Because one day, I won't be able to...

Barely a month and a half into 2014 and 6 friends or acquaintances have died.

Not just in the last six weeks, but before now and beyond, everyday for me there is a practice:

When I eat food, I say to myself, "Delicious! I feel so glad to be alive!" because, you know, one day… I'll be dead and I won't be able to.

When I feel the sun (or clouds) and the moonlight on my face, I conjure a surge of joy and gratitude in my body because one day... I won't be able to.

When I drink the waters or feel it on my skin, I'm so glad to be alive because one day... I won't be able to.

When I have sex, I'm pretty damn happy! Because one day... I won't be able to.

When I inhale the air deeply into my lungs on purpose, I feel so glad to be alive because one day... I won't be able to.

When I exercise my body, even when I know it will be sore the next day, I am so grateful because one day... I won't be able to.

When I hold my partner's hand, I purposely manifest an upwelling of Love in my body and pass it on to him. Because, you know, one day... I won't be able to. (Chances are, if I'm hugging you, I'm doing this then too. Also always towards plants, animals and other spirits.)

Everyday.

One day, this body of mine will stop pulsing and then disintegrate back into disparate bits of earth. So now, even when things are shitty. Even when I'm frustrated, have too many other things to do or I'm thinking too much about some unimportant thing, I make sure to create moments like the ones listed above; deeply aware of being alive in the present. Feeling the emotions fully and taking responsibility for them & my words and actions too. Gratitude for the entire thing; All That Is. The "good" and the "bad", within and without, above and below, the light and the dark. Every. Single. Day. Because I just don't know, maybe tomorrow or maybe 70 years from now, but one day I won't be able to do any of it anymore, ever again. Blessed Be. 

While loss does make me sad, death itself is not a sad event to me. It's simply what we do; we live, we die. It's not helpful to dread or fear it, because that's really to dread and fear life itself. Life and death are one and the same and it's going to happen either way. It's beautiful even. In the end, death levels the playing field; we are all going to do it. And no matter how much we do or don't acquire; no matter how loudly or quietly we affect the world, no matter how well or poorly we treat each other, no matter how fearfully or lovingly we live our days and nights, no matter how many people remember us, or forget, we all go to the same place in the end.

Fog Spirit; Anima Motrix~ Goat Rock State Beach

"We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

Fog Spirit in the golden autumn sunlight. Lichen growing on quartz laden rocky outcrops drinks from the fog rising, twisting, whirling, dancing up off of the sea, speaking to us of the terroir's aliveness and offering to make its personhood known... Beings other than human call us to fully realize our humanity.

"Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotized by a host of human-made technologies that only reflect us back to ourselves, it is all too easy to forget our carnal inheritance in a more-than-human matrix of sensations and sensibilities. Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate earth--our eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other eyes, as our ears are attuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the honking of geese. To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our lifestyles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

~David Abram from The Spell of the Sensuous 

His Eyes Like Fire by Jeremiah Phin

Ready for a good scare? Check out His Eyes Like Fire, a new collection of short stories from author Jeremiah Phin's horror series, Before You Go To Sleep.  At a special price for the next two weeks.  Click on the link below to purchase...if you dare. (Photography and design by Norm Halm)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G6BLRW2

Heirloom Carrots From My Fire Escape Garden

I'm having an occult relationship with my garden in The City.

"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged.

They nod to me, and I to them." ~Emerson 

Great Grand Father Oak, Petaluma CA

My friend, The Great Grand Father Oak. Standing before it, its megalith like mass and strength can be sensed in the observer's own body. This tree is a guardian of that place, which has many many eyes all around. The Great Oak offers spirit medicine of fortitude and power, entering my body as if by an electric current that magnifies in intensity; synchronized and magnifying in proportion to the growing level of reverence in my heart. I lift my eyes to the sky, now with my own roots deep deep down commingled with Hirs, and just then a lone wind rises and howls in the branches above me.

Way of the Rabbit: Hometown Shrines: Guest Post from Norm Halm

To read the story and see more images, please click the link below.

Way of the Rabbit: Hometown Shrines: Guest Post from Norm Halm: Gentle Reader, I am thrilled with the way the Hometown Shrines project is growing. I have received several e-mails from folks who are will...

Imbolc 2012~ Winter's Light Grows Stronger