I’m not sure if it is a truth about the Australian aborigines, but in the movie Australia, the little boy says “I will sing you to me.”  And of course, like a good movie, he does.  Everyone is together in the end, safe, sound and love is all around.

I sing the Dear One to me today with each breath.  I hum a lullabye of moooooohhhmm, Meeera Meera Meera, Sheeraaa, Sheeraaa, pulling the Presence closer to me than the skin at my neck.  I claim the Oneness that defies all space, time and distance so those I love are near me always.  I declare the power of here and now that glows through me like the light of an eternal star.

I swirl like a garden fairy with the stardust of Her Love, flying free.

What he said, the rabbi entering retirement, was that if we accept and bless that which seems like bad luck, we create an opening in our heart.  This opening moves us beyond imprisoning anger, resentment, and fear to evolve.

Evolve is a good word.  It shows me the spiral of this path going upward, in a new direction, even though it seems like every single day is the same banal uselessness.  I would like to evolve.  I’m willing to evolve.  And willing is the key that opens this door.

I bless this door of unemployment.  I call it good.  I call it the opening of opportunity and a divine shift to be more than I’ve ever been before as ME.  I’m willing to pull out my foot and take another step each day into the void of Godsland.

Where She awaits for me around the corner of the dark jungle path giggling and singing, “Can you hear me now?!”

I’m walking faster now.  My dog, now on the other side of the veil, doesn’t mind.  In fact most of the time he is an old friend who walks with me.  We still enjoy the early morning air and talk to trees.

The lilac is bare.  Like grief, the branches wave.  Salt water tears would be invisible to an ocean crab.  It is a day with barely a dawning.  Slight sweet coral glimmers beneath the wide swatches of grey clouds.

Birds eating berries.  Sparrows scatter as I pass.  Flowers still bloom.  They are all so comfortable with near death experiences.  It is a familiar part of nature.

Love is a cleaving energy.  Once the bond seems broken, water simply flows.  Love is a healing balm for my soul.  I feel Lucky Love, I lean into my Goddess of the Hounds who stops Her bounding through the forest to kiss me on my cheek.

I can be, truly, a pain in the neck.  And today I have one of my very own…pain in the neck. 

Pain is like meditation.  It consistently refocuses my attention.  Obsession is good for that too–always distracting me with a revolving door doing nowhere so I don’t pay attention to the next right action.

But life goes on with or without pain and grief and fascination with the unknown.  This human being body needs clothes, boots, food and to pee.  I need to nourish myself and release.

I wrap my pain in a soft blanket of warm love.  I sip soothing tea and heat my body with oatmeal and sweet raisins.  I burrow my brain-tossed head in the soft shoulder of My Lady.  Sniffing and whining I complain about this wonder-filled path I chose.  She giggles a bit, and rocks me back and forth with a lullabye. 

She has Her Way with me.

What if I could truly be present with each breath?  Would I just pass out into the next dimension?  Being present is like keeping track of a disappearing act–once you focus on it, it vanishes.  What a joke this time and space thing is!  Whose idea was this anyway?!?!  Probably mine.

It is a cycle: clarity, fear, then peace.  It has been through my darkest hour that my eyes can see in the night of my soul better and better.  The heart thumping reminds me to breathe deeply and avoid those yummy comfort foods that stir up my body like a junkie it is.

Whether night, sunlight, grief, inertia, bliss or crankiness, I claim the entertwining spirit/human blessing in each breath.  Pulling in the Spirit, holding the blessing in my human heart, and releasing the dirty cloud of unknown.  Once the tumult ceases, the water is still, and the Way is clear.

I’m grateful that:

the toilet is not overflowing.
my dog is no longer suffering.
I don’t have to clean out poop every day.
I’m healthy, despite too many cookies.
I’m ready to walk and maybe even run.
I can type.
I have a computer that works.
It is not raining right this minute.
My phone works, and I don’t care about the minutes.
I like my volunteer work.
There’s yummy food in the fridge.

I can claim my peace without understanding life, death, love, survival or sustenance.  My goodness is my goodness here and now.

Little Mikey Jackson had a song about that, “never say goodbye.”  But this hysterical human illusion keeps telling me that my dog is gone.  Almost 15 years of walking in the morning, feeding twice a day, walking in the evening.  Talking love snippets, slow sauntering through the park, watching him sniff and sniff, diving into bushes for green balls, and nosing canine asses.  My human self just misses that which is only memory.  One moment here, next moment gone.

But truly, we never say goodbye.  Spirit is all there is.  Love is all there is. Even the tears.  I can lean on my Diana goddess while she rides me on the back of Her huge horse, carrying me and surrounded by dashing hounds–my dog one of them.  If human life is an illusion, I can claim any dream I want.

Today’s meditation yields a bear of a man hugging me fiercely around the shoulders and saying “Good girl.  You’re a really good girl.”  Just like I loved him as a dog.

I lean into Diana who takes me away into a new day.  It is a forest of love, dreams of love, life of love.

Death is distracting, but it is not real.  I believe that, but the uncontrollable waterworks already missing a friend just happen.

It was time.  My dog Lucky of 15+ years just couldn’t get his back end up off the soiled bedding without my help.  He was tired of this.  His body was just worn out.  That’s what my mom said before she died too.  We are not meant to be here forever.  It’s like some style of clothes for a while, then they don’t fit.  We can be happy to let them go and try on something that stretches with a new life.

 I chose Diana of the Hounds to be with me yesterday.  As a goddess she recognizes the role we all play on earth and allows her earthly dogs to retire to that heavenly endless dog park easily and quickly.  All good dogs do go to heaven.  All of us are in and go to Spirit.  It was truly a good day to die.

With this near-death I feel even more the breath of Her Love so close saying, “What a good girl!”

I believe original humans could see in the dark like night animals.  Perhaps then we didn’t have such a fear of fear.  It was a normal thing to hear bumps in the night, unknown shadows and unfamiliar noises.  Night was just another cycle, an adjustment of our eyes, a shift of view.  We changed from a hawk to an owl.

Light makes bright.  Sun brings clarity.  A lamp leads the way.  When I lean my soul into the lamp of Your Love, I feel night’s soft comfort and rest.  Fear crawls into a sleepy circle, snuggles under his tail and sleeps through the dark.  Out come the raccoons, mice, swallows and possums to their daily tasks.

Trees don’t scare at all.  They stand dumb when I ask them what to do with my fear.  “What do you mean,” they ask, “it holds you back?”  I try to explain how the unknown, stories from the past, change can frighten me.  The branches lean in wonderment listening closely to these singularly human words. 

A giggle wind rushes through the poplars and the leaves clap their hands in recognition.  “You’re a walking tree in this life!  These feelings are your earth, rain, sun and wind.  They just are.  Like a cool rain, long drought, slamming wind or spring sun.  Nothing more to us.  We grow around barriers, lie down and fertilize, reach and thrive.  Just seasons.  The winter to come is unknown.”

Today is bright and the chill sends our finger roots deep into Gaia’s warm pocket.

The now is the point of power and Presence.  The now is all there is.  The past is a holographic perception, the future is fantasy and fear.  We are time/space beings this time, so we have to play with these toys we chose. I am rich in this swinging playground, one minute hyperventilating in fear and the next confidently dressed and ready to impress.

Rich and comfortable in my presence.  It is not really a purpose, or a job, or a task or a career, just to be me easily.  My walk gave me some pointers.

The job of the rain is wet falling.  The career of the poplar is quick growth.  The day of gravel is to crunch and break apart, sink in, wash out.  Grass does its duty diligently–hold on and spread.  The briars have an experienced resume: twining, twisting, pushing reviving and fruiting again and again, season upon season.

Leaves on tree tops holding on.  Are they not ready?  Being stubborn?  Getting the last look at dawn and sunset?  Wind and season will release them in perfect timing.