So last night, as part of her stage banter, Aoife was talking about her experience of COVID shutting everything down and being in the states needing to get back to Ireland in the midst of the most surreal St. Patrick's Day season ever back in 2020. And she was talking about how they were in Nashville staying at the house of the banjo player with Alison Krause (Ron is a good friend of theirs) working on some songs because the Nashville Irish fair they were scheduled to play at had been canceled and she said something that I've been turning over in my head since then. She said, "The festival hadn't been cancelled because of COVID. It was cancelled because of the tornado that went through. I swear to youse, it feels like there's always something trying to kill yez while in America." And when we were chatting post show, she brought it up again in the context of some other natural weather event and we started talking about how there's nowhere in America where you're free from the ever present possibility of the earth or the air or the water or wildfires murdering you. But in contrast, Ireland doesn't have atmospheric or tectonic attempts as acts of God to suddenly kill you, "All wes have is rain, plenty of it, but all gentle like. Just rain."

But the thing is, with Uvalde so fresh in my mind, I knew she was talking about the weather trying to kill people here but in my mind it was also an acknowledgement that as a foreign traveller here you accept the possibility of being gunned down anywhere and everywhere and you learn to live with that fatalism in your every day lives. That was my layered understanding of her words, she was talking purely weather trying to kill people. 

And it made me consider.... We talk about how it's the money and lobbies corrupting politicians but money and power corrupt the system in all nations and bureaucracies around the world in all times. If it were only money and manufacturing lobbyists, the rest of the world would have the same civilian gun violence issues. If it were the entertainment industry desensitization, be it films or TV or video games, the problem would be global because the entertainment industry is global and everyone in the modern world has those Ender simulacra of violence fed into their brains. We talk about how the American psyche is built on systems of oppression and white supremacy and misogyny and center this in our discussion of the uniquely American issues surrounding gun violence and ownership and availability -- all of which is true. But there are other nations and other places that have been built on such evil ideas becoming accepted societal norms. And they have been able to brick by brick start the process of deconstructing and resolving things and healing so that the past is a tool to reshape a better future than the wrongs that came before. 

In America, that doesn't happen. We have aspirational times of wanting it and even dedicated individuals working towards it, but never the sustained focus to create lasting changes to the philosophical underpinnings and the framing of laws to heal these things. 

And Aoife's comment about the tornado got me thinking: what if the uniquely American danse macabre combination of defensive fear and fatalism isn't because of the corrupting influence of money and industry lobbyists or something cursed by the toxic mix of European colonialism and religious fundamentalism (after all look at New Zealand and Canada) and the genocides and slavery of the past... What if it's because at a fundamental root psychological level Americans have lived and continue to live every day as if it's a throw of the dice that an act of God might try to kill you that day - so you learn to live and find joy under the shadow of the terror that the very earth and air keep omnipresent as potential. And so the things we could do something to mitigate and make better, the things other people in other nations do take actions on refuse to accept as inevitable, we simply don't because it's so deeply ingrained in us living reactively with the terror that at any moment a tornado or earthquake or hurricane or wildfire or deep snowfall or extreme heat or extreme cold or drought or floods could destroy your life and/or everything you created/value. It makes us willfully blind to the ways we can protect the most vulnerable and defend against the evils in humanity getting out of hand because we spend every moment of our lives from our youngest hours learning how to prepare best possible defense plans and then taking immediate steps for the practical rebuilding after the catastrophe and just go about our daily lives activities with that fear and fatalism as if that's normal.  But never to minimize the frequency or intensity of it's occurring, just to train ourselves for how best to react WHEN it occurs.

And the fear tells you to do everything you can to protect yourself - whether it's having a basement for tornadoes or the theory that you too can be a good guy with a gun vigilante hero so long as you have as much access to the guns as bad guys with a gun. And the fatalism tells you to accept that this was tragic and horrific and we did everything we could to make sure people have tornado sirens and basements but still deaths happened and lives were ruined and now we rebuild. We planned the defenses of the schools/churches and trained the staff hired those to mitigate harm and held drills so we would know the steps to take if the emergency happened here..... 

Americans react to man-made problems and societal illness catastrophes the same way we react to tornadoes/hurricanes/wildfires. And I wonder how much of the way Americans handle gun violence issues and racially motivated lynchings and police brutality is directly due to their psychological programming and philosophical nihilism instilled at a very young age about death by random act of God due to the ways the geography of this landmass is always trying to kill you in some fashion while you just go about your daily life in the shadows of that existential threat.  

It's just something I've been thinking about and contemplating today as a more primal root cause philosophical distinction compared to other nations for why Americans live the way they do with the gun violence issue. And it makes me question if gun violence and white supremacy as a control issue can ever be unpacked so something better and more holistic a society can be built without facing the philosophical dilemmas of living in chronic catastrophe reactionary mode and trying to find something you can control when you live from your youngest possible age under the existential threat that something is always trying to kill you in America.

It's not an answer. And i don't have an answer for how to psychologically unpack and ask the questions to shift this at a fundamental framework level for engaging with reality. I have some ideas but I don't have answers.  Just questions and connections and this train of thought about natural catastrophes creating a framework of accepting existential threats as a daily inevitability is something I'm pursuing today to try to understand and answer the question the Sky News reporter asked Ted Cruz about why brutal gun violence and school shootings are a uniquely American exceptionalism....(obviously Ted Cruz lacks the intellectual depth and philosophizing temperament to question the fact America is a society steeped in the terror of existential dread of things we accept are beyond our control to stop or prevent, where all anyone can do is prepare, endure, and rebuild. And that it is part of the foundation cornerstones of both our great source of strength in our resourceful scrappiness and also the most damning weaknesses of nihilism and cultural inaction that harms the most vulnerable.) 

Anyway. I'm going to plug my phone in now since it's at 4% battery life. And then I'm going to fold my cleaning rags torn up of scraps of old shirts because the dryer chimed during my writing that last paragraph. (I reuse and repurpose as much as possible rather than buy new. Especially for storage and cleaning or instead of using disposable versions.  Other than for company, why buy new cloth with the intention of destroying it making it dirty and stained? Including tearing apart and rag binning old shirts. I also save the drippings and ends of candles and re melt them with new wicks of they can be salvaged. Past lives of accumulated habits of thrift and using every bit of things rather than wasting it.) And then after moving along the laundry I'm going to drink coffee and read and let my mind continue to ponder in the background this new theory about America's over preparedness but paralysis of proactive actions in preventable acts of human-mediated disasters due to living in perpetual existential dread that the land/air/water itself is going to  try to kill you.

 *yawns* yes I iz home from Chi. I'm so happy full of giddies to have seen Aoife and Andy again!!!! Likely won't see them next again until August, but their random run of dates last minute added after an invite for a folk showcase and including a Chi stop was such an absolute delight!!!!! 

But also. I iz le tired. Dog is already on bed waiting for the snuggle to be real.... 

And I am tiiiiiiired now. Been up since 5am because sunrise. (Will probably be up again for sunrise in just a few hours here since I can only sleep across sunrises/sunsets when I'm sick and healing. Otherwise I'm wide awake in the hours of the gloaming no matter when I went to sleep. And after having my, "Yes sky is painted pretty colors and birdsong beautiful" feels, I will then snuggle back down into the pillows with a happy sigh and sleep some more.)

Would just like to say before sleeps commence. Last day and all of today/tonight, so much intense focused love down the bond. Absolute flood of it. Right now again too. I would just like to cuddle right up into it with a "yes this. More of this please." Not certain what's got into him so driven and intense and certain and overflowing with love and a need it be felt and reciprocated. But it's there and it's heady and it makes my eyes and soul shine and I am all for it. More of intense love pouring down the bond, both ways. Yes? Yes. Good talk. Glad we agree. I'll send my love in dream space for now since that's where I'm headed. 

Bonne nuit. Sweet dreams. 

Reminder: 

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."~Lao Tzu

P. S. When I got gas in Stoughton on the way to drop Mikaela off post show, the total was $33.33. the clock now says 3:33. That's a lot of 3s, I should look up what that means in symbolism. Tomorrow. After this sleep. Not right now. Now we listen to the wind in the trees and do the sleeps and hold the love light burning strong feel it pour into each other no matter the physical distance. Or at least, that's my plan on my end. You do what seems best to you.

 Last night all my dreams were of wrapping my arms around his waist and leaning my head against his chest with his arms around me and feeling safe and right where I belonged and that I was finally home. That was it. That was all the dream. Sometimes it was standing, sometimes in greeting, sometimes laying down and heading toward sleep. Sometimes he'd run his fingers through my hair or kiss the top of my head or forehead. But always it was just the recurring joy and contentment and belonging of rightness to hold each other. Of choosing to hold each other in love and the sense of rightness created by that choice.

That was it. If I had other dreams last night I don't remember them. Just that same recurring moment and feeling and rightness of it. No overthinking or demands or needs or plans or story outside of that moment/feeling of holding each other. And every time I dreamed it we were in different places, in different clothes or not clothes -- but that feeling was the same throughout. Of stillness and wholeness and happiness and being right exactly where meant to be. Nothing outside of just that feeling of rightness and relief and joy in holding each other. 

And I woke up feeling that peace and sense of rightness and to be in a state of loving and beloved and an inner certainty that everything was unfolding in Divine timing and that those futures are meant to be and will be if we both choose them. And it's funny but even wide awake right now in the quiet morning of my own flat, if I close my eyes and imagine myself stepping toward him and wrapping my arms around him, there's an immediate inner sense of response of him returning the embrace and a flood of that rightness of things as they are becoming. It's not that it's something new in the shared dream space or in the sharing of emotions down the bond.... it's the consistency and intensity and purity of it, that it's not mixed up with anything else pulling away or detracting and muddying up that one focused intention and sense of rightness in holding each other in love. It's not my own desires I doubt, it's doubting that I can have what I want because he doesn't want/choose me for this life and so I should stop wasting my time on what can't be, that's what makes me restless and turn away from him and give up. My doubt that I can have him because I'm no part of what he wants. 

That's not where I am today or yesterday, but it's a place I have been and I can't swear that I won't ever be again. It's not a place of healthy questioning, it's a place of assuming the worst simply because the best hasn't yet happened. I won't claim it's a healthy set of thoughts/emotions/reactions in me, but I will claim it as one of mine. And always and always and always I know it is born from me accepting the fear/doubt/idea that he isn't among my options because he doesn't want me or care about me and there's no place for me in his life. That's always what starts me pulling away from him or trying to give him up or forcing me to accept a path forward without him in it. It's born of a place where I try to confront that fear by accepting it could be truth rather than accepting it could be false and the truth is that it's an unknown variable that actually I can't know without learning from him what his truth IS.

And I should be a better version of me than one who gives up what I truly want based on a fear that something might be true rather than finding a way to learn what his truth actually is. That's the sort of courage and faith in him I need to fight to hold onto to be a better version of me and to assist in what is unfolding even when I can't see it happening. And... I can't promise to always be that better version of myself. I can't promise never to doubt or question and in that questioning end up listening to my fear that I can't have what I want because it isn't mutual, because I'm no part of what he wants and seeks in his life. But I can promise that if he holds fast to his truths than once I'm past the crisis of my doubts and fears, I'll look to him again for evidence of what it is that he wants for himself and that when I can once more see his truth, I'll always turn again to him and choose him. Always and always. For as long as he wants me. When I hear his truth, then my choice will always be easy -- for I will always choose him as long as he wants me and I can belong in his life. So as long as he can hold to his own truth stay clear and centered in it, then nothing (not even my own doubts and fears) can ever keep me from choosing him. It's that simple and that hard. It's my promise and my truth, but I can only cling to both with any consistency so long as I can know what his truth is, so long as I know that the desire and the choice is mutual.

And. I can have patience in the unfolding to get us there and to reach that rightness rather than being impatient or overthinking or impulsive and missing out on it. It's when I doubt that the current paths are heading to that point of reunion and that feeling that I'm wasting time investing my heart where there can only be hurt in return that I start to get fractious and impulsive and feeling like doing anything is better than doing nothing. It's when I doubt that we can get there for real in this life that I start fighting and martyr-like sacrificing him from my life in the name of his happiness and generally looking to make any choice to head me in any direction because I feel like I can't find any choices that leads me to where I want to go. And if you can't get to where you want to go, any choice can be a good one, you just have to make it.

But last night and still this morning there is only that sense of love and rightness and the feeling that if I only step forward to wrap my arms around him rest my head against his chest, then he'll wrap his arms around me and we can stay there in that place of mutual love and joy in the rightness of being.  Of being right exactly where we're meant to be when we choose to hold onto each other in love. It's the same feeling from the polar bear and fairy ride Seelie Court dream where I found him there amongst the bears and I chose to trust him in his sadness and his hopelessness except when I stopped and really looked at him gave him hope, curled up between his paws and he rested his head on me and gave happy sigh and I fell asleep in the dream to find the bond awake and alive once more after it had been made dormant by the fae at my request. It's that same sense and feeling as when in that dream I chose to trust my bear again and curl up with him rather than see him so sad and without hope except hope's glimmering when I stopped and really saw him. 

I've told you in all my lifetimes and all the fatelines and all the possible pasts and presents and futures, if he wants me and I can choose him then I always will. You didn't need a promise from me for that to be my truth, even though I gave him that promise long ago. It just is my truth. Like the shining of the sun and the harmonics of waves and the forward spinning of time as the Universe unfolds outwards from the big bang. My truth is that as long as he wants me and he is an option, I will always want him and I will always choose him. 

I didn't read the Coelho book as I had planned last night, I went to go change into my pyjamas before making the tea and my dog was tired asked if I could lift her in the bed and we could snuggle and go to sleep. My dog won't go to the bedroom and won't stay in the bed unless I also head to bed, no matter how tired she is or how much she aches. She's always been that way even when I got her as a puppy. (She's old now, 15 years old, though in my mind she's also still the young version of her full of boundless energy and joie de vivre. and she has cataracts now and sometimes her hips and back hurt her which is why I always let her decide the lengths and routes of our walks now and we wander based on her needs/desires/abilities. And I lift her in and out of the bed these recent years. Sometimes she'll jump up on her own, but most of the time I lift her up. I've looked into pet stairs and ramps but the stairs would still hurt her hips and I haven't found a ramp as tall as my current mattress and box spring. So I just lift her in and out of bed. She's only a 30lb dog, so it's not really any difficulty to do that for her.) Anyway. So I went to bed early for the joy and contentment it would give my dog rather than reading as I had intended. I got up for the sunrise and I talked to my dog asked her if we should get going so I could go to market and get some cheese and bread and veggies and pie. She licked the air (she does that whenever we discuss food words she knows and is excited about) but she said she didn't yet want to get out of bed even after I warned her that I go early to Farmer's Market or I don't go at all because it gets too crowded the later the morning gets. And she said that she'd rather snuggle now and wait a week for me to get more cheese curds. 

We're up now (well I am, the animals are curled up asleep on the floor near my reading chair, Audrey is 15 and Spock is now 13, they both sleep a lot more than they used to) and she's not yet wanting to go on a walk and I like to go walk before I make myself coffee and break my fast. So I'm reading the Coelho book now with a cuppa tea. It's a quick read and I'm not certain I like or relate to the central narrator so far, but I'm curious to see how Coelho explores the fear of giving into love which seems one of the central themes thus far. Perhaps I will like the narrator more as she evolves into the version of her she is becoming through the journey of the book. Another theme is about a long held love where the two are at different points of spiritual awakening. And another theme so far is being open to joy and spontaneity of experiential living or being closed off in the overthinking planning practical. 

I'm only a quarter of the way through and don't yet know where the journey of this book will go other than it begins with the ending. But it's one where the process of journeying matters as much or more than the events themselves. 

But anyway. Just wanted to acknowledge my dreams and what I woke up with from them and how the peace and rightness and ability to lean into that sense of loving and being loved in return is still with me. Still there inside me, all I have to do is reach for him and hug him to feel it again. To choose to do that even when I can't physically because of distance, I can still choose to reach for him with my love that way in our inner space via the bond between us.

If I never find the song to sing you. If you always find it hard to comprehend. Well, you know there wouldn't be much meaning, If I had to sing those tired words again. Life goes on and on, And tonight will soon be gone. But if we try, we can be sure. If I only had the words to tell you. If you only had the time to understand. But I only have these arms to hold you, And it's all that you can ask of any man.

Unrelated to anything recently posted. the only thing it's apropos of is I saw a Reuters news clip a few days ago that monarch population is up 32% in 2021 compared to 2020 though there's still concerns about their rapid decline in recent years and I've seen several articles on it since then  But one of the very magical things I want to do in this world is to visit the Monarch Butterfly forest in Mexico during their wintering stage of migration. On the oyamel fir trees in Mexico where they migrate to overwinter in all the millions of all the monarch butterflies alive during that winter in the entire world. While there are still enough of them for it to be truly magical to get to see and experience.

Only. That's not something I want to do by myself. It's on my list of shared experiences and shared memories of magical moments. But just know that it's on the list of magical things I desire to experience this life.  There's actually a lot of these things, magical places and things that I know exist and that I want to visit and see/do but that i want to have the memories of that magic shared. To have that added layer of magic to it in that it's something shared with someone I care deeply about, not just something I experienced. I have lots of stories of magics, large and small, some that happen unexpectedly just going through my life and some that I knew before I went would be magical and I decided I was okay with having it be a memory of my own.  And there are some that I know quite specifically I want to have as a shared memory of a magical experience or not at all this life. 

For me, ever since I was a kid and first learned about the overwintering habits of monarchs amidst the huge firs, I've known that visiting the monarch butterfly forest is one of the ones I want to be shared. It doesn't even have to be during the Festival de la mariposa monarca which I believe is in February (it always looks beautiful and interesting, but it makes it a more expensive time for visiting during the span of winter monarchs) just somewhere in the November-March window of time when you can visit them and hike or horseback ride through the publicly accessible areas of the UNESCO biosphere and visit with the unique type of firs and the monarch butterflies flocked only there in all the world. 

It's on my list of random magical things I want to experience but that I want to have as a shared memory experience not just me holding that memory. Some things the happiness is in the experience qua experience and some things it's about getting to share the moments and some things it's most perfect to have both. And for some reason, from the very first I learned about the monarch butterflies and the oyamel fir trees, I had a contingent precog flash of me getting to visit it and it was so full of joy and wonder and awe. And specifically turning to share that sense of joy and wonder and awe and having it amplified in the reflecting back and forth between us. That flash of contingent precog created in me a deeply certain inner knowing that me experiencing the wonder of visiting while all the monarchs are there is to be a shared moment of magic, not a just me thing. 

Another shared moment of magic as a someday trip I want to do is to go visit the polar bears in Churchill Manitoba. In reality, not just dreams. Either October/November when they're massing to wait for the ice to form or March/April to watch the mothers and baby cubs emerging from their dens and exploring on Baffin Island. But visiting the polar bears in Churchill, just like visiting the monarchs massed in the Sierra Madres, is very specifically for me something I want to be a magic that's shared with someone special. Not a just me thing.

This someday visit to the mid-winter butterflies reserve is not something I can plan or put in a calendar right now because when it's there it will be a shared set of plans, just know that like my someday house it's something magical I want as a shared magic or not at all. And for some reason, my wanting to experience the monarch forest reserve as a shared moment has been at the forefront of my thoughts today.  And I think it's important to recognize the distinction of when sharing the magic adds to the wonder and joy to know you'll both carry the memory even after the transience of the moment passes. Even when you're naturally a bit of an introvert hermit, some magics are best when shared so you can both keep the pieces of the memories inside you.

Tonight just felt like the right time to honor and speak this truth of mine.

For the rest of tonight though, I'm going to snuggle down with candles lit and a cuppa tea and a small pour of Green Spot and a book (Paulo Coelho's short novel By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept; weirdly I own two copies of it but haven't read it yet but tonight's inner space felt like the right time for reading it -- it's one I expect to have quotes and pictures that I love from it because I often do when reading Coelho novels, if I do and I remember I'll share here) until whenever I head to bed.  Tomorrow I'm not certain if I'll choose to get up and go for Farmer's Market or have a lazy Saturday morning. On verra. I have no plans for tomorrow (got all my hours in) not even potential plans other than if I decide to go to market on the early morning.

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Billy Joel song If I Only Had the Words (To Tell You) which is my favorite song ever.  I'm not very good at picking favorites, I love different things in different ways for different reasons. There are other Billy Joel songs I adore and I couldn't choose between for favorites amongst the rest of his works.  But this has been my absolute favorite song I've ever heard since I was in  like kindergarten. I stole my parents copy of Piano Man just for this song -- even though it's not one most people have ever even heard. There's other songs I love and have loved, but this is my favorite song. It makes me feel all soft and weak in the knees, even just hearing the intro of it realizing which song it is, and listening to the song feels like being held in love to me. It's one I'll put on repeat when I can't fall asleep because it works when nothing else can help soothe and quiet my overthinking brain.  It's not because of the melody or the piano part or anything, it's that it echoes my own experience that the deepest feelings are the ineffable ones. The deeper you feel something, the harder it is to put into words and all the words you can find aren't enough and sound trite. And that sometimes all we can hope is that the truth and depth of one's love can be felt even when words fail to encompass it. And I like the honesty and humility of admitting that even when finding the right words is something you excel at, the deepest emotions remain beyond your words. In case you didn't know or had forgotten my favorite song and my reasons why for it.]

 This isn't a multi lives mission or anything for me as far s what I do to release souls trapped in loops of their own traumas and to cleanse places with psychic scars from nasty past events that occurred there. I've done it in past lives, but very few and far between, maybe a handful across an entire lifetime. Never like this. It started in college with me starting to realize that the American medical system was not a path toward anything I wanted to be doing as a healer given I wanted to fix people when broken and give them the tools not to break in the first place, so then I found me faced with not knowing what I wanted to do to guide this reward life path and in my wandering coming across the mess that was theatre district downtown Chicago that was still there nobody had cleansed in 100 years. And I was shocked and angry that it was still there with the psychic scars from the Iroquois Theatre Fire and I asked, "WHY WAS THIS LEFT LIKE THIS? WHY HAS NOBODY MADE THIS RIGHT IN ALL THIS TIME?" And Gabriel told me, "Those whose souls are old enough and skilled enough to do so are few, and there's not been training of younger souls to learn this work for the last 250years or more. You're the first in the incarnation to come through and see the problem who can do something about it since they got stuck."  And it was after that point I started noticing how the modern world cleans up the physical messes of it's making but leaves to fester the psychic wounds and the souls caught between lives in the traps of those scars. 

And I figured that, since I don't really have a purpose or any ego desires in this life and I've been waiting for the only thing I selfishly desire to reach the point where he wants me enough to find me and choose me, I might as well make myself useful at a work I can uniquely do that very few others can. So I started actively looking for psychic scars to heal and trapped souls to release back into the cycle of souls while I was wandering. Instead of just knowing they were there and leaving them to exist but if it didn't go after me I'd not bother with it, I started to actively clean up the messes under and around the surface changes. I have friends who serve as mediums and way stations to help the newly dead not get trapped, and that's important work which I can do, but what I can do that they can't is guide those who slipped through the cracks or whose deaths lend themselves to getting stuck in a loop of terror.

It doesn't pay any bills, and I wouldn't take money for anything I use my gifts for if it was offered, nor does it bring me any sort of renown or prestige - money and fame and power are all corrosive and you should be very careful about anything you cherish and hold sacrosanct becoming motivated by greed or lust for power or ego traps.  Motives and reasons should always be examined, and I believe that the more important it is to you the more you should examine them, because once you start doing good on questionable motives, you'll start rationalizing behaviors that are no longer good in order to defend the motives that corrupted the good you were trying to do. So I feel that for me, getting paid or needing to be renowned for my energy healing work and karmic releasing crucibles I catalyze and assist others through would be corrosive and I won't accept any sort of tangible real world benefits for that work. I do it because I feel a desire to do make it right, to heal it. The work and doing it from a pure inner place matters more to me than any renumeration ever could.  

I also have my own rules and ethical codes of conduct for it. As far as free will goes, I don't force ghosts or other unincarnated spirits on if they are harmless but don't want to move on or if they have a purpose they are choosing to fulfill. (For example, I know of one ghost in Owensboro KY who was an escaped slave raped and murdered and wanders through the campgrounds and fields near there, especially during festivals, to protect girls who are alone and to attack those who would cross that line. She's full of vengeance to motivate her and there's a darkness in her, but she uses it to serve light and protect others and the only living she attacks are those who would prey on the vulnerable. So she's alright in my book and she can stay as long as this is an existence she finds fulfilling and desires. I check in with her whenever I'm in that area of Kentucky, but she has never yet been ready to lay down her self appointed task of guardianship. So I leave her to it as long as she can stick to her roles as protective and only harming those who seek to harm others.) I do not abide by unincarnated spirit that feeds upon the living or that intentionally causes harm to those who have done no harm to them - those are both cases where I will forcibly face down and eject a spirit from being within the incarnation make them face the light of source and be judged and moved on to whatever their next stage is. And that includes preying upon or harming the life force of animals and plants. This for me is a hard line - parasitic vampiric spirits won't be allowed to continue if they cross my path. There is one and only one exception to that -- tribal shamans and vengeful Native American souls who seek restitution for the genocide and wrongs committed against them have every damn right to whatever judgement or hunting among those who tainted their land and holy spaces and murdered their innocents. I will step in over such spirits being cruel to animals, but unless they attack me or anyone physically with me under my protection, I will not interfere with their sense of justice on their own land. And in the USA, all of it is their lands.

I tend not to seek out this work, there are long spans of time when I do not wander and do not find such spiritual cleanup that needs to be done. But if I stay still too long I get a restlessness in me and a crackling under my skin like the electricity before a storm and I have a greater tendency to fuck uo electronics when mildly annoyed/inconvenienced when I build up that much spiritual energy charge without using it. And the work of cleansing isn't the same as the work of creation/planting and nurturing/protecting. It's.... There's a part of the cycle where that which was living is now dead and gets folded back in so it can be reborn into something new. And you can't use the energy of that returning to the state before being reborn in acts of creation or of protecting/nurturing through stages of aliveness. The energy of creation is balanced by the energy of dying away and the energy of nurturing the good is balanced by returning things to a state that new good can be born of it -- that's what the cycles of incarnation are. And so I can't use when I'm full of energies of returning to rebirth to nurture what's living, no more than I could use the tools of dying in creating something new.  If that makes sense. 

*Shrugs* I don't know that I will spend all of this life wandering and doing this work - there's far more psychic cleanup needed than I could ever clean up in this one lifetime because the psychic scars have been ignored and left so long unhealed and cluttering up everywhere. At any time I can say no or decide that I'm done with it or it's putting my life in too much danger. It's more of a making myself useful in my aimless wandering with something I can do and "if not me then who?" that justifies in some measure what otherwise is wandering solely for the sake of pleasure in wandering.  It's not so much a purpose or a calling as being helpful filling a need I'm uniquely qualified to deal with whenever I come across situations that require my very specific spiritual gifts skill-set.  

And it keeps me from completely disappearing into fool on the hill hermitage in a cozy cabin in the woods with all the books and music and art and garden and animals to satisfy my soul. It helps me keep one foot in the passage of the world caring about the fate of humanity as a whole rather than disappearing from it. Because all havens, no matter how small or how safe, are threatened will disappear if you allow humanity to follow it's worst tendencies and courses while you hermit away from the world.

P. S. My Facebook feed is full of polar bears last night and today. Feels like a soul nudge not to forget just because the path is taking longer than I expected when we were younger. That good things are worth getting right, even if it means they take longer to line up. It's been giving me all the snuggly feels and eliciting from me the reaction, "Of course my polar bear is what I want. If it's an option available to me, this is always what I will choose. I just sometimes start to doubt that he's an option for me in this lifetime, because I'm not part of what he chooses for himself this lifetime." But I am enjoying all the polar bears and the softness and space for it inside me. And also... There's a sense of reassurance in it, that I wouldn't be constantly reminded if it was just to rub salt in the wounds and no way to actually have it. It's like a hug and a promise to hold faith that there is a way through.

P. P. S. I added a free game while house sitting for my parents called Logic Puzzle and it's my new favorite time waster on my phone. Even better than sudokus. It's literally just grid boxes you can check or x and a bunch of clues to try to logic out the threadbare stories matching up in a rational way. Biggest fucking time wasting thing in my life right now. But each of the rounds is short and it brings me a dopamine high every time I successfully get the logic pundit squares to work out. 

 O right. Thinking of which. 

One of the things with me (and actually a lot of others with empath and psychic gifts) is that a primary trigger for some of my migraines is psychic overload. Like an electric storm in my brain. Both empath overload and precog overload of traumatic forthcoming events can have me down for the count with migraine even without any other of my known/main triggers. 

So take that into account given what I've said recently about being plagued with migraines. When I have a window of few migraines, you can breathe easier about the fate of the world and the shocks that ricochet at national/global levels. And even if I don't talk about my precogs or anything I have seen, if they're heavy enough I keep them to myself, you should grow concerned about what is coming when my migraines become multiple times a week frequent instead of once every month or two. 

Even as a very young child I always had eyes too old, too much knowledge and too many stories carried behind them. Every precog does. Everyone who get overlays does. 

Mostly you'll see it when I stop smiling. When I get serious or contemplative. Or when I'm processing something that is a lot to process. 

As an example, this is me with my Hermione hair settling down a smidge right after I came inside from gardening in the light rain:

And this was me later as I opened myself up to the news and to bearing witness not just of those who were lost and carrying their lived experience as overlays so they can let go to move on not get stuck as ghosts (a lot of the ghosts I help release are children ghosts who got stuck because they died traumatic deaths in terror and didn't know how to let go and move on, it's a niche specialty but it's one of mine) but to the grieving of the families and the ineptitude of everything surrounding how this all occurred:

Because processing the raw emotions I carry doesn't mean I stop feeling as I learn more or I stop feeling the pain others feel surrounding the hurt. It means feeling everything I've already absorbed and feeling it as deeply as I can to find the catharsis point of it and to acknowledge and purge it so that I can have the emotional capacity to carry more. because there will always be more pain in this world to be carried for those who can see it and hear it and feel it and transmute it to heal it. And after scrolling through all those pictures, it shouldn't surprise anyone that it took me 24 hours to feel and transmute all that pain and to help guide every fucking one of those little souls in the process of letting go of their trauma so they can move back to the light and not get stuck. I need to make me go through and look at and live and touch the souls of those whose pictures I didn't see before I reached my capacity to carry without clearing and transmuting -- those little souls don't deserve to be stuck in such loops as ghosts if they can be helped back to the light/source for their next rebirth. I just normally wait until those who can move on without my assistance have done so and to let the terror and rawness dim a bit before I keep them from creating worse psychic scars by getting stuck. Time and space don't matter so much, I don't have to physically be in the place of the soul that is stuck if I can bridge to their soul though proximity does increase the likelihood of the bridge occurring without my volition. What matters most is reaching them through the fear and the loop they start to get stuck in if nobody listens to them so they feel heard and comforted and safe and can help them out of it. The longer a soul gets stuck replaying the loop, the harder it is to help them to move on, because over time a ghost's fixations degrades everything else the soul remembers from that most recent life beyond the loop they got stuck on. So then breaking them out of the loop is like a second death, it's asking them to let go for the only identity they retain. Whenever possible, I prefer to free those who are stuck before they get lost in that looping trauma as their identity. 

And, I can imagine nothing more horrific than asking a soul with the cognitive capabilities of a small child to be stuck for years and decades and sometimes even centuries to remain stuck in the loop of that trauma and fear as a ghost that doesn't know how to let it go so they can go to the place where they can heal and understand and let it go to move on to their next life. If you've ever encountered any of the ghosts of the children who died in the theatre fire of Chicago, you understand. There aren't many of them remaining, I've worked damn hard to clear the theatre district of downtown Chicago after I met the first of them to cross my path and then read up on the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire to understand what it was that I had witnessed and carried form that one little boy's ghost to help him move on. But I'm not certain I've found all of them, there may be some in basement areas and backstage areas that I haven't been able to reach. (I'm rather like a bright star lodestone for the unincarnated, both those who prey on th eliving and those who are just stuck and wanting to get unstuck from their own cycles they've been in -- has to do with how much raw power I run through me and my chosen function in this life and also that one of my conditions for this reward life be that any soul seeking me be able to find me. That said, I've changed the rules, have some old gods on call so I can mark specific places and/or powerful unincarnated spirits that need to be dealt with and either the Hawk God or some among the Crow Deities will cleanse it for me. The unincarnated who serve the light of unfolding Creation have to be asked to intervene, always, I just bent the rules a bit to create a shorthand marking system for those who I have an understanding with on this project to cleanse the unincarnated spirits that currently haunt this planet because too many who used to do the cleansing/releasing moved on out of the incarnation cycles. Anyway, this is safer for me and I'm less likely to end up in bad situations or try to draw so much power through this body it will kill the body. But ghosts of children whose souls get stuck in loops or can't find their way back to their next rebirth, those I like to assist myself. They take a gentler approach than what the Hawk God and the Crow Deities do.) 

As I've said, I carry a lot of heavy hard stories inside me that aren't mine to tell. They're mine to bear witness to. they're mine to heal. But they're not mine to tell to n'importe qui. And as a healer and a medium and a storyteller, it is VERY important to me that I know or be told (and when in doubt keep to myself) if a story is not mine to tell.

So how can I have so much joy and wonder? Because.... I find wonder in the fact that beautiful good things exist DESPITE everything in this world doing its damnedest to destroy it.  I find in the existence of things that bring joy and are good a spirit of rebellion and wonder and something to celebrated that it IS. The very existence of small beautiful things that bring joy (or great big life changing things that light up the heart) are miracles to celebrate that they exist in absolute defiance of everything hell bent on destroying them and grinding the joy into nihilism and despair. To choose to experience and feel and bear witness to the great and deep suffering and to stare cleared at the evils in humanity that create and perpetuate and bear the intrinsic maps of the systems that in larger size destroy lives and then to find joy in spite of everything you see, to laugh directly at it and to put all your energy into healing and nurturing and making brighter what you can touch and what you can change. That to me is something sublime and something that nobody and nothing can take from you unless you hand it over to them to destroy.

I will grieve, and then I will turn to the beautiful things I can hold onto and the good that I can nurture and help even if it's so small in the face of all that's wrong that it seems statistically insignificant. The act may be statistically insignifcant, but its moral value is incalculable beyond price.

 And now I'm going to head to bed. Bonne nuit.

 When I took the dog on our morning walk, it coincided with the time many kids are headed to school for elementary schools. And honestly, all of the half dozen or so that we walked past still look so shell-shocked and scared... I've heard parents with school aged kids say that their kids would rather all go back to online school than have their friends at risk of a shooter by all being together again in person.

And that's not the sort of mental calculations that elementary school aged kids should ever have to be weighing. 

I set the post before last to draft not because I don't stand behind what I said, but because I'm not certain it's something to leave just floating about. But for the record, it was the overlays of her death experience after seeing Nevaeh's pictures that pushed me too far the other night in reliving all those overlays. That was the one that broke my heart and broke my rational mind from considering the ethics of my spiritual demand of the Divine moving forward.

A note worth saying about the overlays: most overlays I get from pictures/videos or objects or places or random people's lives/past lives are traumatic. they're energetic scars. Every once in a while I will enter a place that feels holy and blessed and all the overlays of the pasts that have been through the space are beautiful and wonderful and bright, but that's a rarity. I've encountered maybe half a dozen houses like that in my entire life. Most intense emotions that ripple through time are traumatic ones. It's actually a very refreshing thing with the bond that it's quite literally ALL his intense emotions that splash into my consciousness. The good as well as the heavy. And there's really only the one time that it created an ethical dilemma for me. But still, it's nice to get overlays that aren't just traumatic. I do LIKE the overlays of random things that bring him really bright intense joy. They have a nice shine and shimmer to them and they add random sunbeams into my life when I least expect it. And that's a just him thing. Or at least, thus far in my life it's a just him thing. (Also on the subject of just him things, I haven't decided yet if I was wrong to so suddenly decide to unfollow his insta and if I should give him another chance there. He's all up in my suggestions for search again. New post, from this evening, but another one of those shirts and it tugged at my heart.I haven't done it yet, but keeps popping up in suggested content tonight...I feel flakey though with this back and forth not havign a decision following-unfollowing-refollowing... like a wind that doesn't know what the fuck quarter it's blowing from, os you just have to tack the best you can against its vagaries.)

I gave myself yesterday to disconnect and rest. I slept most of it and when I wasn't sleeping, I just listened to the rain and didn't get out of bed. For like 20 hours. I needed it. To let myself feel things fully and then release. You ever notice that you can never let go of feelings until you feel them all the way to their deepest depths? If you only let yourself feel them in a shallow way or for a limited span/duration, they just sort of stay down in those deeper parts and never really get processed into a catharsis until you let yourself feel them as deeply and fully as they go in you. At least, that's how it is for me. More than tears, feeling something to the very depths of as far as the feeling goes is how I release emotions rather than carry them still in my depths.  And so I gave myself all of yesterday and last night to disconnect from everything and just feel everything so deeply that I could process and release it all. I'm still angry and sad that America is so fucked up it's still allowing the massacre of the most innocents with no repercussions to those who have created and enabled the system that perpetuates the slaughters -- but I'm no longer carrying those deeply traumatic stories I picked up in overlays the other night scrolling through the pictures and all those emotions that those little lives never got to fully process before the shock of death stopped them in such a state of terror. (as a side note, I like visiting graveyards, especially old graveyards, but I hate visiting battlegrounds because there's so much suffering and traumatic deaths and old pain that can't be released until someone bears witness and moves the souls along. The only thing harder for me than battlegrounds are sites of Indians massacred, plantations, and slave markets. So graveyards are good for me to wander and visit but battle sites and plantations are incredibly traumatic and awful for me.)

 This morning I took the dog on a walk in a break between rain, which is when we kept encountering grade school kids on their way to school. And my dog (a 15 year old Pisces pup and extreme empath) took their hollowness shell shock so much to heart. especially because no amount of her puppy joy could break through it with most of them. Then I drank a pot of coffee and finished the last 2 chapters of Return of the King (I actively dislike The Scouring of the Shire because it's supposed to be the return from war integrating into the real life but it's never that ease to oust fascists from power from underneath, and I dislike the Grey havens because it says that PTSD return from the war can only be healed by completely leaving everything behind, even the good, that might remind you of the before) and then I read a John Locke essay. It was an essay on reason vs faith -- one about why rational reflection  is required to know that Divine inspiration comes from G-d as opposed to the enthusiastic beliefs that its existence proves it is Divine. I can't remember the name of the essay off the top of my head, and I'm not at home to double check it, but that was the Locke essay I was re-reading today.  I don't agree with all of Locke (I don't agree with everything even of philosophers I'm fond of, and I'm uncertain if Locke is one I'd claim to be fond of) but his essays on reason vs faith are among my favorites. And they tend to help me re-center back into the place of zen where I can accept my intuition as it arrives to me while still questioning the messages and making sure it fits into my own logical evidence based rational view of reality. Which is why it felt like the right thing for me to re-read before interacting with humans again after my swinging far too far into strong emotions guiding me with no thought for consequences or ethics.

Then my dog and I got in on a lunch order at work and went in so my dog could scrounge for food from everyone. (She's 15 and extraordinarily food motivated -- and scraps from all the humans make her happy. I do not know how many years I have with her, despite my often verbalized statement from her puppyhood on that would live to a venerable 21.5 years old, and so I am very much in the mindset of spoiling her with all the joy possible as often as possible because seeing her so happy and excited is a delight for me and it's one I know to be limited within my life.) 

Then after lunch I went out into my very wet and very muddy work garden and I weeded and dug out sod where the grass is invading the bed (again) and I planted all my remaining bulbs (gladiolus bulbs) and I talked to the happy bumble bees in the bleeding hearts and snow bells and columbine right near by me and at the end of all my planting and weeding I battled a buckthorn thicker at the base than my wrist that had the audacity of growing in the midst of a shrub clump with leaves that it rather resembles. And I stayed out there until the light rain ended and the humidity ramped up ahead of the powerful summer storms that we're to have all night through into the early morning. Which was well after the humidity and light rain made the curl beast reach the volume that it snapped my hair tie so the curls could be free. I wish that were a joke, but it's not. Curls, give them a little humidity and rain and there's nothing that will contain the curl beast, lol. Definitely attained first year Hermione volume while I was outside. They've since settled down into second year Hermione, but that line is pretty fine right now and would definitely still be in first year territory if not for Sarah having turned on the dehumidifier inside at work today, lol.

My plans for tomorrow are to spend time with Mikaela (the 17 year old has an afternoon appointment for botox injections for her migraines in the afternoon-- so I told her that she HAS to do schoolwork either at work or without internet at my flat in the morning. And then we can do Tai's for lunch before her appointment and then after her appointment she and I will go to the greenhouse/farm for flowers for the planters and herbs for the planter box.  Then working and/or planting flowers tomorrow. Saturday my plan is early morning Farmer's Market. Then work if I still need to get hours in (need to double check that add them up tonight.) Then on Sunday, I'm headed to Chicago with Crissy and Mikaela for and Aoife Scott show at Chief O'Neill's. (Yes I realize that Chicago is extremely high covid numbers, already threatening they may impose once more mask mandates tomorrow if hospital rates get any worse. We were already planning to kn95 at the show and not eat dinner there inside at the pub. Crissy and I are probably not going to Guinness either... which is sad but responsible.)  Depending on what time Crissy gets back from Des Moines Sunday morning after her niece's wedding on Saturday will determine what time we head down to Chicago. But more or less my plans that bother Crissy and Mikaela told me they like is that we'll head down as soon as Crissy is ready (and Audrey will go to Sarah's for an easy exchange with Mikaela pickup/dropoff) and then we'll head down and hopefully have enough time to be worth the $8 parking and $21 ea admission to the Chicago Botanic gardens. (I've never been and keep wanting to go and this is a good time of year for visiting. Most of the info on it says to give yourself and hour and a half to 2 hours at the gardens which traffic allowing to get there is good timing for it since the botanic garden is open til 7pm and it's 23mins drive from the venue with the show at 8pm and doors at 7:30p -- and we don't have reservations to eat at the pub because not currently eating inside because covid numbers.

Also, I'm so excited to get to see Aoife and Andy!!!!!!!!!! I just can't even with how excited I am to FINALLY see them both again!!!!!!! (Andy is her long term man and he plays guitar with her on tour and a lot of their songs are co-writes. And honestly, they're so good together that it's really hard for me to imagine either of them being anything but worse versions of themselves if they weren't together.... Aoife is a Virgo who reminds me quite a lot of my sister but a lot more madcap fae and Andy is a Libra whose birthday is just the day after mine/Crissy's and he is an avid reader who always carries a copy of James Joyce's Dubliners on him and we can always talk books.)  I haven't seen them in person since right before covid cancelled their US St. Patrick's Day tour in 2020 and they are two of my dearest most beloved musician friends whose soul lights I just miss and miss and miss and achingly have missed these last long years since last I saw them.  I cannot wait to give Aoife hugs and I honestly don't give a damn about covid for that because Aoife is a hugger and she needs it and I miss them both so much! Actually, I have to say, outside of family my list of "eh, feck covid it doesn't matter, I'd rather have a hug from you even if I get sick" are literally all Irish musicians, lol.

Right. How did it get to be this time already?!

Welp. I am going to reheat my other half burrito from lunch and eat it now. And figure out what sort of tea to pair with a spicy steak burrito.... Oolong? Probably going to go with the Kali cha fire oolong?...

P.S. I have been checking, multiple times per day, and my sister's family dog is not (yet) on petfinder. But I keep checking. Also, I think the tack my sister is using with my parents on rehoming the dog is going to be "Jack's very allergic to dogs" based on a comment my mother said on Tuesday.

 *yawns* I'm laying in bed listening to the rain trying to fall asleep.

But I just wanted to say.... I tend not to talk about my clairsentience overlay gifts and my medium ship because they tend to scare the fuck out of people even more than my precogs and my raw spiritual energy use. People don't like feeling that you can see the parts of them they want hidden, and they like it even less when they know you can. I can't hide it from my eyes, but I wait to acknowledge the knowing until they speak to me tell it to me themselves. Because overlays of people's past/present freaks their shit if they realize I experience it just exactly as they experienced it.... They're still there those overlay clairsentience gifts, still a part of me, I just tend not to mention them unless I feel I must (and I dislike being gifted secondhand or vintage or antiques unless I have personally vetted the energies attached to them and/or cleansed them as needed.)

Also. I struggle with the ethics of overlays. Not just me getting overlays of strong emotions in intimate moments with third parties otherwise not connected with me. (The type of overlays ethics dilemma I've talked about here before.) But also... Overlays of the past energetic scarring on a place/object or overlays from the dead aren't ethics issues. But what about when I look at someone and see their past lives or see their past traumas in this life they haven't given to me? Is that not an invasion of privacy? Especially if the veil is opaque to them. Or if we're mere acquaintances or strangers? Sometimes, without me prying (which I never do unless invited or asked directly to help someone) I can see whole parts of a person they deny or try to bury or bad things they've done (these are awful overlay glimpses and they make me feel icky and powerless, especially when it's a briefest passing of a stranger in crowded places like airports or Times Square) or the past life traumas they're unaware of but are guiding their lessons in their current life. What ethical right do I have to see/know these things about a living person that they never granted me with their free will, I just experienced it vicariously through their eyes or physical/energetic proximity? I just question the ethics of it, which is why I don't seek them out, but I can't stop them if they're just contact overlays. Sometimes even pictures/videos will do it, especially if someone is reliving their past in the picture/video/moment I'm observing. 

Somehow, it seems more of a violation of the ethics of privacy and free will to me when I  get overlays of a stranger's past/present traumas than to get glimpses of their future fate if their course isn't shifted. So I don't talk about those clairsentience overlay glimpses or my medium ship with the dead who often communicate in overlays replaying their past. But it's among my gifts. And one of my strong ones. Which is why I should know better than accidentally scrolling down a list of pictures of the kids that the families still have no news about following a tragedy like American mass murders with guns. It's always a painful emotional overload every time I see a picture of one with such a recent traumatic violent death and then I experience the overlay of it.... 

I need to sleep but it's eluding me still. Even with a snuggle dream twitching pup curled up against me and a purring cat laying on me. At least I can listen to the rain tonight.... And it's supposed to rain for the next 36-48 hours. Which will help. Somehow my grieving always passes more easily when it feels like the world is grieving with me. I know it's romantic fallacy, but still there's an easing of suffering when the world seems like it's crying than when the sun shines too bright and the beauty of the world feels a mockery for the hurts in humanity.

 My sister is set on rehoming their dog Waffles. There's nothing wrong with the dog other than 1) my sister is not a dog person 2) the dog is young 3) my sister expects/demands a level or orderliness and rules that is not something a young dog can manage. I understand not wanting people to play with her rough and not wanting her to jump -- but my sister has a visceral ick to the dog licking her and while I know people who don't allow dog kisses on the face they don't react to dog kisses elsewhere because they understand it's a canine form of affection and completely unrelated to any nipping or biting type behaviors. But with my sister, it's a no licking policy full stop so the dog gets yelled at for showing affection the same way it does for truly dangerous behaviors. They kennel Waffles overnight (to a point that she won't sleep if you let her out to hang with you) and when they're not home and whenever my sister doesn't want her upstairs (even though there's a baby gate) and nobody is downstairs with her and whenever the dog gets too wild with too much energy.... None of which is fair to the dog -- she gets too much energy from being kenneled for too long and then not getting played with made to run until she exhausts herself. Because she's a young dog, not even 2 years old.... My sister keeps framing it as a safety/trust issue that she worries about Waffles nipping one of the kids or the new baby, but it's really that my sister is done with having a dog in the house and is upset the dog can't meet her unrealistic expectations. the only thing that makes Waffles an anxious dog is not knowing why she's in trouble and why she keeps getting yelled at (and anxious dogs ARE dangerous dogs, but Waffles is not a dangerous dog, just energetic because she's young and my sister is very much about calm bodies in the spaces she's in...) And it's breaking my heart. Knowing it was coming and that this last visit was the last time I'd see her there doesn't make it any less hard.... 

The last picture my sister has shared of the dog is from back in September, a picture that the Packers actually picked as their fan pick of the week: 

My brother-in-law has shared a couple since then, but not many.

And the thing is, Waffles doesn't deserve to be labeled as a safety risk and I'm really afraid my sister might frame it that way. Saying there's a new baby on the way and the dog already isn't getting the attention/care it deserves is reason enough -- you don't have to claim the dog is a safety issue with young kids when she's never been that I've observed....And while I believe the dog will be happier in an environment without my sister who she can't please there, dogs get heartbroken over getting rehomed, especially after so long feeling this is her pack and her place. And I just don't want my sister to end up putting Waffles in a situation where the rescue will euthanize her... I floated the idea of waffles coming back with my parents (since they drove out there) which my parents would prefer over Waffles being sent back to a shelter but my sister said that the shelter made them agree to return the dog to them not to rehome to family/friends. Which might be true, I've heard of shelters that do that, but also could be that my sister didn't want to deal with the dog on future visits to my parents or deal with any remorse/hard feelings from my brother-in-law or nephew who both adore the dog. I haven't talked to my parents about this, they may not even realize how close Miche has been about "rehoming" Waffles and I have no idea what they would say if/when I talk to them. They will definitely judge and not forgive her if Waffles was put down. And I don't think my sister let them know how close to rehoming she is when my parents were just there visiting..... And my parents will blame themselves for not working more with her while they were there. I'm going to keep an eye on Petfinder though and definitely let my parents know if I see Waffles show up on there...but I don't know that I can bring it up to my parents except in that case if my sister doesn't tell them own up to it herself.

These are the texts she sent me this afternoon right as I was heading to plant (overdue) stuff in the garden and now I couldn't go do it because I never plant while I have a heavy heart because too few come back up, certainly not my typical germination rates, but I'm past the point they need to be in the ground because of migraines last week... I'll have to come in to do it tomorrow during the day.... I'm okay enough now to water my indoor plants before I head home.

 

Then immediately after that last comment of mine she changed subjects asking when I was visiting next telling me they planted too many hot peppers need me to come help with these in their harvest season.... I was non-committal about timing of my next visit, just discussed pepper harvesting, things they can do with excess peppers, and joked about how she could get them to WI for me and mum as hot sauce and hot salsas. Because there's no moving my sister on this now she's made up her mind and it's her house, her family, so it's not for me to tell her what to do because it's her life and her house. Her whole life my sister has hated dogs, horses, and children (she still hates kids that aren't her own) and hiking/being in wild spaces and forests/mountains and being out on the ocean.  And she hates rollercoasters and driving fast and speed boats and rides of that sort. My sister also dislikes all music except pop music, particularly hates concerts/live music, dislikes theatre, and finds art museums boring. She's not a reader, especially fiction she dislikes.  She is all about facts and science and order and controlling her environment whereas I'm all about ideas and aesthetics and good chaos with happy surprises and feeling competent prepared for emergency so you can revel in the moment and all the wild serendipities of it.... This extreme difference in our personality types has led to much teasing from people wondering how she and I can be related. We love each other because we're sisters but have spent most of our lives not comprehending each other's personalities and as adults we have a truce of built on mutual respect and our handful of shared interests/humor and not needing to understand WHY certain things make the other happy only to know THAT it makes them happy. So knowing my sister her entire life as I do, it doesn't surprise me that Waffles is too much of a dog for her tastes and she's just done with having her living in her home. I just hope she doesn't put the returning/rehoming entirely on blaming Waffles for being a dog, and a young dog with energy that needs to be worn off or she gets full of potential energy waiting to be turned into kinetic energy like a coiled spring, rather than being a cat....

It just... the thing with Waffles breaks my heart and I want to cry so hard over it....and I have such a hard time crying, especially the deeper I hurt the harder it is for me to cry and the longer it takes until I finally can. I can't cry at all in front of most people, and even crying in private is hard for me. So I've just spent the afternoon and evening with that heavy need to cry lump in the throat but unable to do it. Because the way this is being handled is just not fair to Waffles.

But I didn't and don't know what to do in the best interests of everyone other than to validate that my sister needs to feel safe in her own family and home but also advocating that if she's going to rehome the dog that she do it in the best timing and way to set Waffles up for future success.... because my sister is going to do it regardless anything anyone else says... and while I personally could never imagine rehoming a dog after I took them on as a responsibility unless they bit someone intentionally and caused serious harm (especially if it happened multiple times) I've also never had a baby, I'm not my sister, and I've never tried to be as strict with a dog the way my sister is being with expectations that no dog could meet or understand. 

I just hope that it doesn't lead to Waffles being euthanized, however my sister goes about rehoming her, because my sister is really not a dog person and isn't being fair to Waffles in this case. I know that Waffles will have a happier more fulfilled life in another household, I just hope that my sister doesn't ruing that chance for her and that the rescue they got her form is a no kill shelter... especially if my sister mentions concerns about nipping or biting.....

I could really use a hug right about now. because I have such a deep sadness for the dog that hasn't done anything wrong other than tobe adopted by my sister who is not a dog person and set the dog up for failure with unrealistic expectations for how a young dog can/should understand to behave. Which my sister would call deranged and tell me my priorities are wrong in this situations.... but I just really hope that my sister doesn't return her as aggressive or as a bite risk. because she's not. And that dog has been trying so damn hard to please my sister....and it's just not fair to Waffles if my sister puts this on her behavior. It's just not. I don't know if I could ever forgive my sister if Waffles were put down based on how my sister handles this.... because this is about my sister, not about the dog.

I'm just so sad about it. It's just not fair to Waffles. They shouldn't have adopted her if they were going to get her as a puppy and then let her bond with the family then re-home her after a year and a half.... It's just not right. She's going to do it anyway, my sister doesn't think the welfare of a dog should be weighed heavier than the welfare of the people (including hers regarding having the dog in her home.) You just don't do that to a dog. A dog would never do that to anyone, human or animal, it had bonded with.... And honestly, Waffles has tried so hard to make my sister happy and genuinely did nothing wrong other than being a young dog with an owner who isn't a dog person at all....literally yells at Waffles or sends her to the kennel for just licking an ankle in excitement to tell you she loves you. I understand a concern about nipping or leaping up or towards faces (especially with small children and a new baby so soon) but then that's what you focus training on and you be consistent and clear -- you don't just yell at her for licking an ankle or arm as an expression of love.... and Waffles was working so hard to make sure she sits has calm body for any attention or affection, even when excited. All to try to please my sister who refused to be pleased with her....  It's just not fair to her. It's just not. 

I've known dogs with bite history issues and anxiety/nervousness, the only dog that ever bit me is one who had only been living with my friend's family for a week before I met it and came with an abuse/bite history and while I was making my breakfast she went for my hand as I picked up an apple slice I dropped nowhere near her food bowl or her. I grabbed her aorund her scruff with my right hand and put pressure on the hinge point of her jaw until she released as soon as she got me so there was no serious damage or scar, but it shook me as I'd never had a dog behave toward me that way. It was a sudden dead eye snap (the kind you can't untrain once it's an instinctual thing to bite like that without warning) and there were other people that dog bit before and after my visit -- and a month or so later that dog ended up having to be put down for launching itself at the owner's face when it felt cornered in play so that the owner had to have plastic surgery to reconstruct her nose. So I've know dogs with serious bite histories who snap to bite with no warning and no obvious reason for anxiety. And Waffles isn't anything like that sort of danger or internal snap between personalities or so anxious to feel cornered and turn dangerous. She's just not...Her nipping is just excited dog panting nipping at air or puppy playing overshoots the mark playing keep away, not even catching skin or ankle nipping like a herding dog might do... Movement in the direction of a face and closing her mouth on air is among what my sister considers nipping so I don't know how serious a lunge vs play lunge at a face and if she actually got her teeth on the adult in question. My sister felt it was a nip and that it crossed her red line. Debating if it was a "serious" nip or just playfulness wouldn't help Waffles at all given my sister's conclusion that the dog is a safety hazard to her and the kids and the not yet born new baby. My sister just isn't a dog person at all and is over having a dog (any dog) in her house... To her Waffles is a failed experiment because she can't get the dog not to be a dog. And nothing about how this has played out is fair on Waffles. Because that dog isn't even 2 years old yet and she's been fucking trying so hard ot please my sister... She's tried so damn hard....

 I haven't previously considered and I don't have a precise answer to what I would do if faced between the ethics of my promise to treat the bond as ours not mine and if there were once again overlays from him in his moments of intense emotions that I felt it inappropriate for me to see because they involved a third party who would have a right to assume they were private.  I suppose though, I'd assume he'd made his choice regarding it and as such it wouldn't matter to him if the bond went dormant so then even though the fae told me they'd only do it the once for me, I observed it and I'd make it go dormant using my own energy to do so and to keep the bond asleep so the overlays couldn't come through. 

That's most likely what I would do if I felt cornered between a promise and doing the ethically right thing. But it's borrowing trouble to consider such a what if, it has nothing to do with the present. And there's enough trouble in the present without me borrowing more. It's an ethical dilemma I'd face if it came to it, but it's not generally pertinent to questions related to the bond. It's a question that would really only come up if he ended up in a relationship with some other girl that touched his emotions and his heart deeply enough to send echoes of his emotions to me down the bond. 

But short of that, which would involve me being complicit in doing wrong by someone innocent with no choices in the matter, there is nothing I can think of that would make me put the bond to sleep or try to do anything with it that would harm or alter it at this point. Because of my recognition it belongs equally to both of us, not just me.  And that one is only because he would have made his choices for himself and the other connection was a greater priority to him than the bond so I would rationalize it as implicit permission to do what would be necessary for him to have the happiness he chose. 

Unpleasantness created as a consequence of his sister's past choices and choices made in the name of the entire band back in October 2018 are a fucking mess and have made everything way more difficult than it ever needed to be and if not dealt with are clear and present block on any sort of reunion in this life between me and him at this point, but they don't carry any weight as far as his choices and desires surrounding the bond and don't in any way give insight to what he wants done with it. You can want something and have no way to get it, you can desire the pull of the bond yet have no way to manifest it into the reality of your current life.  It's not the same as choosing to pursue and prioritize another connection that then makes the bond a source of voyeurism and sharing what should be private. The mess of things to do with the band since October 2018 doesn't affect the ethics of the bond existing and being awakened alive full of love and energy. The consequences of what was done in the name of the band doesn't turn a source of love and strength into something dirty and wrong. Those consequences have added unnecessary volatility and they make difficult and a source of pain things that should be easy and a source of pleasure, but they don't make the bond existing qua itself an ethical dilemma. 

I can't think of anything else that would induce me to make the bond go dormant or fail again in respecting that it pulls inside him as taut as it pulls inside me. I suppose I could end up romantically involved with someone else and send him inappropriate overlays, but I don't know that he receives overlays of my intense emotions the same way. And I don't know if he would feel that it was unethical for him to receive such experiences via the bond the way I felt it was unethical.  anyway, that's an even more unlikely scenario to deal with given I'm single and not looking or dating anyone else - I decided that I disliked hurting people whose fault was simply that they weren't him so they weren't what my heart is set on. So I haven't dated in so long that I really don't know the first thing about the dos and donts and game playing rules of it. I've never installed any dating apps and I'm not on any form of birth control and I don't even currently own any sexy lingerie (have you ever tried to buy lingerie to fit a 28H bra size? It's not something I shop for or buy without a good reason) it's been that long since I've dated or even thought about it, lol. I don't get lonely, I'm an introvert after all, I just get lonesome missing specific people and their soul energy when it's far from me out of my life too long - and having someone else around wouldn't fill for me the absence I feel where his energy should be in my life. so I don't understand, for myself, dating just to date. I don't want just anyone in my life and the empty spaces are a lack of specific presence not something just anyone could step in and fill. So it's highly unlikely I would put him into that sort of moral ambiguity via overlays down the bond. Most of my intense emotions of joy he'd likely get overlays about involve flowers and trees and stars and snow and puppies and when the sky is painted pretty colors and visiting the ocean and mountains. And probably coffee and cheesecake and crème brûlée - maybe good Irish whiskey. Probably could get overlays of my giddy excitement over a really good book or a song that stirs my emotions or a really beautiful piece of art or dance. But not moments of me with anyone else romantically, it's not something I do regularly and I've never yet dated anyone touched my heart strong enough to create the sort of joy and deep emotions inside me to send the waves of an overlay down the bond. Presuming he can even receive my experiences that way. Which isn't to say it could never happen, just that thus far it's a non-issue to consider given my nature and the other options I've had in my personal dating pool.

No. The more I reflect on it, the more certain I am that the only thing I can think of that would make me reevaluate my promise not to do anything to the bond without his agreement is if he entered into another connection that he felt strongly and deeply enough that it sent voyeuristic unethical overlays of his intense emotions to me. And I would see his entering into such a connection as a declaration by actions of his choices regarding the bond and the value it would then hold for him in his life. But again, it's borrowing trouble to worry about it right now. It would only become a concern if he did enter a deep connection with some other woman, deep enough to cause overlays down the bond of his intense emotions of shared moments with her.

I should be taking the dog on a morning walk, not stirring up concerns over hypothetical situations that aren't currently in the cards or fatelines I can see. Let's see if I can get the snuggly lazy old lady pup to get up go on a walk...

O, I've not done a damn thing to the bond. I can't. It's something totally different than most karmic cords/empath bonds. It's been there more lives than I can recall and the pull of it is always there and he can't ever really lose me because all he has to do is follow the pull of that bond.  Trust me, he's literally used it to find me across oceans at times in the past when they didn't even know what was beyond the ocean. If he wants to find me, he always can if he just turns inward and follows the pull of the bond as his compass. I mean, I suppose I could trim off cords that surround it and I could make it dormant again after I observed how the fae did that for me to make overlays I felt inappropriate stop and I could fight him again to not let him reach me....but that's a lot of energy drain, especially since he's started fighting to hold onto his side no matter what, energy which I don't have right now to put into trying to keep him from reaching me down the bond. But I couldn't actually cut the bond itself even if I got it into my head that I wanted to. Which I don't. Saying, "this is toxic repeating patterns that I don't want in my life -- try again when you can be a better version of you break the cycles" isn't the same as completely cutting him off from reaching me via the bond feeling the shared love flowing between our souls. Not the same thing at all. Besides. I said I wouldn't try to put the bond back asleep to emptiness where the other should be because it's our bond, not mine, that like a taut string pulls on both of us with equal force. And so I understand now that when I decided to make it dormant asleep in the past it was unfair to him. so after I realized that I promised that moving forward decisions about it need to be made by both of us since it's both our bond. Not just mine. 

And I don't knowingly break promises once made. I may change my mind on a course of action I initiated and I may get adhd distracted by shinies along the way and I may follow the literal wording of my promises rather than how someone else understood it. But I don't knowingly or willingly break promises I make. It's an integrity and ethics thing for me. If you can get a promise out of me, I'll do everything in my power to keep my side of it. In this life or another life. 

So that's not a concern he ought to have -- that bond and the strength in it IS and I'll not deny it or do anything to try to harm it or suppress it or anything. 

I included the bit about cord cutting to make it perfectly clear that outside of the bond to him specifically, I have no problem cutting energetic cords to the band or anyone else in it. That's not a threat, that's just simply how it is and where I'm at.

I also probably over-reacted and hit my, "nope. I don't need this in my life" switch the other day due to other factors and that being the one more thing that put me over the top. Like plugging in the coffee grinder and the fuse flipping because there are just too many other things plugged in that breaker.  The coffee grinder isn't the biggest problem in and of itself, it's the coffee grinder on top of everything else on that same breaker is too much -- but knowing that doesn't fucking help when all you really want is to make a fucking cup of coffee and now you can't. 

And I know about me that when I get stressed or I'm in pain (physical or emotional) my fuse gets extra short so it doesn't take much for me to be like, "Nope. I can't handle this one more thing. I don't need it if it's going to be a source of further pain." It's not fair of me, I know that, and usually if you give me time to reflect I'll admit that and apologize and set about resetting and repairing -- but that doesn't help anything before/during me hitting that breaker point.... In this case, I've had a lot of migraines the last several weeks which has had my energy super low. (It's not covid nor is it long covid -- I've actually never had any covid symptoms or tested positive or anything in these last couple years. My parents had covid while I was in Seattle right as everything was shutting down but were better by the time I got home though a couple times my da almost took mum into hospital and my best friend had it between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2020 lost taste/smell and at this point pretty much everyone I know has had it. Except me. but I also know about my immune system that I am likely to be asymptomatic and not miserable but could carry to others who would not be so lucky so I remain extra cautious about masking because I have invaded kids and elderly and more vulnerable people in my life that I care about and I have to live with my conscience. For me getting a cold is a once in seven year event, it's a very rare thing for me to get any sort of congestion even.)  But I've had migraines since I hit puberty and I had auras and stomach migraines without the head pain since long before then. 

And unfortunately, my triggers include psychic gift overloads like when people are collectively freaking their shit out and/or fate lines are fluxing all over the fuck place AND weather related barometric shifts.  And ignoring the fact that there's been a lot of collective screaming and shifting of fate lines these last several weeks, even though all the massive storms have all passed north or south of Madison itself so it's been fairly idyllic here, the pressure systems themselves moving through have been insane across the midwest the last 2 weeks.  And I've probably had more days with migraines of greater or lesser extent than days without migraines in recent weeks.

Which means I've been sleeping a lot, or laying as still as possible until I can move without pain when I physically can't sleep any longer. Definitely immediate curtailing of all productivity and plans when it happens. Which doesn't much help when my plans involve gardening and planting and weeding -- seasons and weeds don't give a fuck about my migraines. And it does tend to make me more ruthlessly stoic while I'm in "enduring pain until it passes" mode so my martyring streak that tells me I can give something up and survive without it tends to be worse in the midst of migraine bouts. 

Also. They're just a miserable time that I wouldn't wish on anyone... But I am grateful that if I have to deal with the light and movement sensitivity and instant nausea/vomiting if I push myself during a migraine, at least I'm not sound sensitive with them. I don't know how I would get through the worst of them if I couldn't get lost in music while keeping as still as possible resting while waiting for the pain to cease. Music is the one and only thing that helps while I'm enduring a migraine. It's the only thing I have to cling to outside the seemingly endless physical pain during the worst of them.

This week has been a lot of Billy Joel and Chopin. 

But that's been much of my last two weeks, trying to surface between migraines to get at least a little done but never even really finishing out postdrome before the predrome of the next migraine wave is upon me.  Which has had my circuit breakers close to flipping even before pushing my buttons on known triggers.