As as recurring reminder: I write here primarily as a form of archiving some thoughts that come to me mostly as a result of my personal animist practice. I don’t promote these, do not charge money or generate any income and they are added here only as a way for me to keep track of my reflections over the years in one place, as I can be disorganized. If you are reading here, you are one of a rare few!
But this is the Samhain I'm most reflecting on right now. Nova and I would spend a day telling family stories, either tight with anger, desolate in grief or barking with laughter, while slowly building our altar filled with mementos to the dead, with items of power, and covered in the finest chocolates and pomegranates. Come dusk on the first day we would venture out to wander the Greenway close to her home to see if there were any wandering spirits who might wish for passage.
Six years ago on this night of February 20, 2023 I was at my friend Amy’s in Glen Falls, NY while she was in Philly at some Buddhist conference. The soup I’d made for dinner turned out badly so I went downstairs to the endlessly fragrant Thai Sushi restaurant in the building for a splurge. Eating orchids and spicy raw fish, watching…..
Once, a man tried to kill me. A vast storm of heartbroken rage, he backed me into a corner, unescapable. Wild on crack, he brought that knife-ended arm up over my head, then down. With his 6 ½ feet and 300 pounds blocking the small cubicle in the bookstore, there was nowhere for me to go but into his furious embrace. Did I think that, plan that?
In another life I stand with nose pressed against yours in the high plains, caressing your muzzle...
In another life I squall in a filthy basket, misplaced in the exodus...
In another life I smell your moist breath all night in the stall, poor and happy...
In another life I skate restlessly across frozen Lake Saimaa in search of I never know what, another version of freedom...
In another life I am loud, political and save many of you from slaughter, but never find You...
In another life I'm not given up for adoption but grow twisted and grief stricken anyway...
In another life we're inseparable, traveling northern trails together for 30 blissful years until you leave me to decades of desolation...
In another life I rebel, leave home, find the streets of cities and make my art, learning the language of agitated striving...
In another life you stand guardian of my sleep under cold stars, nuzzling me awake when we need to move on...
In another life I wander plundered landscapes planting flowers and trees until my worn fingers glow green, and I sing of you
In another life I make too many babies in wartime, and it's always wartime, and I thankfully die young...
In another life I wed a tree who chants your name for me in my dreams so I don't forget you...
In another life our love meets for the infinith time, always returning to you, bright star...
Being good hearted is essential......and it is a good beginning, not an end, if we are to tend and love each other and this Earth into the bright flowering we are all meant for in our souls. The guiding spirits, the initiators, look for pure, true hearts to work with in this endeavor. To be pure of heart is not what most usually think it is from the modern perspective.
