The Suffering of Wants

Every once in a while (okay, usually every 28 days or so), I go through a continuous craving and wanting stage that I have to talk myself down from.

I get this bubble of discontent that bursts with a varied list of wants and just recently it went something like this:

I wish we had a bigger house, if we had a bigger house I could get another kitten. I want another kitten. I’m supposed to have nine cats for Cat of Nine Tales, but Snafu couldn’t tolerate another cat unless we had a bigger house. I wish we had a bigger house.

Once I’ve awakened from the suffering of wants, I counter this kind of thinking with this kind of thinking:

You can’t have a bigger house unless you have a lot more money. If you had a bigger house, you’d only need to spend more time cleaning it and you wouldn’t have more time, because you’d be working more hours to earn more money to pay for the bigger house.

AND YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK MORE HOURS.

If you worked more hours, you’d be miserable and you certainly wouldn’t have enough time to spend with a new kitten (never mind writing!).

Be grateful and enjoy the cats you have! Enjoy the small manageable house and work less hours so you can enjoy life and have time to write.

Most of the time I understand this choice, because it was a choice DP and I made to live simpler, smaller lives with no debt and as stress free a work life as we can manage.  But, the suffering of wants can get to me sometimes. 

Theme Music to Life

If I was to choose theme music for my life. This piece would be my theme.


When I hear it, I listen for the silence between the notes and I'm transported...


I love the way Mstislav Rostropovich performs it, but I couldn't embed his video here. DP gave me the entire work a couple of Christmases ago. It's wonderful to write to.


I hope you enjoy it.


I've had different theme music at different times of my life. What is your theme music?

The Temporary Truth

I wrote a guest post for my friend's blog Love on the Run. She's blogging about her separation and divorce "as it happens." Since I've been through a breakup, I offered her stories of my experience. She told me she likes how honest I am. Read the post here if you’d like (got to love the comments on that post!).

Writing that piece for her blog led me to more that I wanted to write, but did not include in that post. So I thought I’d finish it out here - more on the Temporariness of everything.

One thing I have learned through my own long term relationship and subsequent divorce is seeking security and "forever" in another human being is complete foolishness. It's not fair to the other person to depend on them for your happiness and it is not a mature and conscious way to live…expecting another evolving person to be and stay the same way to make you happy. People need to grow and evolve consciously as individuals. I believe this leads to a lot of relationship failures.

I believe in monogamy but I don't believe in forever. It is a lie, a myth, because even if you do stay with the same person for the rest of your life, death will take one of you first. Feeling this sense of temporariness ensures that I appreciate the person I am with right now so much more. There is no time for complacency, no trap set for taking someone for granted. The relationship is always in a place of gratitude. At least this is what I've found.

Everything is temporary. That is one of the greatest truths.

It's Only Temporary

Why do I have 8 cats!? I’m going to have to put 8 cats to sleep. No, not right now, I mean eventually, one by one in agonizing grief.

I’m sorry, but I’m really grouchy and sad today (this was written Monday evening). For those of you not part of the Cat Blogosphere, a very prominent and well loved member of our blogging community, Sweet Praline, was put to sleep Monday morning. This is THE hardest thing about being part of a large community of blogging cats. They get ill, go through all kinds of desperate things to get well, and they mostly don’t, and eventually have to be put to sleep. It’s heart wrenching every single time because first, you remember your own experiences…I’ve euthanized three of our beloved cats in the last 4 years; and second, it brings out the dread of knowing you’ll have to do it again. So, I’m thinking I’m going to go through it 8 fricken times…and four additional times for our dogs.

Yeah, I know. Nothing lasts forever. We’re all temporary. This too shall pass. Live in the moment…blah, blah, blah.

It still hurts.

And I get way too upset each time a cat blogger gets that sickly look or the announcement is made that so-and-so is not eating very well. I know, or at least I fear, that it is just the beginning of the end.

Oy! There is even another well loved kitty already going through the same process and the way I’m feeling today I know it won’t be long before he joins Sweet Praline. 

There are probably about 300 or so cats in our community and I’m sure there are more ill kitties that I’m not aware of, but I only follow a little over 100 blogs (and most blogs have more than one cat). The math makes a high probability that we lose about one kitty a week.

It would appear that I’m just not good about pet death. I gave away a hamster when I was a kid so I wouldn’t have to find it dead in its cage one morning. I’ve tried to analyze the reasons why (and that could fill another blog post), because I’m okay with human death. Grief, shock, sadness, yes, but ultimately I have complete acceptance when a human passes (even when I lost both my parents). But analyzing it doesn’t help in the moment of grief. I’ve had to just take each death as it comes…get sad, pull away, get mad (at myself) but try to know that it gets better after a time. It does get better, but then it happens again and I start all over again.

I have to let this go…

I have to keep in my heart the knowledge that there is a continuance of life after leaving the body. That we, and they, our beloved pets, merely return to the Source where we truly “reunite” as One.

When I get this level of frustration over something, I call it a spiritual practice and suddenly it falls into perspective. Sometimes I can even chuckle at my own struggle.

Hm. I think I feel better now. Thanks for reading.

The Light of Music

At yesterday’s Easter service our priest, The Reverend David Matson, said that some people believe that “The Light” is in a fierce battle with “The Dark.” He pointed out so matter of factly that there is no battle because Light dissolves Dark. Where there is Light, there is no Dark.

Then we sang, “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus” for organ, viola and choir in an arrangement composed by one of our church members with DP conducting. It was a beautiful, surprisingly difficult piece that we had not practiced nearly enough. We barely pulled it off, but that is how we roll most times. I’m sure no one from the congregation cared if the choir came in exactly right because the viola was so mesmerizing. I find that music is one of the brightest Lights in life for me.

Our Easter service began with DP hailing the Resurrection on her trumpet accompanied by violin and viola. I wish I knew the name of the piece, but it was bright and festive. Then all our congregation’s children (accompanied by a parent) came down the aisle banging drums of all sorts singing a “Halle, Halle, Hallelujah” song backed by us, the choir. After they took their seats, DP and her trumpet came in again to accompany the choir as we processed to the alter with “Hail Thee Festival Day,” all eight versus. Despite all the other pieces we sang Good Friday, Saturday’s Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday, that’s the one the keeps playing through my head and rolling out of my mouth. I am so proud to be a part of the wonderful and dedicated group of musicians at St Matthews. They have such a beautiful musical tradition.


It's choral music I find the most spiritually cleansing. It's a creative collaboration of individuals, each bringing their light (soul) through their own body (voice) into a single Creation (a musical piece).

This guy says it best in this phenomenal TED Lecture (it’s only 14 minutes) given by composer Eric Whitacre on his background and his creation of a 2,000 member “virtual choir” using YouTube. Definitely work checking out if you love music. 

Easter

Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Happy Happy!

Dusting Guns

I decided to do some real dusting yesterday and that included the two rifles that hang on the wall of our bedroom. I got to thinking about those guns and how guns and "fictional violence" have played a role in my life.

First, those guns brought DP and me together in a romantic, red-neck lesbian sort of way. We’d known of each other for years, but got reacquainted at a hand gun workshop for women.

There was a time I called myself a pacifist. In college I heard a lecture from an organization called No War. It was so powerful I balled like a baby.

Gradually something in me changed.

It's not that I advocate war or military action or that I'm a member of the NRA, even though my father was a lifelong member, it's more that I understand the people who are.

I still have the basic moral conviction that taking another human's life is completely wrong, but I've let go of the idea that I (or even a larger movement) can change all of humanity's morals.

I've come to believe that humans are inherently violent, which I did not think was the case before. When you take my toy, I’ll smack you. 

I believe only individual conviction or cultural identity can prevent violent behavior. It's up to each individual to change themselves.

For me I know, hand-to-God, I became desensitized to violence from television shows I was watching, and the books I was reading. And in truth, I became attracted to it. I watched a lot of television and movies, to the exclusion of many events and people (but that is another essay entirely). Though I could not tolerate TV police or crime dramas, one of my favorite genres of television was the fantasy/comic book farce that was prevalent on cable channels back in the late 90's. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys spun off several shows of which Xena: Warrior Princess was my favorite. To say I was a fanatic fan is an understatement.

My reading material was also fantasy. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice (the first book is now a new series on HBO called A Game of Thrones) are just two authors that kept me reading and still do.

These genres are full of sword slashing, cudgel bashing blood, guts and violence. I soaked it in like a sponge filling a dark need to touch the basest and shared primal part of my humanity…without getting my hands dirty.

When I took television out of my daily life, the light of love spilled into the quiet and dark places. In fact it was soon after partnering (for lack of a better word) with DP (when I also gave up TV) that I became fascinated with the Law of Attraction and The Secret. These teachings reminded me that I was in charge of my thoughts (dark or light) and taught me how to change them.

So the rifles are hung on the wall because we still enjoy target practice. That's all they've ever been used for.

Holy He!!

Today DP has a dog training seminar. I will go to church and choir practice as usual. It is Palm Sunday which is the kick off to Holy Week. It is more like Holy He!! Week by the schedule. If we participated in every service it would be Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil on Saturday which is a late service and then Easter Sunday. Major happenings for sure and some of the services are quite dramatic. It is basically the Passion Play (if you know what that is) in real time, returning to church for each stage. Doing Thursday is just too much with work and everything so we'll begin Good Friday.

With the extremely windy weather we are having this morning, the power keeps flicking off. I'll have to get this posted now to have anything for today.

Thanks for all your comments on yesterday's post about Snafu. I'll update on him when I get another chance and probably through Cat of Nine Tales blog.

Hosanna!

Progress on Yes

In the year of saying yes, I have signed onto my first Gay Pride Parade. I've always wanted to march in one and I intend to join with a women's group called Seacoast Sapphos from Southern Maine to march on June 18th in Portland. DP will be working so this will be a lone venture which makes it all the more scary.

A more recent yes I said today will be my first venture at being the Canter on Easter Sunday at our church. This is really scary, but I said yes because in truth, a fellow choir member will be cantering with me…or I'll be cantering with her actually. The St Matthews Episcopal Church Choir was one of the best yeses I made two years ago when I was more in the yes mode. This will be my first time cantering.

I very much enjoy singing sacred music and being a part of a choir. It's such a magical experience to participate in singing pieces that were written two, three sometimes over four hundred years ago. And they were written to be sung in the same manner we are singing them today. After each piece we sing, I say a silent little yes to myself.

I also said yes recently to taking a road trip up to a place known by native Mainers as "The County," which is Aroostook County to the rest of the world. This is a business trip for work this week. My boss and I leave Tuesday morning and will drive the four hours north on Interstate 95 to visit clients and prospective clients in two days. There'll be meetings, dressing up in suits, smiles, lots of handshakes and dinner with an overnight stay in Presque Isle. I'm going to try and post something for Wednesday morning "live from The County" but we'll see how exhausted I am and how coherent it'll be.

Saying yes takes a constant reminder to not say no. It’s surrendering those little fears I’ve carried with me for 49 years.

Egos, Psychics and Ham

I’ve been posting this blog for over two weeks now. Today is the first day I didn’t have a post prepared ahead of time. It’s not that I haven’t written, it’s that when I read back what I’ve written, it sounds really pompous and egotistical. So here I am calling myself out. 

The best part of blogging every day is that I am writing every day. Every DAY! I haven’t done that since I took two years off to write a book (no it wasn’t published). I am learning so very much about myself by having to be honest. My friend Moose Oliver wrote a post recently about a similar thing which helped me understand what was going on with me. When I write in my journal, I can be pompous and even tell myself lies, but I have learned that when you write knowing someone else is going to read it, it makes you take that other perspective. From this I learned I can be a bit over the top. 

So I ask you, my friends and readers, please call me out. Even if it stings me, I’d like to know about it when I don’t catch it.

Here may be an example: Yesterday I went to a local psychic fair. It was billed as a “Holistic and Mystic Fair.” I’ve got to tell you I was so not impressed. There were probably 25 or 30 tables/vendors selling everything from used books, jewelry, digital biofeedback readers, incense, crystals, candles (Scensty had a table) and of course 15 minute psychic readings. I cannot imagine being able to give a quality reading in a room full of people in 15 minutes, and I cannot believe that anyone paying for one, really thinks they are getting something of value. I can actually see possible value in a tarot reading or perhaps an astrological chart, where you’re drawing from symbolism, but really, just a “reading” out of the energy surrounding the person. It was such a frantic environment!!

And there was another issue we (DP met me there) took with some of the “vendors”. There were two animal communicators there so of course we were curious. We happened to be at the fair around lunch time and it was DP who noticed that both people, on opposite sides of the room, were eating ham. DP said, “Do you think they spoke to the pig and got permission?”

Dead Birds

A gray and white junco slammed into our sliding glass door. Pop, was the sound that brought four cats, a German shepherd and a human rushing to look out the window. Robins chirped loudly through the 30 seconds we stared silently out at it, laying in the mud beyond our deck steps. No movement. It died instantly. A fluff of dark gray feathers stuck to the glass at about chin level, marking the spot where it met the end.

Okay, so this is the second dead bird in two weeks and both happened on the same day of the week. My former pagan self would have sought all kinds of meaning in this. One bird a seagull, water, ocean, a scavenger. The other a junco, ground feeding, white belly, ummm…I don't know much about juncos.

Nope, I got nothing.

No foreboding dread or intuitive realization I shouldn't do something, just two endings one instant, the other long.

And yet...

The suffering seagull gave me the gift of an opportunity - the opportunity to take a risk.

The junco? Sorry guy, I still got nothing.

Emotions

From a kind and courteous comment made on yesterday’s post comes today’s post.

I have considered taking anti-depressants in the past, but right now, as long as I do not make any life altering decisions or become an undue burden to DP as I go through this, I want to continue without.

In a bizarre way, I’m experimenting with the emotional intensity. Because of some past relationship issues, delving into the depths of my emotions has been a very freeing experience for me. I can explain it at this moment because I’m now beyond the tar pit and can look back at it objectively, understanding I’ll return.

Call me crazy, but I’m engaging in the drama of all this - the mood swings, the blog, the year of yes connections and people’s responses - as part of my own spiritual practice. I used to think because I could “control” (suppress) my emotions, I was being objective about them and therefore in a higher place of consciousness.

It turns out I was dead wrong.

I learned in a difficult way for me and the people surrounding me at the time, that suppressed emotions come out, and control (or lack thereof) is just an egoic story I tell myself.

Today I want to feel those emotions, recognize them (with gentle help from DP when I can’t do it myself) and honor them for what they are – the body’s reaction to a challenge or restriction – decide whether I need to take any action (is there a real decision to be made here, or just the need for a couple of Ibuprophen), make/take it or not, then pull back from the emotion, if I can, as it continues, or just ride it out with at least an awareness of it.

Writing it out this way as a step by step process is very satisfying, but the process doesn't feel like it's "happening" like that. It just kinda does. 


Thank you, Kim for prompting this.

Rescue Me Follow up

Well, I’m sad to report the seagull from my Tuesday post “Rescue Me” did not make it.

The woman from Avian Haven said he died almost immediately after arriving. She said there wasn’t anything they could do for him because he had severe internal injuries and a crushed wing, so they would have euthanized him in the long run. She was very appreciative that we took the time to bring the gull in, and said most people don’t think a gull is worth saving.

I am always amazed at how passionate humans can be about something that strikes a chord with them. There are people devoted to every cause imaginable. When the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, the cat blogging community I belong to clamored to learn about the fate of stranded pets and especially the cats on a Japanese island known as Cat Island. Thankfully the island cats and the 100 or so humans that live with them were largely unscathed. There were special funds set up to help and donations continue to pour in.

Last week I heard a story on National Public Radio about volunteer rescue teams who located and collected lost dogs and cats in the affected area. Within a couple days NPR was reading some of their weekly comments from listeners, and one commenter was angry that anyone would do anything else when there were still human beings missing. I thought to myself, that person doesn’t understand. There are people who are willing and passionate to find lost humans, lost dogs, lost cats and lost gerbils, too I’m sure. I hadn’t heard one report that they needed help finding people, so rescuing pets wasn't an alternative to finding people. It struck a chord with those animal rescuers and they knew they had to do it.

There is a natural balance to humanity when we listen and connect to our inner passion, that "chord," our creator source.