When it is not your dog

One of the strange truths about owning "nothing" (except clothes, books, a little artwork, and small treasures) is that, in an odd sense, you own everything. 

In the past, I never thought of myself as a dog person, or a pet person, given that I didn't have a stable place to house myself much less an animal. However, in the last five years or so, I have become very fond of two dogs who I had the privilege of living with. So I came into my most recent living situation knowing that something new was true of me -- I am capable of loving a dog. And slowly over the last fifteen months or so, I've grown to love the dog that lives here. I've been her constant presence off and on during the day, and take her for short walks. At times, I've been the person feeding her, or caring for her on the odd weekend. She has the most amazing eyes, and increasingly I've felt that, indeed, she "sees" the world in a profound way, and may even understand when I talk with her. Not being her owner, I found that I often tried not to love her too much. Coming from the background I come from, this isn't a good thing, "trying not to love", but I also have boundaries. Confusing.

On Wednesday, she disappeared. I won't go through the whole story, but she appears to be gone, despite a huge search effort. It doesn't help that winter finally hit with a vengeance, and we've had, like,10 degree F temperatures and 40 mph winds, which adds to the heartbreak. If it had had to happen, why not when it was 40 degrees with 10 mph winds? 

I miss her terribly, the sound of her footsteps running up and down the stairs, her scratching at the back door, her eager attention when I opened up a can of tuna or soup. I miss walking her. I don't enjoy walking for the sake of it, but to walk a dog is fine. She would sometimes look up at me, like, can't you walk faster? But then she'd slow down and poke around in the dirt, and it would be me trying to get her to move along. She trusted me, and I trusted her. I had come to love her, and I think she really, really liked me (and possibly loved!). 

When it is not your dog, not too many people offer you condolences, and since no one knows what happened, it's one of those grey etiquette areas anyway. But I can tell that my heart must be far more open than it has ever been, because it has broken. I know there is no death in the divine mind (and no loss), and I know she wasn't "mine", but it will be a long time before I don't see her and hear her everywhere I go.

What I am most thankful for

It has taken nearly a decade, but I think I can finally say with some honesty that I am thankful for having had the kind of father I had, the kind that could not love -- not even himself, I dare say. His only interest was himself and his own comfort, but I don't think there was even a tiny thread connecting him to any kind of genuine Love.

Why is this something to be thankful for, when it was the catalyst for so much pain and confusion? I think it is because I finally realize that without that experience, I wouldn't understand so many things going on around me, nearby and on the world stage. When you have spent a lifetime unsuccessfully trying to change someone, or get them to at least see you, it's a little easier to accept that there are other people and situations similarly impossible to budge, similarly impervious to love. 

Examples of non-Love seem to be becoming more and more frequent, and more and more spectacular. If it hadn't been for my dad, I might have gotten locked into fighting mode -- it helped me understand that there is another option, manifesting the contrasting spectacular energy of love/beauty/understanding/harmony, and letting other energies fall away.

Overall, I have become more of a thankful person these last few years. Whether it is age, COVID, or higher levels of wisdom, I don't know, but I find myself spontaneously thanking the Goddess for everything from walking safely to the bus stop, to finding what I was looking for at the store, to hearing from an old friend, to the correct working of my body (!) Seriously! I was able to walk safely up a flight of stairs? Thank the Goddess. My shoulder hurts? Thank the Goddess that for nearly 68 years it never hurt! I'm living where there is a working washing machine? Thank the Goddess...you get the picture. I wasn't always able to live in a consistent place of gratitude, but now that I've finally got to that neighborhood, thank the Goddess. It's one of those spiritual lessons you can read about in books until the proverbial cows come home, but until you hit the "mother lode" within yourself, it doesn't matter. To whoever is reading this, I am thankful for you, and hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving!

Freakishly Warm

Yup. Duluth, Minnesota was freakishly warm this week, reaching 60 yesterday. I mean, when the global climate chaos effects are delightful (walking barefoot on the back stoop or to take out the trash, needing only a light jacket at a time of year when you are normally tackling snowbanks, ice, and below zero windchills...), I guess you have to simply enjoy it. On Wednesday, I sat in the sun down at the beach near Canal Park, amazed to be feeling just a light south breeze, not the frigid gales of November roiling down the lake. Yesterday, the promised cold front blew in, but it remains relatively mild.

Still, there's something slightly ominous about it all. The light is all wrong, for one thing. The sun is too low in the sky. The trees are bare of leaves, and most of the lawns are finally brown. So to see people walking down the street in tee shirts is jarring. To hear the return of spring birds (however beautiful) is jarring. 

And it continues to be jarring to hear assorted news items about communities trying to adapt to global warming, corporations and nations negotiating limits on this and changes to that. This action, while perhaps well-meaning, seems to me to mask the harder truth, that our modern way of life is completely at odds with protecting Nature. Creating more and more goods for more and more people, to be consumed then tossed out -- well, I just don't think it was ever in alignment with Goddess energy or can become so at this late date. I don't believe the Goddess thinks in terms of money (perhaps that's just my personal projection though!!!). But heck, all these generations we have taken "natural resources" without paying for them. There hasn't been a "bank" where we've paid Her for every gallon of oil, or every tree, or every ounce of ore, or every fish, or breath of fresh air...etc. And even putting money aside, for the most part we never even thanked Her (and I include myself, although finally, genuine gratitude has started to take hold). So now, we feel the longterm effects of the one-sidedness of this relationship. And unless our actions start to weigh in the direction of "loving Nature" rather than "saving humanity", they may have little effect. And they may have little effect at this late date, anyway.

How to proceed without despair? Complete rootedness in the present and awareness of the beauties that cross our path. This morning, I had an existential moment where I couldn't believe that the sun (91 million miles from earth) was shining on me. For the first time in 68 years, I realized the miracle of it all. Perhaps in that sense, it's never too late to change?

I'll Never Understand

As happened last time, I had a whole 'nother plan for today's blog but my mind keeps gravitating to the wars being waged in this world. Talk about falling into a dark hole.

It is something I will never understand -- how and why humans hurt and kill other humans. Perhaps it is the perspective of being post-duality and post-conflict...but I simply do not get it, on any level. How can any person or group of people feel they have the right to cut short another human life (or ten, or a thousand, or a million)? And this isn't one of those things where if it's my country, I'm all for fighting...no, I don't think it is acceptable anywhere in the world, by anyone, for any reason, including self-defense. There will never be a "war to end all wars" -- unless it literally ends human life on earth. The only way to end wars (longterm) is for individuals to commit to complete and utter personal nonviolence, and then walk forward fearlessly and weapon-free, not holding on to whether you live or die, and not holding on to how other people or groups think of you. 

Am I completely adept at this? No. There are moments when someone I encounter raises my hackles, and I feel stressed, defensive, or fearful. I try really hard to arrive at an immediate understanding of what the core fear was for me in the situation...and  sometimes I manage to do that quickly enough to apologize to the person, sometimes not. Yesterday, a complete stranger said, "Do you mind if I ask you your name?" And I said, "Yes" and kept walking down the street. (Yes, I did mind!) My inner big city girl found this just too strange, and I felt kind of off-kilter for a good hour or more. Perhaps this young man meant well, or perhaps he meant ill; I'll never know. As a woman, I always feel somewhat vulnerable. But would I ever carry a weapon to attack such a person? No. 

I'm tired, too, of a lifetime of grieving all the lives cut short. I guess that's a subject for another day. In the end, I can't help but feel that I've already lived in an era where they "studied war no more", and all I can do is make it real in me today and hope there is a small ripple effect.

Goddess Words 23: Home

Not too surprisingly, I have struggled with this post. When you have never had a permanent home, when you've spent so (relatively) little time in the country (or the creative field) where you originally felt most at home, it's an uncomfortable, sharp-edged concept. Then, when you look out at a world where growing numbers of people are homeless, displaced, exiled, on the move, and in despair, you realize how completely unwieldy the "issue" of home is...not to mention all the damage we humans have done to our earth home. I wrote a long essay yesterday, but I just completely erased it and am starting again.

I mean, in the end, when you are Goddess-centered and post-duality, there are few "homes"/energetic matches here on earth, in the current paradigm. Over the decades, you may be tolerated, looked at crosswise, kept on temporarily, seen as a figure of humor, or even feared. But once people come close to understanding who you are, very few can fully welcome you. Because in the end, for me, "home" is less a physical place than it is an energy of genuine welcome. Genuine delight in your presence. Genuine acceptance. It's hard to be fully accepted when you represent a reality that doesn't really exist yet.

Of course, it works both ways. It's been hard to be loving, to put down roots (or work effectively in any manner) in a world that is so violence- and hatred-driven. It is like being a seed tossed down on a parking lot. There are so few spots where the tendrils of love, beauty, joy, and harmony can take root...virtually none, at times. I myself have been in despair, and had no option but to go out on the road to regroup, over and over and over. Yet by the time I wrote my "The Words of the Goddess" list in the early 2000's, I clearly had begun to see Her values as my "home". I had clearly begun to understand that I had volunteered for the exploratory, scout-in-the-wilderness role I've played these last 68 years, wrenching as it has been. I suspect that many decades from now, when the values of the Divine Feminine have finally taken root, "home" will have completely new meaning for all of us. We will understand that we are of Her, and of our beautiful planet, whatever is left of it by then...We will also understand that everyone we meet is playing the role in this grand drama that they signed up to play, and we will warmly welcome them -- at best, with genuine love and delight, and at the very least, as necessary and valuable teachers. We will understand that this is their home too, and never send them away.

A Split Screen

Although I spend relatively little "screen time" compared to most people, not having a smart phone, I still do watch some television every day. Interestingly enough, most of it has a mildly competitive "energy", as I think I have mentioned -- "Jeopardy", "The Voice", "Antiques Road Trip". At the commercial breaks, I cannot help but see what is being advertised, even when I mute the sound. And that is what is on my mind today.

Obviously, the products being advertised are increasingly hi-tech, informed by AI, and, heck, "clever". I mean, human ingenuity is an amazing thing. I would never, ever, deny that. Yet most of the objects being advertised are way, way beyond my means (phones, homes, cars, gadgets of all kinds). And if they are beyond my means, how. much further are they beyond the means of a large percentage of the world population? And putting cost completely aside, what good are any of these items to people living with war, starvation, loss of homes, jobs and power due to climate change, political turmoil, you name it?

For better or for worse, the split screen is always with me. I may see impossibly "smart" cars and houses in the ad, and happy people using them, but I also "see" war's devastation. I "see" impossible social imbalances, sickness, poverty and pain. Perhaps living in that liminal place is the challenge of being a mystic.

More fancifully, perhaps, I "hear" something when I watch those ads on mute. I hear childlike voices saying, "Wow! Aren't I clever! Isn't this amazing? Aren't I wonderful!" I "hear" and "feel" pride and even hubris. I keep thinking back to one of my favorite books of all time, Elizabeth Dodson Gray's Patriarchy as a Conceptual Trap (1982). In it, she suggests that over time, men created a "culture to reassure" themselves that their achievements are as important as women's timeless roles in the creation of homes and family. Forty years later, this little book seems to be more thought-provoking than ever...and I suppose it is a measure of my own narcissism that I'm proud that she was a "fellow" Smith College graduate. I wish I had met her.

In the end, the litmus test for both sides of the screen is, is it love? Not just "loving the process of creating", which I share. (Or even what must be, for some people, the "love" of conflict.) The test is, does the creation or action reflect love of all of humanity, of all plant and animal life on earth, of earth itself? Is it created out of a heartfelt desire to extend the human experiment well into the future? 

All I Can Do Today

Over the last few months, I have been the regular recipient of pre-read issues of the New York Times, as I may have mentioned. Like most former New Yorkers, I used to read the newspaper "religiously", and I was interested to see how I might respond now, after so many years away. I don't know whether it is this particular time frame or too much time having passed, but I have found the experience almost completely overwhelming.

In a sense, scanning the headlines has the same impact on me as hearing similar soundbites on radio or television news: my reactions range from complete mystification to active horror. With the exception of some articles about the arts, food, culture, and design, everything seems steeped in hatred, conflict, fear, competition, thoughtless waste, and distrust, sensations that feel more foreign to me with every passing day. I feel like I am no longer reading about planet earth, but some other "place". Have I changed, or has the world changed?

I keep grappling with how we were taught to love our "enemies". Yet when an entire world seems to operate in ways that are unbearably painful, this seems like an impossibility. Or worse, to open the door to hypocrisy. Even "loving the people but hating what they do" is too dualistic and too much of a high wire act for me. And fighting everything is out of the question.

All I seem to be able to do today is remind myself that as increased levels of love enter the world, many people will be as mystified and horrified as I am now. Love may not compute with them, or will be as much of a struggle for them as our current paradigm has been for some of the rest of us. All I seem to be able to do today is accept that humanity is on quite a complex journey, and it's much bigger than I am, and I cannot control anyone but myself.

I'm going to give it a few more weeks. If by Thanksgiving I am not enjoying this newspaper reading (or really, "perusal"!), then I guess I will thank the donor but turn down future copies. What will I do today in love? Get together with dear friends, walk a dog, give away some homemade cookies, and appreciate my view of "my" great lake. That's all I can do. That is, literally, all that I can bear.