Day 18
12/9/22
Friday
12/9/22
Friday
Quite a few days have passed since I last wrote. A lot has happened. First, I took my mother to the airport, sending her through the skies back to California, the land of my birth which she missed for the 30 years that passed since she left and when she returned to be closer to my sister’s children, her grandbabies. I was grateful that she’d taken so much time to be with me and helped me set the house up in such a way that it felt renewed and reinvigorated. My mom is a power - she is an unstoppable Capricorn who gets things done and seemingly never tires. I know I’m really blessed to have such a good relationship with her. I look around and see lots of people who don’t have balance and harmony with their mothers and I know this is a privilege that helps me move through the world in ways I can’t necessarily understand, but I can feel them. After the terrible events of this year I appreciate every member of my family more than ever, and I hope we have decades left to enjoy each other in these bodies before our earthwalks end.
After leaving the airport, I drove back along the chilly Virginia roads to the house. Naked branches reached toward gray skies. I saw a hawk soaring overhead, looking for dinner in the forests lining the roadways. I went to the library with the necessary documents to get a local library card and spent an hour or two wandering through the shelves, selecting a big stack of books to check out and take home with me. Titles ranged from fictional brain candy to deep historical non fiction, light and heavy, whimsical and serious. The stack now sits downstairs on my desk and I haven’t gotten into it yet much, just opening a book or two and letting my eyes fly along the pages, soaking up information as fast as my brain can comprehend the words. This year I noticed that my mind is hungry again in a way I haven’t felt in a while. When I would lay with my nephew this fall, letting him nap on my chest, and basically stuck (though I loved it,) I opened books, since my phone made him jolt in a way that proved that electromagnetic energy is much more palpable than most of the numb adults walking around realize, I noticed that as I read my eyes would speed up and speed up until they were zooming along the lines of text. I studied speed reading many years ago but I like to savor the lyrical nature of books, especially by certain authors, so going especially fast isn’t usually a focus of mine while reading. Lately, however, I just want to guzzle and gulp all the information, downloading it into my brain in chunks of mind spinning glory. I remember this feeling - it has come during other times when my paradigm shifted and my understanding of what and why life was irrevocably changed. Seems to track that this would be happening again. It’s a lovely feeling. I am happy to be in this part of the cycle.
I’ve felt my brother come in a few times. Usually he’s off somewhere in the Universe, doing his thing, far away and having glorious adventures. At least that’s what it feels like to me when I open the part of my senses that could feel him thousands of miles away while he still lived in the body. But every now and then he checks on me, or I call out to him and hear his “What’s up, C-Bot?” phrase that he’s said to me since we were kids (C-Bot was a nickname I had as a kid because apparently I loved the show Transformers. I don’t really remember that, but the name stuck with my brother and father. It kind of annoyed me that Ward kept calling me that into adulthood, now what I’d give to hear it with my ears again rather than just in my mind… anyway.)
One day he came to me and said to think about what happened to him like a terminal illness - it was that, quite literally, after all. I thought about it as I felt him ask me if I’d feel different if it had been a terminal illness of the body. I remembered how responsible I felt, and still feel, to help him find the paths to happiness and real health through the struggles I wasn’t even totally sure he was having because we didn’t talk about it much (soul family reading this - especially men! - please tell the people who love you when you need help. He never came out and said clearly what was going on with him. I wish SO HARD that I’d had known and could have helped. Men so often don’t share when they’re hurting. Please let the ones who love you know when you need support. Please.) We’d had conversations a couple of times in recent years where I thought I may had kept him from doing what he eventually did. In my mind on this recent day, he said to me that if he’d had another kind of illness, a more physical, visible one, that I ended up holding back a year or two, that this would have been worth the effort. The thought hit me and it sank in. Yes, if I’d been able to extend his life with my witchy ways (herbalism, energy work, etc.) in that way I’d probably still feel similarly like I’d rather hold it back for the next 40 years too, but I’d think about the fact that maybe I did give him a little more time with a warmer feeling concerning myself and my role in all of this. It was a comfort - a dark one maybe, but I felt my understanding twist like a kaleidoscope and I felt myself be soothed internally a little.
He’s also popped through in song lyrics and movie symbolism a bit, the way that spirits tend to anyway, but I’ve seen him clearly and I’ve been grateful and happy/sad to see him there, waving at me through the matrix.
Another moment happened when my new mattresses arrived. The guys who delivered them looked like my brother - not exactly, but similar features. Both of them. I felt like this was him too, sending me a bit of thumbs-up energy through the universe via symbolism.
The house does feel different. A couple of the rooms have transformed, there are more still to change, declutter, rearrange, and settle into. But the energy feels peaceful. Everyone who visits has reported to me that it feels bright, and warm, and inviting in here now, in comparison to the sadness and darkness before. Some of it is logical, like the new windows we had installed throughout the house and the clearing out of old furniture. Some of it, though, I believe comes from the copious amounts of energy work I’m pouring into this place 24/7.
One last little fun upgrade - speaking of the mattresses above, I dug my old bed out of the attic. When I was in grad school at the University of Florida, I lived in an old echoing apartment near the edge of town, working a couple of jobs on a students salary, always struggling to make ends meet but generally loving my life. I found this bed online - it was called the Secret Garden Canopy Bed (I’ve looked it up lately and can’t find it in existence anywhere - that said, I bought it 19 years ago so I’m assuming the company no longer exists.) Anyway, it’s a 4 poster canopy bed made of metal tooled to represent vines and leaves. The headboard and footboard are made of vines and the delicate curling lines twist up each poster to reach toward the top finials, which are also plant themed. I found this bed online and positively lusted after it. It cost more than my rent. So I saved my pennies and eventually bought it, splurging on this one piece of furniture in an apartment otherwise filled with hand me downs or cheap bargain deals, and overall mostly empty. It was worth it.
When I graduated in 2006, I got rid of all my other furniture except, of course, for the bed. I broke it down into its component pieces and loaded it into my pickup truck, driving it back to Virginia and tucking it into my then-mom’s attic. (She eventually moved, which was when the house became my brother’s home, a couple of years later.) In all the years since, the bed has been collecting dust in the attic. I’ve always loved it, but it’s big and heavy and I’ve been mostly nomadic, other than a few years when I either rented pre-furnished places or settled down thousands of miles away, where it just didn’t make sense to commit to ship that huge furniture all the way there. So… I went up into the attic and started to dig, finding old artifacts like a box of trophies from my teenage pageant years (trippy) and paintings of fairies I made in elementary school. I found the bed, I brought it downstairs, I realized that somewhere the needed screws had been lost, I went to buy more, I put it together, stopping for grief waves along the way, I smudged it with sacred smoke to clear off whatever old energy has been lingering, and I have so far slept in it for 2 glorious nights. As I wielded the electric screwdriver and inched the pieces around the room, moving them bit by bit because they’re heavy and I was in no rush, I felt a little soul retrieval happening. I’ve lived so many different lives since this was the place I spent dreaming in each night. But when it was my home base, I loved it and took classic Taurean pleasure in its details and vibes. Such a trip having this artifact in my hands again. And yes, I still love it just as much.
Some people would think me silly for having such an emotional reaction to a piece of furniture, I’m sure. But this was the crowning jewel on one of my lives in this life. And now I have it back. Of course there are moments of guilt about why I’m even here to use it in the first place, but when I get through the muck and out to the other side I’m doubly grateful to have things to cherish and appreciate even when I’m totally alone (other than the 2 cats of course) and life may feel bleak or tragic. Now as I dream I’m protected by a lovely cage made of eternally thriving plants. Such my vibe.
After leaving the airport, I drove back along the chilly Virginia roads to the house. Naked branches reached toward gray skies. I saw a hawk soaring overhead, looking for dinner in the forests lining the roadways. I went to the library with the necessary documents to get a local library card and spent an hour or two wandering through the shelves, selecting a big stack of books to check out and take home with me. Titles ranged from fictional brain candy to deep historical non fiction, light and heavy, whimsical and serious. The stack now sits downstairs on my desk and I haven’t gotten into it yet much, just opening a book or two and letting my eyes fly along the pages, soaking up information as fast as my brain can comprehend the words. This year I noticed that my mind is hungry again in a way I haven’t felt in a while. When I would lay with my nephew this fall, letting him nap on my chest, and basically stuck (though I loved it,) I opened books, since my phone made him jolt in a way that proved that electromagnetic energy is much more palpable than most of the numb adults walking around realize, I noticed that as I read my eyes would speed up and speed up until they were zooming along the lines of text. I studied speed reading many years ago but I like to savor the lyrical nature of books, especially by certain authors, so going especially fast isn’t usually a focus of mine while reading. Lately, however, I just want to guzzle and gulp all the information, downloading it into my brain in chunks of mind spinning glory. I remember this feeling - it has come during other times when my paradigm shifted and my understanding of what and why life was irrevocably changed. Seems to track that this would be happening again. It’s a lovely feeling. I am happy to be in this part of the cycle.
I’ve felt my brother come in a few times. Usually he’s off somewhere in the Universe, doing his thing, far away and having glorious adventures. At least that’s what it feels like to me when I open the part of my senses that could feel him thousands of miles away while he still lived in the body. But every now and then he checks on me, or I call out to him and hear his “What’s up, C-Bot?” phrase that he’s said to me since we were kids (C-Bot was a nickname I had as a kid because apparently I loved the show Transformers. I don’t really remember that, but the name stuck with my brother and father. It kind of annoyed me that Ward kept calling me that into adulthood, now what I’d give to hear it with my ears again rather than just in my mind… anyway.)
One day he came to me and said to think about what happened to him like a terminal illness - it was that, quite literally, after all. I thought about it as I felt him ask me if I’d feel different if it had been a terminal illness of the body. I remembered how responsible I felt, and still feel, to help him find the paths to happiness and real health through the struggles I wasn’t even totally sure he was having because we didn’t talk about it much (soul family reading this - especially men! - please tell the people who love you when you need help. He never came out and said clearly what was going on with him. I wish SO HARD that I’d had known and could have helped. Men so often don’t share when they’re hurting. Please let the ones who love you know when you need support. Please.) We’d had conversations a couple of times in recent years where I thought I may had kept him from doing what he eventually did. In my mind on this recent day, he said to me that if he’d had another kind of illness, a more physical, visible one, that I ended up holding back a year or two, that this would have been worth the effort. The thought hit me and it sank in. Yes, if I’d been able to extend his life with my witchy ways (herbalism, energy work, etc.) in that way I’d probably still feel similarly like I’d rather hold it back for the next 40 years too, but I’d think about the fact that maybe I did give him a little more time with a warmer feeling concerning myself and my role in all of this. It was a comfort - a dark one maybe, but I felt my understanding twist like a kaleidoscope and I felt myself be soothed internally a little.
He’s also popped through in song lyrics and movie symbolism a bit, the way that spirits tend to anyway, but I’ve seen him clearly and I’ve been grateful and happy/sad to see him there, waving at me through the matrix.
Another moment happened when my new mattresses arrived. The guys who delivered them looked like my brother - not exactly, but similar features. Both of them. I felt like this was him too, sending me a bit of thumbs-up energy through the universe via symbolism.
The house does feel different. A couple of the rooms have transformed, there are more still to change, declutter, rearrange, and settle into. But the energy feels peaceful. Everyone who visits has reported to me that it feels bright, and warm, and inviting in here now, in comparison to the sadness and darkness before. Some of it is logical, like the new windows we had installed throughout the house and the clearing out of old furniture. Some of it, though, I believe comes from the copious amounts of energy work I’m pouring into this place 24/7.
One last little fun upgrade - speaking of the mattresses above, I dug my old bed out of the attic. When I was in grad school at the University of Florida, I lived in an old echoing apartment near the edge of town, working a couple of jobs on a students salary, always struggling to make ends meet but generally loving my life. I found this bed online - it was called the Secret Garden Canopy Bed (I’ve looked it up lately and can’t find it in existence anywhere - that said, I bought it 19 years ago so I’m assuming the company no longer exists.) Anyway, it’s a 4 poster canopy bed made of metal tooled to represent vines and leaves. The headboard and footboard are made of vines and the delicate curling lines twist up each poster to reach toward the top finials, which are also plant themed. I found this bed online and positively lusted after it. It cost more than my rent. So I saved my pennies and eventually bought it, splurging on this one piece of furniture in an apartment otherwise filled with hand me downs or cheap bargain deals, and overall mostly empty. It was worth it.
When I graduated in 2006, I got rid of all my other furniture except, of course, for the bed. I broke it down into its component pieces and loaded it into my pickup truck, driving it back to Virginia and tucking it into my then-mom’s attic. (She eventually moved, which was when the house became my brother’s home, a couple of years later.) In all the years since, the bed has been collecting dust in the attic. I’ve always loved it, but it’s big and heavy and I’ve been mostly nomadic, other than a few years when I either rented pre-furnished places or settled down thousands of miles away, where it just didn’t make sense to commit to ship that huge furniture all the way there. So… I went up into the attic and started to dig, finding old artifacts like a box of trophies from my teenage pageant years (trippy) and paintings of fairies I made in elementary school. I found the bed, I brought it downstairs, I realized that somewhere the needed screws had been lost, I went to buy more, I put it together, stopping for grief waves along the way, I smudged it with sacred smoke to clear off whatever old energy has been lingering, and I have so far slept in it for 2 glorious nights. As I wielded the electric screwdriver and inched the pieces around the room, moving them bit by bit because they’re heavy and I was in no rush, I felt a little soul retrieval happening. I’ve lived so many different lives since this was the place I spent dreaming in each night. But when it was my home base, I loved it and took classic Taurean pleasure in its details and vibes. Such a trip having this artifact in my hands again. And yes, I still love it just as much.
Some people would think me silly for having such an emotional reaction to a piece of furniture, I’m sure. But this was the crowning jewel on one of my lives in this life. And now I have it back. Of course there are moments of guilt about why I’m even here to use it in the first place, but when I get through the muck and out to the other side I’m doubly grateful to have things to cherish and appreciate even when I’m totally alone (other than the 2 cats of course) and life may feel bleak or tragic. Now as I dream I’m protected by a lovely cage made of eternally thriving plants. Such my vibe.
Day 12
12/3/22
Saturday
The day before yesterday I did one of my very favorite things, and one I haven’t indulged in since pre-pandemic times…
I went to the local library (where I’d never been before so I got a little tour from one of the librarians first,) then after I had a beat on where everything was, I allowed myself to intuitively search through the stacks.
First I did some research on local history, and then an hour or so later I strolled through the fiction section, eventually picking up a book that caught my eye about some multidimensional creatures I’ve been seeing in meditations lately. I sat in a cozy chair as the sun set outside, reading the fiction book, allowing the voices of these fantasy creatures to echo through my mind, in very much the same way as I hear them in my own meditations. (I love it when that happens.)
So to recap, first - regarding the local history…
When I do this intuition-led research in libraries, I let my internal compass guide me. I let the sparks of interest in my own mind decide which section to visit, which book to pick up, how long to read it, when to replace it, and so on. In this case, all I wanted to do at first was know some real stuff. What has happened in this place? Besides short visits, I haven’t spent any real time here in many years, and back when I did, I didn’t have the tools I now have to put true stories alongside the subtle energies I experience, giving them context and a home to unwind into.
The land I currently sit on once belonged to some of the most well known indigenous people on this continent. Powhatan, Pocahontas’s father, lived a stone’s throw from here. In fact, my house now sits a couple of blocks from the borders of Pocahontas State Park, a huge nature preserve that has new-ish forest stretching for long distances. This is the place where it all happened - where the European settlers first landed who would decimate the populations of the people who lived here. First through disease, then through the worst betrayal and murder, repeated over and over until the forests were all cut down and the people were gone, leaving behind a hodgepodge culture that doesn’t much fit the place and is characterized by rampant mental illness, large and small (which killed my brother, in the end.) Between the deaths of the natives and the current quietly dystopian culture was the whole slavery story - more layers of trauma and terrible happenings. Richmond, the city near me, was actually the capital of the Confederacy, the gathering of states that tried to become their own nation so they could continue the barbaric practices of slavery and agriculture with humans owned as possessions. In my research I learned about the slave cabins - sometimes as small as 5 feet long and wide, with no windows, just a cabin made of rough logs with the only opening a doorway. People lived in there, for their entire lives. I read about a man who worked and lived in the kitchen of a plantation house, sleeping there each night and preparing food during the daytime. The walls weren’t fortified or insulated, so during the winter, he would shiver and quake all night as the cold winds from outside rattled his bones. It gets really cold in this part of the country. Biting, humid breezes that travel right through your clothes. And for the long years he lived in that kitchen, no one ever gathered together and filled the cracks in the walls? Even though there were many more enslaved people than slavers, even though it would have taken only a short amount of time (a couple of days with several people, I’m thinking) to do it, he suffered for years? People lived in those tiny, dark, depressing cabins for their entire lives, for generations?
The comparatively simpler problem of physical slavery isn’t even the bottom. The mental slavery was the real problem. The fact that people were so beaten down by a system from the moment of their birth that they were completely focused on pure survival and their minds didn’t have the time and space to think up solutions. Yes, there was the underground railroad, and thank heavens for that. But a quote I’ve read by Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous conductors of that system that never lost one person, said that she believed she could have freed hundreds more if she could have convinced them they were slaves.
I believe truly that there are still many shackles on the thinking of my fellow humans. I believe they’re on me too… I have less than most, but I can’t necessarily see where they are, although I can feel them.
To divert a little - not even 200 years ago, women who thought for themselves, who read books, and who had creative minds would often be taken to asylums because the men in their lives deemed them as mentally unstable. Just because they’d think for themselves! Just because they liked to read! Often they would receive horrendously torturous treatments there - electrocution, brain surgery that rendered them physically unable to think, clitorectomies cutting out the most sensitive and joy-bringing part of a women’s body, for no reason at all. This was normal. People didn’t bat an eye to it.
That wasn’t too long ago. As I’ve learned this history (which was never taught to me in schools,) I wonder what similar chains are still on our minds that we’re so conditioned to accepting that we don’t think to question them. I can think of a few right now.
It’s not necessarily my place to take up a banner and fight directly against these problems. I’m better suited to quietly figuring out what’s going on, experimenting with other ways of living, then sharing my findings with people who want to know. Some folks are comfortable in their mental cages, and I’m not trying to break them out if they don’t want to come out. But I can’t abide it for myself, once I see it.
A closing thought for the blog today - if you’ve been reading for a while you’ll see that not long ago, I received visual images in my morning meditation about how my process of grieving and the alchemy done to my soul as a result was likened to a tree being felled then hollowed out for use as a canoe. Well in the local history section of the library, I picked up an old hardbound book and flipped through the pages. There were only a few pictures, but one of them detailed exactly what I’d seen. I included the picture as the image with today’s entry. Sure enough, the local indigenous people who lived on this land used as their most common method of travel boats made in exactly that way. I knew at the time that the spirits speaking to me felt like natives from here. Sure enough, they were. No matter how many decades pass of me doing this work, validation like this never gets old. I’m always grateful when I see real world proof of what I experience in vision. It grounds me and strengthens my trust in what I do, which is largely invisible to the naked eye.
I’ll continue my personal alchemy, transforming to the next version of whatever it is I represent in this space, and sharing what I discover in ways that speak to my heart. This journey is very lonely sometimes, but I’d rather fly free with a mind that works, can imagine, and can see beyond old stagnant limitations than be comfortably settled in a cage. Forward I go.
I went to the local library (where I’d never been before so I got a little tour from one of the librarians first,) then after I had a beat on where everything was, I allowed myself to intuitively search through the stacks.
First I did some research on local history, and then an hour or so later I strolled through the fiction section, eventually picking up a book that caught my eye about some multidimensional creatures I’ve been seeing in meditations lately. I sat in a cozy chair as the sun set outside, reading the fiction book, allowing the voices of these fantasy creatures to echo through my mind, in very much the same way as I hear them in my own meditations. (I love it when that happens.)
So to recap, first - regarding the local history…
When I do this intuition-led research in libraries, I let my internal compass guide me. I let the sparks of interest in my own mind decide which section to visit, which book to pick up, how long to read it, when to replace it, and so on. In this case, all I wanted to do at first was know some real stuff. What has happened in this place? Besides short visits, I haven’t spent any real time here in many years, and back when I did, I didn’t have the tools I now have to put true stories alongside the subtle energies I experience, giving them context and a home to unwind into.
The land I currently sit on once belonged to some of the most well known indigenous people on this continent. Powhatan, Pocahontas’s father, lived a stone’s throw from here. In fact, my house now sits a couple of blocks from the borders of Pocahontas State Park, a huge nature preserve that has new-ish forest stretching for long distances. This is the place where it all happened - where the European settlers first landed who would decimate the populations of the people who lived here. First through disease, then through the worst betrayal and murder, repeated over and over until the forests were all cut down and the people were gone, leaving behind a hodgepodge culture that doesn’t much fit the place and is characterized by rampant mental illness, large and small (which killed my brother, in the end.) Between the deaths of the natives and the current quietly dystopian culture was the whole slavery story - more layers of trauma and terrible happenings. Richmond, the city near me, was actually the capital of the Confederacy, the gathering of states that tried to become their own nation so they could continue the barbaric practices of slavery and agriculture with humans owned as possessions. In my research I learned about the slave cabins - sometimes as small as 5 feet long and wide, with no windows, just a cabin made of rough logs with the only opening a doorway. People lived in there, for their entire lives. I read about a man who worked and lived in the kitchen of a plantation house, sleeping there each night and preparing food during the daytime. The walls weren’t fortified or insulated, so during the winter, he would shiver and quake all night as the cold winds from outside rattled his bones. It gets really cold in this part of the country. Biting, humid breezes that travel right through your clothes. And for the long years he lived in that kitchen, no one ever gathered together and filled the cracks in the walls? Even though there were many more enslaved people than slavers, even though it would have taken only a short amount of time (a couple of days with several people, I’m thinking) to do it, he suffered for years? People lived in those tiny, dark, depressing cabins for their entire lives, for generations?
The comparatively simpler problem of physical slavery isn’t even the bottom. The mental slavery was the real problem. The fact that people were so beaten down by a system from the moment of their birth that they were completely focused on pure survival and their minds didn’t have the time and space to think up solutions. Yes, there was the underground railroad, and thank heavens for that. But a quote I’ve read by Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous conductors of that system that never lost one person, said that she believed she could have freed hundreds more if she could have convinced them they were slaves.
I believe truly that there are still many shackles on the thinking of my fellow humans. I believe they’re on me too… I have less than most, but I can’t necessarily see where they are, although I can feel them.
To divert a little - not even 200 years ago, women who thought for themselves, who read books, and who had creative minds would often be taken to asylums because the men in their lives deemed them as mentally unstable. Just because they’d think for themselves! Just because they liked to read! Often they would receive horrendously torturous treatments there - electrocution, brain surgery that rendered them physically unable to think, clitorectomies cutting out the most sensitive and joy-bringing part of a women’s body, for no reason at all. This was normal. People didn’t bat an eye to it.
That wasn’t too long ago. As I’ve learned this history (which was never taught to me in schools,) I wonder what similar chains are still on our minds that we’re so conditioned to accepting that we don’t think to question them. I can think of a few right now.
It’s not necessarily my place to take up a banner and fight directly against these problems. I’m better suited to quietly figuring out what’s going on, experimenting with other ways of living, then sharing my findings with people who want to know. Some folks are comfortable in their mental cages, and I’m not trying to break them out if they don’t want to come out. But I can’t abide it for myself, once I see it.
A closing thought for the blog today - if you’ve been reading for a while you’ll see that not long ago, I received visual images in my morning meditation about how my process of grieving and the alchemy done to my soul as a result was likened to a tree being felled then hollowed out for use as a canoe. Well in the local history section of the library, I picked up an old hardbound book and flipped through the pages. There were only a few pictures, but one of them detailed exactly what I’d seen. I included the picture as the image with today’s entry. Sure enough, the local indigenous people who lived on this land used as their most common method of travel boats made in exactly that way. I knew at the time that the spirits speaking to me felt like natives from here. Sure enough, they were. No matter how many decades pass of me doing this work, validation like this never gets old. I’m always grateful when I see real world proof of what I experience in vision. It grounds me and strengthens my trust in what I do, which is largely invisible to the naked eye.
I’ll continue my personal alchemy, transforming to the next version of whatever it is I represent in this space, and sharing what I discover in ways that speak to my heart. This journey is very lonely sometimes, but I’d rather fly free with a mind that works, can imagine, and can see beyond old stagnant limitations than be comfortably settled in a cage. Forward I go.
Day 10
12/1/22
Thursday
Today is the 6 month mark of when Ward left us.
The picture above is of his 33rd birthday, last year, when I came to visit after asking what he wanted to celebrate and he said time together would be the biggest gift. So I drove across the country and spent a month with him, cooked him 2 cheesecakes (his favorite) to celebrate, one for lunch and one for dinner, made him blow out candles twice, and took him on this picnic to a nearby park for lunch. Apparently, he’d never been on a picnic before. He wasn’t the most outdoorsy person in comparison to my tree-loving self.
I’m so glad that we got to spend that time together. I’m the last one in our immediate family who got to hang out with him. Of course, I wish I would have come this year too. He died about 2 months after his 34th birthday. If I’d come again, maybe he wouldn’t have died. I know I can’t think like that, but it’s also a human thing. Maybe he wouldn’t have, truly. Of course, if it was going to eventually happen, then I couldn’t have pushed it back forever, but what kind of loving sister would I be if I didn’t try? Had I known he was in danger, I would have immediately headed this way…
This morning as I walked through the lower room of the house on my way outside to sun gaze at dawn, a golden rectangle of light illuminated the wall right by where it happened. The sun just so happened to shine through the windows at an angle to pass right through where he stood as he took his last breath and made that decision six months ago. I stood in the spot, looking at my silhouette surrounded by bright light against the far wall.
Maybe this is me reaching, but I felt like this was a message from him that he’s now in a good place of light and beauty. Every time I hear from him, that’s what I feel, ever since those first couple of days where all was darkness, confusion, and horror filled regret. Now, it’s all good. He’s off somewhere. I don’t even feel him all that often. That said, I can certainly feel his energy enough to know that existence doesn’t end when the body dies. No one can convince me any different. Ward is the closest person to me who has ever died, especially suddenly, with no warning and no chance to say goodbye.
I’ll always miss him. I’ll always look forward to seeing him again at the end of my own earth journey this time around. But no matter whether the memories at the moment are sad or joyful, I always send him love, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, and whatever adventures he’s having that I’m sure would blow my mind if I knew.
And although I’m still grieving, it isn’t as sharp anymore. It feels like an ache now, an echoing pain that doesn’t knock me down anymore but that just reminds me of the terrible things that have happened. Eventually, I trust that it’ll blunt down and I’ll remember my love for him and the funny and ridiculous memories we have more than I remember the pain. I don’t want to rush it though, lodging unhealed energy in my spirit. I want to let it run its natural course. That’s how I show him my respect and honor.
All that said, beneath the obvious pain that comes with remembering the date, I have an upwelling of my natural state of joy coming. Last night I ran errands through town just after dark. The wind whipped leaves across the roadway in bursts of color and crunching sound and I felt the spirit of the place very much alive. The space felt magical, and since I’m in a part of the country right now that has a firmer lockdown mentality when it comes to energy compared to the west coast, the spaces that I spend most of my time in felt open and expansive. Like there was more freedom because less people were there, if that makes sense. I didn’t expect it to feel that way. It was quite a surprise.
And wherever Ward is, whatever he’s doing, I know that he’s happy, having a good time, expanded far beyond the version of him I knew, and understanding things my human mind can’t yet fathom. It’s weird to have been left so far behind, but I’m glad that he’s happier now. I’m glad that he’s free. I do miss him though, of course. But I trust that one day I’ll understand how the decision he made was the right one for him. If I could change it, I would. I would have been blowing up his phone every day, reminding him how smart and epic and loved he was. I would have been planning trips to see him as often as I could get away. I would have been sending him gifts and trinkets to remind him of the good parts of life. I wouldn’t have let him descend so far that choosing to leave us all behind felt like the best option in that moment of whatever got into his head and convinced him to go.
But, all in all, he was an adult. It wasn’t up to me. It wasn’t my choice. That kind of thing is individual.
For anyone who’s reading this though, check on your people. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while. I’ll always regret that silence and there’s no way to take it back now. You never know what a little conversation shooting the breeze can do. I’ll always wish that I’d called him more often. Take a lesson from this regret I’ll carry for the rest of my life and make a different decision. Remind the people you love why you love them - especially the ones who have a hard time finding the light by themselves. It’s worth the effort. Let’s support each other and help each other bear the loads of life. It can get really heavy sometimes.
The picture above is of his 33rd birthday, last year, when I came to visit after asking what he wanted to celebrate and he said time together would be the biggest gift. So I drove across the country and spent a month with him, cooked him 2 cheesecakes (his favorite) to celebrate, one for lunch and one for dinner, made him blow out candles twice, and took him on this picnic to a nearby park for lunch. Apparently, he’d never been on a picnic before. He wasn’t the most outdoorsy person in comparison to my tree-loving self.
I’m so glad that we got to spend that time together. I’m the last one in our immediate family who got to hang out with him. Of course, I wish I would have come this year too. He died about 2 months after his 34th birthday. If I’d come again, maybe he wouldn’t have died. I know I can’t think like that, but it’s also a human thing. Maybe he wouldn’t have, truly. Of course, if it was going to eventually happen, then I couldn’t have pushed it back forever, but what kind of loving sister would I be if I didn’t try? Had I known he was in danger, I would have immediately headed this way…
This morning as I walked through the lower room of the house on my way outside to sun gaze at dawn, a golden rectangle of light illuminated the wall right by where it happened. The sun just so happened to shine through the windows at an angle to pass right through where he stood as he took his last breath and made that decision six months ago. I stood in the spot, looking at my silhouette surrounded by bright light against the far wall.
Maybe this is me reaching, but I felt like this was a message from him that he’s now in a good place of light and beauty. Every time I hear from him, that’s what I feel, ever since those first couple of days where all was darkness, confusion, and horror filled regret. Now, it’s all good. He’s off somewhere. I don’t even feel him all that often. That said, I can certainly feel his energy enough to know that existence doesn’t end when the body dies. No one can convince me any different. Ward is the closest person to me who has ever died, especially suddenly, with no warning and no chance to say goodbye.
I’ll always miss him. I’ll always look forward to seeing him again at the end of my own earth journey this time around. But no matter whether the memories at the moment are sad or joyful, I always send him love, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, and whatever adventures he’s having that I’m sure would blow my mind if I knew.
And although I’m still grieving, it isn’t as sharp anymore. It feels like an ache now, an echoing pain that doesn’t knock me down anymore but that just reminds me of the terrible things that have happened. Eventually, I trust that it’ll blunt down and I’ll remember my love for him and the funny and ridiculous memories we have more than I remember the pain. I don’t want to rush it though, lodging unhealed energy in my spirit. I want to let it run its natural course. That’s how I show him my respect and honor.
All that said, beneath the obvious pain that comes with remembering the date, I have an upwelling of my natural state of joy coming. Last night I ran errands through town just after dark. The wind whipped leaves across the roadway in bursts of color and crunching sound and I felt the spirit of the place very much alive. The space felt magical, and since I’m in a part of the country right now that has a firmer lockdown mentality when it comes to energy compared to the west coast, the spaces that I spend most of my time in felt open and expansive. Like there was more freedom because less people were there, if that makes sense. I didn’t expect it to feel that way. It was quite a surprise.
And wherever Ward is, whatever he’s doing, I know that he’s happy, having a good time, expanded far beyond the version of him I knew, and understanding things my human mind can’t yet fathom. It’s weird to have been left so far behind, but I’m glad that he’s happier now. I’m glad that he’s free. I do miss him though, of course. But I trust that one day I’ll understand how the decision he made was the right one for him. If I could change it, I would. I would have been blowing up his phone every day, reminding him how smart and epic and loved he was. I would have been planning trips to see him as often as I could get away. I would have been sending him gifts and trinkets to remind him of the good parts of life. I wouldn’t have let him descend so far that choosing to leave us all behind felt like the best option in that moment of whatever got into his head and convinced him to go.
But, all in all, he was an adult. It wasn’t up to me. It wasn’t my choice. That kind of thing is individual.
For anyone who’s reading this though, check on your people. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while. I’ll always regret that silence and there’s no way to take it back now. You never know what a little conversation shooting the breeze can do. I’ll always wish that I’d called him more often. Take a lesson from this regret I’ll carry for the rest of my life and make a different decision. Remind the people you love why you love them - especially the ones who have a hard time finding the light by themselves. It’s worth the effort. Let’s support each other and help each other bear the loads of life. It can get really heavy sometimes.
Days 7 & 8
11/28 - 29/22
Monday - Tuesday
11/28 - 29/22
Monday - Tuesday
Yesterday I brought my visiting family to Maymont and showed them some of my favorite spots. Luckily, enough time had passed so it was safe to be around them again. I was glad to spend time together because it will be many moons until I see the little ones again. As an adult, a period of several months doesn’t feel like a lot, but when you’re dealing with a 3 year old and a baby who is less than 1 year old, a few months takes you through multiple developmental stages.
Rowan was running around like the crazy kid she is, making ridiculous jokes and having us all in stitches. I introduced her to my magnolia tree friend and we pretended to be monkeys in the branches. I brought her over to the echoing dome in the Italian gardens, and she got a huge kick out of the echoes. For the rest of our time there, she made jokes in a little goblin voice about being “echo bread.” We had no clue what that meant, but it sure did make us laugh.
The energy here is feeling much lighter. The house still needs a ton of work to be transformed into a home and I have yet to complete one room to a degree where my nervous system is soothed and comfortable, but I understand that this will take time. Yesterday I went up into the attic to see what I could find in the boxes that have collected over years. It was like excavating past lives. I didn’t realize how much stuff I’d kept from previous sections of my life. I had the strangest and most complicated feelings as I dug through old clothes and trinkets that I used to love and forgot existed. On one hand, I felt lucky and excited to find things I remembered adoring and looked forward to using again. On the other hand, I felt guilty. I wouldn’t even be back in this house in the attic if my brother were still alive. Was it ok to feel good about finding my lost treasures? Shouldn’t I be sad about every step of this process?
Logically, I realize that eventually it’s okay to be happy. Spiritually, I know without a doubt that Ward doesn’t want me moping around and depressed all the time because he’s gone. But human emotion is a complex and slow moving thing. Finding my old treasures is bittersweet and weird. I’m just letting the waves come as they come. That said, I’m very grateful to find little things that will make my time here feel cozy and more pleasant. It’s amazing what old snuggly scarves and pretty little crockery can do for the quality of life of a Taurean like me who likes lovely things.
I’m finally feeling like myself again and soon I’ll join a gym. (Let this be your reminder, dear reader, to prioritize your physical health and conditioning. It’s a subtle but very powerful life upgrade!) I know that as soon as I’m a week or two in to a gym routine, a new level of joy will unlock in my life here in Virginia. I’m ok with taking it slow… but I also look forward to that.
A final note about the energies - I haven’t felt that dark, spooky spirit vibe in a while now. I’ve been piping more light through the space and asking my protectors and guardians to come be with me and shine through the space. I’m also reminded that my brother had perspectives and struggles I couldn’t understand. We loved each other, and we were also opposites in many ways. I’m starting to feel how, so long as I access my joy and allow myself to be in the space of energy where I feel bright and comfortable, it may do the heavy lifting for me. I don’t know. I am certain that there will still be dark moments again. But I’m heartened by what I feel so far.
Rowan was running around like the crazy kid she is, making ridiculous jokes and having us all in stitches. I introduced her to my magnolia tree friend and we pretended to be monkeys in the branches. I brought her over to the echoing dome in the Italian gardens, and she got a huge kick out of the echoes. For the rest of our time there, she made jokes in a little goblin voice about being “echo bread.” We had no clue what that meant, but it sure did make us laugh.
The energy here is feeling much lighter. The house still needs a ton of work to be transformed into a home and I have yet to complete one room to a degree where my nervous system is soothed and comfortable, but I understand that this will take time. Yesterday I went up into the attic to see what I could find in the boxes that have collected over years. It was like excavating past lives. I didn’t realize how much stuff I’d kept from previous sections of my life. I had the strangest and most complicated feelings as I dug through old clothes and trinkets that I used to love and forgot existed. On one hand, I felt lucky and excited to find things I remembered adoring and looked forward to using again. On the other hand, I felt guilty. I wouldn’t even be back in this house in the attic if my brother were still alive. Was it ok to feel good about finding my lost treasures? Shouldn’t I be sad about every step of this process?
Logically, I realize that eventually it’s okay to be happy. Spiritually, I know without a doubt that Ward doesn’t want me moping around and depressed all the time because he’s gone. But human emotion is a complex and slow moving thing. Finding my old treasures is bittersweet and weird. I’m just letting the waves come as they come. That said, I’m very grateful to find little things that will make my time here feel cozy and more pleasant. It’s amazing what old snuggly scarves and pretty little crockery can do for the quality of life of a Taurean like me who likes lovely things.
I’m finally feeling like myself again and soon I’ll join a gym. (Let this be your reminder, dear reader, to prioritize your physical health and conditioning. It’s a subtle but very powerful life upgrade!) I know that as soon as I’m a week or two in to a gym routine, a new level of joy will unlock in my life here in Virginia. I’m ok with taking it slow… but I also look forward to that.
A final note about the energies - I haven’t felt that dark, spooky spirit vibe in a while now. I’ve been piping more light through the space and asking my protectors and guardians to come be with me and shine through the space. I’m also reminded that my brother had perspectives and struggles I couldn’t understand. We loved each other, and we were also opposites in many ways. I’m starting to feel how, so long as I access my joy and allow myself to be in the space of energy where I feel bright and comfortable, it may do the heavy lifting for me. I don’t know. I am certain that there will still be dark moments again. But I’m heartened by what I feel so far.
Day 6
11/27/22
Sunday
Yesterday I went to one of my favorite places in this city - Maymont Park. It was created by the Dooleys, a philanthropic couple who lived in the last century and turned the many acres they owned and lived on into a paradise that has lasted until today, after they bequeathed it to the city upon their deaths. A snowy white marble mausoleum sits on a side of one of the hills where they are both interred. Yesterday as I was strolling through the grass (making sure to stay far away from everyone else, just in case, since I’m still healing,) I recalled one of my teenage visits to the park. I was there with my first love and we sat amongst cultivated flowers in geometric patterns and wildflowers dotted in amongst the green summertime grass. His head lay in my lap and as I rhythmically stroked his hair away from his forehead, I thought to myself that if there was a Heaven (I was still very much agnostic at the time,) this is what it must be like. That was before I’d done my now years of research into what people experience after death. I didn’t know about the Elysian fields that folks spanning culture and century experience right after death, which are sunny, grassy spaces where loved ones meet and people enjoy the day. So, as it turned out, there is a space in heaven that probably feels very similar. But yesterday, contemplating that memory and thinking also about how much my energy takes the shape of whatever and whomever I’m around, it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps I was empathing the spirit of the Dooleys. They are forever resting very near that spot, which sits right in front of the impressive brownstone mansion where they lived and which is still open to the public. Yesterday I wondered if their spirits spend time in exactly that way, sitting on the grass, loving each other. Maybe.
I went to visit a great cathedral like magnolia tree that I’ve known for years. I walked into one of its many large doorway-like openings in the canopy, said hello to the impressive tree, and sat with her for awhile, thinking about life, creating content for my online work, and thinking, of course, of my brother. A few moments after I wondered if he was aware of me, my eyes landed on “WF” carved into a branch. It took me a beat to imagine what the F could have meant - “Ward Forever,” maybe? Maybe a reminder that he’s always with me? A cliche I know, but I also realize that it’s very true. I’ve done enough mediumship work here and there over the years to know that our loves ones who have crossed over have a different awareness of time and space than we do. It’s possible for them both to always be near to us and to have an exciting, eventful existence having nothing to do with our Earth stories… We’ll all find out for real, eventually. Either way, it was nice to see his initial there.
After, I went to get my favorite kind of food (Ethiopian) and brought it home, eating in the chilly kitchen in front of Netflix. The house still needs lots of work to feel like the cozy home I’d like to turn it into. When we visited previously, we cleaned it out majorly, thinking that we wanted to create a blank slate, which we did… but now it’s a blank slate, which doesn’t feel all that homey. I have patience and I know that every step forward moves us forward. The gray skies out my window today don’t feel sad, they feel restful and peaceful.
As I drove home I had a moment of gratitude to be out of the city. I’d spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, and the sheer amount of people in the concrete jungle constantly surrounding gets to me after a while. It’s subtle, but there are real reasons I don’t choose to live in cities. My spirit needs nature. And although I don’t anticipate staying here longer than my plan to be here until late next Spring, I will enjoy being surrounded by trees and space in this little neighborhood bordering the national park. I can honestly say that I don’t know where my nomadic self would be right now if Ward hadn’t died. I am pretty certain that I wouldn’t be here. But for the little blessings of it all, I’m grateful. Of course, from time to time I still try to reel in the clock and I hope that this entire past several months is a dream… but I don’t necessarily expect it to work. Right when we got the news, I hoped that it would, every night falling asleep doing my best to manifest this whole experience as a fucked up dream. But here we are. Just saying - if it still turns out to be a dream, I wouldn’t be mad. I doubt I’m alone in that thought. It seems like a common wish to have after an unexpected tragedy. But for as long as this is the reality I’m in, I’ll do my best to be here as my best.
I went to visit a great cathedral like magnolia tree that I’ve known for years. I walked into one of its many large doorway-like openings in the canopy, said hello to the impressive tree, and sat with her for awhile, thinking about life, creating content for my online work, and thinking, of course, of my brother. A few moments after I wondered if he was aware of me, my eyes landed on “WF” carved into a branch. It took me a beat to imagine what the F could have meant - “Ward Forever,” maybe? Maybe a reminder that he’s always with me? A cliche I know, but I also realize that it’s very true. I’ve done enough mediumship work here and there over the years to know that our loves ones who have crossed over have a different awareness of time and space than we do. It’s possible for them both to always be near to us and to have an exciting, eventful existence having nothing to do with our Earth stories… We’ll all find out for real, eventually. Either way, it was nice to see his initial there.
After, I went to get my favorite kind of food (Ethiopian) and brought it home, eating in the chilly kitchen in front of Netflix. The house still needs lots of work to feel like the cozy home I’d like to turn it into. When we visited previously, we cleaned it out majorly, thinking that we wanted to create a blank slate, which we did… but now it’s a blank slate, which doesn’t feel all that homey. I have patience and I know that every step forward moves us forward. The gray skies out my window today don’t feel sad, they feel restful and peaceful.
As I drove home I had a moment of gratitude to be out of the city. I’d spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, and the sheer amount of people in the concrete jungle constantly surrounding gets to me after a while. It’s subtle, but there are real reasons I don’t choose to live in cities. My spirit needs nature. And although I don’t anticipate staying here longer than my plan to be here until late next Spring, I will enjoy being surrounded by trees and space in this little neighborhood bordering the national park. I can honestly say that I don’t know where my nomadic self would be right now if Ward hadn’t died. I am pretty certain that I wouldn’t be here. But for the little blessings of it all, I’m grateful. Of course, from time to time I still try to reel in the clock and I hope that this entire past several months is a dream… but I don’t necessarily expect it to work. Right when we got the news, I hoped that it would, every night falling asleep doing my best to manifest this whole experience as a fucked up dream. But here we are. Just saying - if it still turns out to be a dream, I wouldn’t be mad. I doubt I’m alone in that thought. It seems like a common wish to have after an unexpected tragedy. But for as long as this is the reality I’m in, I’ll do my best to be here as my best.
Day 5
11/26/22
Saturday
Today we’ll test again to see if we’re still carrying the virus. I feel fine. I won’t be surprised either way - it may be, on one hand, that my immune system combined with the natural herbal remedies I’ve been using have kicked it entirely. On the other hand, the virus could still be hanging out in my bloodstream even though my felt sense is normal. Either way, I’m not super bothered because we’re in the retail rush of Thanksgiving weekend so I doubt I’d do much venturing out anyway, aside from seeing family which I’m looking forward to doing. We’ll see.
In other news, this morning I got up and out early to move the trash cans around from the back yard to their spot by the roadside to be collected, and for the first time since arriving in Virginia, I was outdoors when the sun popped up over the horizon, filling the space with golden light. I stood in the backyard for long moments, letting the living light bring its life giving information into my body through my eyes and the receptors in my skin. I’ve been a sun gazer since 2010 and I’ll never stop - it’s a health trick that I understand is a little alternative (because we’re taught to *never* look at the sun) but that is also ancient and makes sense - you’re supposed to do it at dawn or dusk, when the sunlight is being filtered through miles of atmosphere that hug the surface of the planet, and there’s a reason we naturally love gazing at sunsets and sunrises. That light brings information to us that our bodies need for optimal functioning.
Standing in the back yard today, staring into the light, I thought of my brother, of course. Of his years of standing in the same yard, day in and day out, in his daily routines. No, he wasn’t a sun gazer. I don’t think I ever really pushed him to try. One of my weird habits that I don’t speak about all that often unless asked. But now, giving what’s happened and the way that sun gazing boosts the mood immediately, I can’t help but wonder if, had he taken up the habit, it could have saved him. I think about these things all the time. If I’d have visited for his birthday this year too, would he still be alive? Honestly, probably. But that’s also assuming (something I’ve felt him remind me of in recent months) that if he were still alive in this world he’d be happy. He may have been. But he may not have been. He wasn’t, for that last bit there. Who can really say. But I Do know that wherever he is now, he is more peaceful and a lot less stressed out and angsty than he was when he lived here in this house, in that body, in that life.
Once upon a time not too long ago I remember having a thought and floating it to him. I told him that when people want to kill themselves, they should just go ahead and die to their old lives. Just change everything. Pick up and leave. Fuck everything. Why not? May as well try to experience something different rather than choose to end it all, because their one perspective of life isn’t all that there is to life. I remember at the time wondering why I was saying this to him at all. He never once expressed to me that he wanted to die. It’s something that I wonder how many people think about and don’t say. And more recently, as I’d been giving him tips as to how to shift things for himself, he told me that he could barely keep everything going as it was. He didn’t have the bandwidth to add anything new. Again, I just kind of gave up in that moment and didn’t push it. What could I say? Now, in retrospect, things come to mind. If I’d known what the alternative was, I’d have done lots of things differently, of course. I think everything thinks about unexpected deaths that way. It’s normal. But it’s also not necessarily accurate. We’ll never know.
Last night I had a couple of weird dreams. In one this strange being made of filaments was having a conversation with me. As it spoke, the green and purple threads making it up moved with its statements, expressing its emotions. The experience was so shocking that I woke up, and I wondered if it was the virus speaking to me from within my body. Later, I had a few scary flashes of a dark spirit, something out of a horror movie, kind of flashing around, coming in and out, I think trying to make its presence known and maybe unsettle me. Was this the energy that’s said to be in this house? Was it my brain just making things up? I’m not sure either way. Sometimes I can tell easily, this time I couldn’t. So I first protected my energy, then I sent over love, in case it really was someone who was trying to say hello in their creepy way. Some beings are just creepy. I mean, some people are off putting and don’t mean to be. The same with spirits. When it comes to dark spirits, they’re usually traumatized and have seen horrible things. It’s often all they know - or it’s all they have known for a really long time. This kind of work isn’t for everyone - it can be downright dangerous, obviously. But it’s part of what I do and I’m not going to run from it.
However, as I said, this could have been my brain just turning things over. I don’t know. Eventually it’ll sort itself out. I don’t want to be quick to assume anything in this situation. I’ll take it as it comes.
In other news, this morning I got up and out early to move the trash cans around from the back yard to their spot by the roadside to be collected, and for the first time since arriving in Virginia, I was outdoors when the sun popped up over the horizon, filling the space with golden light. I stood in the backyard for long moments, letting the living light bring its life giving information into my body through my eyes and the receptors in my skin. I’ve been a sun gazer since 2010 and I’ll never stop - it’s a health trick that I understand is a little alternative (because we’re taught to *never* look at the sun) but that is also ancient and makes sense - you’re supposed to do it at dawn or dusk, when the sunlight is being filtered through miles of atmosphere that hug the surface of the planet, and there’s a reason we naturally love gazing at sunsets and sunrises. That light brings information to us that our bodies need for optimal functioning.
Standing in the back yard today, staring into the light, I thought of my brother, of course. Of his years of standing in the same yard, day in and day out, in his daily routines. No, he wasn’t a sun gazer. I don’t think I ever really pushed him to try. One of my weird habits that I don’t speak about all that often unless asked. But now, giving what’s happened and the way that sun gazing boosts the mood immediately, I can’t help but wonder if, had he taken up the habit, it could have saved him. I think about these things all the time. If I’d have visited for his birthday this year too, would he still be alive? Honestly, probably. But that’s also assuming (something I’ve felt him remind me of in recent months) that if he were still alive in this world he’d be happy. He may have been. But he may not have been. He wasn’t, for that last bit there. Who can really say. But I Do know that wherever he is now, he is more peaceful and a lot less stressed out and angsty than he was when he lived here in this house, in that body, in that life.
Once upon a time not too long ago I remember having a thought and floating it to him. I told him that when people want to kill themselves, they should just go ahead and die to their old lives. Just change everything. Pick up and leave. Fuck everything. Why not? May as well try to experience something different rather than choose to end it all, because their one perspective of life isn’t all that there is to life. I remember at the time wondering why I was saying this to him at all. He never once expressed to me that he wanted to die. It’s something that I wonder how many people think about and don’t say. And more recently, as I’d been giving him tips as to how to shift things for himself, he told me that he could barely keep everything going as it was. He didn’t have the bandwidth to add anything new. Again, I just kind of gave up in that moment and didn’t push it. What could I say? Now, in retrospect, things come to mind. If I’d known what the alternative was, I’d have done lots of things differently, of course. I think everything thinks about unexpected deaths that way. It’s normal. But it’s also not necessarily accurate. We’ll never know.
Last night I had a couple of weird dreams. In one this strange being made of filaments was having a conversation with me. As it spoke, the green and purple threads making it up moved with its statements, expressing its emotions. The experience was so shocking that I woke up, and I wondered if it was the virus speaking to me from within my body. Later, I had a few scary flashes of a dark spirit, something out of a horror movie, kind of flashing around, coming in and out, I think trying to make its presence known and maybe unsettle me. Was this the energy that’s said to be in this house? Was it my brain just making things up? I’m not sure either way. Sometimes I can tell easily, this time I couldn’t. So I first protected my energy, then I sent over love, in case it really was someone who was trying to say hello in their creepy way. Some beings are just creepy. I mean, some people are off putting and don’t mean to be. The same with spirits. When it comes to dark spirits, they’re usually traumatized and have seen horrible things. It’s often all they know - or it’s all they have known for a really long time. This kind of work isn’t for everyone - it can be downright dangerous, obviously. But it’s part of what I do and I’m not going to run from it.
However, as I said, this could have been my brain just turning things over. I don’t know. Eventually it’ll sort itself out. I don’t want to be quick to assume anything in this situation. I’ll take it as it comes.
Day 4
11/25/22
Friday
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day here in the US. Anyone who does a half second of research (or pays attention) knows that this holiday is an atrocious one for the history of our nation. That said, harvest feasts are an ancient, pagan practice that make sense. After you’ve struggled and strived all year to produce a product, that product (in this sense, the bounty at the end of the growing season) deserves a time of enjoyment and gratitude. That part makes sense. Especially if you keep in mind the things you’re grateful no longer happen - like much of the history of this land. Some of it, however, is still going on. Lots, in fact. I suspect that in future decades we’ll shake our heads at the ridiculousness people still allow all the time because they’re desensitized about it. I just notice and live in alignment with what works for my inner awareness of right and wrong, and don’t usually make a big deal about it. If you threaten people’s routines, they’ll often double down and go harder because they feel attacked. If you just exemplify another way, they’ll become curious and maybe come around. Either way, I don’t like to fight.
We sent food to the big family gathering without going ourselves because, although my Mom and I felt much better, we were still testing positive for the virus and we didn’t want to potentially pass it on. 5 boxes of food sat on our front stoop, steaming and aromatic, to be taken to the gathering. To go plates did eventually make their way back to us, around 9:30pm, when I was ready for bed. I ate them this morning instead. It was slightly depressing to talk to my sister, perusing the table, and hear how much I couldn’t have because it was made with meat. Years ago I formulated all the yummy southern recipes without meat involved and it’s easy to forget that not everyone knows how to do that. It was a lovely leftover brunch today, anyway.
Today I woke up to gray skies and rain. When I went into meditation, beaming love, protection, and smooth, serene energy into the property, I felt the spirals of intention merge with the water and resonate more deeply through the space. I recalled, in that moment, the work of Dr. Emoto and how water has been proven to hold intentions and act differently when love is sent into it. I also felt like even after a few days of focused intention, the house and surrounding land is more available to take in my intention for good energies to permeate it.
Although I feel basically all better, I’m still tired and taking the opportunity to rest. A lot needs to be done to turn this house into a home. And I’m very sensitive to aesthetic - if I exist in a space my eyes don’t like to look at, it’s hard for me to be really happy. The process of turning a basically clear canvas into a space that makes my heart happy will be a labor of love, but worth it. Besides, I’ll need something to do spending so much time here alone (with the cats of course.)
Speaking of the cats - last night, while the house was dark and quiet, I heard Lily make a strange meow from the lower part of the house. It woke me from sleep and I walked into the hallway to go look for her. As soon as I reached the head of the stairs, she appeared around the corner, coming from the basement room I wrote about yesterday, and running toward me. I silently turned around and walked with her back into the bedroom, where I climbed back into bed and returned to sleep. I wonder what made her make that strange noise. I’m sure I’ll find out, sooner or later.
A final thought about the energies here - it feels like they’re getting more used to me too. Everything wants to be loved. And if this presence has been around for a long time, it’s seen a lot. It’s seen a lot of unkindness, a lot of pain, a lot of anger, and a lot of trouble. In this moment I can say that it feels soothed and a little curious about me. No matter what happens, I must keep focusing on the light within, cultivating it, prioritizing it, and beaming it outward. That’s what feels most important right now.
I know there will be more challenges. That feels inevitable. But my time here will be energetically productive. It’s a complex set of facts and feelings, but I’m equipped to be empowered throughout the process. Every day brings more clarity and familiarity. And by this afternoon, the sky is blue and the air is warm. I had the energy to bring in another armload of stuff from the car to unpack (it currently sits in a corner of my bedroom, acting like clutter on its way to being functional objects.) Bit by bit.
We sent food to the big family gathering without going ourselves because, although my Mom and I felt much better, we were still testing positive for the virus and we didn’t want to potentially pass it on. 5 boxes of food sat on our front stoop, steaming and aromatic, to be taken to the gathering. To go plates did eventually make their way back to us, around 9:30pm, when I was ready for bed. I ate them this morning instead. It was slightly depressing to talk to my sister, perusing the table, and hear how much I couldn’t have because it was made with meat. Years ago I formulated all the yummy southern recipes without meat involved and it’s easy to forget that not everyone knows how to do that. It was a lovely leftover brunch today, anyway.
Today I woke up to gray skies and rain. When I went into meditation, beaming love, protection, and smooth, serene energy into the property, I felt the spirals of intention merge with the water and resonate more deeply through the space. I recalled, in that moment, the work of Dr. Emoto and how water has been proven to hold intentions and act differently when love is sent into it. I also felt like even after a few days of focused intention, the house and surrounding land is more available to take in my intention for good energies to permeate it.
Although I feel basically all better, I’m still tired and taking the opportunity to rest. A lot needs to be done to turn this house into a home. And I’m very sensitive to aesthetic - if I exist in a space my eyes don’t like to look at, it’s hard for me to be really happy. The process of turning a basically clear canvas into a space that makes my heart happy will be a labor of love, but worth it. Besides, I’ll need something to do spending so much time here alone (with the cats of course.)
Speaking of the cats - last night, while the house was dark and quiet, I heard Lily make a strange meow from the lower part of the house. It woke me from sleep and I walked into the hallway to go look for her. As soon as I reached the head of the stairs, she appeared around the corner, coming from the basement room I wrote about yesterday, and running toward me. I silently turned around and walked with her back into the bedroom, where I climbed back into bed and returned to sleep. I wonder what made her make that strange noise. I’m sure I’ll find out, sooner or later.
A final thought about the energies here - it feels like they’re getting more used to me too. Everything wants to be loved. And if this presence has been around for a long time, it’s seen a lot. It’s seen a lot of unkindness, a lot of pain, a lot of anger, and a lot of trouble. In this moment I can say that it feels soothed and a little curious about me. No matter what happens, I must keep focusing on the light within, cultivating it, prioritizing it, and beaming it outward. That’s what feels most important right now.
I know there will be more challenges. That feels inevitable. But my time here will be energetically productive. It’s a complex set of facts and feelings, but I’m equipped to be empowered throughout the process. Every day brings more clarity and familiarity. And by this afternoon, the sky is blue and the air is warm. I had the energy to bring in another armload of stuff from the car to unpack (it currently sits in a corner of my bedroom, acting like clutter on its way to being functional objects.) Bit by bit.
Day 3
11/24/22
Thursday
Thanksgiving Day
All in all, feeling much better today. My eyeache is almost gone (a headache that only really hung out on the backs of my eye sockets, so long as I was sitting still. If I stood up and moved about too much, my entire head would start to ache until I slowed down again. Pretty clear signals there of what my body needed.)
Last night as I was sleeping my hips started to hurt. I don’t think that was because of the virus necessarily - it was likely because I’d been driving for 5 days then laying in bed for 2, without moving my body much. I’ve noticed over the years that if I stop exercising for awhile, my sciatic nerves will start to twinge. I have a hunch that it’s crystallization along the nerve and/or the muscles/tendons there. Once I start to move and stretch again, it always goes away. As someone who was academically trained in health and fitness, it’s astounding to me to see how many physical ailments would just go away if people simply exercised regularly, which the body needs - we aren’t meant to sit still nearly as much as we do - and also, how resistant most folks are to exercising. Having the blood move and the body loosen up feels good to me, at least. So today, because I am feeling so much better, I’ll go dig my yoga mat out of the car (still not unpacked) and at least do some gentle stretching to open up those tight muscles and not have my body complaining about its lack of use.
In other news, I’ve heard that my brother’s other dog isn’t doing so great. Health-wise, he’s fine, but he lost my brother (his dad) and Chloe (his big sister, who’s been with him nearly every moment since his adoption as a baby puppy) within 6 months. Apparently, that first night he woke up his now-human in the middle of the night then went out in the yard, searching for Chloe. I imagine that he’s so confused. Poor guy. To be abandoned by everyone like that… again, I’m so grateful for the person now taking care of him. Steady friends in this world are a priceless blessing. Either way, please send love to our sweet Niko, if you can.
Last night as I was sleeping my hips started to hurt. I don’t think that was because of the virus necessarily - it was likely because I’d been driving for 5 days then laying in bed for 2, without moving my body much. I’ve noticed over the years that if I stop exercising for awhile, my sciatic nerves will start to twinge. I have a hunch that it’s crystallization along the nerve and/or the muscles/tendons there. Once I start to move and stretch again, it always goes away. As someone who was academically trained in health and fitness, it’s astounding to me to see how many physical ailments would just go away if people simply exercised regularly, which the body needs - we aren’t meant to sit still nearly as much as we do - and also, how resistant most folks are to exercising. Having the blood move and the body loosen up feels good to me, at least. So today, because I am feeling so much better, I’ll go dig my yoga mat out of the car (still not unpacked) and at least do some gentle stretching to open up those tight muscles and not have my body complaining about its lack of use.
In other news, I’ve heard that my brother’s other dog isn’t doing so great. Health-wise, he’s fine, but he lost my brother (his dad) and Chloe (his big sister, who’s been with him nearly every moment since his adoption as a baby puppy) within 6 months. Apparently, that first night he woke up his now-human in the middle of the night then went out in the yard, searching for Chloe. I imagine that he’s so confused. Poor guy. To be abandoned by everyone like that… again, I’m so grateful for the person now taking care of him. Steady friends in this world are a priceless blessing. Either way, please send love to our sweet Niko, if you can.
He’s a gentle giant (a Canecorso) and such a sweet boy who didn’t deserve any of the trauma he’s been through. If I think about it for too long it overwhelms me. So I’ll just send him all the love from afar and go visit him as soon as I feel better and aren’t at risk of giving this weird virus to his now-human. And I’ll also remember that animals have a different understanding of life than we do… although dogs do imprint and take the passing of their loved ones really hard… ugh.
One thing I’ve learned in this trashfire of a year is that sometimes all you can do is endure. There isn’t always a fix. Sometimes no solution exists. All you can do is hold on, keep breathing, live through the pain, and keep a flame of hope burning quietly inside to know that ahead, there will be bright days filled with joy. There always are. And I’ve had some interspersed between the tragic days. I’m grateful for those. And I know that this all is a seasoning of spirit that must make sense from a much wider, zoomed out perspective.
This morning in meditation I felt some guidance come in from what felt like a Native American perspective. I was shown a tree, fallen down, then taken and burnt out to be hollowed into a canoe. The parallel was to me as a person, my life as a place of service - before the dark days, maybe the fresh, living tree would have described me. Now, this pain and burning and hollowing out is necessary to prepare me for the next role. True, a canoe doesn’t stand rooted in the earth or feel the wind make its branches dance. But, it moves lightly in the waves. It sees different sights and has adventures. It carries people safely from one place to the next. Is one better than the other? No. Both roles are beautiful. The evolution between states is the point.
That was interesting because I don’t generally have these kinds of symbols dropped into my mind so clearly. I am on land that was once very much held by the indigenous people in this land though. Mid-Virginia, where I currently sit, is one of the places that has had the most upheaval. First the landing of the ships from the east, bringing plague and violence, alcohol and trickery. Then, slavery and the horrendous details of that reality for centuries. Now, other challenges that are harder to point out exactly because they’re so ingrained and pervasive. Mental slavery is still so thick in my people of every color and background. I see it. What to do about it? For my part, I choose to find the way that works for me and share publicly not everything, but enough to hopefully light a path for others to feel into, seeing that if I can live to the beat of a different drummer, then they can do the same too, in whatever ways work for them. Mostly, it has to do with keeping that inner fire of peace and clarity lit.
Speaking of the inner fire… today I went into the lower level of the house, where my brother spent most of his time and where he died. I haven’t been there much since arriving - once when we first got here, and I had some things to do down there so I’d pass through a little, but today I took a moment to feel it out. Mostly clear, but there were a couple of echoes of the struggles that went on. I did my best to feel them, to allow them through, then to come back to my center, spinning the energy in a new way so it could be lighter and more healthy, and a thought occurred to me as if it were from someone else. It could have been him, or some of my guides in the spirit world, or maybe my own higher self (I do believe that all these things are separate and unique.) The thought reminded me that we had different weak spots, so the things that bothered him didn’t get to me and vice versa. We were inverse in many ways. So my being here now can hopefully serve as a helpful ingredient in whatever needs to be done.
That said, I also checked in during my meditation today with whatever energy is in or around this space. I don’t know how far it extends - is this the vibe of the whole neighborhood? A square mile? An extension of something in the state park a couple of blocks away? Or centered here in this house? I don’t know. But I am starting to feel that the symbolic light of life I carry within me is helpful. Some of the challenges I’ve had since arriving here have felt like they’ve tried to snuff out the light or make me descend into numbness, pain, surrender… and yeah, a time or two I have thought… it would be so easy to just slip away, hey, if I have CoVid, sometimes it takes people out, I could just let it take me… but yeah those last about 2 minutes and then I get bored with being sad or giving up. It’s more interesting for me to do something about it, at least for now. If that changes, I’ll let you know. Also, keeping that sacred center point flowing is so helpful for simple moment to moment existence that it’s worth the work.
I’m still steadily meditating each morning, balancing my chakras, doing a self Reiki session, and breathing prana through myself and the space. I generally do this every day anyway, but I know it’s more important now than ever. If I stop, I think things could get scary. So long as I source my energy from within, I’m not worried. I just can’t forget to do that.
Also, just for fun, I did imagine that eye again (which, by the way, I’ve been seeing more and more - even in tree branch configurations out the window, etc.,) and I imagined putting a wreath of flowers around it and greeting it with openness. The usual way is to battle such things, but I suspect that this particular thing really gets off on fighting. So I won’t fight it. I’ve also had some unexpected critical thoughts (not strong enough to cause them intrusive, but related to that) in a cadence and with a tone that I don’t usually feel. I remember my brother speaking in those ways too. Was it even him, or was it this energy, putting thoughts into his head? I guess I’ll find out. I’m tentatively guessing it could have been the latter.
Again, I wish I’d taught him to arm himself up inside better. He was armed to the teeth in the physical world, but that’s not what’s needed, usually. I mean, in this crazy world where people are shooting up grocery stores and churches, let’s be protected in all the ways.
I did try… but he was stubborn and strong and thought experiments and inner work did not come easy for him. He’d often rather argue with me about it than just try my suggestions. A true Aries to the bone, there. But now that he’s off to the next place, with both his beloved dogs by his side (and I hope Niko stays in this world for a good long while hence, he’s still such a young boy) I hope that I can bring some peace, light, and loving harmony to this space that lasts.
Thanks for reading my ramble today. I don’t know how coherent I was but this is a space for freewriting anyway, so here it is.
Blessings on this weird complicated holiday. I hope the families that gather are kind to each other and take nothing for granted. I hope that the wounds underlying so much of our nation and our world are able to be aired out, treated and healed so we can move forward truly.
One thing I’ve learned in this trashfire of a year is that sometimes all you can do is endure. There isn’t always a fix. Sometimes no solution exists. All you can do is hold on, keep breathing, live through the pain, and keep a flame of hope burning quietly inside to know that ahead, there will be bright days filled with joy. There always are. And I’ve had some interspersed between the tragic days. I’m grateful for those. And I know that this all is a seasoning of spirit that must make sense from a much wider, zoomed out perspective.
This morning in meditation I felt some guidance come in from what felt like a Native American perspective. I was shown a tree, fallen down, then taken and burnt out to be hollowed into a canoe. The parallel was to me as a person, my life as a place of service - before the dark days, maybe the fresh, living tree would have described me. Now, this pain and burning and hollowing out is necessary to prepare me for the next role. True, a canoe doesn’t stand rooted in the earth or feel the wind make its branches dance. But, it moves lightly in the waves. It sees different sights and has adventures. It carries people safely from one place to the next. Is one better than the other? No. Both roles are beautiful. The evolution between states is the point.
That was interesting because I don’t generally have these kinds of symbols dropped into my mind so clearly. I am on land that was once very much held by the indigenous people in this land though. Mid-Virginia, where I currently sit, is one of the places that has had the most upheaval. First the landing of the ships from the east, bringing plague and violence, alcohol and trickery. Then, slavery and the horrendous details of that reality for centuries. Now, other challenges that are harder to point out exactly because they’re so ingrained and pervasive. Mental slavery is still so thick in my people of every color and background. I see it. What to do about it? For my part, I choose to find the way that works for me and share publicly not everything, but enough to hopefully light a path for others to feel into, seeing that if I can live to the beat of a different drummer, then they can do the same too, in whatever ways work for them. Mostly, it has to do with keeping that inner fire of peace and clarity lit.
Speaking of the inner fire… today I went into the lower level of the house, where my brother spent most of his time and where he died. I haven’t been there much since arriving - once when we first got here, and I had some things to do down there so I’d pass through a little, but today I took a moment to feel it out. Mostly clear, but there were a couple of echoes of the struggles that went on. I did my best to feel them, to allow them through, then to come back to my center, spinning the energy in a new way so it could be lighter and more healthy, and a thought occurred to me as if it were from someone else. It could have been him, or some of my guides in the spirit world, or maybe my own higher self (I do believe that all these things are separate and unique.) The thought reminded me that we had different weak spots, so the things that bothered him didn’t get to me and vice versa. We were inverse in many ways. So my being here now can hopefully serve as a helpful ingredient in whatever needs to be done.
That said, I also checked in during my meditation today with whatever energy is in or around this space. I don’t know how far it extends - is this the vibe of the whole neighborhood? A square mile? An extension of something in the state park a couple of blocks away? Or centered here in this house? I don’t know. But I am starting to feel that the symbolic light of life I carry within me is helpful. Some of the challenges I’ve had since arriving here have felt like they’ve tried to snuff out the light or make me descend into numbness, pain, surrender… and yeah, a time or two I have thought… it would be so easy to just slip away, hey, if I have CoVid, sometimes it takes people out, I could just let it take me… but yeah those last about 2 minutes and then I get bored with being sad or giving up. It’s more interesting for me to do something about it, at least for now. If that changes, I’ll let you know. Also, keeping that sacred center point flowing is so helpful for simple moment to moment existence that it’s worth the work.
I’m still steadily meditating each morning, balancing my chakras, doing a self Reiki session, and breathing prana through myself and the space. I generally do this every day anyway, but I know it’s more important now than ever. If I stop, I think things could get scary. So long as I source my energy from within, I’m not worried. I just can’t forget to do that.
Also, just for fun, I did imagine that eye again (which, by the way, I’ve been seeing more and more - even in tree branch configurations out the window, etc.,) and I imagined putting a wreath of flowers around it and greeting it with openness. The usual way is to battle such things, but I suspect that this particular thing really gets off on fighting. So I won’t fight it. I’ve also had some unexpected critical thoughts (not strong enough to cause them intrusive, but related to that) in a cadence and with a tone that I don’t usually feel. I remember my brother speaking in those ways too. Was it even him, or was it this energy, putting thoughts into his head? I guess I’ll find out. I’m tentatively guessing it could have been the latter.
Again, I wish I’d taught him to arm himself up inside better. He was armed to the teeth in the physical world, but that’s not what’s needed, usually. I mean, in this crazy world where people are shooting up grocery stores and churches, let’s be protected in all the ways.
I did try… but he was stubborn and strong and thought experiments and inner work did not come easy for him. He’d often rather argue with me about it than just try my suggestions. A true Aries to the bone, there. But now that he’s off to the next place, with both his beloved dogs by his side (and I hope Niko stays in this world for a good long while hence, he’s still such a young boy) I hope that I can bring some peace, light, and loving harmony to this space that lasts.
Thanks for reading my ramble today. I don’t know how coherent I was but this is a space for freewriting anyway, so here it is.
Blessings on this weird complicated holiday. I hope the families that gather are kind to each other and take nothing for granted. I hope that the wounds underlying so much of our nation and our world are able to be aired out, treated and healed so we can move forward truly.
Day 2
11/23/22
Wednesday
So, the project has started off with a bang. After writing yesterday, I took a CoVid test just to make sure that the flu-like symptoms I had weren’t the dreaded virus (they came from riding in the car with my Mom, who had both her CoVid booster and flu shots on the same day, a couple days before we started our trip, and started having symptoms 1-2 days after.) Turns out, we both do have CoVid after all. I’d heard from a bunch of places that the CoVid vaccines and boosters couldn’t give you CoVid… well, unless she got the virus from the person administering the shot (who was masked up) I beg to differ… That said, it’s not that bad. Since I started aggressively treating what I thought was the flu with my time tested herbal remedies right away, I actually feel okay. There’s even a chance that I may be negative by the time Thanksgiving comes (tomorrow) but I’m not banking on that. It is a big shame though, all the time and effort, months of planning, and lots of money that went into the family gathering from across the country for the holiday, and now we can’t go. My poor mom is highly irritated. I hear her long-suffering sighs echoing through the house. It’s sad when you try to do everything right and those very actions are the ones that screw you.
Anyway, onto other not so great news from the first day - my brother’s beloved dog, Chloe, passed away last night. Over the past few days she’d taken a major downturn, with signs of what could have been an infection, or brain tumor. Last night she was in so much pain, and at her age and health status the only real option was to say goodbye. So her now-human, a best friend of my brother who generously took in both dogs after they witnessed my brother’s painful death, had to take her in and take care of it. I hope that heaven has the karma coins racking up for him, because he deserves it. No one should go through this much pain. (He also found my brother’s body after everything happened. Talk about a friend til the end.) We couldn’t even say goodbye to her because we didn’t want to risk spreading CoVid, and with the amount of pain she was in, it felt cruel to make her wait until we were better. So we gave our blessing, and he said that her passing was peaceful. It does soothe my heart a little to think of how stoked she must have been to meet up with my brother and his other dog on the other side (who he loved the most as a real soul mate familiar, and who Chloe lived with for many years.) So it’s a bittersweet day. A new moon, a time for endings and beginnings. Talk about it.
My morale today isn’t great. I’m grateful to not feel worse, I know some people do really badly with CoVid and so far, to me, it just feels like a flu. And also, the excuse to just rest without any guilt for days on end feels better than it’s easy to admit. Hustle culture is real and I can’t ignore how wrong it feels to be constantly running and doing. Being sick gives the opportunity to just rest and refill. That is nice. Combined with this awkward mourning, it’s a welcome reprieve for the moment. I am sad that I’ll miss the huge family gathering tomorrow though - my family usually numbers at about 75 people for our Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t support the origins of the holiday at all, no question, but it is nice to reconnect with my relatives for reasons other than funerals.
Ok, off to drink my lemon tea and nap all day. Let’s see what happens next.
Anyway, onto other not so great news from the first day - my brother’s beloved dog, Chloe, passed away last night. Over the past few days she’d taken a major downturn, with signs of what could have been an infection, or brain tumor. Last night she was in so much pain, and at her age and health status the only real option was to say goodbye. So her now-human, a best friend of my brother who generously took in both dogs after they witnessed my brother’s painful death, had to take her in and take care of it. I hope that heaven has the karma coins racking up for him, because he deserves it. No one should go through this much pain. (He also found my brother’s body after everything happened. Talk about a friend til the end.) We couldn’t even say goodbye to her because we didn’t want to risk spreading CoVid, and with the amount of pain she was in, it felt cruel to make her wait until we were better. So we gave our blessing, and he said that her passing was peaceful. It does soothe my heart a little to think of how stoked she must have been to meet up with my brother and his other dog on the other side (who he loved the most as a real soul mate familiar, and who Chloe lived with for many years.) So it’s a bittersweet day. A new moon, a time for endings and beginnings. Talk about it.
My morale today isn’t great. I’m grateful to not feel worse, I know some people do really badly with CoVid and so far, to me, it just feels like a flu. And also, the excuse to just rest without any guilt for days on end feels better than it’s easy to admit. Hustle culture is real and I can’t ignore how wrong it feels to be constantly running and doing. Being sick gives the opportunity to just rest and refill. That is nice. Combined with this awkward mourning, it’s a welcome reprieve for the moment. I am sad that I’ll miss the huge family gathering tomorrow though - my family usually numbers at about 75 people for our Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t support the origins of the holiday at all, no question, but it is nice to reconnect with my relatives for reasons other than funerals.
Ok, off to drink my lemon tea and nap all day. Let’s see what happens next.
Day 1
11/22/22
Tuesday
11/22/22
Tuesday
We arrived last night, after dark. A new song came on the radio as we pulled into the neighborhood. It was from the perspective of a man singing to his mother, telling her the prayers she thought were wasted reached him and that he was doing ok. I tried to not make a big deal of it (my Mom doesn’t love to dive into things and process them all the way around like I do,) but it felt like Ward was talking to us through that song. We parked in the driveway and the house seemed warm and welcoming, both porch lights burning, winter lawn manicured. It did seem unnaturally quiet though, which was to be expected, I guess. When we walked in, the house had that smell of a place that has been empty for a long time. Dusty wood and silence. That part was a little depressing. We just left in August! And people have been in and out doing work on the house throughout the time since. But… no one has lived here. I guess that’s the difference.
The energy felt okay though. Not sad, or scary, or excessively dark. Just empty. It was like that last time too, and that is reassuring, that Ward has gone on to somewhere else, he’s not lingering here in pain. I guess the whole point of his death was that he was lingering in pain while alive and he was just sick of it. Yes, he wasn’t in his right mind. (If he had been, he’d have left notes and made calls and done a few other things that didn’t happen.) And yes, it was a split second decision that took all of 5 seconds or less to carry out - and this after all his strong opinions on gun rights. Well, sir, you did a huge act there that really sold the other perspective. If you hadn’t had access to an instant death machine, you’d likely still be alive today. Sheesh.
Anyway, I love my brother. I’m sad he’s gone. I’m pretty fucked up about it in moments. But I’m glad he’s happy now. It’s important for me to not get stuck in the loops of what happened right before his death. There’s no way out of those. Best to focus on the now.
I got my bed ready and passed out pretty early. I’d caught my Mom’s flu (from her flu shot, yikes) on the road so I’m achy and headachey and shiverey and exhausted. The bed was warm and cozy. All night I dreamt of building houses. The process was repeated over and over again - I’d be tasked a project that seemed big and intense, and when I actually did it, it was easy and smooth. A good omen for my work here, I think.
In my meditation this morning I filled myself and then the space with light. It’s important during my time here that I don’t try to get energy from this space, but rather to source my light directly from the Source of all light, and then gift that light to the space. It won’t work the other way, obviously. This place is tired. It’s been through a lot.
Of course, I eventually started looking around for the spirit that I’ve heard hangs out around here. I’ve seen it myself a time or two, over a decade ago, and Ward told me not long before he died that he was hearing scratching in the attic. I told him to go check in the attic and make sure it wasn’t an animal. “If it’s an animal,” I said, “call someone to take care of it. If it isn’t an animal, then it’s a spirit and in that case, you’re fine so long as you don’t let it get into your head.” A bit after that he asked me to send him tools for clearing the energy in the house, which I did. He used them a little. Less than I would have preferred. Every time we talked after he got them in the mail, I asked if he had used them and his answer was usually no. I would then get frustrated at him - “you have to use the tools if you want them to work!” And again, look at what happened… Oh well. It’s in the past now.
Anyway, I looked around for a spirit and I did feel something. Whatever this presence is, it isn’t always out and about. It can lay dormant for a long while and then come raging up, bringing all kinds of negative emotions with it. Pain and torment. Violent loneliness. Angst and anxiety. Depression. I have a feeling that I’ll only get to know it once everyone is gone and I’m here by myself for awhile. Today, while looking, I felt what seemed like an eye, wide open, quietly watching me. The vibe was a little frightened, like it was afraid of what I might do (it should be. Although that’s not how I operate these days…) It reminded me of a documentary I saw once about the Giant Pacific Octopus. Divers were searching for this elusive creature and they found a crack in the side of a sea bottom cliff that they thought it may be hiding in. One diver stood by the huge rock wall, holding the camera that was attached to a long pipe, sending it as deep into the fissure as he could. A wire went up into the boat, where the other diver could see what was actually being filmed. As it turned out, they’d found the octopus. It was crammed back into the crack, all flattened and pressed together, one big eye, open and intelligent, staring at the camera. Gave me a start! And I was *sure* in that moment that this animal matches humans in intelligence (later I learned that, yes, octopuses are as smart as we are.)
The eye I saw in meditation today reminded me of that big, round eye. Watching me watch it watch me. We’ll see what happens down the line. I have some ideas but I am not coming in to this situation with the hubris that would say I know everything. If I did, we’d never be in this spot to begin with. I will say, however, that I’ll do my best to figure it out so no one else needs to die in this house, years down the line. (There was a mystery when this house was first purchased that made us think that someone else had died of a gunshot wound in the same room that my brother did the same.) I think the key will be in finding steady joy and a smooth, lively existence while I’m here. Steady mindfulness and sacred rhythms of life. And letting myself be a part of this story so the story can change.
The energy felt okay though. Not sad, or scary, or excessively dark. Just empty. It was like that last time too, and that is reassuring, that Ward has gone on to somewhere else, he’s not lingering here in pain. I guess the whole point of his death was that he was lingering in pain while alive and he was just sick of it. Yes, he wasn’t in his right mind. (If he had been, he’d have left notes and made calls and done a few other things that didn’t happen.) And yes, it was a split second decision that took all of 5 seconds or less to carry out - and this after all his strong opinions on gun rights. Well, sir, you did a huge act there that really sold the other perspective. If you hadn’t had access to an instant death machine, you’d likely still be alive today. Sheesh.
Anyway, I love my brother. I’m sad he’s gone. I’m pretty fucked up about it in moments. But I’m glad he’s happy now. It’s important for me to not get stuck in the loops of what happened right before his death. There’s no way out of those. Best to focus on the now.
I got my bed ready and passed out pretty early. I’d caught my Mom’s flu (from her flu shot, yikes) on the road so I’m achy and headachey and shiverey and exhausted. The bed was warm and cozy. All night I dreamt of building houses. The process was repeated over and over again - I’d be tasked a project that seemed big and intense, and when I actually did it, it was easy and smooth. A good omen for my work here, I think.
In my meditation this morning I filled myself and then the space with light. It’s important during my time here that I don’t try to get energy from this space, but rather to source my light directly from the Source of all light, and then gift that light to the space. It won’t work the other way, obviously. This place is tired. It’s been through a lot.
Of course, I eventually started looking around for the spirit that I’ve heard hangs out around here. I’ve seen it myself a time or two, over a decade ago, and Ward told me not long before he died that he was hearing scratching in the attic. I told him to go check in the attic and make sure it wasn’t an animal. “If it’s an animal,” I said, “call someone to take care of it. If it isn’t an animal, then it’s a spirit and in that case, you’re fine so long as you don’t let it get into your head.” A bit after that he asked me to send him tools for clearing the energy in the house, which I did. He used them a little. Less than I would have preferred. Every time we talked after he got them in the mail, I asked if he had used them and his answer was usually no. I would then get frustrated at him - “you have to use the tools if you want them to work!” And again, look at what happened… Oh well. It’s in the past now.
Anyway, I looked around for a spirit and I did feel something. Whatever this presence is, it isn’t always out and about. It can lay dormant for a long while and then come raging up, bringing all kinds of negative emotions with it. Pain and torment. Violent loneliness. Angst and anxiety. Depression. I have a feeling that I’ll only get to know it once everyone is gone and I’m here by myself for awhile. Today, while looking, I felt what seemed like an eye, wide open, quietly watching me. The vibe was a little frightened, like it was afraid of what I might do (it should be. Although that’s not how I operate these days…) It reminded me of a documentary I saw once about the Giant Pacific Octopus. Divers were searching for this elusive creature and they found a crack in the side of a sea bottom cliff that they thought it may be hiding in. One diver stood by the huge rock wall, holding the camera that was attached to a long pipe, sending it as deep into the fissure as he could. A wire went up into the boat, where the other diver could see what was actually being filmed. As it turned out, they’d found the octopus. It was crammed back into the crack, all flattened and pressed together, one big eye, open and intelligent, staring at the camera. Gave me a start! And I was *sure* in that moment that this animal matches humans in intelligence (later I learned that, yes, octopuses are as smart as we are.)
The eye I saw in meditation today reminded me of that big, round eye. Watching me watch it watch me. We’ll see what happens down the line. I have some ideas but I am not coming in to this situation with the hubris that would say I know everything. If I did, we’d never be in this spot to begin with. I will say, however, that I’ll do my best to figure it out so no one else needs to die in this house, years down the line. (There was a mystery when this house was first purchased that made us think that someone else had died of a gunshot wound in the same room that my brother did the same.) I think the key will be in finding steady joy and a smooth, lively existence while I’m here. Steady mindfulness and sacred rhythms of life. And letting myself be a part of this story so the story can change.