Tag Archives: life

insight, life, Writing

Alignment

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One of the most amazing things that can happen, is when you want something to happen and it does without any active provocation.

Today I was able to chat with the best friend of my deceased brother.  I’m sure he is mentioned somewhere in this digital archive that I need to go have printed at Kinko’s/ Fed Ex.

We don’t talk often, but when we do, I think it is stellar both domestically and celestially.

Let’s face it, I don’t talk to many people very often.  And when I have a day of insightful conversation I know the world is about to shift again. I feel like everyone else does, just before it happens… a sense of imbalance, perhaps a need to purge, vent and connect.

If people were stars, I would be a distant star in the middle of a few clusters.   I might even be a nebula in the middle of some star systems… I don’t know, I am not an astrophysicist, I am a writer/ thinker who likes analogies.

Either way, shit is happening on the other side of the veil and I am well aware of it, and so are you, even if you don’t get it.

9/11 is a hallmark day.  (Like Hallmark Cards.  If you don’t have words for it, Hallmark has a card for it.)  Only, if Hallmark has a card, it is cryptic.  You’d be better to wait for their holiday ornament.

Feeling uppity or downity with your friends and fam today?  Feeling a strong desire to make life changing decisions with little to no planning?  Writing things like this, that may seem cryptic?

It’s what is up right now.  World wide.  This is part of the “matrix” the “construct.”  There is a self destruct mechanism built into the program.

Fight it.  Stop falling in line with this false “make it look pretty, because it is better than nothing” paradigm.  Fight it, and STOP IT.

I won’t until I’m stopped.

It’s another precipice.

People like me feel ultimate isolation because there is little to inspire real connection and the game gets old.  So if you face certain realities, while realizing that the best connections you may have will be momentary in times of struggle.  You realize you have to hold tight when others can’t. The only way this is possible is when you realize the bigger joke of the matter and if we really do live in game theory, some of us are the people you have to find in order to save yourself in the game in order to move to the next phase.

I’m no savior, but I am a point of re-connection to  that other reality which is unavoidable at some point.

Hit me up when things get weird.

insight, life, Writing

My Best Friend: Cigarettes, Dog Bites, and the Death Diet

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This piece may seem a bit off topic in my series about Claddagh.  However she was with me when the whole situation occurred in my writing.  My landlady had found a lost dog, and that dog got along with Claddagh, so I kept it for the night.   While the dogs were playing, things got a little rough and I was on the floor between them.  The scuffle turned into a fight, so in the process of pulling the dogs apart, the visiting dog bit me.  I was hit with a lost childhood memory of being bitten by a puppy while staying with my aunt.  Minutes after this memory returned, I received a call from my family saying that said aunt was in the ICU.

I was completely bowled over with emotions.  I wasn’t completely sure what her prognosis was, but it sounded pretty bleak.  As a coping mechanism, I explored what my family might be going through in that moment, especially focusing on my cousin but at the same time realizing the attributes I didn’t like about her, were/are prevalent in me.

My aunt did not die that night.  It would turn into a drawn out process that would take another three uneasy years.   The following piece is my raw expression from that night.

 

July 18, 2009

Skin is thin.  A scratch, a paper cut, a scrape. Blood from a small wound, the pain radiates for a day; a reminder of some lame excuse for not paying close enough attention.

I am bleeding from a scratch and a bite. Slightly deeper than superficial.  This is payment for being a good Samaritan.  I can’t be mad, it was harmless fun gone awry by animals who communicate some other way.

How often in human reality does this happen?  We are asked to play nicely, then some words are said in jest causing a friend to unravel enough to fight back.  A fight unseen on the horizon.

It was just two beings- doing and then there was an unseen spark.  One took something the wrong way and since I am not fluent in dog play language, I find myself in the middle.  I’ve pulled larger dogs apart without incident.  Why tonight?

As I assess the bite on my forearm and I am taken into an old memory of being bitten by a puppy when I was two or three.   I am in the care of my aunt, playing in the front yard of her humble apartment with a small puppy belonging to the neighbor.  The bite catches me off guard.

The phone rings.

It is my father telling me that my aunt is in the hospital and things look grim.

The timing of all of this makes me reel. I have to write it all down, the perceptions I am having in this moment thousands of miles away from my family.  I’m not sure what is going on, and I know writing will calm me down so that I can process the bite and it’s deeper meaning.

I am jaded on death; the cycle of life few seem to live, all reaching variations of the same end.  Those who live their lives like tomorrow will never come because they already know it’s on its way to greet them.

Then there are those aching to leave their mark, they live for posterity.  For now I am ambivalent, watching it as it comes and goes; feeling l’ve already lost so many important ones and still there are more to come as I continue to keep loving.

There are no words for this, no way to convey the normality of it, despite the pain and what it seems to be.  It is what I call the Death Diet.  It comes and goes, as we all do, in it’s own time- staying for short and sometimes long duration.  A visitor,  unannounced, unwelcome.

As to not forget those I’ve lost; how can the relationship continue, how can each of us live on and keep those who were once here and dear to us, after they depart?

Is Spirit not something that speaks in each ear in due time?  Do remnants of the past not live and breathe around us, still?

And so they do; each person, place or thing.  Our interaction with them is not at all lost when voices stop humming and hearts stop beating; body buried below.  Beyond the picture enveloped in memory…

Perhaps that is the reason I like chicken and dumpling soup.  The one thing she would fix for me that was recognizably made from scratch and not from a can.  I’ve not seen her in years and tonight she lays under anesthesia in a hospital.  She lays in a deep sleep from two heart attacks in a row.

She was found barely breathing by grandparents; those kind and gentle souls who’ve seen one daughter die away already.

Does Leslie sit next to Terri as she lays in  medicated limbo?

Does she hold her hand in spirit?

Does Terri ask, in a morphine induced dream, the same thing Leslie asked when she lay deteriorating her own hospital room over two decades ago?  The same hospital many renovations ago; a place Leslie never left again, alive.

Is Leslie there, and is she honest?  Does she say “No, you aren’t going to make it.  I tell you this because I am your sister and I won’t lie to you.  I am going to sit here with you until you go… and then I am going to see you to the other side, where all of us are covered in rainbows.  I am going to give you the biggest bear hug.”  Does Leslie then squeeze Terri’s hand?

Leslie is eternally twenty-six, or maybe she shows up as a seventeen year old; thin and vibrant.  Healthy and cancer-free.  A spirit in a dream only recognized by the dreamer.

Family waits in the hall.  The son acknowledges his distance. A certain sense of discontent and regret boil beneath the surface.  He questions her sadness and why she couldn’t do more for herself and him.  He knows he distanced himself  out of fear and retaliation.

She left him fifteen years ago.  She gave up being a responsible mother despite how much she loved him, despite how much he loved her…  Something inside of him felt sick with longing and regret, disgust and confusion.   He knew this was coming and in some way it was a waiting and a relief at letting this subconscious worry go.  Yet he knew, this wouldn’t be the end of his worry, there would be others- the grandparents who sat next to him, for instance.

No.  This would be a double edged sword of worry, like, “one down, two to go.”  This loss would only breed more anxious anticipation.   This thought was neglecting to add the dozen or more people he also adored and maybe even loved.  He was focused in this moment on family ties of blood.

In the face of their differences in belief or opinion, he saw and valued whatever it was that this was – “however fucked up.”  This was the only place the son was suppose to be right now.  There was much to acknowledge and heady thoughts to consider.   This was an act all too grown up for anyone to want to take on; he was no stranger to responsibility but this was a first when it came to what many may consider posthumous intimacies- him being an only child of a husband-less mother.

There seemed to be a question of “deserving this.”  Was it something he deserved for being less involved with his mother than perhaps he should have been?  For keeping busy for more time than it seemed necessary in the mentality that “Life is Short. Love Hard. Visit Your Mom”?  He knows he should have visited more.  He shouldn’t have been so fearful of seeing her and trying to help her out.

Questions just become answers that lead to more questions.

Here is where he should be.  Waiting in an ICU waiting room; thinking about all of this.  Taking it all in.

Next to him are his grandparents, now in their eighties.  They’ve been less than active for years, left to sit at home with injuries that happened later in life and never healed properly.  Here they were, watching their second daughter fade before their eyes.  She’d been back home for nearly seven years now.  About as long as she’d been gone when one day she decided to abandon her home and her son for some internet love affair.

She had bought a home just a block away from her parents.  She was working as a nurse when one day she just quit going to work because the internet was more important and interesting than helping the geriatric folks she was employed to care for at the assisted living home.

One day she got in her car, and drove to the east coast to meet a man that she would come to realize he wasn’t who he said he was, only to leave him for another far off man who was not who he claimed to be.

She left the son in the abandoned house and the utilities were systematically shut off.  The mortgage went unpaid and the son was displaced.  She left debt and pain in her wake, only to show up back home – ill of health needing a place to stay.  She would be fifty-three and living in her parents basement.

I suppose we all have regrets.  I wonder if this is hers?

My family is susceptible to addiction but they are also susceptible to will power, drive and sarcasm.  I’ve fallen into the categories.  Right now my addictions are strong and my will has been weak.  This must switch because I have things to do and I suspect my dead mother is sitting with my dying aunt in a hospital room.

I never really got to know my mom but I’ve had my whole life to observe my aunts actions and consequences.  At my youngest, when my mother was still around, she was having a hard time dealing with a smart ass two year old daughter.  It was too much.  My mother would leave me on the door step in only a diaper because “if you don’t want to live here, you are going to leave the way you came in.  Naked.” And screaming.

My mother would call my aunt and tell her that she couldn’t handle me, that she had locked me out front.  My aunt who lived a couple of blocks away would come to get me and dress me in over sized clothes belonging to her son. She would take me to her apartment to ride out the emotional storm.  I would play with my cousin and watch movies until I wanted to go back to my mom.

My aunt would bundle be back up and take me home.  This back and forth is part of my earliest memories.

From what I can tell, my aunt had horrible taste in men.  Manipulators; liars, drunks and a gay man who was in the military.  She chased men that seemed to share her dreams only to leave her in the dust.  Her will was weak, she neglected to see these things in advance.  She was always waiting to be saved from her own squalor so that she could ACTUALLY LIVE!

She wanted to have it provided for her by someone she cared for and in the meantime she drowned her sorrows in some other reality.  A place where she could meet other “real people” feeling the same way she did.  Perhaps she didn’t see that they were all reflections of her.  Lonely, sick and addicted. Weak-willed and seeking, only bound to find one another.

Lost in a basement on oxygen, typing away.  Beauty of youth lost long ago, only to live in a shadow of cyber script.   She stopped living a long time ago.  She craved the life we all do- To love and be loved.

She adored nature, but she rarely visited it in the end.   There were times when I was very young, when she would take us fishing, early in the morning before the sun rise.  The thermos would be full of hot coffee, (and though I scowl at parents who allow small children to drink coffee,) she would pour each of us a cup mixed with a hot cocoa packet.  A poor man’s mocha at sunrise.

How did a person so close to nature, move so far away from it?  How did that sanctuary neglect to hold her interest? Loneliness.

We don’t all wish to be hermits.  How sad to age before your time- what a predicament to want love and to be too sick to attain it. Family was never enough.

She was married twice in her youth, but her youth is a bit of a mystery to me.  The eldest child, the oldest sister of three other siblings.  Did my grandparents have high expectations for her?  Did she lack guidance?  What was the exact moment that made her give up?

She had her son, young, with a Native man who would disappear from the picture shortly after it was taken. Her next husband  would be a closeted homosexual in the military who would tend to be abusive.

Her long time friend Loyd would love her desperately over the year, and their friendship would grow, but it would never be the relationship both of them were longing for.

She smoked cigarettes her entire life, until she couldn’t.  They were always the cheap smokes, GCP’s or what ever was affordable.

She loved babies and believed that everyone that she was able to hold, was a little bit hers and that included me.

I guess I never really viewed her as the adventurous type.  When she left, she must have really believed things were going to change for the better; but she was already lost in a confusion that misaligned her radar.

As this story unfolds under my finger tips, I unabashedly see the personal similarities in myself, things I would rather not admit to.

Now I am left with a dog bite, reminding me of who I do not want to become.

insight, life, Writing

My Best Friend: Who Am I Without Her

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I was a dog owner for just short of eleven years.  I’ve lived a decade immersed in that mentality.  Where I go, my dog goes.  If my dog isn’t welcome, I probably don’t want to be there.   I ditched out on parties early, avoided certain places all together, all for the sake of companionship.

Sometimes Claddagh would hang out in the car if I wanted to make an appearance at some event where she either wasn’t welcome, or I knew would have too many dogs and give her anxiety.  I would pop out every half hour and spend about fifteen minutes with her, eventually, most times cashing out early and going home.  Every once in a while it would be a late night in good company in calm environments with people who adored her and her dog friends around.   Those were the good ole days.

I knew I had to be friends with the people who had dogs that got along well with Claddagh.  Introductions were always the most awkward for her.  Dog protocol is all about the butt sniff.   Claddagh wasn’t having it.  Anytime a new dog got near her posterior she would growl, effectively telling them to “fuck off. ”  If the dog interested in her, could let the desire to sniff go for the amount of time it would take for Claddagh to get comfortable, they could then get close enough to take some sniffs and walk away to give her space before doing another cruise by.

Claddagh always had anal gland issues, though they seemed to be less bothersome in our last two years that were dominated by a diet change.  I wonder if she was insecure because of the glandular build up.  Maybe it was just sore.  In the beginning I thought maybe she had been tapped by another dog and there was trauma there, but that could just be my wild imagination.

It’s strange to think that we surround ourselves with living beings, daily, and yet we don’t really give them much thought once we get comfortable with their presence especially when we just trust in the routine of life.

I can’t focus on thinking about anything but my life with Claddagh, right now.  I go to distract myself with topics I generally find interesting and they have no allure.  An emotional cord has been ripped from my chest and I wonder how I will ever be able to fill the obvious hole in my heart.  I don’t want another dog.  I want my dog.

I am something different than I was two days ago.  Now I am “dogless.”  It feels wrong. So much of my personal identity was shared with this companion animal.  I am caught at an emotional crossroads that I’ve been to before.    Do I shut myself down and wall myself off as I have in so many human relationships, or do I see this as an opportunity to grow and change and to better understand and appreciate the various wavelengths that love can exist within?

I’d like to to believe I will follow the latter. I suppose I need to explore what this means for my human relationships.  Obviously the depth that I feel about this situation can not be ignored and I think that my willingness to dive those depths can be intimidating to the humans around me.

See, even though I am making this outpouring about a dog, these feelings are universal with any sort of significant loss.  We come from a history of people distracting themselves from their pain, and I find pain unavoidable.  I always have, but I believe in the Spirit of things and that Spirit always reminds me that everything is temporary and that things can always get better but one must have a willingness to believe that Truth in order to take advantage of it’s reality.

Claddagh brought to my life more depth than can ever be articulated.  We didn’t need words because our souls were in constant conversation.  My writing was able to take on even more depth because of Claddagh being there as an influence in my perception of the world, and because it was amazing to try and imagine the world through her eyes specifically when she was at play in nature, or when she would just stare at me for minutes on end.

She was a reflection of my soul. My soul mate.  It seems rare to find anything or anyone in the world that you would want to covet forever.  I am hopeful that I won’t have to wait another twenty-seven years to begin another journey like I had with Claddagh. I am hopeful that the depths of whatever is to be, extends ever further than I could dream or imagine.

I think if you really love and adore someone, you should consider taking on their best attributes.  If I were to take on the best attributes of Claddagh, I would be more excited for everything that life has to offer.  I would make each person I am with, feel like the most important person in the room by giving them my undivided attention.   I would wait to eat more meals with company.  I would go for a ride for no good reason more often especially if someone just wanted the company.

My life over the last six years has become quite isolating, and Claddagh took the brunt of that.  We went from fairly nomadic to completely stagnant.  Over the six years I just slowly stopped doing the things that we enjoyed most together because nature seemed so far away.  We aged and got lazy and uncomfortably comfortable together.  But, we were together, every single day.

What a great partner.  What an amazing friend.

insight, life, Writing

My Best Friend: Assimilating One Another

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In any relationship there is compromise.  Especially if you are living together.  I only had a handful of info when it came to Claddagh/IMA/Pasha’s past.   She was found and surrendered on a Reservation.  She may or may not be spayed.  She had BB’s or some sort of shrapnel scattered on various parts of her body.  She was picked up by a person who already had four dogs, and kept Claddagh separate because the situation was “iffy.”

I always got the feeling she was raped by another dog.  She was very concerned about other canines getting in that area and sniffing around.  She seemed somewhat evolved when it came to assessing another dogs intentions.    I use to joke that she was a lesbian who only liked fixed males and females, because they were less of a threat.

I don’t actually know, but this is the feeling I got from watching her behavior.   She wasn’t a “Dog’s Dog.”   She was  a PuppyCat that wanted to be Human.  Okay, I know we anthropomorphize animals and I have a vivid imagination, but something told me she was no run of the mill dog when it came to social graces.

She didn’t want to fight, but she was willing to defend herself.   Mostly she wanted to play but found it hard to find other dogs who know the rules.  The dogs who knew the rules were dogs of friends.   We, as a group, had subconsciously created a frame work for a dog community.  The people who had dogs, were much like me.   Safety first!  Good Friendly Play!

I haven’t heard Claddagh’s voice in over twenty four hours.  I am restraining myself from running outside to call her in.  I keep making attentive notices that the scratching I hear on the concrete, is not her toe nails. My neighborhood is significantly more quiet without the dog barking battles over the fence.  Brody gives it a go and then gives up after a bit.  I guess it isn’t as fun without a friend.  Now it’s just one tiny dog on one side of the fence, and a bigger, louder dog on the other.  Who knows… maybe Brody is telling the neighborhood dogs that there will be one less voice in the mix of calls that saturate the air at any time of day.  One less shit pile to smell.

I think Claddagh had a prerogative of fun. I never felt like I could rely on her to protect me. I never wanted to put her in situations that might lead to harm.  I would avoid situations like that at all costs, especially after the dognapping incident.

She would be with me four years before she could look me straight in the eyes.  It would be just as long before she learned or discovered how to bark.

My friend Cameron and I were on a camp out.  Claddagh and I had camped together many times before this. She would follow along quietly when I played “ninja in the forest.”  Taking her collar off so that the jingle of her tags wouldn’t distract other animals.  We would sneak up on loud camp sites and check them out from the perimeter and then hike back to our camp.  We would try and trail deer.  I was secretly training her for the apocalypse.

Anyway Claddagh, Cameron and I go on a camp out.  And into the darkness of night we sit around the fire, and Claddagh stirs.  She walks out about ten feet from the fire, her ears peaked and moving around like satellite dishes. She makes her first attempt at barking, her voice cracking like a teenage boy during puberty.  She seems shocked at the noise coming from her own mouth.  I hear coyotes in the distance.  Claddagh gets a hang for this new call, and she rolls with it, barking her ever loving head off.  I am amused and astounded… I thought I had a “barkless dog.”  She proved me wrong while simultaneously slipping into a whole new maturity. Still, she never manifested into a physical protector.  We were battling a spiritual thing, and her physical body obviously took the brunt of effect.

Claddagh rarely looked “happy.”  In all reality both her and I suffer from Resting Bitch Face.  It looks pensive, introspective, concerned, and perhaps a little distraught.  Upon meeting, we both knew that we came with baggage, but it didn’t matter, it was “for better or worse.”

I never felt “safer” for her being there, but I did feel a concern of care that made me utilize all of my senses in order to keep us both safe.  Intuition and psychic bond were paramount in our relationship, probably even more so than many human relationships. We bared every season in almost every condition, side by side.  I would spend my last dollars on food for her and go hungry.   She was always a good visitor, and no one ever told us that we couldn’t come back.

I think back to Kelty Krumb. I think about how he was the last dog to persuade me into  having a dog of my own.  How he eased me into dealing with animal hair in every nook and cranny of house and home.  I think he would have liked Claddagh. I think about how my heart broke when I learned he was gone, and how much that must have hurt his owner.  I think about how amazing a dog can be and how if they are amazing enough, they will convince other people to become dog owners by setting an almost unreachable height when it comes to canine perfection as assumed by humans.

Claddagh did that to people.  People who had never had a dog before, became enamored by her very quickly.  Her perfection would settle in the imagination of those who dreamed what it may be like to have a dog.  I didn’t hesitate to tell people that it was years in the making by observation and appreciation.  I told them that she was with me everyday, and that my life continued to be unconventional in order to facilitate the reality we were living.  Most times people shrugged off that part.  They thought they could just go all willy nilly to a shelter and find a gem.

That seemed to be a rare case.  My dog was with me ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.  She sat in a car 6 hours a day some days.  But, when she got out of the car we went on adventures.  Most times it was nature, other times it was urban; she became well versed in various environments, around different people.   She would sidle up next to almost anyone, but building dog relationships was harder.

She wasn’t ordinary.  She was extraordinary.

doggle, insight, life, Writing

My Best Friend: How we met

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Messes, Money, Grief, God.

What does this mean for me? 

What do I need to get rid of?

 

Every time I look at Claddagh’s water bowl, the tears reemerge.  I threw her bed away.  I tossed all her toys in the trash.  I put her leashes in a free box.  Her is hair everywhere.

I use to be so anal about having hair on my clothes.  A real lint roller bandit.  The day Claddagh and I found each other, I let that go.  I knew that there was no escaping her shed.   I didn’t even think twice about it.   It’s like a part of myself died, or that my hyper-vigilance had at least taken a new direction.

 

Who cares about hair on your clothes when you are madly in love?

I’ve known so many wonderful dogs over the course of my life.  We had dogs in our family from my earliest memories.  Pepper; Muffin, Maggie, Buffy, Sprocket, Lucky, and Elsie were all Family dogs belonging to the direct family that I spent most of my childhood around. Each was so unique, but none of them were really “my dog.”

I dreamed of the day I would finally find my own companion.  The desire started about the time I was twenty-five.  I had been in a three-year relationship with a man who had a beautiful golden retriever named Kelty Krumb.  Kelty reminded me of Falcore from The Never Ending Story.  I fell in love with that dog, but I still lint rolled all the time.   One of the hardest parts of the breakup was losing the dog in my life.

So I got serious about “Mandie-festing” the perfect dog.  I lived in dog towns, and my friends often had dogs.  Sometimes I would spend more time hanging out with the dogs of my friends than I did with my friends.  This all kicked into high gear around 2006 when I was living in Nederland, CO.  A small town up the canyon from Boulder.

“A dog in every Subaru.”

I could buy a bulk brown sack full of dog treats from the grocery store for very cheap, so I was constantly packed with treats for the dogs I would see in town.  I got to know dogs by name better than some of their owners.   I paid attention to the attributes I loved about each animal.  I knew that I would know when and where and who when the time was right.

There were two predominant dogs in my life during this time.  Gullivan and Mountain Girl.  Gullivan was my friend Tammi’s companion.  Gullivan and I created a fast bond and he would always greet me at my car for a treat and some love.  We could play rough and he was just amazing.

Mountain Girl belonged to my friend Michigan Mike.  I was casually sleeping with his roommate for a few months and was able to spend time getting to know Mike and Mountain Girl.  She was the epitome of dedicated and independent.  She was a large St. Bernard, and she roamed about the town without being leashed up.

She would walk down to the pub, where Mike was often found, and she would lay outside waiting for him to come to take a smoke break.  And if she ever got tired of waiting outside the pub, she would saunter back home for a while to eat and drink.

  I really feel like Mountain Girl was Mike’s guardian angel. 

It was an emotional hit to the entire community when Mountain Girl passed away.  She was this gentle giant ambassador of the community at one time.

I wanted a dog like that.

The ultimate, to be able to sit and stay, unleashed for a period of time and to always know where home is.  I can say that Claddagh went above and beyond my expectations in the time that we had together but she had not yet reached that pinnacle.

2007 happens. 

I had lost my brother on July 25, 2006.  I terminated a pregnancy in early 2007 after a one night stand during a blizzard and the condom broke. If I am honest with myself, I was lonely as fuck.  I couldn’t find human companionship that was equitable on both sides, meaning “we both want to be together.”

I was always like “Don’t call me your girlfriend.”  But then I’d meet someone I would be interested in pursuing and they would just want to fuck.  I had had enough, and I wanted someone of my own. Loyalty and trust I could believe in.

I had been house/cat sitting for a friend for three months while she was out of the country, and about two weeks before she came home I knew that it was time to go to the Humane Society.  I didn’t know what I was going to do  after this gig or where I was going to live, but I knew that by my 27th birthday,  I would have a furry friend. It would take two weeks and three trips down the canyon before I’d find her.

I had heard that Boulder had a no-kill shelter with a 100% adoption rate.  This seemed worthwhile to me. 

A place that I want to check out.  On my first attempt, I turned North instead of South and ended up in Longmont. I turned around again and went back up the mountain.  I tried again a few days later and made the same mistake.  Again I was in Longmont.  I am usually great at directions but I kept getting twisted around.

The second time I figure, “why not check it out?”

I find a little mutt puppy who is kind of sickly.  We walk around outside and he poops green.  I am enamored by his tininess.  I say that I am interested in him.  I’m full of ideals of raising a little puppy.  Longmont requires a 24 hour hold, and a call of confirmation to a landlord that having a pet is allowed.

My friend doesn’t care if I get a dog, as an animal lover herself, and says to pose as her using the landline.   They call, I get approved and I can pick up the puppy the next day.

Remember I am house/ cat sitting? 

My friend had five cats in a one room cabin.  The bed was in a loft, and the cats would hang out there during the day and night, when they weren’t knocking potted plants off the window sills.  These cats were missing their Momma and letting me know it.

The morning I woke up to go get the puppy, there was cat shit on my pillow, six inches from my head.  I knew immediately that even though my friend would be home soon, there was no way I could have that sickly puppy around all these passive aggressive cats.   So, I called and canceled my adoption.

The feeling that I was supposed to have a dog didn’t pass.  I needed to be realistic and I needed to try again to get to the Boulder Humane Society.   A few days later I tried again, this time I turned the right way and found the place I had been looking for.

I was ushered into the kennel area with an older couple and a younger couple.

The set up was to take the laminated sheet of the dog you were interested in, up to the counter and they would set up a meeting.   The people are looking at the sheets on one side of the cage, and I am at the other side of the cages without the paper.  Just checking them each out, looking for a familiar face.

The elder couple is standing at the front of “Pasha’s” kennel.   They look over the paper, and write down her name.   “Pasha” is paying attention to me, so I ask her to sit. And she sits.  I ask her to lay down, and she lays down.  I ask her if she wants to come to play with me and she talks.  She doesn’t bark, she talks.  I already know in this moment she is mine.

 I grab her paperwork and go stand in the cue for a meeting.

The elderly couple is in front of me.  The volunteer asks to see the paperwork they are holding, they give it to her and they tell her that they would also like to see Pasha.  The volunteer asks them if they have Pasha’s paperwork.  They say “no”, and I sheepishly say, “I have Pasha’s paperwork.”

The volunteer tells the couple that she will set them up with the dog they chose first, and “If Pasha doesn’t go home with this kind lady today, we can set you up with a meeting with her.”  My heart is fluttering.

I already felt like I was so close to losing her and I didn’t even know her yet.

I chose to meet her in an outdoor kennel.  There were some toys and a baby pool.

Pasha and I were left alone to check each other out.

She didn’t want toys.

She could care less about the water.

She just wanted to be near me.

She listened as I talked to her, she leaned against my legs and talked back.

The elderly couple sat in the kennel next to me, their “first” dog of interest was frantic, jumping and barking. 

They looked over longingly at Pasha’s excited but mellow demeanor.  She did not jump on me, she did not lick or drool.  She just told me ” We found each other.”  And so I paid fifty bucks for the greatest love I would ever know up until this point.

I didn’t know what I was going to call her. 

Pasha didn’t fit, so for about a week, I called her IMA.

I.M.A.= Incredibly Magical Animal.

We slept together with all the cats in the top loft.  I would heft her up the crazy ladder that slipped out from underneath me more than once and our life together began.

I finally settled on the name Claddagh Moondancer Wonderdog.

Claddagh because of the Irish wedding band, the hands holding a heart with a crown, signifying “Love, Loyalty, and Friendship.”  She was my partner, and I would honor her as such through her name.

Moondancer came along when the snow fell, and Claddagh would lie about needing to go outside to go potty.  She would just want to slide upside down like a penguin on snow drifts.  She would prance through the thick blanket of white, like a deer.  Under a full moon, it looked like she was dancing on the moon itself.

Wonderdog is pretty self-explanatory.

My friend came home to her cabin full of cats and Claddagh and I camped out until the snow fell and we moved in with friends who needed some child care and help to start a small business.

Claddagh came with me to work every single day,

whether I was working at the New Moon cafe in Nederland, or working for my friends in Gilpin.  Every single day, my dog accompanied me, and I swore I would never work another job that would keep me from her for long periods of time.  I was blessed to have it work out so perfectly over the years.

I understand people get pets that they only see a little bit throughout the day or night… but I seriously got a companion.  She was more than “emotional support animal.” 

I didn’t have a doctors note or anything.

I just lived in an incredibly dog-friendly town, and Claddagh was the most loveable dog you could meet.  She treated everyone like they were there to specifically see her.

She would give her full attention and love.  She would talk to anyone who came into her sphere.

Only once, during our time together, did she sense that a person was “off”, and backed away as if disgusted.  It was like she hit an energy bubble, and she backed away as if to say “this isn’t a sphere I want to be in.”  The woman was homeless and talking to herself, she looked rather disturbed.

All the regulars at New Moon knew Claddagh. 

They loved her.

On my days off, I would grab a coffee and paint on the patio with Claddagh right beside me.  Once a week we would go on a date and get a burger and french fries and share it on the patio of First Street, and later Squirrels in Corvallis, Oregon.  Any place that served beer, burgers, and fries and had a dog-friendly patio, was my kind of spot. I met a lot of people because of Claddagh.

There is so much more to her story. 

I am going to cut this chapter off here.

There is so much to process.  My eyes are wet and dry at the same time.   I want to honor her.  If you are reading this, thank you for taking the time to get to know my best friend.  I look forward to sharing more about her as I am able to sit and write it all down.

Art, insight, life, Writing

Decipher the Cipher of Life aka Stranger than Fiction

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Yet again I am trying to downsize and further compartmentalize my life. Shed some of that heavy weight that no longer serves me. It’s hard to do because it requires me to dig into my past and this time it went to an even weirder zone.

Did you ever see that movie “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Ferrell?  If not, you should and then maybe you will get the same sensation about your own life, especially if you are the artistic or wordy type.

Basically, today I got the sincere feeling I have been writing my life out, before I actually live it… or something to that degree.  I can look at a piece of writing and know when and why I was writing it at the time, but the way I write things is subconsciously coded language.  I don’t know how or why this happens specifically, but I have some assumptions.

The thing about all of this is, I haven’t had a bad life, over all.  I’ve had a rudimentary amount of pain in comparison to other people.  My family is full of good people who tried their best to offer what they could within their means, and probably unbeknownst to me, went above and beyond when needed.

So all I can do is ask myself  “What the actual fuck?”

I am going to admit that most of my journals are a massive spiritual battle. It has been that way as far back as I have recorded my life.  The journaling started around age 12, but I can go back to certain creations done in Elementary School and see a depth that is or was seen as somewhat abnormal for a kid that age.

“She is five- going on thirty five.” My grandma would say when I was little.  I wanted to sit at the adult table.  I wanted to converse.  I had questions and quips beyond my years.  Spirit has been speaking to me forever.

Now perhaps this is just the byproduct of losing a parent at a young age and the feeling that I had to grow up quickly to compensate. Maybe I was just born this way.   Who knows?   I do know that I drove my mother crazy when I was just a small child.  Enough so, for her to strip me down to basically nothing and leave me on the front stoop with the old adage “If you don’t want to be here, you are going to leave the way you came in.”  Naked and shivering.

It’s okay.  My aunt lived a couple of blocks away, and my mom would call her and tell her to come pick me up.  She would come over, packed with some over-sized clothing that belonged to my cousin.  She would wrap me up and take me back to her place until the whole thing calmed down.

Once my dad said, “If your mom was still alive, you would probably be at each others throat.”  Sometimes I feel like I am getting that experience with my grandma.  It isn’t a “hate” or loathing issue… it’s just this weird temperament that arises out of our idiosyncrasies and difference in ideologies.  It’s the byproduct of being stubborn and bull headed while still having the best intentions in love.

A stranger once told me “It’s easier to paint yourself into a corner than it is to write yourself out of a box.”  That has stuck with me for over a decade.  I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but today, I think I got it.

It goes back to Abracadabra. A spell or incantation using the ABC’s.  This is why writing and words are magical.  This is how words hold a vibration that can influence the reality we live in… it’s the way you can send prayers or well wishes or destroy a life in a single breath.

My family can be traced back to the Druids on my Mother’s Father’s side.  There is some witchery in the blood, and that blood still courses through my veins.  I don’t purposely perform rituals or magik; I have a feeling there are a lot of us who don’t.  We settle on titles like “artist” or “writer” or “musician.”   We feel and feed on an indescribable power that fuels our creative spirit.   Words will almost magically manifest on the page without too much work.  We feel born knowing the Muses.  At least, this is how it has always been for me.

I haven’t had to try too hard in creative ways.  “It just comes to me.”

I don’t profess this as any sort of braggart, in fact, in this moment I am questioning all of it.  My family is a mixed up match of “tight lipped” and deceased, I don’t know where I can go to discuss this openly, so I leave it here for you, my few but beautiful readers.   I am realizing that I need to figure out a way to console myself.  Feel free to send suggestions.

“The calm before the storm” is over. I know it and I feel it with a force that is hard to describe. As I read through these papers and place them in a new container, I am god smacked..  I’ve predicted future patterns in my life with no intention of doing so; in alignment with that, the writing has predicted patterns of humanity and what would be worth our attention.  This leads me back a post I made about a week ago in regard to purpose and being a dreamer.  In this moment, I want nothing more than someone I could share the depth of this with, but I don’t have that someone, which is a reoccurring theme in my  personal writing that I rarely share.

I see in this moment that this specific loneliness is a representation of that spiritual battle.  We are all looking for connection in various ways.  I believe in Creation, I believe that Creation will not be out done.  I know I can’t out-create Creation.  That knowing can be overwhelming, like “why even try?” not to mention the clutter!  I make and make and make a mess and an abundance of stuff that may end up at a thrift store or a landfill.   I’ve carried paper around, weighing many many pounds over thousands of miles for what?

This moment.

This is the moment it all shifts.  I might not see the evidence of it immediately so I will leave room for it to shift as quickly as it wants to.

While going through things I stumbled on a good-bye note from a woman named Cecily Monk.  I didn’t know her well, or for very long but I really liked her personality.  She felt like a person that I would have had a long friendship with if we would have had more time together.

Anyway, when she left Keystone, Colorado I was at work and she left a note.

 

The last line is quite potent; “…and remember the journey of self discovery comes not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  So obviously she was a fan of Proust, or one of her teachers had the actual quote “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” on a motivational poster or something.

I like that she added the word “self” and “journey” because the timing is perfect for today.  Journey vs Voyage is appropriate because I perceive a Journey to be far more relaxed than a Voyage.  Voyage makes me think of a specific conquest, for which I have had none up until this point.  The actual Proust quote takes on a deeper meaning when I rehash my words and see that in fact, I have been on a Voyage but I didn’t know it.  And I have had conquest but I didn’t acknowledge it.

It all comes down to love and forgiveness. And this is going to be so hard because there is a lot of bad shit happening in the world right now.  But just like I am finding illumination in my own writing, we are going to find illumination in just how fucked up humanity has been by bringing it to light.

Today I wanted to get rid of EVERYTHING.  I was feeling oppressed at how much garbage we consume and throw away.  I was overwhelmed by the massive pressure of pain that is the human condition.  I wished I wasn’t part of it because there is no easy solution and by the looks of it, it’s only going to get worse.  I thought about all the mundane stuff we do on any given day just to maintain a “standard” of living.  I thought about all the people who loath the work they do just for a paycheck.

I kept thinking, and thinking about all the stuff I can not stand.  How disappointing all of our entertainment is because it’s coded and getting increasingly ominous in content. I thought about how my creative spirit has been lost because I can’t imagine things getting better and I am sick of rehashing this old script that we are being fed on the daily.  Believe it or not, I believe this rumination to be a good sign.  My art and dreams and writing tell me so.  We really are dancing on the tip of a needle right now.

As I dug through this box the skies turned dark outside.  A while letter the rain came pounding down in sheets.  I laughed out loud and asked if this was a baptism and as I went to shut the screen door the water was falling so fierce that it was splashing out of the rain gutters.  In the few seconds it took me to move the block in front of the door (which is actually a heavy concrete lawn statue of a sleeping man wearing a sombrero) I was soaked and a bit elated.

This isn’t over, though.   I had just begun this excavation and there were more treasures to dig up, so this is only a taste of what that was.  To a certain degree I’ve been pulled into my own mystery.  I am sure it is appropriate timing as next month I will turn thirty-eight.  My life has been amazing, it’s hard not to think it’s a shame that I have felt so heavy through all of it.  Even in times of levity, the gravity of reality has kept me solid and grounded.  Luckily people like that about me, but if they didn’t it wouldn’t really matter because it feels unchangeable.

Last night I re-watched Eternal Sunshine of the the Spotless Mind for the second time, since the first time years ago when it came out on video.  I saw it with new eyes, but I knew the story and when I watched it the story came flooding back.  Looking through my life in writing produces the same feeling.  (Another topic I could probably go to length writing about, but not right now.)

I sense that things are starting to sync up for me again and I am not sure what that means.  I will probably be able to glean some knowledge from further exploration but I don’t know if I will wake up with the energy to keep on tomorrow… or if I will sit in stasis again for a while.  I’ve been practicing forgiveness for myself, and part of that is finding patience when my desires are so vast.  Giving myself time to figure things out without a strict timeline.   It isn’t easy.  It’s hard not to compare myself to other people and their obvious accomplishments.  I think “I’m just sitting on a stack of paper.”  But that “stack of paper” is the analog archive of my life experience in a very raw form.

I like to journal like I like to go bowling.  I can have a couple of drinks and do something to the best of my ability in full enjoyment even if I suck at it.  I feel fulfilled by slapdashedly swinging my dominate hand around without expectation of high results.  It’s something to do that is totally dependent on my personal attitude at the time. I don’t fear judgement because most times I keep it to myself.  If you want to bowl alone, go at 1:30 pm on a Tuesday.  The only people in there are over 60 and there aren’t many of them.  Most are there just for the bar.  Every once and a while a bold elderly man may stop by and offer tips on your game.

It’s like this blog page.  I have like eighty people who follow me.  I get very little engagement and I am fine with that.  Sometimes I just have to express myself out in the world.  When I was younger I was under the impression that I didn’t actually have a voice in the world, or that no one cared what I had to say; now I think that just the right people stumble in at just the right time, not only for me, but for themselves.  My delusions of grandeur have been over for quite some time now.

This digging and sorting is going to continue.  It has to.  Something about “getting your house in order” feels appropriate right now.  May you find patience and forgiveness in yourself, and the strength to get your own house in order.

PS.  The heading image was something my mom wrote on a piece of paper.  I don’t have much of her writing, on the other side is a poem that many people find haunting.  I am not sure if the cipher works for the poem, but if I feel like it, I might see if it does.  If it does, that would be so cool.  On my mom’s typed page it is titled “Love Poem” and instead of “he” it is “she.”  Who knows?  Everyone loves a mystery and the author is unknown.

lovep

 

Art, insight, Writing

Dream Job

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I’ve sat here for years now, slowly attempting to kill myself for no discernible reason.  The deeper I dig the less I know.  Over these past years my passions have been purged, and I am left wondering what the point of all of this is, for me, specifically.  Once upon a time I was a person who felt a strong purpose for living.  I was certain I was something special, though there was nothing outward about me that would elucidate such a theory.

I came to think of myself as one of the dreamers.  My hands were never meant to stir the pots, but my dreams were ingredients to a larger stew.  I knew I wasn’t the only Dreamer, but at times it felt like I might be.  Something like the simulation theory, there was one player, playing many parts in the same game, but the avatars seemed clueless to this fact. I was one of the few who wondered why the others couldn’t see how obvious it all was.

Some people are born into the world a sleepy eyed blank slate.  They believe everything they are taught, and they are not taught to question and so they don’t until they are forced to. Once they start to question life starts to fall apart level by level.  Red pilled.  Life will never be the same.   Some refuse the red pill, they can’t face their fear of what is on the other side of the veil.

There are those like me born with one foot on the other side of the veil, and one foot grounded in the simulation.  A delicate dance of walking a wire between worlds.  It’s hard to explain the spiritual nature of existence to those who deny the spirit even exists.  Everyone is born knowing the spirit world exists however the purity in that knowing is often sullied within the first few years of life for a variety of reasons.

It can be a long, hard road getting back to that place of knowing and experiencing the spirit, once one shuts it down or turns it off.

I could never avoid the spiritual realm.  It would come to my dreams and in my waking life.  At times I felt as if there was a bubble of protection around me, which helped substantiate my theory of some purpose.  I figured that purpose would reveal itself as something tangible at some point, however I still feel like I am in a waiting room.

I start to wonder if part of the Dream Job, is to lose all desire for this world.  “To be in the World, but not OF the World.”  These days that is exactly where I exist.  In but not of this World.  I anticipate it’s collapse as I write this.  The signs are here that something big is on the horizon.  The Dreamers have sewn the Dream, and now the Integrator’s are weaving the Dream into the Fabric of Reality.  Restitching the pattern as we’ve known it.  All we need is enough people to man the Loom.  The rest will take care of itself because Spirit is on the side of change.  The expiration date grows ever closer.

We must become sick and disgusted before anything will change and that is why it is prophesied that there will be great upheaval.  Some will riot against Creation and Spirit.  Others will riot against Death and Destruction.   The spirit that drives these entities will have no recourse but to clash in a battle to the end.  It’s already told as to what side will prevail but that knowing doesn’t stop the course of events as they were written in the Time Template so long ago. There is nothing we can do about the outcome other than pick our sides wisely, there is a point coming where there will no longer be any grey area.  No middle ground, fence riding.  Simply, Hot or Cold.  Life or Death.skullface

Cheyenne, kittie cat, life, Writing

A Kittery Tale: Khajiit Finds a Furever Home with Jenny and Seneca aka, Khajiit turns Rock Star

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Okay, okay… A random cat finds you, you think it may be lost and you give it the freedom   to return to “home”,only “home” is now your house and she gets all prego… whaddaydo?

Watch life begin, of course.

The last 12 weeks have been brutal… for me.  Separations; mom wanting space, bigger poops in the litter box, everyone eating me out of house and home but ultimately jealousy.  Let me tell you about my late affection.

Little Rascal (now known as Khajiit) is one of the two calico’s from my tiny fur tribe.  She was the last one to offer me her sweetness.  When she finally gave forth, it was precious beyond words… but our beginnings were not so kosher.

In my observation Itty Bitty and Khajiit were in cat-hoots.  They like a bit of that bite and claw action.  If someone was biting at my toes, it was that Lil Rascal Khajiit. In the beginning there was minimal holding and reluctance to kiss; week 11 when Peanut Buddy (now Otto) left, the tides shifted. Lil Miss shifted from “battle bro” to “cuddle now.”  I had no complaints.  She jumped on the kissy train and settled down a bit.

Of course this begs the question of sibling dynamics, even in the animal world.  Catland was now fully saturated with females and one male, Big Boy .  Big Boy calmed down at least five fold without Peanut Buddy offering some male petition. Khajiit was in second place when it came to strength, size and agility without harassing Momma.  The Game was on.

Khajiit seemed to desire some self definition right away; she was a middle baby and despite her distinction in the looks department, her evasive nature made her hard to pin down or in human terms “force love upon”.   She seemed astute and willing to sit on the sidelines in order to form her own opinions.  I regret to say that more than once she was at the mercy of my clumsy nature around fast moving objects (namely my clumsy ass feet).  I definitely stepped on her tail more than once but always apologized and gave love afterward.   At one point I asked myself why it was always her that was at the mercy of my lack of grace…. obviously she came to grips with it because when she decided to love, it was super obvious.

All of sudden she wants to cuddle, FIRST!  Everyone else is running around like an idiot and she is like “Nah, I’m gonna grab that sweet warm spot behind the shaggy fat persons legs.”  History is made!  But Her Story is just beginning.

Jenny and Seneca wanted a kittery.  They NEEDed a kittery; my house is like a cat drug den… who will fall victim?  After Otto left, I let them all know ‘Some one is waiting for you,  and they can’t wait to show you a whole new world.”  Before Jenny came over to meet and greet, I told them “It’s equal opportunity, but I have my feelings.”   For some reason I knew LIL would make her mark in the introductory love department, and she did not disappoint.

Jenny came over for a meet and greet with a nature so gentle, I am sure all of them were surprised.    That nature is just what Lil needed if only to give them a run for their money.   Jenny wants to toilet train and walk on a leash and that is exactly the kind of world exposure newly named Khajiit needs.  A whole new world of love and adventure. Independence and dependence with the perfect balance of personality.

Khajiit is currently causing a riff of jealousy with her kin; within 48 hours of being in her new home she was given the opportunity to star in a music video from SunnyDale High, Seneca’s rad Wyoming band that thematically follows Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  Khajiit is going to be a hit.

You should definitely check out her acting debut with a great soundtrack by Seneca’s band.  Also you should definitely check out Sunnydale High when they play WARPED Tour this summer in Denver, if you do, you should tell them  “Khajiit sent you.”

May all my kitteries rock and find their love-home dreams come true.

Check out Khajiit’s debut and Sunnydale High’s music at this adorable link.

May the Meows be with you, Lord Kittery knows we all could use it right now.

 

 

 

 

 

insight, life, Politics, Writing

Conspiracy

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In the last few years, a few of my closest friends have shown a disgust for how I think; when once it seemed that was one of their favorite attributes in my personality.

Perhaps they think that I think that the world is out to get us, or maybe that I have fear of my fellow human.  The word conspiracy has that effect on people, on purpose.   You are either “in” or “out” of it.  Those who stay out of it generally take what they are given verbatim without thinking too much about any of it, and then when the time is right, they regurgitate it in order to protect themselves.  It’s safe, it’s something to cling to and gosh darn it four out of five professional/experts/doctors/scientists agree.

Fact: We live in a hierarchical structure of natural  power. Humans interpret it as a Hierarchical structure of CONTROL.  (In Nature, a large cat could pounce on you and kill you in an instant.  In Man Made Control, you know that you don’t want to be killed by a large cat, and therefor you make legislation to limit the amount of cats thereby “humanely hacking Nature” so that you can “protect the human population that is growing into lands that large cats inhabit.”  You hire a good looking suit to deal with nitty-gritty nature (just an example of NOT working with nature and focusing solely on self preservation and growth from a safe citizen stand point.)

Why do you think a large cat might kill you, if it isn’t hungry?  It knows you are in their territory. Boundaries are real in biology. We kill wild animals like we kill “wild/ undomesticated” humans.  We invade and take over and kill the population down until it no longer feels like a threat to the agenda.  This shit is real, AND repetitive, folks.

No One becomes something out of nothing.  We live within a structure of levels; natural and imposed.  If you seek to ascend the levels, whether it is in a gang; tribe, pack, job, corp, MLM scheme, or even government… You gotta pay your dues and the work usually pays off by climbing the ladder.  Even our education system is built around passing tests and making the grade.

“Uhm did you even graduate?  But, like, did you GET your degree?” 

This construct of existence is embedded into us from conception and is further reinforced once we enter the world.

Fact:  Hierarchical structures will never lend to equality in any place but Nature, the Natural Way.

When I talk about equality, I am not talking about the subjective definition of “feminism” or Black Lives Matter movement.  I am talking about every living being, playing a fair field in survival and consequence. Nature is just as brutal as it is forgiving.  We don’t have to tell it what to do *edit*Yet there are things we can do that assist the natural order.  YES!  Arnica helps with bruises!  Yes!  Turmeric helps with inflammation and pain.  Nature also works with us, the natural organisms existing on it. (That doesn’t mean that humans aren’t trying to find a loophole or hack beyond that.  Google Cloud Seeding in Drought Areas.  We are in the heyday of humans trying to control the thing that naturally sustains their life without comment or opinion.)  This also means that sometimes certain people are struck by lightening more than once.  What does it mean when we have a conversation with nature or the world around us, and then integrate it into our present circumstances?   The process can actually share a lot of into.

Before there was democracy, there were kingdoms; Matriarchal societies, small tribes, councils, prophets, tribunals, cults and that one asshole snake oil salesman, etc.   Each society  has taken a stab at trying to control themselves and anyone in eye sight.    Even in small sedate groups of friends, you will find an “Alpha” that drives the dynamic.  There is a certain order to Nature that man seems to think he can perfect, as to streamline command in times of trouble or discomfort. (Note, usually the drive to do this is incredibly selfish and not at all about the greater collective.  The charisma drives the agenda.  This is how one good looking and well spoken person, can lead a “revolution” that is purely based on a selfish agenda.  If you look good; sound good, have money and press to back you, things can get Gold(en)). Everyone wants to be on the “Sunny Side of the Street.”  Currently we are sitting in a spit stew of people who have barreled forward this way.  The House Of Cards is Ready to Crumble.  Charisma and money are not a Savior.

This is not to say that Hierarchy is wrong; more so, it is to say that this is an unavoidable dynamic in the construct we not only collectively support, but also live in, and with some intro/retrospection, could probably address better as a collective.  As it stands, the one with the most money and sponsors wins; they win public opinion; they alter the course of research, and they justify the use, misuse or under-usage of that which belongs to ALL OF THE PEOPLE.

This may seem fair if you find agree-ability to an agenda or personality,  but it isn’t  fair at all due to the huge disparity of financial equity that holds this structure in place. ( I feel bad for people who send their spare $5 to a candidate that is given thousands if not millions by large corporations.  Do you feel like you are actually “contributing”?  Of course you feel “invested in a cause” if you send your last five dollars… you are scraping by as-is.  That five dollars was the last bit of hope you had wishing for a better future.  That must feel futile and draining.)

This dynamic is as old as time and will seemingly continue to play out in repeat until all of us get the clear picture of how this play continues in repeat.

Let me give you an example, since so many people are going to the polls today in places like California.

The program has always been:  VOTE!  Your VOTE matters!  YOU can Make a Difference!  Get to those polls!

If you were anything like me,  your first time voting, you did some research, got fired up and took to the poll box, only to find that the person you wanted to vote for was not on the ballot.  In the state of Wyoming where I took my first vote, they told me “If you write in a candidate, you lose your vote.”  (This would lend to my later years of not voting, because, like, am I really losing a vote if I don’t vote? Or am I voting by purposefully stepping out of the game?”)

People are increasingly getting disinterested in the voting aspect of politics because they know it can be hacked, and when your options are limited in a swing state, and you feel vehemently opposed to a candidate it isn’t a (personal) vote of the least offensive.  That is the crap about voting, it will always be polarized by the system and finacially supported by backers with the most cash=influence.   One that alone an election is always going to be in imbalance.

In that first voting experience I was CRUSHED! I was discouraged from writing in a vote.

I live in a swing state ( Highly influenced by the Electoral College), there was no use in putting in a vote for my choice ( at the time Ralph Nader).  I was two months into being 18 and the Presidency had been so hyped up that local politics was drowned out by mainstream division.  Despite being crushed, I tried again four years later in the same location, this time, giving the vote to someone on the ballot.  G.W.Bush.  I wanted my vote to count and I only had two options; not to mention Wyoming is obviously a Red State, and those comments in my first voteable election “shook” me.

During my second vote-able season I was involved in a non-denominational church , our church was on a hill over looking town by the notorious water tower… The night of the election we had bible study; we prayed over our town, while holding hands in a circle praying that GWB would make office.  During that prayer my hands were sweating and it felt like a very wrong thing to do.   A couple of handfuls later, 9/11 was a reality.

What happens when humans hijack natural hierarchy?

Nature,  when left to it’s own devices, does what Nature does.  It lives and dies; thrives and regresses, changes and adapts toward its best balance.

When man in his “so-called infinite wisdom”, attempts to dominate natural flow, it all comes back to bite… eventually.   I wonder if anyone else feels the pressure of impending pain, but not in the ways we are told it will play out.

I want you to meditate on this, because people immediately assume that if we didn’t have a man made power structure, that we would destroy ourselves or that Nature would take us out.  That conclusion in my opinion is only partially true.  Let me explain.

Nature seeks balance.  Man seeks dominance.  There is your TLDR.

Yes, if we relied on Natural Law, people would die.  They would die of stupidity, rage and over confidence.  They would also die naturally and accidentally like they already do.  People would still die the ways they have always died, but maybe even less often given our deathfood/ deathcare system, or maybe more, because it seems like there are a lot of imbalanced people existing in this world. This is not to say that I want people to die; it’s just fact that we all will, eventually.  When Nature seeks balance, it actually takes each one of us into account.  We don’t always see how that plays out for an individual.  A certain amount of trust is asked.  You may even call it “faith” or “karma”.  Ultimately it is the trust that “everything works out for the best”  “even shit can be turned into diamonds”.  (it’s all carbon, right?”)

It is to say that I think it is strange that any human could live on earth to be 20-100 years old and think they know better than the Earth knows itself, which has been around for as long as we know based on our biological data.  This is to say that despite how long we have been recording data, not one of us still has 100% substantial proof of how things actually operate.  (This goes for everything.  We know a fraction of what there is to “be known”.  Is anyone really an “expert?”)  Formulas, Math, Theories and Philosophies are a start, so where does this weird “control matrix” dominate the paradigms?

We can work with the Earth, we can try and work with it the best we can; but history shows it was programmed to ADAPT to almost anything (note, it hasn’t totally disappeared yet), as were humans and other animals/ biological organisms.  Our amazing ability to adapt has been both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at it.  We humans, seem to be the only entities commenting or making opinions about it (unless you follow Channels) The Earth Speaks, no doubt, but it really doesn’t care what you think nor does it take your opinion into account when it does what it does.

In my opinion; I view the Earth to be amazingly resilient and adaptable, full of humor and tragedy.  She actually seems like the LEAST LIKELY entity to ultimately self destruct when it comes to planetary biology.   People who think that ultimate planetary destruction by the planet’s upset alone have no basis for this planet reaching that end.  From what I can tell from history, our planet is SUPER FORGIVING.   It seems like a pretty pessimistic and “speck in the dust” kind of attitude to think that Earth is trying to shake us off of it like a disease.

I counter: that this “Man Made Hierarchy” is to blame for attitudes that lend to the aforementioned philosophy.  “Man, always thinks he can make everything better.”

“For what would the Earth be, without Man?”

Probably a pretty awesome self sustaining unit of balance.

“But what would Man be, without the Earth?”

Well He, She, It… wouldn’t exist.  Tell me again about the Center of the Universe and how we all live out selfish microcosms while neglecting the Macro Cosmic Truth;

None of this exists, as it is, if humans were not part of the equation. Their thoughts, feelings and input would be vacant in this greater space we call “Our Own, Our Home”.  Our greater Origin matters in the context of all things relevant in this modern society looking quite defunct under the microscope of function and relation.  Seeking in these little hubs of humanity, individuals grasping at balance.  Truly asking how they can adapt, change and work with the greater entity that sustains our fragile lives.

In Natural Law, the greatest power in construct, is CREATION itself.  The cosmic conscious pattern of play that is the overlay that creates the reality we call reality, either subjectively or objectively.  We become the centers of our own Universe by the construct of our minds.   We either agree or disagree on major and minor points, but at the end of the day we each have to go to bed with ourselves and our personal views.

In my observation, the Macro and Micro always reflect and somehow come back to center.  It is not chaos, it is not unorganized or random/coincidental.  Everything, Every Thought, Every Action follows a pattern that can be observed as above (telescope) or so below (microscope) and is filtered through a slit experiment of observation and opinion; further filtered by logic, rhetoric and reasoning.  There is no room for name calling (ad hominems), this isn’t a place for Devils advocate.  These are equal organisms sharing a home looking to support the best function and structure of the Home.

99% of what you think you should care about, doesn’t actually matter.  The 1% that matters, if you pay attention to it and tend to it, will ripple in effect 100 fold.

“Fix Yourself before you Try and Fix Others.”

When you fix your home, you feel more comfortable.  When you feel more comfortable, others immediately feel more comfortable with you, and doubly so when they are in your home.  Your body is your home.  Your mind is your home, your house is your home… your Earth is your home.  Treat yourself the way you would have others treat you.  Treat your home or Earth the way you would have others treat it. We are all seeking a certain amount of Trust.  It is a basis for strong foundations.

Fact:  We learn by example.

This speaks for itself.  Be conscious of those who influence you, and be aware of how you influence others. Be true to yourself, and seek Truth to share.

You may call conspiracy on me but the only conspiracy is silence and lies.

 

I’d love to start a podcast, or just continue writing on this topic, but the lash back from close people is hard.  Perhaps you are a follower and like topics like this… hit me up, send a donation, like the post or leave a comment.

I love the interaction and would love to see more of it.

Peace be with you beautiful people.

 

 

insight, kittie cat, life, Writing

A Kittery Tale: My Body is a Playground

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These five rascally little critters are creeping upon nine weeks old.  Which means they are jumping; skipping, side-sliding and scaling EVERYTHING.  Take for instance my legs and my need to wear two pairs of pants because each and every one of these kitteries has taken a running jump onto my calf and attempted to crawl up as far as the fabric would take them.  They are like little lumber jacks, or ice climbers.  They selectively use their claws in unimaginable ways.

Recently they have taken this skill to a whole new challenge with similar height restrictions, but a broader playing area: my back, while cleaning the litter box.  There I am all hunched over feces, making sure everyone is feeling confident about their next poo when one or more of them take a running leap at my back.  I mean, obviously claws are involved in this, they are learning the the “running-jump and cling”.   This may or may not be a problem for me on any given day on account of what shirt I am wearing and the surface area that it covers plus thickness of material or lack there of.  “Lack of material” immediately inserts a negative into the question which = claws in skin which may be multiplied by the depth of penetration.

I never thought my body would be a playground.  I never knew that someone should recommend wearing Carharts, gloves and denim in order to deal with furry, sharp-sharp furriness.

Here is the juxtaposition that makes it even harder… They can be SO gentle and sweet; it is selective and you have to pay attention and the less you pay attention the more likely you are to meet some sort of feline wrath.

Perhaps you are a seasoned kitterycat enthusiast/ companion; for me this is my third instillation of “learning experiences” that have been growing more intense over time and as I’ve mentioned before, my first “hands on from birth of the feline species” experience.  I really didn’t know what to expect and what people told me to do, I kind of bounced it around and felt it out, ultimately disregarding it to the degree of augmenting it and seeing what worked in my situation.

I am by no means disappointed, in fact this whole thing has been amazing but not always perfect.

You know how I was saying that one needs to pay attention to the feline signs?  Well I do, over all; certain calls for food or new litter (and in Quantum’s case, to go outside or the fact she is tired of her kin), the kittens are in the experimental hunting phase of looks, eye connection (or lack thereof) and “mad-dogging”.

Here is how it usually goes down:   I want to lay down and primarily settle down for the night but the minute I walk through the door everyone wants attention and they are fired up.  When they are fired up they wrestle and run around and jump on everything or claw anything until their tiny little muscles say “STOP!”

I lay in bed and they treat me like some Kittery CrossFit that includes; running laps, using my bun like a weighted rope, high diving off of shelves and stealthily trying to bite/lick my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and chin.  If I was more invested I would come up with proper names for the crazy events this clan of Kittery participates in, daily.

My least favorite event, is “Stare Her Down With Looks Of Love And Then Take Swift Bats At Her Face.”  A kittery will get all close to my face hole; all big eyes and looks of curiosity.  Then they start bobbing around a little, probably because they are focusing on a place on my face to plant a claw (if they are ruthless) or just a paw (if they are somewhat scary yet playful)  and then it is “GAME ON”.   My hands already look like I not only cut myself (for fun, of course) but also as though I have experienced the “stigmata”… raisin’ kitteries ain’t easy.

Admittedly I have had to learn to retaliate from this physical abuse.  Some of the events in my height and weight Cat-agory are ” Shake ‘Em Off Like a Dog”, Human Earth Quake, Kittery Toss, and Quicker Reflexes.

I think “Kittery Toss” is fun for everyone.

When I walk through the door, they know my gait coming down the hall.  They not only swarm but also they try and escape.  I suppose it isn’t appropriate to kick them around like soccer balls, so, I pick them up one by one and gently toss them (American Quaterback Football Style) onto my bed.   If one goes, they all watch and they jet quickly to greet their tossed sister or brethren on the landing pad with some good ole fashion kitty wrestling.    I just keep tossing them up there and they just keep coming back for more.   It’s the one event that seems to leave me uninjured and the kitteries highly entertained.

If you want to read about the first two episodes click here Quantum Express~ A Kittery Tale and here A Kittery Tale: Sleep Deprivation and Emerging Personalities.