The Social Contract

I am a warrior, a kick ass she warrior, a warrior who has survived a life time of battles I never wanted to fight. . . .but I fought them. . . . not always willingly or gracefully, but I fought them. And while many of these battles have been against my will, I generally don't whine and I don't complain (and very rarely do I even feel sorry for myself). . . .I do therapy, I read books, I go to workshops, I blog, I talk with friends and other warrior survivors, I meditate with God about the nature of my exisitence, and I do everything in my power to both accept and change how these wounds have affected my life so that I can to grow and develop and heal and recover, because while I'm not responsible for the wounds themselves, it becomes my personal responsibility to heal them.

I'm a survivor, not a victim. . . .but even survivors have wounds that need to be healed.

Yesterday afternoon I went to a lecture in Prescott by one of the author of Death in the Grand Canyon. The last part of his lecture was about the social contract versus personal responsibility. He was referring to a hiker's personal responsibility to train and prepare for their trips into the back country wilderness rather than simply relying on the social contract to save their ass when they have not trained or prepared appropriately. The social contract is a beautiful thing, that "civilized" society's code of ethics that wraps itself around its people  with the sole purpose of providing safety and protection of rights to life and liberty, but also to rescue when harm finds its way to the inside of the social fabric.

So, what happens when the social contract breaks down?

The social contract isn't perfect. In fact, there are actually great big gaping holes in it, but it's the fabric of our idealism, so it's never going to be "perfect," because it's constantly evolving with the constant change and evolution of our society. Yesterday I felt like the social contract had let me (and my brothers) down, but it didn't. The neighbors who saw and heard but never made the hard calls, they didn't lived up to their part of the social contract, that's true. And the friends and family who either didn't see or didn't want to see, yeah, they also didn't live up to their part of the social contract. But that doesn't mean that the social contract failed, because there have been many other people along the way who did step up. They may not have been the people who should have stepped up, but they did.

The question of "Why didn't anyone step in to help?" is a hard question to answer. Was it because I didn't matter enough (even as a human being) for the observers and witnesses to rise above their own crap and baggage? Was it because we're all flawed human beings doing the best we can with what we have under given circumstances? Were they too blinded by whatever was going on in their own lives to look around and see what was happening around them? Were they overwhelmed by what they saw and just didn't know what to do or how to do it? Or did they fail in their obligation to uphold the social contract by failing to make the hard call, even when that call may have violated a family's right to privacy but would have made a differenece in the lives of the children involved?

Trying to find out why no one stepped up to help protect us is sort of like asking, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Toostie Roll Tootsie Pop?"

So maybe I'll never know why, but what I do know is that the social contract is a living breathing part of the social fabric, so the beliefs of this contract are constantly evolving and changing. The social contract used to allow human beings to be sold and traded like commodities on the stock market. The social contract also used to allow women to be sold like property of men. And The social contract used to have laws on the books for the humane treatment of animals, but none for children. So, yeah. . . .the social contract is constantly evolving and changing. . . .and sometimes it's just going to break down.

The world is a very different place today, and there is so much more information about child abuse and neglect woven through the social contract. And the truth is that even if I were to answer the question of why no one did anything to help, it doesn't really change the fact that I'm only sleeping right now because I'm medicated, and the only reason why I feel better is because I have completely isolated myself down here in Prescoot, away from that which was triggering me.

So I'm clearly pissed off right now, as is my right to be. It's not fair that I have wounds from human induced trauma. It's also not fair that I have to medicate myself so that I can get a good night sleep, or take an unpaid leave of absence for a treatment program that may or not make any difference with the PTSD at all. Yeah, it's not fair, and I honestly have a right to be angry that I am once again forced to fight a battle that I neither want nor choose. But I'm a survivor, and a kick ass she warrior who's going to fight this battle and do what I can to heal this layer of wounds because that is the part that I do choose. . . .

Personal responsibility sucks :)

Move On, Already

Who gets to decide when it's time to move on?

The most frustrating part of having PTSD is that I'm not in control of the moving on process, because PTSD isn't about moving on. I don't dwell on the past because I enjoy feeling miserable, I focus on the past so that I can change the thoughts and beliefs that solidified around the trauma, trauma that actually occurred in the past, but thoughts and beliefs that make it so that I can't sleep in the present because my days are filled with anxiety and panic. . . .and my nights are all about escaping from some kind of pending doom that threatens my existence. This is why I focus on the trauma from the past. . . .because it's not really in the past at all.

PTSD is so not about moving on. . . .

This morning I woke up feeling like I am having a very public pelvic exam. They say, "You're only as sick as your secrets," but to process the dark and twisty truth in my blog. . . .well, I just end up feeling like I'm having a never ending and very public pelvic exam. So why do I blog about this process? Because it's the truth of who I am, the truth about the life I would never have choosen, but it is what it is. . . . whether I like it or not. So if someone wants to know me, really know me, then this is it. . . .the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it may be too much for some people, but that's ok, because there is another reason why I blog about this process. . . .

When I first started my journey of healing, I didn't know who to talk to, or where to go for help, because these things weren't talked about. But I had gone to a women's conference at UCR where I sat in on a 30 minute resource session for all-things-supportive-for-women, and that's where I first came in contact with what came to be my "bible," The Courage to Heal. This book was the first support I had, and so I read it in silence and desperation, sometimes only one paragraph at a time. But had it not been for the courage of Ellen Bass and Laura Davis to write about their pain (and their healing), I may not have made it out of that dark and twisty forest of silent shame and guilt. The Courage to Heal opened a window for me to find my way out, and so that's why I share my blog. I need to write it for myself, but I also need to let other women know that it's ok to talk about the pain. . . .because talking about the pain is the only way to move on through the pain.

Maybe there's no such thing as moving on. . . .maybe it's all about moving through. . . .

Keeping this stuff inside is like shaking up a carbonated soda bottle without releasing the cap. . . .that pressure is what's creating the anxiety and the panic and the sleeplessness, so I'm going to keep on writing until I don't need to write anymore, and that's just the way it is. Because there are parts of me that are like little POWs, children lost somehwere in time and space within my inner world. That's exactly what it is. . . .the silent wounded POW parts of me remain MIA. . . .so, no. . . .I'm not moving on until I can find them, and bring them all back to safety. . . .no matter how long that takes.

My MIA "inner children" won't ever show up on someone's breakfast table milk carton, but they are missing and scared, nonetheless. . . .and I don't know any parent that ever really gives up hope of finding a lost child, no matter how long ago that child may have been abducted or disappeared without a trace. So, I may not have mattered enough to the people who were supposed to love and keep me safe and protected along the way, but I matter enough to me. . . .so, no. . . .I'm not moving on. . . .I'm moving through, moving through the pain and debris, moving through in search of me.

No one else has to help my find these lost and frightened parts of my life. . . .but I do. . . .I do.

Does It Matter?

Awareness and Acceptance aren't enough to rewire the brain. What actually rewires the brain is Action, that three dimensional process of creating new connections, making new associations, doing something different enough for the brain to catalogue the difference and reroute the neurons into a new habit that will then function invisibly in the background of our lives.

The brain can (and will) rewire itself, but Awareness and Acceptance simply are not enough.

Habits are developed around beliefs. If a person believes that eating healthful food is important, then they are more likely to develop habits that include eating foods that better promote health than junk food. Just like how if a person believes they are going to die in two weeks, their lifestyle habits are also very likely going to change. . . .and quickly :)

What we believe shapes our habits, and our habits then reinforce what we believe, and all of this process functions silently and invisibly in the background of our lives. . . .that's the way God made our brains to work.

The problem is when invisible counterproductive beliefs shape our habits, and our then counterproductive habits reinforce the counterproductive beliefs. Like my invisible belief that I don't matter. . . .that belief has shaped a whole lot of lifestyle habits that don't promote my health very well, because when you don't matter, then it doesn't much matter what you do to take care of yourself. When a person invisibly feels like they don't matter, the inner mantra becomes, "What's the point? It doesn't matter....(because I don't matter)." That's the trouble with invisible beliefs. . . .they have a great deal of invisible power over a person's life.

My new life mantra is going to be, "Does it matter?" A question, not a statement. And not "it" in a general abstract way, but "it" in a specific does this matter ("this" being whatever I might be doing or not doing in a given moment). And then I have to answer the question AND justify why it matters (or not), because I have a sneaking suspicion that some things have been mattering way too much, while other things have not been mattering enough. So I'm questioning everything that matters....and everything that doesn't matter....and to whom it actually matters. . . .because the things that matter in my life are way out of balance. And I am fixing this imbalance, but the rewiring of my brain takes time and requires a great deal of patience. . . .but mostly, it just takes time, time for the awareness to settle into acceptance, and then time for the acceptance to work itself into new beliefs for the habits to restructure themsleves around.

I once read about how the indigenous people were unable to see the first boats exploring North America out on the horizon, because there was no concept within their brains to process "boat on the horizon." The first person to actually see the boats on the water's horizon was the shaman, and once the shaman saw the boats he was able to "rewire" the brains of the other tribe members so that they could see it too. That's the way it works with our brains. . . .if we can't comprehend it, we can't integrate and process the new information. That's how God made us.

So, we can't change what we don't accept. . . .and we can't accept what we are not aware of. But Awareness and Acceptance aren't enough, because we need Action to rewire the brain. Which is why my new mantra has become, "Does it matter?" Because I want the things that I do in my life to matter. . . .I want them to matter to me. . . .and I want them to matter to God. . . . even if it never matters to anyone else.

I never knew it would feel so painful to actually matter to myself and to fight this hard for a life that I would not have chosen had I been given the choice. But this is my life. . . .like it, or not. . . .and I really do want my life to be more than anxiety and insomnia and night mares and panic attacks. . . .so I'll do whatever it takes. . . .for however long it takes. . . .

Do I Matter?

What does it mean when we say to someone, "You matter to me?" Today's group centered around the belief/ stuck point of "I don't matter," which has caused me to think long and hard about the concept of "mattering" to other people.

Do I matter?

Of course, I matter. . . .I matter to God, I matter to me, and I matter to a whole lot of people in my world (for which I am very grateful). But I wasn't aware (until I could see another group member's process more clearly than my own) that I've been walking through my whole life as if I don't matter. . . .or, more specificaly, I have invisibly been walking through my life feeling like I don't matter.

But I see things very differently now. . . .

It's not that I don't matter (as a generalized cosmic truth). . . .it's just that I didn't matter enough to certain other people for them to have a relationship with me in a way that didn't include using me to meet their own needs, and in a way that left me deeply wounded in the process. That doesn't mean that I don't matter. . . .it just means that I didn't matter enough to someone else. . . .which is not the same thing at all.

But it's also a whole lot easier to say, "I don't matter" than it is to say, "I didn't matter enough to my dad so that he could love me in a way that didn't hurt me." Yeah. . . .it's a whole lot easier to just believe that I don't matter. It doesn't hurt to believe that I don't matter. . . . but it feels unbearably painful to believe that the first man I loved with all of my heart and soul didn't love me enough to rise above his own crap and baggage. . . .and love his daughter the way I deserved to be loved and cherished by my father.

Yeah. . . .it's definitely a whole lot easier to just believe that I don't matter. . . .

Part of life, however, is accepting a sometimes very painful truth that we don't always matter enough for someone in our life to love us the way we deserve to be loved. Or perhaps it's that we don't matter enough for someone to make time for us in the way we would like them to make time time for us, or the endless ways that we may not matter enough to someone else for them to give us what we would like to have from or with them.

It's not that we don't matter. . . .it's just that we don't always matter enough.

It hurts, of course. . . .to accept the truth that I didn't matter enough to my dad. . . .but it hurts in a way that unexpectedly feels good, like somehow the accepting of this truth means that I can finally move on from at least this part of my history, rather than stay locked into this frozen and immobilized place from which I can't move because I am hanging on to the hope that I will one day matter enough for him to love me the way that I deserve to be loved. And it's also the first truth that helps to explain why he did what he did, in a way that doesn't force me to be responsible for what he did. It's not that I don't matter. . . .I just didn't matter enough for my dad to rise above his own crap and baggage.

I do matter, of course. . . .I matter to God. . . .and I matter to me. . . .and ultimately, that's all that really matters anyway.

The Power of Positive Thinking.

We had a discussion today in group about books that focus on the power of positive thinking, and I totally support all of the positive thinking that can be thunk :) But when it comes to trauma, and this is what we talked about today, the idea that the bad feelings will simply go away just by thinking positive thoughts is pure garbage.

Healing from trauma is sooo not about positive thinking. . . .so I'm glad that this group isn't at all about changing negative thinking to positive.

I have wondered (over the years) why I tend to scoff at the "positive thinking" genre. I thought it was because I also tend to be sarcastic and jaded in nature. . . .lol. But that's not what it was about. . . .it's because these books on positive thinking actually minimize and invalidate the damage that trauma has created in my life. Positive affirmations have their place in personal growth and development, but all the positive affirmations in the world aren't going to make the panic go away or stop the sleepless nightmares. And it's downright offensive to imply that if I would just think more positively that everything would miraculously feel better.

Life isn't always about being "happy" and filled with love and sunshine all of the time.

I need a place where I can let the clouds form and the thunder roar. That is what I mean when I talk about looking for "Friends of Jesus," people who aren't afraid to walk through hell with me. I don't want my friendships or relationships to be the place where all of this darkness gets expressed and sorted through. I need a place where all of that intensity doesn't overwhelm the people I love....and who actually do love me. I can't completely separate that out, but I absolutely need to be able to roar and let the rain pour down and put out the fires burning out of control across my beautiful spirit, scorching and scarring as it burns on. And I also don't want to be alone when I return from this land of perpetual pain.

The hardest words for me right now are "I need. . . . "

One of the things I love about living in Northern Arizona is the summer monsoon season. I relate to that kind of intensity. It feels good to have that kind of raw power wrap itself around me, then pass on as if nothing had really happened, because that's how my own process feels. There are these moments of process that expand quickly, like dough rising with fast acting yeast. . . .lol.. . . but then the moment passes, and I'm back to being me. I can't stop it. . . .and there's nothing that anyone else can do to help me through it. It just is what it is, and then it ceases to be a part of me any more.

The hardest thing about being a human being has to be watching someone we care about and love going through pain or suffering of any kind. I can't imagine having a child with a seizure disorder, and the powerlessness that comes with not being able to do anything but ride it out, praying that your child will come through unscathed. So I'm sure that's how my friends and the people who care about me feel as they watch me go through this unwrapping process of a history that still binds and oppresses my spirit.

I really miss the canyon right now. The grand canyon is the only place where my spirit has felt "contained." It's as if that huge giant chasm mirrors my spirit and embraces me in a way that I don't have language for. I understand that it's just a place, but the spirit there. . . .I just can't explain how it heals and invites me to go deeper into my self. And in this moment my spirit aches to be walking through the canyon I have come to love and call my home.

But for now, I am here. . . .until I am no longer here, but there. . . . wherever there is :)

Pandora's Box

My friend Nancy reminded me recently about a box she once made for me. On the outside were words and pictures that described me as I presented myself to the world, and on the inside were words and pictures that described what I am like on the inside, that part of me that I don't readily share with the outside world.

I think we're all, ultimately, just like that box that Nancy made for me all those years ago.

Right now I am "forced" to look at those parts that I hide away inside. Someone will ask how I am, and I'll say, "Fine." [Lie] And if I attempt to speak some semblance of truth I might say, "Just a little bit sad." [Lie AND Minimization, because I'm not a little bit of ANYTHING right now....full on, raw and intense....that's the real me].

I notice myself saying "just" a lot lately....and every time I hear it, I am holding it accountable for how much it minimizes the truth! But if I were to go with how I actually feel, I might respond with something like, "FUBAR!" lol. . . .but this is also not true, and is a hyperbolization of the truth, rather than the minimization of it. So somewhere between Fine and FUBAR lies the truth. . . . .lol. . . . .so, who knows.

I've been saying "fine" for so long, the word no longer even holds any meaning for me.

I understand the importance of the word "fine" in social, polite conversation. The person at the grocery store isn't really asking me how I am. . . . they are being "polite," and so I respond with my own "polite" response. But the problem is that beyond these social contraptions, no one really knows who I am. My best friend in high school was shocked to learn how depressed I had been during those early years, because her one word to describe me was mirth. . . .a perfect word to describe our crazy antics as Lucy and Ethyl. But she never knew. . . .no one knew.

The core of this dichotomy is the belief that if someone really knew me, they wouldn't possibly like me, (or love me), or want to spend any time with me at all. . . . .and so I dance around this truth like dried out moth balls stuck to the back of my aching throat.

If you really knew me, you would feel so overwhelmed, you would turn around and walk away.

Yes, I would definitely say that would qualify as a "stuck point." And so I avoid the truth to make other people feel more comfortable to be around me. If I'm laughing, and joking, and having a real "hoot" of a time, then people want to spend time with me, right? And just for the record, I'm not talking about spilling my guts out when I meet someone for the first time as a status quo for speaking truth, either. I'm not completely dense :) And I do know how to stop talking when I notice someone's eyes start glazing over and their skin turns pale shades of mold and gray. . . .or they change the subject without responding to anything I've just said. . . .lol.

I get it. . . . not everyone is cut out for walking through hell.

I need people in my life who aren't afraid of walking through hell, and I quite surprisingly find myself wishing that Jesus were alive today. I would love to have a living, breathing friend like Jesus, because he would absolutely walk through hell with me, and even coming face to face with Satan wouldn't faze him the least bit. Jesus wouldn't feel overwhelmed at all by the truth of my life, either. . . .and he certainly wouldn't turn and walk away. I don't mean any of this in a religious "lord and savior" sense at all. . . . I mean it in the most real and concrete sense that I possibly could.

If there were a "religion" that taught us how to have a relationship with Jesus, a living breating friendship so that he could mentor and model how to walk through these living hells on earth, then I might be able to get on board with it. But the idea of needing someone to save me. . . . well, it just holds no meaning for me. I have to get up each day in a crazy mixed up real world, and I need to know how to do that with the grace and dignity of angels. . . . and quite honestly, I haven't found ANYONE on this earth who has been able to help me do that.

So I wish there were a group where I could learn from a living, breathing Jesus, because I think that's the only program I can really get on board with. In AA recovery, the groups are often called, "Friends of Bill W." So I think I'll start looking for a group sign that reads, "Friends of Jesus," because these are the people that I need in my life. . . .the people who are learning how to walk through their own living hells on this earth.

Sometimes I surprise even myself with the truth that speaks itself up from beneath the dusty corners lurking just below the surface. . . .

The Long and the Short of It

It's been a while since I've posted a blog, but that's because there's been a lot going on, and I haven't really been clear about whether I wanted to post about what's really been going on. . . .so I've waited. . . . waited until I knew what I wanted to say.

The bottom line is that I have nothing to be ashamed of. . . .and my silence only serves to reinforce that I'm damaged and broken, so I'm going to share this part of my journey. . . . because it's simply the truth of who I am.

I'm on an extended leave of absence so that I can address what I have come to understand as the PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) that has plagued my adult life, only I didn't know that I had PTSD. Even with all of my grad school education and mental health training, I never made the connection that the panic attacks and the insomnia and the nightmares and the anxiety were all related and actually created a disorder as a collective whole (until a work environment so severely triggered them all at the same time that I was finally able to get diagnosed correctly).

I've been feeling like I'm holding myself together with twigs for so long that I'm not sure I can actually trust this process yet. . . .

The counselor I've been working with has been most intrigued by the fact that I work so hard during sessions to try to convince her that the chronic sleep deprivation was a problem. Week after week she would ask me, "Why are you trying to convince me that the sleep is a problem for you? I believe you, I do!" Two weeks ago it finally dawned on me that it wasn't her that I was trying to convince. . . . it was me. I've spent so much of my life minimizing my own "stuff" that I find myself almost 50 and I'm having to convince myself that nearly 30 years of panic attacks and insomnia is really a problem? Good grief!

The awareness that I was working so hard to convince myself changed everything. . . .well that, and the fact that a second counselor told me that she was concerned about the "compromised way" I live my life, a lifestyle of "avoidance and isolation." Yeah, that's enough to wake up anyone. . . .lol. She reinforced the need for sleep medication (which I now have). And she said something else that the part of me that needed to hear it heard it. She told me that I needed to be in an "environment that supported my needs." And she is right. So I have reordered my entire life around this extended leave of absence to deal with the PTSD.

The treatment group is actually very interesting, because the modality used doesn't focus on the specifics of the trauma at all. The underlying core of the treatment involves identifying the "stuck points" (what I call belief structures) that keep us "stuck" in one place or another. The idea is that there are certain beliefs that get formulated about a trauma event, and once these beliefs are formed, they create identity structures around which "manufactured emotions" are then generated (such as shame or guilt). So when a person's identity is formed around a faulty belief (such as "It was my fault"), the behaviors that result tend to be "escape" and "avoidance" behaviors, which only reinforce the faulty belief structures.

It's all pretty simple, really. . . .identify the belief structures created around the trauma, and the anxiety releases itself. Simple, yes. . . . .but some of the most difficult work a human being will ever have to do.

The funny thing is that it's not like I don't already know this stuff. Identifying faulty beliefs that create problems is exactly the same kind of work I did with my own clients. The beliefs weren't necessarily structured around traumatic events, but it's the same thing that can disable or limit anyone. When we have beliefs about ourselves that limit our ability to function well, or have positive self esteem, or feel happy at least some of the time, these beliefs need to be restructured so that the state of our personal union can once again see healthy economic recovery and growth. . . .lol.

But I know this stuff already!

So why did it take so long for me to be able to see this truth about myself? I don't know. . . .maybe it's true that "my broke self can't fix my broke self." But what I DO know is that Simon and Garfunkle were definitely wrong because I'm not a rock, and I'm certainly not an island. I am actually living proof that we absolutely need other people to help us see the truth about ourselves, no matter how much education and training we've had, and especially when that truth is ugly and painful (a truth that nobody else really wants to look at).

And I guess Barbara Streisand was wrong too, because people who need people aren't always the luckiest people in the world. . . . .but they just might be some of the bravest and most courageous spirit warriors that I will ever have the privlege of knowing. . . .so I'm trusting this process. . . .one faulty belief at a time :)

Creating an American Afghan

I love to crochet, but I essentially know only basic stitches. I have friends who can crochet amazing things, but not me :)

I have been thinking a lot about this 30th high school reunion, and why I feel so obsessed by it. I wouldn't have been caught dead at the 10th reunion, thought I had resolved all of my "high school issues" by the 20th, but was then slammed with unexpected emotional intensity once I arrived that left me speechless and processing internally all night. . . .lol. So I find myself quite unexpedtedly surprised by this excitement and reunion fever that seems to have overtaken me with the 30th.

When I sit with myself long enough to understand why, what bubbles up is this sense of shared history. There are people from high school that I have known (and they have known me) since we were all in the 6th grade! These people may not have all been my friends per se, or I theirs, but together we have a shared history that is as irreplaceable as it is inescapable. Yet I am still surprised to find this history having such a grip on me now, when it seemed all too easy to disregard as it was unfolding in my life.

Many people hold on to their history by crocheting their life afghan as a constant flow of yarn. The skeins may run out, the dye lots may not match, and the colors may change from one life transition to another, but the afghan is created as a relatively continuous process. These are the people who remain very connected and in close contact with people from their lives across time and space. I know a lot of wonderful spirits who have created their life afghan this way, and I admire that kind of connectedness, even though I do not understand it myself.

Then there are others who have created their life afghan as a collection of tiny little granny squares, each made individually and distinctly from one another. This is how I am creating my own life afghan. I have the high school piece, the cancer piece (actually, I have three of these), the college piece, the grad school piece, the marriage piece, the divorce piece, the army piece, the Chernoby piece, the boat piece, the private practice piece, the social work piece, the McDonald's piece, the Rockland piece, the Palmdale piece, the Napa piece, the Forest Falls piece, the Lunsford piece, the Bevis piece, the Rugg piece, as well as many, many more pieces (some I love. . . .others? not so much. . . .lol). And I have toted these pieces of life experience from place to place, creating new ones as I journey along in life, but they've pretty much remained not more more than a collection of disjointed life experiences. . . .until now.

I am finally at a place in my life journey where I have enough pieces to create an afghan.

Now begins the long slow process of placing these pieces side by side, balancing out the conflicting colors, finding harmony in patterns that were otherwise unseen, and then weaving them together in a cohesive whole with a yarn that binds and connects the tiny pieces into something warm and functional for the very first time.

Reconnecting up with these pieces of my history feels like a precious gift, one that I can never again take for granted. We have already started losing some of our fellow Tigers, which leaves me feeling sad in a way that I would have never expected. I feel like just as I am beginning to understand the importance of connection between these disjointed pieces of a shared history they are already starting to fray and unravel leaving little holes and gaps that can never again be filled in or replaced. So I don't care what it costs, or what it takes, I'm not going to miss out on this amazing opportunity unfolding through the ethers of Facebook.

I may have only known the most basic of stitches as I made my way through life creating one disjointed piece at a time, but I am falling in love with this life afghan that my journey is still in the process of creating and weaving through my history. So it just goes to show how even knowing only the most basic of crochet stitches can still create a most glorious work of art. . . .even when it takes a life time to collect enough pieces to finally create an afghan worthy of remembrance :)

What Difference Can One Person Make?

Change is not easy, especially when we have to put our money where our mouth is. But that is exactly the only change we have.

My friend Melinda posted a comment that so succinctly hits the nail on the head: "I guess that brings me to another little bit of 'activism'. If I recognize a company like OV, that at least appears to be using natural, organic practices, I will purchase their product even while I'm struggling to make ends meet. We simply MUST put our money behind what we believe, or it will fail."

We simply MUST put our money behind what we believe, or it will fail.

When dealing with such huge issues as environmental decay, it's all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the big picture and lulled into the deadly illusion that one person couldn't possibly make a difference, and so they don't. But every single person has GREAT power in the course and nature of change, because every single penny that we have in our pocket is a weapon within our personal arsenal of change.

We can't impede commerce? Like hell we can't. . . .every single penny has great power to change the world. . . .every single moment. . . .of every single day!

My cousin Laurie has talked about how every choice we make casts a vote for the change we want to see in the world. That means that every single dollar I spend (or save) is a direct vote in the market of commerce for the course and direction of change that I personally want to see. If I purchase food that's processed, then I am supporting all of the environmental consequences involved in the making of that processed food product, even if I am not directly involved in that process. My money is voting for that food product, and so I am complicit in the consequencs that result.

Every single dollar I spend is a direct vote in the market of commerce for the course and direction of change that I personally want to see.

So it doesn't matter how much or how little money we have in our bank accounts, it's all reduced to the change that constitutes our personal power. I think the problem is that we keep turning our focus and attention onto a single individual and asking for the change we would like to see in the world, feeling constantly disillusioned and disappointed, but this kind of thinking is just wrong. Each of us needs to be the change we want to see in the world, and that change is transacted in the micro exchanges of the pennies in our pockets for the products and services we choose every single day.

So how much difference can one person make? One person can make all the difference in the world! Just like Melinda is making a difference every time she pays more for the Organic Valley milk becasue she chooses to vote for organic and environmentally friendly milk. You rock, Melinda!

As for me, I do not intend to squander my personal power any more, and I refuse to cast my consumer-driven votes for the corporate-greed-driven status quo, because the bottom line is that every day is voting day when personal power is found in each and every peanut and penny within our arsenal of change.

So vote wisely, my friend. . . .vote wisely :)

Getting Right with God

I often hear people talk about "getting right with God," and while I don't know what they mean by this in a personal sense for them, I do know what this is beginning to mean for me.

I posted the following Facebook status yesterday: "We are supposed to be stewards of the earth. God bestowed that responsibility upon us. Every choice we make as humans that betrays this responsibility is like slapping God's face. We may not like that we can't just do whatever we want when we want, but that's what being a good steward means...that we make SOUND choices that allow for a SUSTAINABLE future for everyone. So, yeah...it's not going to be fun to change the lifestyle habits that the earth can not sustain, but we must!"

Getting right with God (for me) right now means stepping up and becoming a good steward of this earth, and that's requiring me to take a long hard look at my life style habits and then do the really hard work of aligning my lifestyle with my Godstyle, aligning my habits with my spiritual values and ideals.

I think it's all too easy to self-justify the lifestyle choices when they are such tiny grains of sand in the big picture. We fill our gas tanks, take out our trash, and make an endless array of choices throughout the course of the day on whatever it is that we buy, but we are completely separated from the reality of the invisible strings that attach us to the long slow environmental decay. But each and every single tiny choice that we make as individuals is another chink in the fading armor of the earth (or not).

I want to live as green as humanly possible, although this will be no easy task.

So today is the first day of my "Getting Right with God" project, which means that I will be making one commitment each and every day, a commitment to my relationship with God by changing my very human lifestyle so that I can align spirit with action. I may not be able to change the choices made by any other individual on this earth, but I do have the power to change my own. . . .and so I will. . . .one commitment at a time.

There are Worse Places to End Up

I feel stuck. Not just because my car is on the side lines again, but because it feels like I am perpetually standing on one side of a chasm trying to figure out how to get to my life that awaits me on the other side. So if this is my life, then I don't want it. Send it back. Can I dispute the charges on my life visa card? I want my life back.

As a little girl, I never dreamed I would end up where I am. But the hard truth about some lives is that we all too often end up in places and circumstances that we would never want to be. I didn't want to be rained on by Chernobyl radiation. I didn't want to be sexually abused or assaulted. I didn't want cancer. I didn't want the divorce. I didn't want my mom to die. I didn't want my wonderful boat to get shredded. And I didn't want to grow up in a set of family systems so chaotic and dysfunctional that my neuro development was altered in such a way that I live every day with the resultant PTSD that changes everything about how I live my life. So, yeah. . . .I didn't want a LOT of things to happen. . . . but they did. . . . and I can't change them. . . . .so here I find myself at the edge of a life I don't always choose, wondering how to escape the weight of a journey so difficult at times I feel like I'm going to suffocate.

But is this the worst place I could have ended up?

I live at the Grand Canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and I absolutely love my life here. I may not have the big fancy house or the brand new car, but my back yard beats anyone else's hands down! I hike this amazing canyon whenever I want. I have a wonderful little apartment that I love, a home where my furry family is able to live in peace and safety with me (and where the rent is so ridiculously cheap it's almost like living here for free). My bills are paid, my housing expenses are tax free, I'm able to put money into the savings account every month, and I have as much expendable income as when I made more than $40K per year. I walk to work. I have no commute. No smog. The daily traffic jam involves the local elk or deer meandering across the roadway. Snow in the winter. Rain and amazing wildflowers in the summer. Beauty everywhere. Free train rides whenever I want! So, yeah. . . . there are definitely worse places I could have ended up.

Yet I still feel stuck.

I feel stuck because there's no place for me to go. There's no "home" out there waiting for me, no place to look forward to spending my holidays, because that kind of home disappeared for me when my mom passed away. I am like the tortoise. . . .I carry my home on my back, and I am free to move about as I so desire, and as the circumstances of fate and fortune will allow. . . . so why do I really feel stuck? I think I just need to settle in to this amazing life that I have here, feel grateful for the amazing blessing it is to be able to create my home here, and seek God in all that I do. If I can do just these simple basic things, then I will have a blessed life, indeed.

So trudge on, tortoise sister. . . . trudge on. . . . .

Making a Difference Every Day

I created a Facebook Page today called Making a Difference Every Day. I'm tired of feeling powerless to make a difference, so I am doing what I can. I have been reading a wonderful book (Swim Against the Current: Even Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow), and I am finding myself refreshed with the knowledge that I am not alone in my fight, that there really are people AND (more importantly) businesses out there that are figing the same fight that I'm fighting, and I love feeling empowered and connected to the world again.

I once had a dream. Dreams are very important to me, so what happens in a dream holds great signficance. Anyway, I had a dream, and in the dream I am angry and afraid for what's happening in the world, because I can only sleep for so long. (In this dream, the world's healing and protection is facilitated through the dream state of the people who are sleeping.) But then it dawns on me that when I am awake, there is a whole other side of the world that is sleeping, and in fact, there is always someone sleeping to more than cover the 24 hours in a day, so I am relieved and feel free to go about the business of my waking life because of the dreamers on the other side of the world. Profound dream.

I am angry. I'm not an "angry person" per se, but I find that I am angry a lot of the time. If I were angry for no good reason I would think this was a problem. But it's not a problem, because I experience anger about things that a person SHOULD feel angry about, and so I do. Perhaps I feel this anger more intensely than the average person, but I don't care. I refuse to silence my anger when it is an appropriate response to inappropriate circumstances. I rock the boat when it needs to be rocked. I make the hard phone calls when they need to be made. And I rise up in protest when there is no other option left, even when there is great pressure for me to just sit down and "behave myself" like a polite little girl.

I can't be polite when there is foulness afoot, because the anger rises up inside of me like a red hot volcano with no place else to flow but up and out.

But I also find that anger alone isn't enough. Feeling angry without having some kind of resolution just keeps me angry all of the time, which is exactly what happens. I need an outlet for my anger, a productive outlet, and this page (Making a Difference Every Day) is just the outlet that I need, because it's going to connect me in solidarity with other people who are angry about what's happening in the world and are finding creative ways to make a difference in their every day life, too.

It is my hope, that by sharing this information, it will inspire others to think creatively and outside of the box so that there is a sustainable future for us all. . . . .

Sophie's Choice

I love Meryl Streep. . . .and one of my absolute all-time favorite films is Sophie's Choice. I love this film because it so poignantly makes clear how the human drama has a long reaching grip upon our lives, but also because it shows how ignorance shapes human expectation.

When we first meet Sophie, we can't understand her. We can't understand her present condition, because we don't yet understand the past that brought her to where she is now. It is only when Sophie's story is slowly revealed that we begin to understand, and I think that's the same for all human beings. It's all too easy to judge a book by its cover, or judge another person's story by the way our own story has unfolded, but to truly understand we must take the time to learn the personal history that shapes and defines (and even sometimes confines) a person's present life story.

My weekend in Mesa Verde included a side trip to the BLM visitor's center about 10 miles north of Mesa Verde. They showed two different films in a beautiful little theater: one of the films was about the history of Mesa Verde, but the other was a spiritual film of Native American descendents of Mesa Verde and their plea for the rest of humanity to walk through their history with grace and respect. But the one part that continues to stand out the most is how they talk about time. For these indigenous people, they are not even concerned with the future, because they believe that it is their history, their past, that defines who they are in the present.

A person without their history, without the stories of their past, is a story that is completely out of context, thus subject to dire misinterpretation.

I think it's all too easy to judge and pathologize another person's "odd" behavior and ask ourselves what is "wrong" with them. But the truth is that for most of us with "bizarre" behavior, there is actually nothing wrong with us at all; we simply were shaped by invisible and incomprehensible histories that the rest of the world can't possibly understand, and so they sit back in judgment and wonder what is wrong.

On one level I'm very grateful for the way my life was shaped by the dark stories imposed upon mine because I am not afraid of walking through hell with another person. My personal history (and my journey to walk through my own personal living hell) helped me to understand the "emotionally disturbed" foster children on my case load.  I was able to take the time to understand the personal history that shaped and defined their "odd" behavior because I had taken the time to understand my own. And once I took the time to understand the invisibly embedded why to the very visible what, well, their behavior wasn't really all that odd, at all.

There is a statement in the very beginning of the DSM (diagnostic manual for psychological/mental disorders) that makes it very clear that if there are envioronmental circumstances going on in a person's life that better explain the behavioral symptoms, then a diagnosis of a mental disorder should NOT be made. To clarify, this means that a mental disorder does NOT exist. This is all too often never read or understood by clinicians of all professional pursuits, but this single statement was my saving grace in grad school because I scruffed and muggled endlessly over the idea of diagnosing people with mental disorders when I could so clearly understand why they were behaving the way they were. And very often, once the environmental conditions are changed, then miraculously the behaviors automatically change themselves, because they're no longer responding to disordered environmental conditions (which is the real problem in the first place).

So, yes. . . .I understand Sophie, and I also love that she has at least one person in her world who loves her in spite of her history, and doesn't judge her pain. But it takes time to understand a personal history, and that is a luxury that most of us do not have, or that many even want to take. And as for me, I have a very small cluster of friends who have taken the time to understand me and the personal history that continues to shape and define who I am, even with my "bizarre" emotional behavior that makes the rest of the world wonder at times what is wrong with me.

God Made the Garlic

There is a new me emerging, a me who wouldn't make a very good southern belle, a me who isn't really caring very much about what the rest of the world thinks about what I think or have to say about anything and everything, a me who is beginning to understand just how important it is to realize that God made the garlic.

Yes, that's what I said. . . . .GOD made the garlic.

In the midst of a trend to conceptualize everything that's happening in the world as spiritual warfare (i.e., the battle between "good" and "evil" or God-vs-Satan), I am grounded by the very real fact that God has made this world to include some very unlikeable things (like garlic, or skunks, or maggots and flies--and even Satan).

The funny thing is that many things get assigned arbitrarily as "good" and "bad" (or "evil"), or as "positive" and "negative." I see over and over again how God is associated with love and sunshine and rainbows and all of the good and positive things we love and want in this world. Typically, what we don't want or don't like or don't want to accept in ourselves or others, THIS is the stuff that gets lumped into a very different set of associations that are labeled as bad or negative or evil. Butterlies and caterpillars are good, but flies and maggots are bad. They are essentially the same thing, but butterlies are good and flies are bad. Flies are even directly associated with evil, which is just interesting to me on so many levels right now. Flies, ravens, snakes, spiders. . . .all associations of evil.

The point of all of this is to say something very important: If God had wanted only "warm and fuzzy" things in this world, that's exactly what would have been created. But it's not. We have garlic and skunks and cactus and an endless panoply of creatures that bite and sting. All of these things were made by God, to live and coexist in one world. God didn't say, "Let there be good things only, and no bad things;" God made things as they are, and saw that they were all good.

And when I look at the world as God has created it, I don't see a very "polite" world at all. There's nothing polite about being hunted down by a cheatah and eaten for dinner, or crawling into your safe cubby at the end of a long day of having escaped the hawks and eagles stalking you from above only to be swallowed alive by a cunning snake that has been waiting patiently for you to return. There is also nothing very polite about having your head eaten off after just having mated, either, but it happens. . . .lol. . . .more often than a male praying mantis would like to think about, I'm sure.

Politeness. . . .social appropriateness. . . .these are all man-made social conventions, not mandates by God so that I can get into heaven like a good little girl. Maybe you don't like that my emotional language is profanity, or that fuck is my favorite word, but that's not my problem, because God made the garlic just the same as God made the gladiolas. So, yeah. . . .some of us are a whole lot more pungent than the average bear, but that just makes us who we are, even if we don't fit inside of the socially appropriate boxes created by man to. . . .what? What actual purpose does politeness serve? Seriously? So that we don't "offend" one another? Good grief!!

Are we really that sensitive as an "evolved" species that we have to hold all of our "negative" thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and feelings inside so that we don't "offend" anyone's sensibilities? I'm not talking about doing or saying things that maliciously or intentionally hurt someone. . . . so I'm clearly not advocating the "death stalk" or "biting each other's heads off" as the new social norm.

But I also don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to keep their mouth shut just so that we can all get along! There is more than one way to coexist in a world where garlic and gladiolas grow side by side! I believe that we can all be who we are, even with our "bad" or "negative" feelings and opinions and STILL get along. We don't deserve to be personally attacked, but we also deserve to be able to speak what is real and true for us in a way that doesn't get attacked at the same time!

And why is it that we watch and listen with rapt attention to someone airing another person's dirty laundry, but when someone airs their own dirty laundry they are being socially inappropriate? Most "news" is really nothing more than a glorified and very public airing of other people's dirty laundry. So I roll my eyes at the idea that what happens to us (if we talk about it publicly) is considered airing one's dirty laundry. Did anyone ever consider that perhaps the laundry remains dirty for so long because no one will ever take it outside to wash it?

Dirty laundry. Holding one's tongue. Socially appropriate. Not talking about what happens in the family to outside people. Polite conversation.

Somewhere I have a comic of a man walking all slumped over in a frumpy trench coat, clearly sad and depressed. But when you look at his shadow behind him, he is very clearly angry and full of rage as the shadow raises its arms up in a vain attempt to shake the rage away. A sad statement about what all of our politeness has done for us where trying to survive everyday life in a crazy mixed up world is enough to make anyone angry. Why do we feel like it makes us a better person if we hold our feelings inside and don't talk about what makes us angry? Because someone has taught us that it's not "polite" to do so?

If God had wanted a polite world, that's exactly how it would have been created. When did we become so damned virtuous?! (And how do we make it stop?)

Follow Your Dreams

I've had a tough week. After waiting for nearly four months for the drive line to arrive and get installed (thus thwarting my summer in Nova Scotia plans), I thought my car was up and running again, and I was back in the game of chasing my dreams. So when my car was towed home from a camping trip this past weekend, I was not only rightfully bummed, I questioned whether I was supposed to be leaving the canyon at all. . . .as if some divine (or less than divine) intervention is trying to tell me something that I clearly seem to be failing to hear or pay attention to.

But then one of my fbfriends posted something interesting that I have continued to think about as this week unfolds. She posted the following quote by John Maxwell: "Follow your dreams...Don't allow the fire of adversity to make you a skeptic. Allow it to purify you."

The part that has kept me thinking is the idea that following your dreams may not necessarily be a path of love and sunshine. . . .lol. I think I've had this notion that if I am following my dreams, I will know that I'm on the right path because it will somehow be wonderful and easy. But that may not necessarily be the case. In fact, it may be the fire of adversity needed to purify the path! (yikes!)

This past weekend a hiker's body was recovered from the Tanner trail. This was an experienced hiker, as they only issue back country permits for that trail if you have a solid history of serious hiking out in the back country wilderness of the canyon. Yet there he was, living his dream, hiking the amazing grand canyon, but the heat overtook him, and in his panic made choices that ended his dream. It's just sad, and a bit terrifying, quite honestly, because it only reinforces this idea that following my dream may have an outcome very different from what I hope or intend.

But I think that's what's so terrifying about following one's dream, because the outcome of leaving the path of safety or security becomes exciting by the unpredictability of the unknown, but can also cause a person to stop at the edge of the known waiting for the outcome to become clear. But I think by the very nature of following one's dream, the outcome can only be known by stepping off of the beaten path and into the wilderness of the dream's terrain. Yet, in so doing, we step out into the abyss of a dream whose outcome is yet to be woven into the fabric of the dream itself. It may turn out wonderful. . . .but it may also take an unexpected and unwanted twist and turn of events and outcomes.

But such is the very nature of chasing one's dreams. . . .

So I need to rethink my belief about the path to dreams being free of debris and danger and obstacles that need to be hurdled. Maybe for some people the path of their dreams is filled with love and sunshine along the way, but for others, the weather is a bit more complex. . . .lol. And I do think my car is an issue to be dealt with, but I am beginning to think that the issue is something completely different from what it first seemed. So I am still in progress with my life. . . .and the following of my dreams. . . .

Mistaken Identity

I have started reading this book, and I absolutely love it! Totally relevant for where I am in my life, except that I thought I had already escaped corporate American by moving to the canyon. That 's what I get for mistakenly identifying one of the seven natural wonders of the world as corporate-free. Not!

OK, so moving on. . . . .or at least TRYING to do so. . . .

The basic piece of life management that keeps me here at the canyon is that I don't want to go back out into the "real" world by going back to work in the system again--regardless of whether that system be social service or educational--but I haven't yet figured out how to sustain my life if I don't. Hence, I've been willing to work for pennies and peanuts until I figure out how I can fund my life without becoming another corporate cog fighting to change the system from the inside out.

Been there, done that. . . .never want to do that again :)

This book is about creating a successful life while at the same time escaping the corporate tentacles that suck the life right out of the people who work within them. So I am very hopeful that it will help to motivate me to restructure my life in such a way that I can maintain the level of personal autonomy that I need in order to breathe, while at the same time allowing me to have food and at least the basic necessities of life (you know, like chocolate and sunflower seeds....lol....OH! and also the fuel for my new jetboil...lol).

All joking aside, I am suffocated by my work life here at the canyon. So even though the canyon itself has been feeding my spirit, the life sucking is quickly approaching the point of being greater than  the canyon's capacity to feed my spirit. Yes, the writing on the canyon wall is becoming very clear that it's time for me to actively prepare for my departure and hope that the departure will be relatively quick and painless :) and now that my drive line has been installed, I can finally move forward.

In the meantime, I will continue to swim with the salmon. . . . .even when I am surrounded by signs warning that there is no spawning allowed :)

The Pressure to Conform

The solo journey isn't a new concept for me, but the focused "study" of the solo journey is. And I find it more than interesting how right now I am faced with so many different ways that my uniqueness is being pressured to conform.

The word of the day is compromise.

At what point does conformity change from compromise to compromised? I understand the importance and necessity of compromise, that dance between conflicting needs of the one with the other, but there is a point when an essential part of who I am is threatened to be compromised in significant and unacceptable ways. I am at such a point with a part of my world, but my refusal to accept circumstances that are going to actually do great harm to me if I don't stand my ground will have consequences that may not be very warm and fuzzy. And I shouldn't have to make such choices. . . .but it looks like such a choice is going to have to be made.

Compatibility -vs- Pacing

There is a change moving through me. . . .or more correctly, I will no longer be trying to change the me that's moving through. And what I mean by this is simply that compatibility is not the only factor to consider when developing human relationships.

What I am finding in my life is that compatibility is not enough. I can enjoy the same activity as another person, but that doesn't mean that we can enjoy it together. I don't mean personalities, etc. I mean that just because two people enjoy the same activity, that doesn't mean that they enjoy doing it in the same way. . . .or at the same pace.

I wish I would have understood this better when I was married, because I actually DID enjoy the off-road four wheel activities of the jeep club, but I did NOT enjoy the thrill seeking pace my (then) husband enjoyed. This difference in pacing, rather than a difference in compatibility, was a significant source of ongoing arguments between us. So perhaps we could have found a better way to address it than to let my fear speak for me, or for him to say, "You think THAT's bad, watch THIS!" as he kicked the jeep into low gear and jolted up the rocky mountain with me scrambling to get the heck out of that jeep. . . lol.

Yes, an incompatibility in pacing was definitely a problem.

More recently, however, I am finding the incompatibility of differing pacing (more than compatibility itself) to be creating an unwillingness on my part to even want to do social-related events. When I hiked down to Phantom Ranch last November, I was actually doing fine until that couple took me on as their "help a solo hiker out of the canyon" project. Yes, it was snowing. And yes, my calves were clenching up. But I am now certain that had I been left on my own, I would have been able to hike out of that canyon just fine. Had I been able to hike out at my own pace I would have been able to nurse the clenched up calves, and I wouldn't have had the "near death" feeling of experience. . . .lol. Their pace was just too fast for me, and that's what created the problem, not my hiking ability. Just like the slow pace of the hiker I recently backpacked with. . . .it was our difference in pacing that created the stress for me.

I find that it's much easier to find people with whom I am compatible, than to find people compatible with my pacing, and this awarenes changes everything for me.

I am moving into a new place, a place within myself where I'm just not willing to adjust my pace to the world around me anymore. I enjoy life at a slow pace. I enjoy the solitude afforded by a slow pace in silence so that I can listen to what is being said within me, a voice that is more difficult to hear when I am surrounded by the words of the people whirling around me.

Am I destined to journey solo forever?

I'm not really sure what this means for me, but I feel the nature of my friendships changing here already. Some of the changes ARE about basic compatibility, as I no longer find a willingness to be immersed in certain conditions anymore. But it's deeper than just this, and I feel it brewing, even if I can't quite understand or comprehend the changes that I know are still in the process of emerging.

I read recently something about the way to find God is to search the silence, but will I be able to fully embrace the silence of a solo journey?

I guess what I'm really saying is that I want my pace to be compatible with God's pace, and not the people around me. The truth of this stings my eyes, and releases my breath from a deep place within. I am remembering the words of Jesus when he tells the people essentially that if they want to find the Kingdom of God they must forsake all others, even if that means their brothers and sister, or even their mother and father.

Perhaps the journey to God is essentially a solo journey. I don't know. But what I do know is that for now I am moving into a place of deep silence and separation from the world around me.

And I don't normally change my blogs once I have posted them, but this beautiful thing occurred while I was processing through this blog. My friend Nancy read a quote made by Albert Einstein, thought of me, and posted to my profile, which I found upon posting this blog: "The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever seen before." Thank you, Nancy :)

Journey through Mesa Verde

Spent the past weekend at Mesa Verde National Park exploring history on such a grand scale that it's hard to put it all into perspective. I was deeply disturbed on one level that the ancient civilizations were treated as tourist sites with hourly tours by people who had no clue how walk culturally or spiritually sensitive through the past, yet on another level feeling extremely grateful that the Park Service was preserving and protecting these sites for both current and future generations.

My friend Ellen said often this weekend that my first trip to Mesa Verde was a unique trip. My first tour into the ruins was an early morning hike down into Oak Tree House and Fire Temple ruins guided by two park rangers. When we were leaving the Fire Temple site I was overcome by deep sadness, but not sure if the sadness was my awareness of the residual  energy of sadness of the people who were once forced to leave their home, or if the powerful energy of this place magnified my own sadness of feeling homeless and wandering myself. Either way, as I walked along the narrow cliff trail back to the surface of time, I either felt (or imagined feeling) the presence of an ancient shaman walking along with me singing somber prayers of hope for an uncertain future.

Yes, I understand the journey of these people. . .

The day ended with a twilight historical reinactment guided tour down into Cliff Palace. By the end of the day I had already seen more ruins than I honestly care to visit again, but this site brought a different experience. I was tired of being guided through the ruins, and wanted to just be left alone to wander through on my own. I was overwhelmed by all of the words being spoken about something we really don't have language or experience to explain. The words are just theories, because we honestly don't know. Like how the greatest and brightest minds once thought the world was flat, it is hard to know really what life was like for these cultures, or what circumstances might have been forced upon their existence causing them to depart these homes of such impressive magnitude.

As I sat there on the ground of this sacred space, I could smell the earth rising up in the pre-rain air, surrounded by the thunder clapping its way around the carved out stone amphitheater city slowly losing its light. Hot and thirsty, exhausted by the long day's journey, I could feel the energy surging and moving through me, feeling like the earth was shifting and swaying beneath me, except that no one else seemed to be aware of this intoxicating movement of earth and thickly densed air.

Was I simply dehydrated and exhausted? Or was I aware of something more than earth and stone? I may never know for sure, but the "truth" of the feeling doesn't change the experience itself, an experience now indelibly etched upon the layers of memory of this great and powerful place.

I grow weary of all the noise created by the endless and meaningless words to explain. . . .

I will most likely never return to the land of Mesa Verde, but the sadness of their homeless migration continues to haunt my own journey as I wander on in search of home and connection to the land of  my own ancient past, a long and overdue homecoming that awaits my return to a far and distant shore.

Stray Cat Strut

I had an interesting conversation this week that started off with my very earliest memory of how before I would go to bed I completely encircled myself with stuffed animals. It wasn't enough for them to be in a circle, they had to all be touching. And the "goal" for the night was to sleep as still as possible so that when I awoke in the morning all of the stuffed animals would still be touching.

I don't remember myself how old I was, but from the description of the bedroom my mom told me that I was about 18 months old. And I never succeeded with this goal, of course. . . .but it didn't stop me from trying.

I used to think this nightly ritual was about "protection," but perhaps not. The woman with whom I was conversing thought the encircling of the animals was more about "nesting" so as to create the feeling of being contained. . . .which I found most interesting, indeed.

Back in 2005, as I sat on the edge of the rim trying to take in the immensity of the grand canyon, I had this weird experience of feeling both insignifantly tiny and large enough to walk through the canyon like a Paul Bunyon giant, both at the same time. It felt as if my spirit was released from the confinements of my body and felt, for the first time, something large enough to contain it in a way that didn't suffocate or bind me or my spirit. It was as if my spirit had been released like a genie from the bottle, and my life would never be the same. This was the experience that drew me back to the canyon.

As the conversation continued, the woman shared her reflections about me and how she sees me live my life, and somehow we ended up talking about stray animals and their relationship to containment. There are essentially two types of stray animals: true strays and abandoned animals. The abandoned animal doesn't want to be separated from its containment, from its home, so it won't run away because all they want is to be back inside with their people, with their human pack/family. But a true stray will run away. Not run away permanently, perhaps, but they are the animals that will dig themselves out of the back yard or bolt out the open door if given even half the chance.

I have known both abandoned animals who were grateful to have the containment of home, and strays who always preferred the freedom of the outdoor life. My dog Shadow was an abandoned animal, as is my kitty Sarra. But Ketra. . . .ah, sweet Ketra, she was a true stray who never quite gave up her "outdoor kitty" to become an "indoor kitty," and I quickly learned to stop trying, even when that meant that I needed to move on without her out of respect for her choice to stay.

Stray cats are just a different breed of cat. . . . the true free spirits of the world.

As for me, I may long to be inside the warmth of home and family, but I'm just not willing to compromise even one piece of my spirit for the conditions that are placed upon me. Nature, wilderness, God. . . .these are the only unconditionals I find in this world. And so I remain free to roam at will, moving from one home to another, from one adventure to another, because I am a true stray cat from the core of my spirit.

I think I've been feeling a little bit like an abandoned animal, displaced from the warmth of family and home against her will, wounded and badly in need of a good vet. But the old stray cat spunk is beginning to move its way through me again, so there's a bit more spring in my step, and bit more swoosh in my tail. Stella may have got her groove back, but this stray cat is getting ready to strut :)