4/24/17—Being the Tragic Catalyst

Varner's on the left, Zeke's on the right and the girl in between is conservative.

So I was watching Survivor and something really deep happened.

If you don't watch, the show has been on 34 seasons (twice a year, so 17 years). The premise is that a group of maybe 20 people have to survive on their own in a deserted area and, one by one over the course of 39 days, someone is voted off the island. The fans seem to like it when old players return. So every few seasons they have an all-star show. This is one of those seasons. And I'll confess: I haven't watched all 34 seasons of the show, but I've watched a lot of them.

So there are these two, openly gay male Survivors, Jeff Varner and Zeke. (We call Jeff Varner "Varner", because the host of the show is Jeff Probst and he gets to be "Jeff".) So Varner and Zeke had recently struck a special bond in the game, and they confided in each other over some personal things. I think both of these guys are on their third game of Survivor, so they know it could be risky to confide in others and form secret pacts, but they did. And part of the bond was that Zeke would tell Varner if he was going to be voted out next.

So the in-crowd have a straw poll to see who to send home and it comes down to Varner and another guy, Ozzie. And this is where things start going wrong. Zeke defends Ozzie and says he'll vote out Varner. It's clear he genuinely likes both of them, so he must have a stronger pact with Ozzie. Then Zeke, keeping his word, tells Varner he's getting voted out. Varner figures out Zeke's loyalties aren't  with him, so he sets out to cast suspicion on Zeke and Ozzie, hoping they'll go against Zeke and vote Ozzie out instead. It's a pretty crappy game that way. Lots of backstabbing.

But that's not the bad part. It gets worse. 

When they go to Tribal Council that night to vote out either Varner or Ozzie (and we don't know which at this point) the host, Jeff Probst, asks some questions. And Varner starts talking about how everyone should vote out Ozzie and how Zeke can't be trusted. And then, to punctuate Zeke's deceit, he reveals something that NOBODY knew—at least not the viewers or other players. He outs Zeke as a transsexual. And, worse, he did it as if to say that being transsexual is a special kind of deceit that can't be forgiven.

All the players immediately attack Varner for outing Zeke. Varner himself then realizes how horrible he was...how low he'd go to win that million dollar prize. It was the first time in 34 seasons that they didn't even have a formal vote. Jeff Probst just kind of ejected Varner from the show. Which is big because Jeff is a stickler for tradition. He's dedicated himself to this show for 34 seasons and gets pissy when it's disrespected. And Varner...this huge Survivor fan...this proud gay man...will forever be humiliated by his own complete asshattery. It was extremely uncomfortable to watch.

But that's only half of the story. Because after Zeke was outed, one of his fellow players said she came from a conservative background and wasn't exposed to LGBTQ people very often. But she had known Zeke 18 days and thought he was kickass. And she had come to love and care for him. And she was emotional because now she knew that being transsexual didn't change anything. She saw how trivial gender identity was in the scheme of things. It was a transformative moment for her.

When Zeke finally spoke, he explained that he didn't want to be "the transgender Survivor player", he wanted to be "Zeke, the Survivor player." When people learn he is transsexual, then the topic of conversation changes to his gender and away from everything else and he just wanted to be like everyone else. He handled the situation so well. He didn't even have to defend himself, because the whole cast rallied around him and defended him. And by the time the entire confrontation was over, he was over it and hopeful that he would help others out there just by talking openly about it. It was a beautiful thing.

And the reason I'm writing about this is that, as I was watching it, I kind of detached from the drama and I clearly saw Varner as the tragic catalyst in a much bigger, more beautiful thing. And it really is tragic because you could see that his intentions were bad, but even he didn't realize how bad until the words came out of his mouth and he realized what he'd done. He was thinking about a million dollars and how to get out of being eliminated. He wasn't thinking of Zeke or the LGBTQ community (of which he's a part) or humanity as a whole. He utterly shamed and humiliated himself.

But without him, this beautiful thing wouldn't have happened. I mean, the audience has known Zeke for years. I honestly never suspected. And, like all of the survivors, I also found it utterly irrelevant in the context of the game, and shameful to out him in that way. I mean, clearly his family and friends knew, but nobody else did. But it was also irrelevant to who Zeke is. Zeke is weaselly, yet sensitive. But weaselly is the game. So I imagine millions of people watching wanted to jump in and defend Zeke, too. He is endearing.

So, this probably made a dent in the understanding and acceptance of LGBTQs. But in order for it to happen, Varner had to be shamefully malevolent. He was the necessary catalyst for this beautiful thing. He was the flap of the wing that set the whole thing in motion. Without that darkness, light wouldn't have had its opportunity to shine. And I thought of all the times someone's darkness was a catalyst for something, albeit painful in the process, better and more beautiful in my life. And how many times I might have been the dark catalyst in the lives others. In a way, it makes those memories that make you cringe, all of a sudden more OK. I imagine we have all been Varner and we've all been Zeke at one time or another.

Seeing it unfold the way I did was fascinating because you could tell there was something larger guiding it. I mean, Varner is no innocent, but that's not him. This was cruel and heartless, and it took him a good couple of minutes to even understand the gravity of what he'd done. He was possessed. By money and winning, yes. But also by something unexplainable moving through him to cause this moment to happen. I know I've felt similarly possessed before myself.

Ten months have passed since that happened in real time, but in show time, Zeke is still in the game. In real time he's still showing grace, but is having a hard time forgiving. Varner has lost his real world job and is in therapy over this. He is utterly ashamed and remorseful.

It's easy to be on the outside and see where all of this was necessary in order for humanity to move toward greater understanding and acceptance. Any kind of progress on that scale is going to be messy and painful. We saw it (and still see it) with racial and women's rights. And it will continue until we finally get in our heads that we are all equal.

There hasn't been a lot to be positive about in terms of social progress these days. But I had always had the belief that racism and the like is not quelled by policies, but by the voluntary policing of society. And stuff like this is what gives me hope that society is up to the task.

4/17/17—Feeding the Duck

The duck, filled with Kizzie hair.

My boy Kizzie is a Chow Chow/Australian Shepherd mix. Which means he's a big furball who is one part matted, one part shedding and one part devilishly handsome.

Most nights when we sit on the front porch watching the sunset, I'll reach into his mane and pull out the matt-like hair plugs that would render him unkempt if he didn't have a mommy with a hair plug pulling fetish. Sitting on the porch steps beside us, there is a cute watering can that looks like a duck. It's useless as a watering can, so at one point I started putting all Kizzie's hair plugs in there. One day I noticed all the accumulated locks were gone. So we've been feeding the duck ever since.

After years of doing this, my assumptions about what happens to the hair were finally confirmed. I looked out the window one day and saw a bird with a beakful of Kizzie fur. During nesting season, I can't keep the duck full. You wouldn't believe the wad of hair that accumulates over winter and it just disappears overnight when the birds are building their nests. After the winter fur is gone, we make daily deposits. And the birds make daily withdrawals.

Kizzie filled with Kizzie hair.

I'm pretty sure the birds spread the word around. No single nest in the world is big enough for all that fur, so it's clearly shared by many. There are probably some squirrels in on the action, too. And now that they know to look for it, they check the duck year after year, and day after day during nesting season. In fact, they know they can find it there year round if they need it and, periodically, the supply will be depleted.

I told Kizzie a story about how they like his fur because he's so masculine that it makes them feel safe and protected. And I told him that birds pass information down through generations, so 100 years from now, some baby bird will hear the legend of the dog that left fur deposits in the duck. As much as Kizzie hates me messing with his locks, he tolerates my picks and pokes. He does it for his legacy. And he does it for the birds.

Same duck, next day. Devoid of hair.

This week I learned that my Deck of 1000 Spreads is going out of print. It was a slow seller. (Get em before they're gone.) Thousands of people have one, though. One day it will be traded and sold among collectors. Some will covet their copy while others unload theirs to the first buyer. It did make me feel like I was leaving a legacy to the tarot world—a world I, at various times, considered a folly, an obsession, a religion, an albatross and a friend. Now that legacy, as slow selling as it was, will slowly fade.

I know that all sounds dramatic. I'll admit I shed a couple of tears, but I'm taking this as I always took it...with a certain amount of detachment. Upon writing it, my goal was to set it free without expectations, without ego. And I surprised even myself by accomplishing that. I would have thought it would have meant more to me in the ways that please the ego. I mean, I'm always talking about writing a more mainstream kind of thing and becoming a famous author and guru. You'd think I would have wrapped myself up in this more emotionally, but I didn't. And that has been an incredible gift to me, because while I think you should take pride in your work, you shouldn't be overly proud about your work. I suppose 30 years as a professional writer taught me something.

I think about my legacy from time to time. A professor I interviewed recently told me that they saw teaching as akin to passing tribal knowledge down to a new generation and that their lessons live on in that way. Kind of a cool thought. Which makes me ask myself, is it more important that people grow from my words, or that they know the words were mine? Is it more important the birds know the legend of some dog who donated his hair to their nests, or is it more important they know his name was Kizzie? Ideally, both would be nice. But the magic and greatness and gift is in the gesture—the sharing, the energy given and received.

I accept that nobody will go on Ancestry 100 years from now wondering if they got their moxie from me...haha. I have no lineage to pass a legacy down through in that way. Even if I do become a known author, my name and the details of my being will eventually get lost to time. It happens to the vast majority of us eventually. But the times I moved another person and got them to question themselves live on in the energy that vibrates and rises as a result of that learning. And I don't even have to write a book to claim that legacy, because so many of you have told me that my blogs have made you think and learn.

There are sparks that we ignite—and douse—over a lifetime. The more sparks we ignite, the more lessons we pass down and the more nests we feather, the more magic we create. I feel like, when you weigh my good vibes against my bad,  the net accounting of my contribution to humanity's greater good has been positive so far and it will continue to grow until I die.

Like Kizzie, I look for ways to get extra credit from time to time. Because a century from now, our names will be lost to history (or perhaps some internet archives), but what we do—what you do—that's positive (or at least better than yesterday) is an energy that brings up everyone around us. And the legacy of that reverberates forever.

4/10/17—Holding On Long Enough

I'm not a spontaneous person. At all. But a couple of things happened this week that showed me how much I'd changed in that area of my life.

I've probably used the word spontaneous incorrectly. I am still today someone you can't call and hang out with on a whim. Like, there's no "Hey, I'm I'm the neighborhood and was wondering if you wanted to meet for coffee" in my life. I like plans. Preferably made a week or so in advance. Anything in less than 24 hours is nearly impossible for me to handle. Work is different. I'm constantly shifting plans to put out fires. I honestly don't know what it is, but something in my body just revolts at spontaneity in my private life.

So don't expect me to drop what I'm doing and meet for coffee. And horror of all horrors, do NOT show up at my house unannounced. You'd have to be bleeding for me to abide something like that. I have slated my healing from whatever it is that's beneath my hatred for that kind of spontaneity for a future lifetime, as I can only do so much in this one.

The new me I've discovered isn't in the area of doing things unplanned, as much as it is about having planned things change at the last minute. Two sides of the same coin, I guess. But last minute changes used to kind of ruin my day and now they don't. Especially when it's easy for me to accommodate them.

I have a friend I see a couple of times a month and she lives roughly an hour away in decent traffic. When we see each other, it's always her coming here. She can schedule work up here, then go out to lunch with me. But traffic is awful between her house and mine. Rain can double or triple the amount of time it takes to get here or go home. An accident can do the same. So she cancels at the last minute all the time. It's just part of the agreement. There may be passing disappointment, but no anger or anything. We see each other pretty often. So I guess this has tempered me some for other situations. 

A couple of times this week plans totally went to hell on me and the end result wasn't disappointing at all. In fact, it turned out better than planned. The first was a doctor's appointment I had. I scheduled a water heater repair person around the appointment so I would have an easy time getting back home in time. Then I was all set to leave for my appointment when I got an email from a client. It wasn't disastrous or foreboding email at all, but something told me in that moment that my whole day was going to go to hell and I better cancel that appointment. So I did. Which was a good thing because then the repair guy called me and asked if he could come two hours early. Which was good because, as it was, he left my house at 7pm. Had he come later, he'd have either stayed later or I'd be without water until whenever he could return. So everything somehow worked out ideally there.

The second time was yesterday. I had a long list of things to get done this weekend and knew, once again, the cleaning of the house would fall to the wayside in favor of more time-sensitive things. Like naps and such. So as I was getting ready for my nap, my sister-in-law messaged me she wanted to stop by and pick something up that I had for her later that evening. So that meant the house had to at least be presentable. So I cleaned and thought I might cook for her if she got there early enough. So I cooked. And she didn't make it for dinner, but my goal of having multiple cooked chicken breasts for eating this week was met. And my house was clean. And I caught a nice sunset with Kizzie. And, frankly, it was more than I thought I was going to accomplish. So, feeling quite satisfied, I built a fire. And when my sister-in-law arrived, we chatted by the fire under a clear starry sky, which was very nice. It was a much nicer Saturday than if I had napped all day.

Honestly, there was a time that feeling I have to cancel a doctor's appointment and having an up-in-the-air day with so many "maybes" would have left me bitter and resentful. I wouldn't have been open to the thought that a change of plans could leave me better off. Like maybe I'd have some unexpected nap time. Or maybe the rest of my day would be less stressful and time-sensitive. Or maybe everything could end up being in divine order. The change has come gradually over time, but just seemed suddenly obvious this week, for some reason. And I'm kind of digging it.

I feel like my life is moving in the right direction in a lot of ways lately. I mean, man, my life was shit all those years I was sick. And the past year or so since getting well has been difficult in so many ways. You don't just miraculously get well when you finally get treated for asthma after being debilitated by it for so many years. You have to learn to live with your new diagnosis. You have to learn how to work your medications and recognize your triggers. Knowing what I have helps enormously, as does treatment and the much better sleep I'm getting, but it hasn't put me back to normal. It didn't quite pull me out of the darkness either.

But I've turned a corner on all that in the past few weeks, too. I'm figuring it out. I'm learning how to get back to normal, or at least a new version of normal that doesn't make me feel like my life is forever ruined. Things are harder than before. And I have to move a lot slower than before. I need many breaks. Some of that may be age, but most of it is asthma. That said, a very active day working outside now can accomplish as much as a very active day working outside 10 years ago. It just goes slower.

This spring, and having to clear out my back garden that has random volunteer trees growing in it and mending my fence and other chores that have always been difficult things to accomplish, brought me an epiphany in figuring the right combination of elements that have to be in place for me to get the job done. Last spring it was hard and my brother was doing most of the work. So figuring out how to do it all myself is life changing. I've learned how to be active again. And if I can be active, I can get healthier. And I'm sure that will help the asthma even more.

So anyway, that's a long jumble of words to say I feel like I've broken through a long, bleak wall in my life. Which is a good thing, because I was worried about whether I'd ever be able to move forward. I think some of it has to do with leaving Facebook. But I also think some of it has to do with my own fight and determination. In addition to the illness, a number of other events over the past few years have really stripped me of my fight. I haven't shared them all with you, but some have been pretty painful and I've taken steps to remove those things from my life. So it took a long time to finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. I was worried about what might happen if that light never arrived, but it has. I just had to hold on long enough.

4/3/17—Questioning My Beliefs

I'm pretty sure I'm in the midst of some post-mid-life crisis or phase lately. I seem to be questioning everything. Particularly my beliefs. 

I think it's healthy to question your beliefs. It may not be the most comfortable thing to do, but I think it's a good thing to reflect upon—or even have cause to question—your beliefs. After all, that's how you got them in the first place, right? By questioning. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that you might have missed things or made incorrect assumptions along the way. 

To be clear, I still believe in a higher intelligence in the universe and the interconnectedness of all things. I believe in that enough to be certain it's fact. There is a "magic" and a logic out there that humans don't understand and largely ignore. Our egos tell us we are the ones in control here on earth. And maybe we are. Or maybe the universe allows us to believe whatever we want to believe. Which leads to the question I've been exploring (or struggling with) lately. 

Are we here on a mission? Do we have a purpose to fulfill here? Or are we just a function of evolution in a universe that adheres to laws for creation, but doesn't actually create anything itself? And thus, this universe has no larger agenda because it has no agenda at all. It's all just math and physics. And we have no special purpose in being here. We're just a product of evolution and biology.

In such a universe, man might be among the least evolved, because we're among the least attuned to the universal intelligence, as a whole. Certainly a swarm of birds is attuned to something that can't be perceived by the five senses or explained by modern science and technology. Dogs can somehow know their owners are on the way home, even if the owner is miles away and returning at an unpredictable time. I mean, I believe every living thing both receives and transmits invisible, unexplainable communications to/from/through/whatever this higher intelligence. But does that intelligence have intention? Or is it just math and waves and physics?

Man's complex minds are a blessing and a curse. They hold the seed of extraordinary connection to —and even one day unlocking the secrets of—this higher intelligence. But they also hold an ego that constantly gets in the way of attuning to it at levels even close to our full potential. It's like our technology is state of the art, but there are glitches or a virus in the system. Which means we're also not as evolved as a sentient being can get. There's something better yet to come. Meanwhile, it's as if earth were littered with all the previous attempts at evolving the kind of critter that could really take advantage of the complex physics of the universe, but that critter hasn't come along yet. In a way, earth is like the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

What if my own self importance is what makes me think there's some higher reason for being here? Are the destinies and life's purposes we run toward—or away from—merely manufactured in our own minds? Do those thoughts blend with the magic and logic of the universe to then make them true? Were we actually NOT sent here for a reason?

If I'm honest with myself, logic leads me to believe there is no "grand scheme" thought up by the universe. The universe—or a higher intelligence kind of "deity"—has no special plans for me. Humans tend to anthropomorphize this energy...the angry or forgiving omnipotent god. But assigning human characteristics to this energy is, at best, a comfort to us and, at worst, a function of our egotistic belief that humans are the highest intelligence and everything revolves around us. 

I have to admit, this line of thought shakes things up. It's never something I really questioned so much before. I just took for granted that I am here for a purpose and have a destiny. It sounds so romantic, doesn't it? And it gives us a reason to persist here. It doesn't preclude the other stuff I believe in, like reincarnation, life after death, manifestation and divination—things I truly believe I've "witnessed" too many times NOT to believe. That's all part of the energy, the magic...the math...of the universe. But I must admit, it's a really depressing thought. If there's no higher reason for me to be here—for us to be here—what's the point? Is there really NO point? 

As I'm looking at the 20 or 30 years I have left (if even that) I feel like I'm only now ready to stare into the possibility there is no higher purpose to us being here. I'm ready to face the scary, ugly truth. Because a higher power without intention makes more sense to me than one that gets pissed off and rains down fire and brimstone. Or even one that loves. I mean, math and physics don't have emotions or ulterior motives. And while I've known that all along, it has only now broken through in a way that I'm willing to embrace. If this is all true, then a good part of what, in the past, has given me hope and confidence for my future, is a lie I've been telling myself. Depressing indeed.

And yet, I have no desire to turn away from this. In any relationship you're going to learn a truth about the other that is hard to swallow. And that can turn you away. Or it can help you love more honestly. Even if there's no caring deity to receive that love, the universe does reflect that love back on me. It's part of the physics. And instead of doing something because I feel destined (which I still do, possibly because I created my destiny myself) I can do it for the way it makes me feel inside. Or for the way it helps others. And not because it's what I'm destined to do, as if somehow mystically anointed from above. It may be a depressing perspective in one way, but it does relieve a lot of pressure and fear around failing. I mean, I can handle failing myself, but it's harder to handle failing some god figure you're trying to win the approval of. 

So, anyway, this is what I've been noodling lately. For some reason, my recent birthday has me thinking a lot about the time I have left on this earth and what the meaning of it all is. Random birthdays from my past have triggered similar spiritual "crises". I generally don't think too much about getting older, but suddenly I am. The difference is that there's a peace and strength at the midst of this crisis I don't remember feeling before. It feels more like I might be entering into a new level of understanding, spiritually speaking. And even if there is no reason behind this madness we call life, gaining new understanding and seeing where that leads is reason enough to carry on.

3/27/17—Claiming My Senior Privilege

The first time he saw the ocean, he was a boy. Here he's seeing it as a man.

Kizzie is getting grumpy in his old age. 

Things he used to be fine with are now met with a snarl. Sometimes when I can't sleep, I come down and sleep on the sofa. It's not a terribly comfortable sofa. It has definitely seen better days. But it gives good sleeping. So anyway, the other night I came down and found Kizzie sleeping there. It's kind of his domain at night. But I figure I outrank him, so I give him a poke and tell him to scoot. And BOY, did I get an earful!

Kizzie has never bitten or started a fight with anyone ever in his life. People who know him will tell you he's the most gentle soul there is. But in his old age, he's getting really good at trying to convince you he's turned and he will snap your arm off. I laugh as I write it, because that's just not him. But he has learned the art of intimidation. And it comes in handy when Mystic won't stop licking him or Magick tries to steal his treat or when I try to move him off the sofa at night. 

Kizzie has a couple of things working in his life right now. One is that he occupies the role of top dog in the house. With that comes privileges. He gets to sit on the front porch with me, frequently off leash, and watch the sunset, while the other two stew in their jealousy inside. He gets secret treats sometimes that the others don't know about. And he also gets a larger share of the treats than the others. Granted, he's as much as twice Magick's size, but everyone knows the real truth—Kizzie has senior privilege. 

The other thing is that he's getting old. He's 13 and he's a 70 lb dog. This is a good life expectancy for him...average to good. So he knows that. He's getting warts and skin tags. He has a perpetually festering carbuncle on his butt. He's getting stiff in the legs. He knows he's nearing the end. He may very well have a couple years left in him. But he knows the score. 

So he really doesn't want to take any of anyone's bullshit anymore, thank you. He just wants to be comfortable. Unfettered. And dripping in senior privilege. 

Don't we all.

I've written before about how inspirational his self transformation was in the wake of Passion's death. The moral of that story was that we become what we believe. And Kizzie began to believe he was BMOC...big man on campus. He developed an inner and outer swagger that, combined with his lifelong ability to charm the ladies, turned him into a confident, compassionate leader. He found his groove. And now he's found his privilege. 

By privilege, I mean, he has found his voice. He is comfortable in his body, as ramshackle as its becoming. Although there are days he feels like 100, he's still eager to get out there and feel like 10 again. Or 8. He's at peace with his capabilities and limits. He is taking his aging with grace. He has earned his opinion on things. He's not afraid to take a stand. He's not shy about asking for what he wants. And the fear and anxiety he had when he first met us is all but gone. In a word, he has found his inner confidence.

If Passion was the dog that taught me how to love, Kizzie is the dog that is teaching me my rights to self confidence, transformation, inner peace and senior privilege. I've got the grumpiness part down, but still have a way to go on many of the other qualities. 

I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. I'm still young, I guess. I'm 54. But many days I feel much older. I'm questioning some of the things I perpetuate in my life. I'm questioning my own self-torture over those things, too. I've been distracted by the question of what I'm going to do and who I'm going to be for the rest of my life. I feel a little lost in the world now. Maybe it's a post-menopausal version of a mid-life crisis. 

And sitting next to me on the porch each night is the epitome of someone who transformed himself entirely in mid life, without even questioning it. And now he's taking his senior years with grace, sometimes feeling 100, sometimes feeling 8 again, and wanting to be alive and face it and persist on either day. 

When I grow up, I want to be just like Kizzie.

3/20/17—Remembering Who I Am

TBT: Me before the whole world went to shit.

A few weeks ago I disappeared from Facebook. At first I thought I'd be gone a week, at most. Now I don't know when I'll return.

It had been coming for a while. A few months back I decided to just log out and take a break. I left a message saying I needed a break, so nobody would worry. And during that break, I found myself logging back in and poking around, but not responding to anything. About a week into that, I was back to responding.

What I needed a break from was all the political posts. I just felt there was a lot of fear out there and it was reflected in the sensationalist and biased articles people chose to post, and the things we were all saying to each other. Heck, I had fear myself, which is why I needed to retreat into my shell. I needed to find out where my own sense of truth was in all of that, and everyone else's sense of truth was out there so loudly, I couldn't think above the din. And, no matter what the truth is, I wasn't going to live the next few years of my life in fear. So I retreated in search of my own lost balance.

I also felt that, while Facebook has been very kind to me overall, something that was once just a really fun way of socializing became an addiction for me. The difference between the two was in how I felt about myself in regard to what it was bringing me at the end of the day. It was no longer energy giving. It would often leave me feeling tired and disconnected and fearful. It was the same old Facebook. And I have some pretty cool friends. But I was absorbing all the collateral fear going on around me. And I was responding in ways that displeased me. And I began to wonder, "what did I do with my time BEFORE Facebook?" It had been so long, I couldn't remember.

So I deactivated my account. There was a last-straw moment for me that triggered it. Have you ever felt like some invisible something was right behind you—maybe you're walking up a creepy stairway or in an interaction with someone that goes weird—and you have that overwhelming urge quicken your step so you can get the hell out of there as fast as possible? That's how I felt. Which is why I deactivated my account—made myself unfindable, as if I was never there in the first place. In that moment, I just had. To. Get. Out.

I do plan on being visible again. I'm just not done with my mission of remembering what I did with my time before Facebook, yet. And I don't want to fall back into my old ways of peeking in just yet.

I feel bad, because I gave no warning. I mean, in my post a few months ago when I took a break, I basically said I might be unpredictable moving forward. But I never said (or even knew) I might actually fully disappear. And people knew they could come and see my Friday posts and my Sunday posts because I did them like clockwork...the Sunday post (which is what you're reading right now) has been posted every Sunday for seven years now!

And then one day I just disappear. Some people figured out new blog posts were still being posted here, at my personal website. Some realized I was still visible on Facebook Messenger and reached out. But I'm sure many more just thought I hated them or flaked out or something. So for that I'm sorry. But I can't stress enough how much I've been needing to take care of myself first lately. You'd be surprised how rarely a single woman with three dogs, a property, a house and a business to maintain takes care of herself first. I don't think single women get enough credit for all we shoulder entirely on our own. We may not be single mothers with toddlers, but it's not all bubble baths and bon-bons on this side of the fence either.

What I have discovered since leaving so far is that I get to bed earlier, which also means I get more sleep, which also means I feel healthier and get more done. Because I'm not checking Facebook compulsively, I'm less distracted, especially at night. When my attention isn't divided, I'm more engaged in one thing at a time, and I enjoy that thing more. In fact, overall, I feel more engaged in life, but all of that is also due to other factors. Work, for example, is going really well right now. I'm working on enjoyable projects, and I'm making money, which is always good. And spring is woven into our DNA as a time of renewal. So many things are driving positive changes right now.

I'm not going to lie, I'm terribly distressed by what is going on eight miles to the north of my house in DC. I'm heartbroken by some of it and appalled by some of it. And I'm still afraid of what this is making us and what it might make of our country. It's like seeing a wrecking ball repeatedly pound into your childhood home for absolutely no reason other than that it can....because the wrecking ball gets high on shock, destruction, attention and being in control. And there it is ruining everything you held dear in your heart for 54 years and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to manage this period of my life with my inner peace and higher self in tact. I feel like we've been moving toward this moment for all our lives. It's revealing who we really are. As my dear mother would say, "it's shit or get off the pot time" for our souls. Do we want to be brothers or fearful, selfish savages? I'm shocked at the number of people in the WORLD who would choose the latter. And the funny thing is that they're often the ones who talk about Jesus the most. In their parlance, it's "are you ready to live Jesus' teachings or do you just want to use him as an convenient excuse to hate?" time. This period is revealing who we are at the core in contrast to who we claim to be, and none of us are coming out clean. We all have to do better.

So that's what I'm exploring these days. Kinda heavy stuff. But fear often works against healing ourselves and healing others. And if we want to heal, we have to be up to the challenge of addressing our own fear. Things actually could get worse, but only if we hold on to our fear.

A lot of what is going on in the world today feeds on that fear and cannot survive without it. Although I realized it before, I kind of had to break free of that for a while to realize my contributions to that, if not in word, but in deed and thought...in energy and attention. That's not who I say I am and it's not who I want to be. (And I'm not suggesting that that's who you are, either.) And I suppose I should be grateful to all of this for pointing that out to me. But now it's time for me to remember truly who I am.

PS: If you want to keep reading my blog posts, feel free to join my mailing list. It automatically sends an email when I make a new post, and doesn't otherwise spam you. You do have to confirm your subscription immediately after giving them your email address, though. So look out for that. You can subscribe at the top of my home page at www.tierneysadler.com

3/13/17—Finding Peace Within The Chaos

The sunset view we enjoyed at our noisy cottage near the beach.

I have felt outside of the mainstream all my life. Growing up, I never fit in...not in my family or society. I moved around a lot, which didn't help. I couldn't even find a key chain with my name on it. There just seemed to be no place for me.

And as I grew older, other things separated me even further. In fact, I don't know for sure whether I chose to be a loner or whether it was just the way dice rolled for me based on who I was.

Recently, I went to the beach for a few days to celebrate my 54th birthday. Well, we didn't stay at the beach exactly, but at a B&B a couple of miles from the beach. We had a little cottage all to ourselves, apart from the main house. We had a fenced back yard to ourselves. And the view was beautiful, for being in a neighborhood setting. 

But just on the other side of a thin fence was a well traveled road with a lot of loud, fast traffic. There's a 4-way stop half a block away, but a lot people seemed to be plowing through. Regardless, we were getting the sound of their engines as they cycled down and cycled up. It was unusually loud, seemingly made even louder by the contrast to the pastoral view I was gazing at.

As I sat there in brief moments of relative quiet between cars, however, it occurred to me that there is a place for me. There is a place for a tarot loving, dog-obsessed "mommy", writer, blogger, spiritual philosopher, awkward, hermity kind of loner. The places are few and far between. And I hate saying a really loud street corner is a place for me...haha. But B&Bs are for me. Cute little private cottages with kitchenettes are for me. And places that allow three dogs, but discourage children are for me...haha. 

And the thing is, I can work with the noise. I'm noise averse in my own quiet neighborhood, so I have tools. I have earplugs to sleep in, because I have loud birds outside my bedroom window. And when I'm outside at night and my neighbors are entertaining, I have noise cancelling earbuds through which I listen to music. So, between those two things, I barely noticed the noise at the B&B. In fact I think adding a musical soundtrack to the sunset and stargazing actually made the experience more Zen. 

I'm not into flashy or perfect or "grand" in general. And, again, I'm not sure if I choose to have fairly "pedestrian" tastes or whether I've just settled for them because they were what I could afford (and access with three dogs in tow). In fact, I've been thinking about that notion a lot lately. I wonder whether certain opportunities I have available to me—from the neighborhood I live in to the way I live my life—are things I chose because I wanted them or because I compromised at some point and just didn't think I was worthy of more. I feel like when I was growing up, I wanted for nothing. But that was because the things I wanted were always within reach. I wasn't exactly the little girl who asked for a pony for Christmas. So I wonder if I just extended that into adulthood, not wanting anything too sparkly so I'd never end up disappointed.

So all of this was swirling in my head as I blocked out the unfortunate traffic noise at the otherwise perfect B&B. And with my Chakra Chants blasting through my headphones, I looked up into the cloudless night sky, a 3/4 moon bright up above. A plane flew past and, with its quickly dissipating vapor trail illuminated by the moon, it looked like a slow moving comet streaking across the sky between the moon and Orion. Every 15 minutes or so, another "comet" would streak across the sky for me. It was a beautiful and inspirational sight, partly real, partly conjured by the trippy music and  partly created by my imagination.

And I thought to myself that the little girl who wanted a pony probably wouldn't have had this incredibly magical and mystical moment because she'd have no reason to block out the noise with Chakra Chants (which really made the moment...I used Native American flute music for the sunset), and she probably wouldn't sit for hours star gazing in 40-degree weather, either. In fact, she might not even know what Orion or a comet look like. 

If I'm being fully frank, many parts of my brief vacation sucked. My dogs get so filled with anxiety over new places that they didn't quite settle in for the few days we were away. And one is anxious in the car, making the trip home, in the snow, in high wind warnings while going over a bridge so scary that people actually make their living driving people like me over it, a nightmare. But the thing is, for better or for worse, this is the place for me. Most of the time I love it. And sometimes I cry thinking about how it might be somehow different or better.

It's interesting to note that last week's post was about being in the moment and, secondarily, dealing with disturbing noise. And as it turns out, this week's post is also secondarily about disturbing noise. In a way, that's what our spiritual journey is about, too—blocking the disturbing noise of our humanity long enough to access the peace and stillness of our divinity. 

It seems there's always going to be noise in our lives. It's not always the clatter of cars and birds and neighbors. Sometimes it's noise created in your head by a boss leaning extra hard on you. Sometimes it's the din of owing more in taxes than you have in the bank. Sometimes it's the cries of your own inner demons. And sometimes it's the long to-do lists required to keep ourselves fed and caught up on life. The ways in which we learn to calibrate life's cacophony go a long way toward defining who we are and how much peace we're able to find while we're here.