One of my favorite song lyrics is from the song Me and Bobby McGee (which I always think of as a Janis Joplin song even though she didn't write it) and it's the line, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing don't mean nothing, honey, if it ain't free." I think that it's in part because I personally place so much emphasis on the sanctity of free will. And yeah we could debate if free will even exists given all the predetermined laws of physics and the pre-conditioned  programming of family/culture/evolutionary biology and the randomness of things we encounter that can change our course. But even if we see all of those factors as inflexible rather than malleable influences, still in the crucible of the moment we always have a choice for what we're going to do with what we have at our disposal and our sets of visible options and our knowledge at that time. No amount of predetermination can explain a Joan of Arc given the world and social strata she was born into, her choices took her well outside the predetermined scripts her life (and the histories of France and England) was headed for without the free will choices that shifted the fates of nations. And so for me, I tend to see actions only acquire meaning when they are taken in free will rather than coercion of will. 

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I started that first part on Saturday morning after taking a nap before predawn and then after I was dressed ready to go, Crissy and I ended up deciding not to go to Farmer's Market because it would be crowded due to Cows on the Concourse and while we wanted the market, we did not want all those humans. So I took the dog on a quick walk then went back to sleep and after i woke up that afternoon, I got busy taking care of my plants and forgot about it and NOW I have no idea where I intended to go with my thoughts/feelings/opinions on free will and why I woke up from my short nap Saturday morning with that song and that lyric repeating in my head like an explanation or a warning after the vision dream that I'd had right before waking... The best i can remember is that somehow it was linked inside me when I woke up with why my attempts to break/limit contacts with Eric even in dream vision space cause hurt and harm even when that is not my intention and so does my pursuit of non-attachment in the name of setting him free to choose what he wants for his happiness and life path without being constrained by old promises to me. but I don't REMEMBER where I was going or why it meant so much to me or even much of the vision dream that I awoke from that he was in but as himself not in his spirit polar bear form but as he is in this life and he wasn't well and there was a warning in it that somehow in keeping his soul from reaching me I was making him sick and starving his soul's energy reserves even if my ethical reasons seemed sound and I woke up on Saturday before the sunrise and it was vital to me that I REMEMBER what he said to me when he finally found me in dream space about how his soul was starving this month with the ban I had placed on anything with the lamprey's energy wound through it reaching me and I remember now that after he finally found me and I saw how reduced his spirit energy is that it deeply broke my heart and that I made him a promise but I can't for the life of me remember now what I promised or how it was he'd finally found a way to reach me in vision dream space stripped down to who he IS now qua himself this life rather than his spirit world soul form which I do remember him saying he was too tired and weak at a soul level to embody right now.... 

I just can't remember it all now. But it was important and it shifted something and I don't remember now what only that something DID shift and whatever I promised I'll stand by it. Only I don't remember now, all I remember is that somehow it is anchored into the ancient old promise he and I made each other so many many millennia of lifetimes ago. I'll keep the promise, especially once I remember it, only I don't right now, and so if you're expecting me to DO something active now after that dream and the promise I made, I don't remember now what I'm supposed to do. And I don't think that's a problem, but if it is, please, try to help me remember if you can. Because it was important. It FELT vitally important when I woke up to it. And when the song lyric was echoing on repeat all Saturday inside me as reminder and warning of not to take the idea of gifting freedom so far that it becomes destructive....

It's all tangled now. And Saturday morning before I lost the thread and let life snarl things up it was all so clear inside me. And I'm sorry. I can't ALWAYS exist in that state of flow and clarity of my higher self, sometimes I have to ground myself back into the mortality of it all, being in the incarnations cycle of souls... In fact this whole life, my north node is in Taurus and my soul's PURPOSE of the lessons to work on this life is actually about seeking the simple pleasures of LIVING true to my own path in alignment with the natural world and the stability and stubbornness of choosing to LIVE fully within the physical realm while you're in it and I am doing the most to achieve my life purpose this life when I guide my choices by how to live a life seated in the wholesome life giving beauty of the planet and being fully in a life of everyday wonder and pleasure and focusing on the everyday not just the esoteric. The meaning of the koan: "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." of Zen Buddhism, about balancing the spiritual with the mundane and finding they are the same and the beauty is in the trueness of that recognition.

Honestly, most of my life right now is rounds of walks with Waffles, watering plants, cooking, reading with tea and snuggles with Spock/Waffles, running occasional errands, going to work to get some friend time/socializing for Waffles, water outdoor plants, working for a bit, home to tea and snuggles, sleep, then wake up and repeat. The repetitiveness of needing to water so much as a primary immutable have to in my life right now due to the rain drought has me feeling since I got back to WI like I'm on an endless loop of quotidian care taking of my body, my fur baby familiars, and all my flower/herb green babies. it's serene and tranquil and healing, but time blindness of being in flow is making it hard to keep the days straight as they all blend together in repetitions of sameness these last several weeks. Everything has a very surreal quality to the repeating daily cycle schedule.

And anyway. I'm so sorry I don't remember now like I did when I started this post... The urgency has faded, but only because of whatever I promised and I can't REMEMBER what I promised because the vision dream has faded in the quotidian tasks of keeping life in this body and caring for my flowering green babies through this drought time of when/where I am living these everyday moments.... But whatever I promised, it does stop the urgency that was in the dream before I promised, the starving wasting sickness that is eating him from the inside since the 5th or 6th, whenever the eclipse was, because the starving sickness in him was a direct consequence of my choice of how I was limiting his soul from reaching my soul....

But it's all faded now except the sense of urgency and knowing there was a  promise I made in the dream that stilled the urgency provides a path through to healing but now I can't remember where I was going with that first bit or even what it was I promised or how it helps give him a means of healing and no longer starving/dying of thirst/sickening from his soul in a fever state burning outward....

I don't know if that helps or is enough, just to know that the urgency reached me in dreams and I did promise something and in me the shift of it involved the premises of that lyric as a warning -- but now the details of all of it's all faded back into the subconscious soup of the human experience but the shift/change is still there.

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Also. Today I went to the plant store for a few more flowers that I forgot to pick up and some tarragon and a pepper plant to replace the one a chipmunk severed right at the base and killed and a regular basil plant. (I found one called "Sweet Dani" Basil!!! And it was to go into the planter that already had my Aristotle basil!! And that made my philosopher's heart so happy! And also, my last name, it's French for smooth/shiny but in high school I learned from a friend that it also curiously enough means sweet in Tolkien's elvish (Quenya) so I joke that I'm one of the few people you will ever meet with a French and Elvish last name. so a type of basil called "Sweet Dani" is one that quite literally had my name written all over it, lol.)

But I didn't come here to digress about basil or the etymology of my name(s) or how happy it makes my inner philosopher to have a Sweet Dani basil right along side in the same planter with an Aristotle basil.

I came to say that today at the Fitchburg Farms greenhouse, I was in the house plant section and there was a small topiary tree that called to me and it was a myrtle tree. And I found one that resonated with me took around the store with me to shop more but when we went back to return a house plant that Crissy chose differently about, the original one still called to me and while I didn't NEED 1 myrtle tree let alone two, they both got so dang sad when I tried to explain to them that I didn't NEED two baby myrtle trees at $24 each that i just couldn't break their hearts so they both came home with me as well as two large impatiens that look like roses for my patio and I will go buy pots for the myrtle trees tomorrow.

Their flowers look like little stars though!!! And they both sang to me so loudly!!! And their flowers look like stars and smell like heaven! And they were so sad about not coming home with ME, I even had Crissy try talking to them for me because while she can see the way plants visibly perk up when I touch them or choose them, she can't hear them as I do but these two trees she HEARD when she tried to tell them that I didn't need one and certainly not both and she was like, "Oh my goodness, Dani, they're talking suicide sad if you reject them now that you claimed them." And I just nodded and said, "I know. That's what they've told me every time I've tried to persuade myself not to bring them home with me...That they're a whim because I don't NEED myrtle trees in my home." So yeah. i caved to the peer pressure of the two myrtle trees with their white flowers like stars.

And then I looked up the symbolism and associations of the myrtle tree just now tonight, to see why they called to me so and reminded me of my promise and how they are to hold that contract for me. And it filled my heart with awe and beauty and wonder when I looked them up and what they stand for to bring a myrtle tree into your home. And an overwhelming sense of rightness. And gratitude.

And tomorrow evening, I shall go find the right vessels to plant my two little myrtle trees bursting full of promised flowers (one already with flowers opened on it, the first one that called to me) so I can bring them home.

I don't REMEMBER my promise because of how the dream faded, but I do know that somehow the myrtle trees serve and their white star like flowers insisted on coming into my life as a physical seal upon my promise and to remind me every time I look at them and care for them that there IS an important promise I made/renewed, And It's all tied round and through ancient Greek mythos about Aphrodite ( to who the myrtle is the sacred tree) and a promise of love and good luck and harmony and prosperity and innocence and fertility and soul love that binds beyond deaths and rebirths. It's all tangled up together and the rightness is there in my soul and my intuition and my subconscious even if it all feels a damn tangle to my conscious mind that can't remember the dream with clarity/precision anymore.  

And the buying of the myrtle trees today to seal a physical reminder for me as I care for them about the promise I made/renewed/reaffirmed.... That's part of the sense of RIGHTNESS for all it makes no damn sense.... And somehow the warning in the lyric is a part of that tangled mess that I understood so CLEARLY yesterday morning after the vision dream, the warning in it for me to always remember that "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Hell if I understand it in a logical way, for all my gifts and intuition and soul still seem clear about it all. I'm going to head home to change int my PJs and make me some tea with chamomile to help me sleep and burn my hexagonal beeswax pillar candle some more and open my window/balcony door to listen to the frogs in the pond at the end of the circle (despite the ozone warning and Quebec smoke air quality warnings) until I'm ready to head to bed. (At least that's what I will do after the cars parked on the street right outside the building with their lights on ever leave...) Or if I'm tired enough when I get home, I'll just PJs and get ready for bed and then sleep to dream and save the hygge for another night. And if any of the rest of that tangle of vision dreams and promises and free will and myrtle trees makes sense to you, do what you can to bring me back to the place I remember and it's clear to all the different aspects and facets of me qua me. Please?