Tribal Love

Some of my nearest and dearest got together yesterday, to celebrate our beloved Nancy's birthday. Together we laugh. We cry. We share. We vent. We rejoice. We hold one another's confidences, fears, triumphs, joys and struggles. We prayerfully support each other, and those forms of prayer are as varied as we are.

When three hours feels like three minutes, that is one of life's greatest pleasures.

When the world seems to be falling down around us, and it's easy to despair, we need each other more than ever. To break bread together, raise a glass and share in deep love and respect, is healing and holy.

Here's to turning another year wiser.

Here's to turning towards one another in our homes, communities and greater world.

Here's to turning up the love.

Aging

"The dog is outside," my husband informs me, as he walks through the kitchen one last time, before going to work, and happens to see the poor dog on the back porch.

"Please let her in," I reply.

"How long has she been out there?" he asks.

"I don't know - 15 minutes?"

Getting defensive I say, "It's nothing short of a miracle that I'm only as crazy as I am, and not any crazier. I can't hold a thought in my head, and it doesn't help that try as I might, I'm constantly interrupted with absolute minutiae."

We laugh.

"Blog that," he says.

And it's true. I should be a lot crazier. 

Poor Flicka Link comes in, after waiting way too long at the door, patient and obedient as ever. 

I see Flicka aging almost by the day, now. I saw that with my mother-in-law, too, each time I saw her that last year of life, she was noticeably older. It's like that first dramatic year of life, in reverse. 

We have non-slip rug pads on all the stairs - inside and out. She sometimes needs help getting up and down them, and we keep that to a bare minimum of times each day. Next step will be moving a twin mattress to the floor of the living room, and sleeping in there with her. She needs to sleep next to me, and I need to fulfill that need. 

Flicka has had a long life of faithful service, some we know the details about, and some we don't. She can hardly see due to cataracts, and has trouble hearing. I think there may be some dementia going on - she seems confused. She is full of large, benign tumors, and her legs give out on her. She could, ironically, use a guide dog right about now. 

I will be her guide.

We are Them

Been in close communication with my friend and yours, Ilonka Michelle O'Neil. Ilonka lives in Florida, and I've been worried sick about how Irma is going to affect her. Her husband and kids are locked down at the hospital, where her husband works. She is home alone with the dogs, being the warrior and brave soul that she is. 

She posted on Facebook this morning, assuring us she was okay, providing an update, and ending with: 

"Sometime today turn off The Weather Channel/news. Take a break from it. Instead maybe sit quietly and think about our beautiful earth and what she is trying to tell us? Fire. Wind. Water. Smoke. Earthquakes. 

Let's ask her what she needs. Let's finally listen."

Wrote an email to Suzanne Finnamore, who suggested I post the email to my blog. Here is our exchange:

Sat with Mary this morning in my closet, and drew a card. Drew Our Lady of Sacred Sisterhood from the deck Mother Mary Oracle Cards The question in my heart was: How do we respond to what our Mother Earth is trying to tell us? The fires. The hurricanes. The earthquakes. It feels like since the eclipse, all hell has broken loose. I feel like Trump is accelerating the going-to-hell process, but we were headed there anyway. It’s so easy to despair, to retreat, to rage against “them.”

But what can we do? I’ve been listening to more of Charles Eisenstein, he seems to me to be one of the smartest and wisest thought leaders of our times. 

I feel that the “second coming” I heard about all throughout my childhood, is here. Now, I believe that to be our call to awaken. It’s the Christ in us, that is “coming,” the best of us, our true selves at the soul level, that must arise. It’s going to be the feminine energy that overcomes all the destructive male energy that’s gotten us where we are today, in my opinion.

Have you been spending time with the oracle cards? What does Mary say to you these days?

Her reply: 

You know what Mary says?

We are them.