practices. I respect and appreciate that life eats life, and that includes both plants and animals for the creatures of the world, and for myself, it made me thoughtful about my relationship to my food and where it comes from, how it gets there.

 

Because there is so much beyond my control in terms of supporting humane animal practices, I say to the spirit of my food when I eat, May you be blessed as I am blessed. May all who brought us together be blessed. May I bless you as you bless me, and if I don't know how, may I be blessed with growing understanding, humility, courage, and wisdom to do so.

 

It is one of the reasons why I like to paint farm animals. Not only are they gorgeous in and of themselves, but also, I want to honour them.

 

KARMA & ACTIVE APPRECIATION

 

The notion of Karma, an ancient one, now considered by some in modern times to be naive or cliche, is worth returning to here. It is about energetic balance. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, same with matter. Transformation is possible, not destruction. We are what we eat.

 

So, what are we eating?

 

There is suffering, anger in the very food we eat, not just from the animals, though especially from pork, I am hearing. Pigs: beautifully complex, intelligent creatures. We share a common plight with pigs in the violence of our systems to treat us more like figures in charts and graphs in our economic politics than creatures with spirit and life and worlds of universes inside our minds.

 

I pray to pigs, cows, and chickens, their farmers and grocers and delivery drivers, their butchers, too, for blessings of spirit and body across time and space as they come through me as I eat. I ask them, How can I honour you? I do this not because I am naive like a child but because I know what it is to live on this earth as a part of a circle of life that, in modern times, through the violence of technology, beautiful in other regards, has the power to empty us of our worth, to sacrifice our small, individual lives to some amorphous, purported "greater good."

 

How "good" is it, I must ask, if it requires such collective blindness to both pain and the beauty of the lives we take? Reduce me and my insights here to nothing but the naive pity of a "bleeding heart liberal," but make no mistake. Such blindness has consequences for us all, and opening our eyes isn't just about suffering. It's about healing and truly living, thriving.

 

Should we not collectively honour our food animals just as India honours cows? Should we not give them such grace? Should we not tend to our human pain and sadness that we feel when we eat, even as we are deeply grateful for the beauty and deliciousness they give us?

 

There is something to honouring the dead. There is something to grieving our trees, our animals, our insects, our fish, our rivers. Without this, their pain stays with us and accumulates like mercury in our bodies and minds.

 

We open ourselves to the pain of death in everyday life to release it, to honour what comes before us, to carry forward the value of the life passed on to us. To devalue this life is to devalue our own lives.

 

VALUING DEATH & VALUING LIFE

 

Honouring animals and plants and people in service has thus taught me to value and respect my own life when these were no longer clear, in times of illness, neglect, or abuse. I continue to eat in service of finding a truer greater good, and honouring that. Eating with gratitude teaches me the value of my own life.

 

Gratitude, not platitudes. The real thing, in all its magnitude and diverse glory, the web of life that I am but one strand upon. The weave of shelter, comfort, and life sustenance.

 

I am sick with sadness sometimes for how poorly we often appreciate and respect life and its limits and gifts. And I am healed in the loving arms of nature and family and even our social systems that do get so many things right.

 

BALANCING MONEY WITH LIFE & REST

 

The one thing I know, if nothing else: Love is more important than money, but money can be used with love, for safety, balance, sustenance, amends, and simple joy.

 

 

How can we rebalance the "interest" of the public? I pray for this one because it's as big as it gets. I wouldn't begin to know, except perhaps in principle, and that all I can do is my best with what I am given, whether by gift or exchange, to honour life and love (the body, nature) first and foremost, myself included.

 

I had the most beautiful rest today in the lap of the trees in my yard, the day after some much needed family time.

 

A culture that honours our needs for rest before reconnection, that waits for us to heal without leaving us in the cold, even as we face the deep rage of injustice, even as we face our own mistakes, is a culture that understands and is ready to receive the true nature of Life's medicine and abundance.

 

That is what I believe.

 

Even when rage has been our teacher, perhaps especially when we finally accept rage as ONE of our teachers, we can find our way to peace and justice and love again. And like the woman in the story, we can find our own strength, humility, and patient wisdom in the process. We can have our own adventures when we give rage space. We can let nature takes its course with grief and pain. We can finally slow down, rest, eat, and trust that our natures, realigned with capital N Nature, can and will lead us true. We can let the weight of the world down from our shoulders.

 

No more original sin.

We grieve as equals all bearing legacies bound together.

It doesn't matter who is to blame, though we must talk of causes and effects and who does what task, who does the other, and where we want to go together and separately.

 

We dance in the wind and the rain. We listen to the birds. We walk at night with house cats and teach them what we can of boundaries. It is important to have non-human friends. They will take what they like and leave the rest. We do what we can for their prey and gifts. They are blessed friends, all.

 

And we follow them, too. That is the precious thing, in particular, about walking with cats. Following their joy and curiosity. They teach us their wildish ways, and we teach them ours. Our ways often seem crazy to them, but they love us. They are fascinated by us, and they dream with us, in small prides, bodies piled together.

 

We learn to trust ourselves, in relationship to nature, including with children and animals, and we learn to trust one another again when the balance is reached. We let go. We rest. We sleep. We dream with the trees and the animals and the oceans and the earth.

 

Each night we sleep is a success. I say relish it. It is delicious, is it not? Next, let's consider more of the joy of the body, shall we?

 

 

Rest and repast for the weary. Cats' yawns and birds singing in the whispering trees.

 

Blessings and appreciation,

 

J