Power Animals

I know that wherever my spiritual odyssey takes me, animals will be with me. I've always loved animals; somewhere around the middle of my life, I realized they were becoming increasingly important to me. As my human connection has dwindled and shrunk, animals have filled the gap and become my family…my community.

So the concept of animal spirit guides does not sound at all far-fetched or fantastical to me. It seems very possible and real, and probably already an intrinsic part of my life's journey. All I need to do is open myself fully to the concept; consider what the animals and birds appearing and re-appearing along my path might be trying to communicate to me.

Being more or less of a neophyte at all this, and not having the time or the mental wherewithal to do justice to a real study of shamanic spirituality, I've done just enough reading to…confuse myself. I recognize that I've been visited by animal spirit guides in the past; but I am feeling called, now, to identify my "power animal"—that animal which represents my connection to all life, my qualities of character. My power.

Over the years, I have felt drawn to many animals…mostly birds, actually. Cardinals. Geese. Herons. Cranes. Most recently, the bald eagle. And I think each of these has been or is one of my spirit guides. I kind of hoped that one of them might be my Power Animal. Most particularly the eagle. Because I understand that Eagle visits me at times of particular need in my life. But, no… The book I have on the subject explains the attributes of one whose Power Animal is Eagle:

You're a very spiritually evolved individual and a born leader, and people gravitate quite naturally to you.

Okay…no.

So. How about Heron?

You're always willing to look at yourself with detachment in order to see the truth of your inner workings.

Well, maybe. Ideally, that's what I would like to be, but I don't think I'm there yet.

Let's look at Goose:

The majority of your activities are centered on your home, community, school or church.

Nah.

And so it went with every animal I was attracted to or had felt some affinity with over the past months.

And then, I noticed that this particular author has included less traditional animal spirits in this book. For example, most shamanic spirituality discounts domestic animals, since they are already "in service" to man. But here in this book, we have horse, and donkey, and dog.

And cat.

You're introspective and listen to your own internal guidance more than others' advice.

You're independent, sometimes to the point of doing exactly the opposite of what others expect or want you to do.

Your most creative work is done at night.

At times you come across as rather self-absorbed, seemingly oblivious to those around you.

Bingo!

In truth, I need to meditate, possibly even ask for a dream, in order to discover my Power Animal. I need to do some serious study and research, instead of fifteen minute internet searches and relying on this one book as my manual of shamanic spirituality.

But it really will not surprise me if "Cat" does turn out to be my Power Animal.

And I would happily live with that.

A Day

Today was such a day. It had everything. Magic. Sweetness. Confrontation. Ugliness. In the end, lessons learned and moments of weakness overcome.

I learned what my priorities are—what they need to be, going forward.

A little woodpecker told me that it was the right thing to do, to go into the restaurant a little later, to take the time to run to the store and replenish my bird seed supply. No, he doesn't eat seeds. But he stopped by just to say, "Look. I'm pretty!"

Mr. Mojohowitz let me know that it met with his approval that I had procured a new carton of kitty cream on that same short shopping excursion. I left the house filled with love and hope for the day.

An ugly encounter with a customer, not twenty minutes after my arrival at the café, popped my hopes for the day like an over-inflated helium balloon. From full of promise to flat and empty, lying on the floor at my feet, in a matter of seconds.

I so fervently wanted to lock the doors forever, then and there; the fact that I knew that not to be feasible soured my mood and turned me to stone. I was miserable and I didn't care who knew it. I wanted to wallow.

But…I reached into my pocket and gripped my crystal—the rose quartz carved in the shape of a heart. And the thought came to me that everything is not about me; and so I sucked it up, slapped on a smile and sallied forth, for the benefit of those who would have to work side-by-side with me in my tiniest of kitchens.

I pretended to care. It's hard.

Today, the Universe showed me where my peace is. And where it isn't.

And left me once again counting the days.

One hundred and ten.

Maybe less, if I can work things out right.

However many, it won't be a day, a moment, too soon…

News That Makes Your Head Ache

Here's the big newsbomb of the day: Due to some kind of renovations, seat-shuffling, or temporary seating arrangements that were not completed by game time, Cowboys Stadium in Dallas was, apparently, not adequately prepared to honor all the tickets sold for Sunday's game. You know. The Big Game. The one I'm not allowed to use the name of because the NFL has that moniker copyrighted.

Anyway, some 1250 fans—holders of tickets for which they had shelled out $800 a pop, not to mention travelling and hotel costs—arrived at the stadium for the game to find they literally had no seats to sit in. Alternate seating arrangements were scared up for about two-thirds of these folks. Leaving 400 or so out of luck. Bummer. Big bummer, to be sure.

Certainly, the NFL owes these folks something. A refund on the ticket price. Re-imbursement for travel and lodging costs. Maybe season tickets on the fifty yard line of their favorite home field for life. At a cost of peanuts to the money-generating behemoth of the National Football League, they could go a long way toward smoothing the ruffled feathers of the fans involved.

The league, however, seems to be offering no more than an official, "Sorry—our bad!" and free tickets to next year's championship game. Huh? What if my team isn't playing in next year's game? If I'm a die-hard Cheese-head, why would I want a free ticket to see, say, the Bears and the Giants duke it out in 2012? Duh.

In return, some of the fans are intent on taking this to their own level of hyper-stupidity. One Pittsburgh Steeler fanatic was so po'd by the goings on that he has decided to hire a lawyer. And to try to draft others of the 400 or so affected fans to join him in a lawsuit. From the CNN.com story:

Rush has now started suesuperbowl.com, one of at least two websites for fans
mulling possible lawsuits over the seating issue. He said he is obtaining legal
counsel and is urging affected fans to get in touch. So far he has heard from
about a dozen people, he said.

"We're still figuring out what our rights are, whether damages come into play or not," he said. "This is more than just a breach of contract. ... This was a very traumatic experience for a lot of these people."

Where do I start?

1.)I submit that anyone who would pop for an $800 ticket, plus the travel and lodging costs, to personally witness a bunch of astronomically over-paid and over-promoted adult men elevate a kid's game to the level of kill-or-be-killed blood feud, already has more money than sense. They don't need a windfall from the NFL.

2.)Damages? What damages? Do you still have both arms, both legs, all your fingers and toes, and all the brain cells you had the day before you went to the game? Are you able to get up in the morning, go to work, play golf, swig a brew or two at your local pub, kiss your wife, hug your kids? Damages? Give me a break.

3.) And this one most of all: "This was a very traumatic experience." Traumatic? You have to be kidding me. Do you have a clue what real trauma is? Trauma happens when airplanes fly into big buildings, or when you watch your nine-year old get shot in the head by rabid border-control fanatics, or when you drive a jeep in Iraq, waiting for the next roadside pile of rubbish to explode and send you to kingdom come. Trauma. If you can manufacture a crippling case of PTSD out of losing your seat at a football game, you also have more issues than any amount of money is ever going to fix.

Go ahead. Be bummed. Be pissed. I'd be pissed. I'd want my money back, and then some. Maybe a few "gimmes" from the guys who were so focused on squeezing every dollar of profit out of the event that they oversold the damn stadium (nothing, by the way, that the airlines don't do every hour of every day.)

But let's not raise this thing to the level of lingering emotional damage and trauma. Get your refund, get a few coupons, and GET OVER IT!!!

And to the NFL—surely you have enough loose bills lying around that you can figure out how to put a smile back on the faces of 450 righteously disaffected fans. Put one of your seven-figure-salaried marketing executives on that, will ya?

Negotiations

There are times when things seem almost bearable. When it looks like everything might just work out. Like I might come out of this thing with my marriage at least intact, if not stronger for the experience. I've learned to lower my sights, some…

Last week, the kettle boiled over—the one containing the mélange of heartache, frustration, battered ego and loneliness; the one I've been trying to control by turning down the flame daily, by increments, beseeching it not to do that thing. To no avail. I am nothing if not completely consistent in my inability to mask my feelings, to live as if the elephant in the room wasn't merely huge, but had not fouled the entire block with its elephantine…emissions. Completely counter to the Universe's urging on the subject, I could no more "leave him alone" than I could have walked away if he lay bleeding on the sidewalk. The husband, not the elephant.

So as we sat down to dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant, against my own better judgment, I went on the offensive. I was, by god, going to drag the thing out into the open and poke it. I don't even know why, since we've had the conversation numerous times, and it always ends the same: everything is MY fault and he never does anything wrong.

The "discussion" went on well into the evening. In the restaurant over dinner. In the car all the way home. From our favorite chairs in the growing twilight in the family room. My sister came home and we smiled and exchanged pleasantries and enjoyed a companionable dessert together. Then she went to bed and we ripped right back into it without missing a beat. Quite a performance. We should put it on YouTube.

I didn't have an agenda, didn't expect a resolution of any kind. I just knew I couldn't hurt in silence and solitude anymore. It was poisoning my whole life, not giving me a minute's peace, and it had to go somewhere.

But, lo and behold, I think he finally heard me. I said something—and I don't really know what—that made him get it. Maybe it was when I wondered why in god's name he stayed with me if I was such a source of irritation and evil in his life. Maybe it was when I told him that I really thought that what everybody in my life needed from me was for me to just disappear. Maybe it was when I apologized yet again, and reminded him that I had apologized time after time for being a total bitch to him. I knew I had f'd up. I admitted it. I apologized. And he never heard me.

Until this time.

I'm not going to say our marriage has undergone this miraculous metamorphosis, but…things have improved, some. He doesn't run away from me every chance he gets. He does the little things he used to do all the time, back in the olden days—like get me a bowl of ice cream or a glass of water if I'm in the middle of something I don't want to put down. He kisses me goodnight, even if I've been in bed for hours and am snoring like a buzz saw when he comes up. He offers to help at the restaurant, and doesn't roll his eyes and act like I'm flogging him if I ask him to wash a few dishes or smile at a few customers.

So, at the moment, life may not be perfect, but I don't feel like I'm dragging myself through every day with one hand clapped over my mouth and the other hitting myself in the head with the claw end of a hammer.

Could be worse…

Now You See Her…

Last night, I watched a couple of installments of a show called "Disappeared" or something like that, on some obscure cable station. These were stories of folks who had simply vanished. No foul play detected, no trace or trail left behind. They were just gone, leaving perplexed family and friends to puzzle about their whereabouts. Forever, presumably.

On the drive home from a slightly disappointing "girls' weekend," wherein I was hoping to have some enjoyable bonding time with my sisters (not so much…), I thought about the stories on that show. And realized how appealing the idea of disappearing really is.

I find myself in a position that is so abhorrent to me that I can barely stand to think about it. I am a gaping pit of neediness. I need a direction. I need a purpose. I need closure of this business enterprise that I have royally fouled up. I need to figure out what my life is going to be all about once that is done with. I need someone to talk to about all of this. I need someone to hear me.

I hate being needy. Like most people, I think, I would so rather be needed. No one needs anything from me right now. Well, that's not strictly true. What they need from me is…to leave them alone. To suck it up and get through this and quit whining. To not burden them with my struggles.

What they need from me…what all the people closest to me would appreciate the most, I often think, is for me to…

Disappear.

Hardly something one can really DO, I suppose. And there is the fact that, if one were to attempt to disappear, one's past, paranoia, and problematic personality would follow one wherever one tried to hide.

Sigh!

Guess that's not really a plan then, is it?

Dangling

I've been attempting to maintain my peace since approximately last October. Some days, it all goes along on oiled wheels. Some days, actually most days, not so much.

Back in November, when I had that eagle visitation on the dike, I felt so assured. So directed. So ready to go on to the next thing. The unfortunate thing about spiritual assurance, at least in my world, is that it never seems to last. I don't know what the Universe would have to show me or give me that would cause me to finally get it, once and for all. Maybe you're never supposed to get it. Maybe life—at least on this plane—is all about wanting it, needing it, searching for it. The Universe gives us just enough of those "ah-ha" moments to keep us moving forward.

All I can say is, I hope I get another of those moments soon. My peace, assurance and direction are eroding daily. My relationship with the husband is definitely fragile and crumbly around the edges. Turns out, "leaving him alone"—as Terri predicted—is proving to be very challenging. Actually, it's not even so much the part about leaving him alone, it's the reciprocal part: I leave him alone, and he leaves me alone. Utterly. Which leaves me completely without any kind of a support network—however incomplete or imperfect—to help me get through this thing. This dissolution of the dream. This firing of myself from the job I always thought I wanted, the challenge I always thought would make me whole, because I realize I suck at it.

Sometimes, when husband and I are alone together, I lose my resolve and "casually" mention my feelings about what I'm going through right now. And he…changes the subject immediately, or fails to respond at all. As if he hadn't heard me. Our existence together has degraded to pleasantries and necessary communications only. The elephant in the room is practically sitting in our laps…indeed, it has its trunk around my throat. But we don't talk about it. This evidently works just fine for one of us. For me, it's deadly.

I don't know how long I can keep it up. I keep telling myself: Only x-number of months, weeks, days… As of today, it's four months and fourteen days. I can do anything for four months and fourteen days.

Right?

Getting Squirrely

I am so excited!

Went out to fling some sunflower seeds into the feeders this morning (the grosbeaks are voracious!) and spied a special visitor:

Now, I know that just about anyone who feeds birds in their back yards HATES squirrels. And I also know that I am never one to adhere to popular opinion…

I LOVE the little buggers! Yard pets, tree rats, whatever you want to call them. I have always valued their presence at my backyard buffet as much as the birds'. Squirrels are funny, smart, and endlessly entertaining.

Ten years ago, we moved to The Land Of No Squirrels. Our home is built in what was once natural grassland. Any trees that are around here were put in with or after the houses. Which has meant that critters who like mature trees—like squirrels and raccoons—have been noticeably absent. And, oh, how I have missed "my" squirrels!

Evidently, our development is aging enough to bring a gradual change to the wildlife population. Squirrels!

I felt that this was such a special gift that I decided to consult a book I recently purchased: Stephen Farmer's Animal Spirit Guides. Here's what it says about Squirrel:

IF SQUIRREL SHOWS
UP, IT MEANS:

Get ready for coming changes by
lightening your load, clearing out and giving away any goods or material
possessions that no longer serve you.

The best way to deal with the
challenging situation that's before you is to confront it head-on and be totally
honest with your feelings and thoughts.

Be extra vigilant and cautious right
now, and be willing to avoid or escape any threatening situations.

Prepare for the future by gathering and
storing extra food, water, clothing, candles, and money for possible later use.

Although you're actively and
aggressively pursuing your goals right now, you need to balance this pursuit
with more socializing and play.

Hmmmm….

On the Bridge

Immersed in the "changing décor" mindset (it will take me several days to de-Christmasify my home and the café), I decided on the spur of the moment last night to change my heading picture here at Coming to Terms. The red-tail was lovely, and still one of my favorite personal photographs of all time; but I'm not feeling too "soaring hawk"-ish these days. I felt the need for a change.

The picture I had in mind—of a flight of brown pelicans dipping over the tops of the waves at a "land's end" beach—ended up being…somewhere not exactly at my fingertips. On one of my jillion other computers, I suppose. So I ended up with the one above—a shot of the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which connects Oregon with Washington near the mouth of the Columbia River. The picture was taken from the foot of the Astoria Column—high up on a hilltop overlooking the city of Astoria and lots of beautiful coastland. And the bridge.

When I thought about it, I realized that the bridge picture is SO representative of where I am in life right now. I'm on a bridge, somewhere between two major points in my life—in-café and post café. The bridge in the picture leads from the breath-taking beaches of Oregon, with which I am so familiar, to—well, to more of the same north of the border. Places I have heard of but have never visited. Places of equal beauty to my beloved Oregon coast.

This is how I must see the life bridge I am on now. I'm certainly going away from something I have loved, something I thought was the fulfillment of my fondest dreams. I'm not particularly happy about saying goodbye to it all…but I'm in the middle of the bridge, and I can't turn around now. I have to have faith that what waits for me on the other side is as wonderful as what I'm leaving behind. And that the lessons I've learned are packed safely in my trunk, ready to be pulled out and put to use when new challenges confront me. Perhaps giving me a better chance of accomplishing something real and lasting in my next adventure.

The Thing About Peace…

"Don't let them steal your peace…" It seemed so simple the first time I heard it. Straightforward. Steadfast. Intentional. Don't. Let. Them. Steal. Your. Peace.

But like everything else, it's not as easy as it sounds. You have to HAVE peace before you can guard it. Sometimes I have it. Often times, I don't. And the times I have it, I wonder whether I really HAVE it, or if I'm just faking it. And faking is something I have never done well. Never liked doing, never wanted to do.

To my black and white little mind, faking feels dishonest; and I have always had a monstrous moral bias against lying. To the point where I am even unable to pad or cloak the truth in order to grease the works of a relationship or spare someone's feelings. Really, pathological honesty does not make one's life easy. It sucks, in fact. But it doesn't seem to be something I have the capacity to change.

So now, I've taken to wondering whether the peace I am trying to maintain is an authentic peace, or a manufactured one. Real or imitation. Live or Memorex…

The question I need to ask is, "Does it really matter?" If some degree of "faked" peace is keeping me from jumping out of my skin, or jumping off the nearest bridge, is it important that it isn't "real?" If clinging by my fingernails to a façade of serenity I've painstakingly erected—possibly without knowing it—helps me to fend off daily assaults to my bruised and battered psyche, who cares that it hasn't sprung spontaneously from some bottomless pacific well deep in my soul?

What does bother me some is that I feel compelled to live SO on the surface of things. I cannot plumb the depths of anything right now. I can't think about reasons or motivations or plans or reactions, for fear of handing away the peace--real or fake--that I'm trying so hard to protect. And that is so against my nature, I find that in itself is a source of irritation…that I dare not think about. Honestly, I don't know how long I can keep up the Scarlett O'Hara act: I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about it tomorrow…

So I huddle inside—or hide behind—my various incarnations of peace. Hoping that someday, the true peace will grow from within and meet up with the erected one, so that they become one and the same.

Meanwhile, I have to make it through the next four months and twenty-nine days using any and every resource available. Tomorrow is another day…

Goodbye…Hello?

Apparently, this little gem by Ogden Nash is well-known by the well-read. Ah, well; I came upon it for the first time this evening in a friend's blog. And I realized it says exactly what I want to say about the prospect of a new year…

Good Riddance, but Now What?

Come, children, gather round my knee;

Something is about to be.

Tonight's December Thirty-First,

Something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small,

Like a time bomb in the hall.

Hark! It's midnight, children dear.

Duck! Here comes another year.
--Ogden Nash, 1949