May 10, 2004
Tears
I have already been moved to tears twice this morning and it's hardly 6AM
My dear friend, whom I met when we both had baby spit-up running down the back of our pea jackets, sent me a moving piece that she had written about the death of her beloved dog, Maggie. Actually two deaths, given that she mistook a drowsy reaction to a tranquilizer for the real thing. It was great practice though, and, when the time came, she was exquisitely attuned and present for Maggie's transition.
My friend has spent at least the last ten years in a particular form of meditation; attuning to animals. Maggie wasn't her only love. At about age 50, she started to ride horses and commune with them while mounted. She had passionate relationships with a few along the way. Now she has advanced to the most sensitive of Portugese stallions . Riding them, as she describes it, is like dismantling a land mine -- perfect attunment is required or the consequences are dire.
I just remembered a description that I often quote from her. She was diagnosed with a particularly difficult, but not necessarily fatal, form of cancer, a decade ago. She had just begun riding around that time. When she told me about it, she said that getting the diagnosis was like having a stallion jump through her window and land in the middle of her kitchen table.
It was an awakening, terrifying and profoundly life changing. Now she is riding stallions. She also does triathalons to prepare for riding stallions.
When she first started doing triathalons she was in the "Athena" category, (women over 140 over 50). No longer, but, at the time we were highly amused. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, reason and purity, is the first of the three virgin goddesses, fitting nicely into our triple goddess theme.
Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham , tells us that all the "creatures" of the earth are responsible for the continuing flow of well being, even when humans, who are so free that they can choose suffering, do so. Attuning to a "creature of choice" is one way to connect with life force energy.
Sometimes I feel that I do that with the swans , when they swim over to me to be photographed. The more cynical part of me thinks that they are just hoping for Wonder Bread. It's interesting that my allergies, and my unwillingness to care for another soul, at present, has left me without a connection of this sort.
The second thing that touched me this morning was Kurt Vonnegut's description of his son's remarkable recovery from a psychotic episode. "...some people survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Others didn't. The turbulence is really something."
Vonnegut quotes Francis Bacon on the vulnerablity of loving anyone or any creature passionately "He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune." Vonnegut has seven hostages to fortune, maybe even more, his grandson just got married.
Photo note: Another pretty picture from October Farm, somewhat belying the content of this entry.
Posted by Dakota at May 10, 2004 06:17 AM