All posts by tasara

Ethics and Safety in Magical Activism

Lots of people are wondering what they can do to support the forces of love, equality, justice and democracy at this time. Yes, we all need to get out there and march if we can. We need to think about how we show up and what energy we are putting out. But in-between those times, we can use our spiritual talents, too.

Things to ask before entering magical activism are:

  • Is the practice safe for us?
  • Is the practice ethical?

Safe Practices

The reason I bring up safety as a foremost consideration is because there are a lot of people doing magical work on the political level, and many of them are far more powerful than you or I. To go to battle with such forces is liable to wipe us out. The good news is that there is no reason to work in these fields of energy. There are plenty of powerful, essential and needed works that can be done in other ways.

First, let’s talk about why going to battle is not a good idea. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of forces out of there, collectively, and individually that are far more powerful than we are. The act of going to battle is a violent act, functioning in a field of violence, so it just makes sense that there’s a high risk of experiencing violence. Not only is it possible to be harmed while doing this work, it is possible to be energetically tracked by other beings and people who may want to create messes in our lives on a long-term basis.

Isn’t life hard enough already?

There are plenty of blind spots and weaknesses that can be taken advantage of without violence. For example, institutions that are doing harmful work can only do it in the dark. The people who are supporting that work also need to be in the dark. This brings up ideas of doing magical workings to bring the truth to light. However, because everything bounces back on us, only people who don’t have things to hide would be perfectly safe doing this sort of work.

Even better than that is the work we can do to make ourselves and our communities stronger. It is more fun. The work itself is nourishing and inspiring. It supports our psychic health and our energetic fields become stronger, making us safer.

Not only is it dangerous to go to battle on a psychic level, but it is also unethical. And dangerous because it is unethical. Let me explain.

The Sanctity of Psychic Space

It is easy to understand that sexual assault is an inadmissible violation of body and psyche. In the same way, our psychic space must not be violated. This is because of the Universal Law that states that every being has sovereignty over their own private sphere. To honor this, we do not send energy into other people’s fields without explicit permission, whether it be to harm or to heal.

To try to help or heal someone without their permission is interfering with their free will and their sovereignty. We may do it and see what we perceive as good results, but we do not see that we may have greatly delayed the other in finding what they truly needed. Some of us warriors are so hard-headed, life needs to knock us down a few times before we figure things out. No one can change that for us. We have to hit bottom. If we are prevented from experiencing the very pain that will teach us, we are sentenced to another cycle of agony.

To harm or bind another being in order to prevent them from hurting others, even if we consider it “tough love,” is just that—harmful and binding. It can’t be defined in any other way. Also, what we do to others, we do to ourselves. We are so intricately connected to the web of life that our actions, words and thoughts will always be reflected back to us, in ways that are obvious as well as obscure.

If we harm someone, we change the shape of the most private space inside ourselves. We shape our world into one where harming is a go-to, instead of the harder path of seeing through the eyes of love. We limit the kinds of beings who are willing to interact with us. This is an even more difficult road, one which we cannot return from without a painstaking, arduous journey.

I knew about magic before I knew about the spirits of kindness. When I first met them, they took me on a spirit journey and showed me the harm I had caused with a binding spell. They told me that they would not teach me anything more until I reversed the spell. I witnessed a level of pain I did not know I had inflicted, and it was clear to me that I would never, ever do that sort of magic again. It was a horrible but necessary revelation.

If you cast any sort of predatory magic on another person, you cannot help but bind yourself to them because you have invested your own emotion and energy into changing their lives. The more powerful your spell, the more powerful your target, the more powerful the repercussions will be. Take this to the political arena, and it’s unfathomable.

Instead of going down that road, we turn our focus to our own self-care. We pour all our energy into creating and maintaining a solid, loving container so we can do other effective work.

Once we are grounded and ready, our goal is to interact with the psychic fields of those who are already, boots on the ground, fighting for justice – or wish they were but don’t know how. Some of these people are front line activists. Some are directing purifying energies to the collective with the help of the spirits of kindness. Some are hosting refugees in their homes, delivering food to the elderly, cooking dinner for campaign staff – the entire spectrum of helping people is a vibrant, brilliant, multi-faceted canvas of growing love and concern.

This canvas is growing because of your work and everybody else’s work. The time of the white knight is over. We don’t need a knight. We don’t need a singular man. We don’t need to be saved. We need each other. We need all the different ways and different viewpoints collectively. We work in the collective space.

It’s not unethical to work in the common psychic space. It’s fair game. If a business is going to cast enchantments of greed, over-sexualization, body shame and consumerism into the collective psychic field, I am not going to have any problem with inviting the essence of organic growth, mutual respect, sharing and kindness into the same field.

The collective consciousness is supposed to be a people space, not an institutional space. We have town squares, not the Safeco square or the Pepsi square—oh, yes, the corporations have taken over and regulated our literal town squares. So, we have the right to take them back in the collective consciousness. If we don’t, and we allow their crappy noise to continue to lure people away from health, we may not survive much longer.

So, we flood the collective with our own songs about the world we want to live in, with any music, vision or flavor of healing energy we want. We do not, however, intend a result that would interfere with other people’s free will. We cannot direct energy at individuals, but we can hold out support for people in general. We place our gifts in the common space, and they will be there when others reach for them. Things like sparkly faerie dust of inspiration, comforting waters, mind-centering tones.

Don’t underestimate the power of your light. It influences those around you, without your even knowing it. We can send grounding energy into situations that are getting out of hand. We can ask the spirits of kindness to stand by those that are lost with the disclaimer that our intentions will not interfere with their free will. We can pour loving light into the common collective, asking it to go where it is needed and called for.

We don’t even have to expose ourselves to the town square all the time, just as we don’t have to listen to the news all the time. We take care of ourselves when we do this work. We connect to the collective web of people doing this work when we do our meditations and visualizations. It is magnificent and nourishing to be in touch with the potential here. When we let fly our ceremonial hope to bring the great forces back into balance, it only makes this goodness stronger. This is an area where we do not have enough magic and ceremony.

Tasara

This article is greatly sourced from my book The Ancient Bones of Ceremony: Remembering the Heartfelt Ways.

Stopping

Free-falling is the implied scenario when people speak of hitting bottom. You kinda can’t have one without the other. But what they don’t tell you, is there are two types of hitting bottom: one is when you hit the bottom hard and everything smashes to pieces, and the other is when the change happens while you are still falling. You look around and you either say,

This is too much abrasion, the deeper I go. I’ve gotta stop.

Or

No way. I know this place and I’m not going.

Or you simply get bored and want to do something else. This one is quite surprising. You learn that where ‘bottom’ is now, is way closer to the surface than it used to be.

But in the words of my friend Sue, in all of these cases it ends the same, in taking charge of your life.

No judgement here. The free-falling experience itself is all kinds of things to all kinds of situations but one thing it is not, is being in control. Life sometimes requires complete, descending annihilation for us to lose what we don’t need to carry around. At other times, all that suffering gets old, untenable. Because we know better about this particular storm. Fuck this shit.

Or something in-between.

All of it is the human experience, and the least painful way to live it is to endure. Keep moving. Keep processing. Keep loving. Keep crying. Keep on. Lie down. Get back up. Let what is sliding, slide off.

And stand up lighter.

Back in the Tunnel: (reconstruction)

I’m sitting in my car, the one I got last night to replace the totaled one from November’s car accident. This car I don’t really like but it’s the most practical thing right now after two hospitalizations, one extra trip to the ER and then losing my job and being thrown back in the tunnel. I am losing my health insurance. I even scratched the car this morning because it so very long and I am used to small cars. I look out over the Puget Sound and realize I have not been to the water in months. It is real nice.

I’ve had a white pillar candle burning pretty much all day, every day to remind me of what the spirits told me the night of the accident.

Keep open. Open. Open. We can’t help you unless you open yourself to us. This is what faith is.

Even the candle has been having issues. There was an air bubble, so the wick bored a hole downwards making a chasm, a situation set up to drown the flame. I called the shop and they are ordering another, but I need this candle now. I’ve been tending it.

Mom used to say, “God helps those who help themselves” but lately, I’ve been crumbling. I need someone to help me whether I can lift myself or not. People do come. I would not have this car if someone had not come. Less things to overcome now.

Have you had times when things were so hard, you didn’t think you could go on? Isn’t it incredible the way life does just that – going on?

Spirits gently tug me to shift my vision, to include the blessings with the hardships.

There is always darkness,

they say.

There is always, endlessly, more than darkness, too. This is the fiber your world is made of. Focus on only the dark, and a cycle of self-blame or hatred or despair is spawned, leaving no attention left for the rest of the colors. So many colors.

Stay open. Open. Open. Use your energy wisely.

Guidance and inspiration is all around me, though I am sometimes too numb to feel it.

Open. Open. Open. Rest.

Accept what is in the moment, then choose how to react.

People have gone through so much worse – war, torture, agony – and come back. I am in the dark where the sustenance is endless. It is ok for things to suck, with no comparing.

My consolation is that when this is over, I will have more depths to draw from. I will have more compassion. I will be a better hollow bone. My consolation is that I have the most beautiful, diverse, spirit-rich people in my life. My consolation is that I am alive. My mind is functioning and I have a place to sleep. My consolation is that I know there will be more good things in this life. I will have more opportunity to bring people together, always deeper, always more light.

With your mountainous support, I continue to pray.

white pillar candle surrounded by 'get well' cards

Thank you.

Tasara

Bushwhacking: (the development phase)

I was clearly shown the path to recovery, but that didn’t mean the path itself would be clear or short. To see it brought palpable relief. This relief coincided with a dozen improvements in my health and state of being, as my system cleared from heavy-duty pain meds. The clearing allowed side-effects of anti-seizure medications to arise – more brambles. As this last med is tapered, things continue to change every day.

I could tell you about each of these symptoms and how they affect me. I could tell you about the insomniac patterns of fear that arise in conflict with the facts around me.

But these are just brambles.

I could tell you about how the last full moon told me that there is no conjuring or drawing forth or earning of goodness. Goodness just is. Just like you cannot stop bad things from happening in life, you also cannot stop the goodness. What is possible, however, is the ability to unsee the goodness. Or see it for the first time.

I could tell you about how the world is experienced through a prism constructed by mental constructs. All senses feed information to our incredible, infinitely mysterious brain and then the brain interprets, based on what it already knows – or what it thinks it knows. Turn the prism just a little bit and everything is transformed. The key I see is in not hyper-designing the right mental constructs. It is in letting go of all of them. It is just to be. Just flow. Allow the unconscious instinct part of the brain, which is far smarter than our consciousness, to dictate our decisions.

But these are just glints of light in the dark passage.

In one sense, we as a culture are fixated on the highs and the lows of the Wheel of Life. On the other hand these points are just mirages. The wheel never stops turning and each cycle is part of a greater cycle, made up of the smaller ones we live through every day.

The truth is, the dark and light are both with us all of the time. Each holds its own precipice to ultimate mystery. The many shades of grey are there to harden our navigational skills. Yet, there is no destination. There is only survival and the choice to love, or not to. We cannot control the path. It is there before us. We make decisions in how to travel the path or which direction to go when the path branches.

There is the Wyrd – the network of paths we are connected to. Then there is free will, our limited ability to alter the paths. How we dance on the network is completely under our control. When we say, “What we put out there comes back,” that is referring to our relationships with the network and other beings on the network, carnate and incarnate. Together maybe, we can alter the paths.

Just another possible light in the dark passage.

I cannot tell you. I cannot draw any meaning from my movement on the path right now, because the meaning will not be gleaned until the long game is through.

The Place Underground: (recovery)

I’m in that place underground many of us go to when life is too much. Most folks turn off the phone, which is really healthy to do…or unhealthy if one is completely cutting off their support system. Some do everything they can to avoid going underground by over-socialization or drugs or drink. Some go underground and choose to stay longer than the time that is needed. There are probably lots of reasons for that.

My place underground is a dark room with camping cot and a lit fireplace. I seem incapable of turning off my phone. Plus if I did, people would worry. I am infinitely impressed with how much care I am getting post-hospitalization. At the same time, there is so-o-o much red tape. I wish there were better, human explanations about pain management, drug side effects, the transition to the primary care provider. The 35-page discharge paperwork is stapled into one stack, holds too much information in some areas and lacks information in critical areas. Who can parse that with a brain injury? There are so many bodies involved: surgical team, trauma team, home health team, pcp, hr, state, lawyer – there is no way this will go smoothly. I am on the phone, in the dark, by my fire trying to work through the system. I thought I was supposed to rest.

“The best advocate is yourself”, nurse John told me. I think I know what this means now. Whispers from John and other providers who share their wisdom have created a slight navigational system for me. The hospitals are there to stabilize your body, not to look at your long-term health. The surgeon might have multiple procedures in a row, so it won’t be unusual to feel dehumanized as they get you in and get you out. The real healing starts when you get home.

After listening to why various providers love their jobs, why they left certain areas of the system, I feel a little more validated and empowered. This is not just my experience. I can’t expect anyone to take care of this stuff. I have to be the one that comes up with the questions – whether that is a good thing or not. It’s survival.

Within a few weeks, I’m going be cut loose from home healthcare and I won’t have those kind people for long conversations to help me navigate. So I’m drawing a map with the clues that come in every few days. I’m using my refined IT research skills to study when I have the energy to be online. The map might be burned in the next follow-up visit but I’ll just start it over again.

All big systems will be extraordinary and also deeply flawed. The individuals within the systems can still be precious. It is important to keep a perspective, even after I want to throw the phone across the room.

Here is a credo to write on the sails of my ship but there will be no control over the speed or direction of the wind.

CREDO
Rest
Water
Healthy food
Walks
Gently test the limits of my stamina
Repeat

It is verified. My brain has returned to center. Early mornings, when I don’t feel drunk walking, there are rays of sun stretching through my body. I lay in bed at 4:45 AM and feel like doing a jig. I learned not to do a jig or the energy will be gone by 10 AM.
I wrote that sentence a week ago and today the crash didn’t happen until 11:30am.

Creativity – at its very core – is movement. Healing is like this too, a seedling sprouting in the dark, fresh green revealed in the morning. It’s not something we do. It happens by itself in the blessed magic of sleep. So, like a gentle gardener, I am supposed to encourage and foster and wait but never push. The towering Douglas firs sway as I walk around my condo complex with a cane to assure my balance, their familiar yet holy hugs permeate my body.

I pray that I grow strong in time to return to work.


  • Precious card from hospital housekeeper, says, “Everything is changing for the better.”
  • Spirit bracelet to protect arachnoid mater layer, which resides next to the dural layer in the brain.
  • Sasquatch from the totaled car, hugging a treasure box.
  • Treasure box: fragment of safety glass, flower petals from co-workers’ bouquet, staples from my incision, hospital bracelets
  • Redwood mist, spirit wolf, spirit bear, water
  • Postcard of light and joy from Fanning the Embers, the annual storyteller’s retreat.

From Neurosurgery office.

Subdural Hematoma: (recovery)

I’ve entered a world that was there all along without my knowing it. It’s a landscape with few trails, as they keep telling me, everyone’s experience is different. This is why no one can tell me what to expect or how long it will take. Or maybe they don’t want to tell me because they don’t want me to worry. Sometimes I get blank stares when I worry anyways that I will not be able to work when FMLA runs out, and lose my job.

I went back to the ER today because I had a new, sudden symptom. I was so weak and dizzy in the kitchen. I have to sit down in a chair and think a little bit until I realize that I am nauseous too. I am shaking and close to passing out. I take the nausea medication they gave me that I’ve never used (consciously). The nurse on the line tells me to call 911. The EMTs are very friendly and happy to meet me again. I am disturbed about the fact that I have no memory of meeting them. They ask me if I want to go to the hospital and I tell I just want to live.

Side note: I am not displeased with all this attention from three good-looking men in my living room.

Everyone agrees that since I live alone, it’s best that I shouldn’t have to lie here and worry. Worry itself could be bad for my health. See? Not knowing is worry too. My neighbor takes me to the ER. Another angel. I get another CT scan and the black butterfly has moved closer to center in my brain than ever before. I’m getting better. Yesterday wasn’t made up, when I aced the speech pathology cognitive tests and thought I was feeling energy returning.

No one knows why I had vertigo while sitting on the couch on the phone with the nurse. It wasn’t my heart. It wasn’t blood sugar. It wasn’t another brain bleed or a stroke. I am hoping it is my brain recalibrating, because movement is movement and movement is disturbing and the brain does not want to be disturbed. I will see the neurosurgeon in nine days.

The red tape around FMLA is tangled. The red tape in HR is tangled. Yesterday, the red tape around getting pain meds refilled was tangled. The lawyer is probably on vacation because he left his coat here before Xmas and never came back. Managing being sick has become a part-time job and I’m angry that I have to deal with it while recovering from a brain injury. I want to get audiobooks from the library, but I can’t figure out how to fix my library card memberships, so the cards just sit on my side table.

I am frustrated that there is no road map to all these ‘care teams’, so I create a template with questions and things I have learned the hard way, and send it to the hospital as a gift from a degreed Instructional Designer.

I hope everything will be OK, because then this will be a good story for all to read. I shouldn’t say that because of the goodness that has come from all the people around me.

These are the woods I am in.

The owl swoops down and feathers me with her wings. I wake up in the morning and relive conversations or uncomfortable events or the car crash itself again and again, and I breathe. Let the spirits in. I see myself in the crook of a passageway at the base of my skull with my drum. I am opening the way for the Spirits of Kindness to enter. I am witnessing, as any good shamanic practitioner does. And then the next day, all I can do is sleep and try not to worry. The following day, visualizing healing images of the day before may not work. I have to be open to what is here today, around me now.

I Am Worthy: (recovery)

My cousin and I planned a New Year’s weekend visit long ago and now she is quietly cutting vegetables in my kitchen while I hang in here, waiting for the next time I can take a pain pill. The fire has been going for days. She gets the cozy nest by the hearth, and I get the electric blankets on the couch.

One friend sends a wonderful list of books and another sends a note all the way from Germany, asking how she can help. Now she is hunting down an audiobook for me. When I am alone, a neighbor comes in at 11am every morning to make sure I am still here. Others call throughout the day. I’ve had five different people get me to and from both hospital visits and a doctor’s appointment.

I’ve heard the words:

I am glad you are still here. (so many times)
Thank you for letting me help.
I am thinking of you.
I am giving you space to heal. (because screens literally hurt my head)
Sending love.

Checking in.

And many, many more sentiments. So many have offered interesting ideas in how to manage various difficulties. Each gift means so much to me. Through it all, I get to know you a little more. I get to share intimacy that may have not happened on its own. I get to hear about your lives. I get to learn about love from you.

I am receiving healing, both emotional and spiritual from you, while we wait for my brain to literally reclaim its space, for the arteries in my head to stabilize, for the pain to subside, for me to not need anti-seizure medication any longer.

I am lost in a fragile place. I am very aware that many, many people are living lives far more difficult than mine. I know how lucky I am, and yet I still face my own trials and fear.

My tears well in gratitude, for the drop-ins, the little treats, the prayers, the gentle ears, and for my family.

You hold me in your web of love. It makes me feel worthy.

I Didn’t Ask for This: (back home)

I’m telling you, I didn’t ask for this. Most major things that happen in life, we can see them coming. Or if not, afterwards it really does make sense why it happened. Not this time. I’m pissed. I worked so hard, so hard to get where I was. So hard. I had a job I loved, a great boss, friends I love, shamanic work I love and a home I love. I even had a brand new activity (doing soundscape for assisted living) flowering in my life and in my heart. And then, I just got swept off the board and set down on an entirely different one.

I thought when I got home from the hospital that recovering would be a walk in the park, a few weeks. But the forest isn’t clearing and every day I discover new things – not only about my limitations but about what happened to me in the past month. I can’t believe it’s been a month. I can’t believe my friend spent five hours trying to figure out what was going on with me and what to do, searching through my paperwork for the right phone numbers to call and labeling all my medications and finally getting the green light from several different parties to call an ambulance. That must have been terrifying, traumatizing. Then she opened up my phone and texted everybody, whether she knew them or not and my mom called the last person who brought me to the hospital and people sat with me for a day while the nurses had a hard time waking me up to give me neuro checks. And then I had surgery and I woke up and now I know why it wasn’t so unbelievable that my brother was about to arrive in two hours from California. Because all that time had passed and I didn’t know it. 

I learned that the brain does not like to be disturbed. The brain says fuck you. No extra blood in my space. No pushing me to the side. No drilling holes into my skull to remove the blood. No going through my arteries to seal them closed. All of those things make the brain angry. So as my wonderful, tender and nurturing acupuncturist says, there is healing from the accident trauma and also from the surgeries. She leaves me on the table, and and it takes over forty minutes before I feel my energy, like magic, come back to center. She invites me to come back the very next day which I cannot do but I will as soon as she’s back from vacation. Because I don’t know if my energy stayed in the center. 

Another friend took me today to get the staples taken out of my head and I don’t think my brain liked that either because my headache spiked. She took me to a park I really wanted to go to and I joked that I’m like a dog being taken for a walk, breathing in that beautiful fresh air and the smell of the water and the birds. But then it became difficult to walk without stumbling and I needed to get home to the couch. 

This is not a fun blog. But the providers and my friends keep telling me that I look great, that my spirit shines through. Looking great is now on a wider spectrum, now that I see the trajectory of healing is going to be longer than I thought.

There is no guarantee I will not have another bleed. I am now in a population that is in danger all the time. At some point I will have to let go of this terror and completely put myself in the hands of the spirits. I continue to live my life, or I live in fear. I must continue – savor each day. Still, I am full of gratitude.

Life has become small and so big at the same time, for what is so vastly important is in the small things around us. In order to function in society, we need all kinds of barriers. But in being truly vulnerable, I can see things I could not before, and one of those is all the different ways that people love. In this, there is no reason to make sense of the world anymore. What will happen, will happen. It is useless to panic.

I hold such gratitude.

Tomorrow, super-special visit from my cuz.

It is Very Dark: Winter Solstice (back home)

Yup, that’s my big message, my meaning for Winter Solstice this year. It’s dark. That’s it.

Back when I worked with homeless women, there was this young, beautiful dyke with a mohawk who had chosen to be on the streets after witnessing her brother being killed by a strike of lightning. She was a talented painter and she taught me about backwards magic.

She said, Just put things on their head, exactly the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. There’s a lot of wisdom in that – not to mention the fun.

Again, we make our own meaning. So if the traffic on I-5 slaps you to the retaining wall, you can make up anything you want to about it. If you try to watch a movie and then you are wiped out for the rest of the day you can just close your eyes and explore the darkness. Darkness is very spacious, and magic happens when we are sleeping. We think we control our world, but really, we don’t. When you wake up in the morning and your body feels a little bit of that sunshine, the beautiful feeling of sheets against your legs and back, those are indicators that some magic happened overnight. Things were mended or changed or rearranged or colored in…we don’t get to see the mechanisms of this magic. Conversations happened..I’ve been saying this all along. The reason things are called mysterious is because they are a mystery.

So we can just let go. Whatever comes. It doesn’t matter what we do or how we interpret it, because we are gonna be loved by the spirits anyways.

(Yes, I’ve been looking for an excuse to share this meme. I spent half a morning looking for it last week when I was in the hospital – I don’t know why.)

Out of my depth. (hospital)

Last week I had a vision of a wolf. It’s heavy, warm paw was rested on my chest, like dogs/cats do. I own you. You are not moving. All night long. Next day, Janaki shows up with a Wolf. Janaki slaps a bracelet on my wrist and says, “This is for protection.”

Eric and Mom say, “You need to get a lawyer.”

Carol says, ‘No you will not be taking an Uber home from the hospital.”

Andrea says, “No you will not be walking to the mailbox every day until you’ve talked to your physical therapist.”

I am out of my depth, and I put myself in the hands of others. This is what spirit is telling me to do. 

When you are in the ICU, you have to ask permission to go to the bathroom every time which is a little embarrassing if you’re one of the tribe that goes – it seems – every 10 minutes. In order to go to the bathroom they have to unplug you from four devices. The one that checks your heart with all the little stickies that you will find on your body when you get home. The one that checks the oxygen on your finger like ET. The one that takes your blood pressure (the medieval torture device). And your IV if you’re lucky to have one. You’ll probably have two. I keep getting that that image in my head of the crazy criminal or superhero that rips these things off of their body and runs out of the room – but that seems silly. I am learning how to disconnect them though. I figure if they don’t have time to answer my call button, then if I disconnect myself, alarms will go off and then they will have to come.

So, I got myself into the bathroom and I came back to my bed and the very good looking nurse makes a joke saying, “Oh, an independent strong woman will take them off but you’re not going to put them back on?”

I forgot. So, I say, “Oh.. well.. independent strong women have to be careful not to blow away the men.”

His phone rings. He says, “Oh I have to go. My fiance wants to have lunch.” This makes me wildly humerated. I don’t think I’m that big of a flirt.

He says, “Do you want the door shut?” and I say, “Yes, please” and he chides me, “Should I slam it?” I don’t know what that meant. There’s lots of good cheer at the hospital. I told this story to the next female nurse I had and she thought it was very funny. She said sometimes the neurosurgeon team walks down the hallway in kind of a lock step, like one big group and it’s really weird to watch. 

There is an older white man walking the hall at the same time I am. We both have canes. I gave him a thumbs up and say, “You’re doing it.”

He says, “You’re doing it too.”

Some lady doctor tries to give me a lesson in social etiquette. She’s complaining about how dark it is in the room. This is not the first time the doctors have complained about how dark the room is. “I’m going to turn the light on now.” then, “Now we can see each other! My name is so-and-so.” Classic Pacific Northwest move.

I just stare at her like… this is the neuro floor. Everyone has headaches. What the hell.

I feel like somebody picked me up and set me back down in a freight train going in a direction, I have no idea. We think of The Dark Night of the Soul as deep things in our subconscious that we need to bring to light and deal with, or the concept of karma.. a lot having to do with “work“ we have to do to improve ourselves. Healing old wounds. But random shit happens, and there might not be any reason. Reason is created, so we can use the immense force of an event or accident and direct it in the direction we want. For instance, if I’m not supposed to think very much or watch complicated things on the screens or read a lot of books then I don’t really have a choice but to use my mental training from a long life of metaphysics.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to have a spiritual breakthrough. Ha ha ha. We’ll see. 

I closed my eyes for the whole ride home yesterday so I didn’t have to see all the possible car collisions. Today, I can sometimes still hear a man yelling down the halllway: Helloooohhhh!! (see last blog)

People get thrown into deep water and learn how to swim. Maybe part of the process is realizing the question, “What is this stuff that I’m in? Oh. This is water. How far does it go?”

I will never know because I don’t have sonar. So the only thing that matters is what is directly around my own body and senses. If I’m going to die by shark, I won’t see it coming. And I may or may not need to breathe in all this water. It might be a different kind of journey. There might be types of fish I’ve never encountered before. There might be underwater landscapes and things happening in rocky, coral villages with shimmering light filtering down through the surface. 

Another question about this new space is “How do things connect or work?” I know that one. It’s you. It’s us. As a former, former people-hating introvert, I’m here to tell you, our connections make the world go round. The lovey-dovey songs from the 70s are all true.

I’m going to nap with a wolf now.