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[Chester]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)

Posted by Mitzvah (here)

I always take the threats of suicides by others completely seriously, because even if they don't truly want to die, sometimes they accidently kill themselves.

Having never had the first suicidal thought, hopefully I'n not speaking out of place here. But, from what I have gathered over the years, people who are truly suicidal don't generally talk or brag about it, they just do it.

I had a (former, long story) friend who for years on end would start blabbing after a few drinks, about how miserable his entire existance has been, from the very get go, and how he's just waiting for the right time, or the right excuse, to finally off himself. I had really gotten tired of hearing this over time, and then one night he and his wife were over for the evening and dinner.

In he starts: "Oh poor me, I'm just gonna end it all one of these days soon, and have this poor miserable life over with once and for all". "That's it" I thought to myself. "Enough!". I went and unzipped the old pistola from it's pouch, handed it to him, and demanded: "Here, let me help you. Go out in the back yard and f*****g do it then, I'm sick of hearing your poor me suicide bulls**t!"

Make no mistake. This is by no means how I would ordinarily handle that type of situation, but I felt I knew the man well enough, and that this might just make him think about what he's saying a bit more consciously.

He became very sheepish, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. He quickly handed the gun back to me, changed the subject, and I never heard him mention suicide again.

My father... around 1975 told me a story one day. He told me he was age 33 and was sitting on the toilet with the gun in his mouth. I wasn't sure why he told me that story.

It was on Tuesday, June 26 of 1979 around 11:00 AM when he called me at my bookstore job and told me he had to fly to Louisiana to get some money for some bookies he owed. He had lost his beloved wife just 3 months before (cancer). He said he would call me the next night and if not, for sure would be back Thursday. I knew something was wrong. I implored him to let me go with him. He told me not to worry, that he had an armed security guard accompanying him. The last words he spoke to me were, "I want you to always remember, I always love you." Those exact words. No call came Wednesday. On Thursday he was a no show. I called the family lawyer. He told me if he's a no show by that evening to call him Friday.

Friday came and he was still a no show. I called Rust (the family lawyer) and he said he would go to my Dad's apartment/office and see what he could find out. I got a call at work at around 12:30. "Chester, please. come to your Dad's apartment." The boss who had received the call whispered something to his son, Mike. Mike said, "Come on Chet, I'll drive you over there." I knew my Dad was dead.

When we got close I saw a few police cars and an ambulance. I ran out of the car and somehow Rust was coming out the door and grabbed me and told me while looking upwards, "Chester, your Dad's dead." I tried to go in and he and a policeman restrained me.

In many ways one never forgives themselves for not listening to their inner voice. But I know now my Dad is fine, he is just somewhere else. I also know he knows I always love him.

[RunningDeer]

Posted by modwiz (here)
I write this because I have not witnessed discussion of an empowered adulthood.

Wild woman’s spiritual journey is the courageous steps taken or what would appear to the outside world as absolutely crazy. Life experience is synonymous with spiritual path.

18 years old walk out the door with a brown bag bag filled with clothes and a couple of books. Hitched a ride to the next state over. Fresh start.

Filled my 1963 VW with my 3 1/2 year old son’s things, pot and pans and some clothes and drove away from a marriage and brand new home that became just a house. Fresh start.

With one more semester of college, the TV switch began to smoke and flame. I was afraid it would explode. Grabbed my son, while he grabbed his teddy bear and watched as it went up in flames. The volunteer fire department wouldn’t come out because of 3 false alarms that day. 85-90% loss of "things". Fresh start.

I was in a physically abusive, live-in relationship (not for long) where it was safer for me to jump from my second story window. And that I did. And promised myself never to do it again... Never broke that promise. I was out by month's end. Fresh start.

2nd marriage of 17 years, left it all, except the queen size brass bed, clothes, books and pots and pans. We are still dear friends. Fresh start.

I walked away from the security of a job and chose to live a small, fulfilled life. By today’s standards, I’m poor but I feel like a millionaire. The label is “retired” with a small business in an apartment. I spend most of my waking days in reflections, reading, writing, walks, all the stuff that everyone else does, but now have more time to do it. Fresh start.

And I am still saying that I would not change one second of my life. I know of great sorrow, great forgiveness, great compassion, and great love. And I am all of this because of the gift of real life experiences. Life experience is synonymous with spiritual path. And I would say, I still get scared, but I continue to over ride it knowing that I always, always land on my feet. I can’t explain it. There’s a part of me that watches as this Paula steps out and moves forward. There’s an inner knowing that the foot knows which direction to go in. And I’ve noticed that as it’s happening, I’d swear that I’m flying. My stomach is in joy mode. My mind, like a tethered balloon say, what's happenin'? All while chuckling with glee. And the hardest thing is to know what and when, yet I trust that it’ll unfold as needed.. A journey ... I know not where next, yet.

Tank’s all gassed up though. Fresh start.

I say, do not fall into the trap of security and things...Life is too short. Life is too precious. Give yourself permission to be a quick study and move on.

[another bob]

I must have read some bit of Eastern philosophy about needing to go beyond the mind in order to discover the natural state of true freedom. In any case, I began pondering that concept, until one night, sitting out on the front porch of my parent's house, I found myself utterly absorbed in the inquiry, forgetting all else. No matter how deep I seemed to go, however, I would still keep coming up against an impenetrable wall that prevented me from going any further.

I was just coming to the recognition that mind cannot be used to transcend mind, when a family member called out for me. It felt like they were miles away, but the voice was insistent, and finally I came around. They said, "You better come and see this on the TV -- Bobby Kennedy has just been shot!"

With that, my inquiry into the nature of mind got momentarily put on the back-burner, but it would not be long before such an investigation coincided with my commitment to social service.

Growing up in San Francisco, with a fervent social worker activist for a mother, and a live-in grandmother who had been instrumental in founding the Women's Benefit Association (an early pre-cursor of the modern Women’s Movement dating back to the '30s), I was naturally inclined to a service orientation. With my own 7 years in a Catholic Seminary during the turbulent 1960’s, timed with the Second Vatican Council, when fresh voices within the church were speaking the Liberation Theology, I was moved to explore a fresh connotation to the service ideal that related directly to the oppressed and needy.

All around me swirled an immense energy of change, of consciousness re-inventing itself, wild, often conflicted, and vividly alive. For most, this all amounted to some kind of problem in need of a political solution, and plenty were suggested. I was more interested in the source of the dilemma, rather than the mere symptoms. I had I learned early on that any particular social manifestation was the play of dependent origination, a constituent component of a greater whole, and that’s the vision that beckoned me – the unified principle, the basis.

For a long time – ever since a dramatic experience at the age of 8 rocked my young mind – it seemed like everybody was performing. All were busy pretending to be students, protesters, cops, teacher/preachers, soldiers, radicals, politicians, talking TV heads, holy swamis, rabbis too, humans doing what they do, but the closer I looked, I could not find any enduring reality in this earnest charade. It was all a bit ridiculous, in fact, but what was I?

Was I the one who sent my draft deferment back to the draft board, naively accompanied by a love poem? Was I the one who, consequently, stood in front of that same board one evening, on the verge of being shipped off to Viet Nam, inquiring together on the real meaning of serving one's country? Was I the person classified then as a conscientious objector? Was I in fact any of the characters who subsequently went on to pursue the right action, the right service, in whatever way the dream moved, weaved, twisted and turned, or none of them, none of that at all? I didn't know, I wanted to find out, and so I delved deeper and deeper into the inquiry. The quest was not just for my own satisfaction, but I realized that, unless I was able to come to terms with what’s real, I could never hope to be of any true service, but merely compound delusion with more delusion.

Rather than providing me with answers and solutions, however, that inquiry methodically stripped away the pretense of knowledge itself, drilling down through the stratified layers of borrowed notions, subtle programs, and second-hand beliefs to the core story of “me” and “mine”. There is a pain that burns, when everything we once may have cherished is revealed to be illusion. I had to come to terms with that, to live unafraid in the unknown, to love, unafraid, in the unknown, regardless of current circumstances and conditions breezing across the dream screen. What’s eventually discovered, if we follow all the way through, is that Awareness alone remains, empty even of any emptiness -- both the origin and destination of the whole functioning totality of universal manifestation. Such a realization was still far beyond my ken, and the fullness of its recognition and consequent embodiment certainly still is, but “the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”, and how else would it or could it be?

When I finally returned to San Francisco in late 1969 after spending months as a hermit in the high Sierras, I moved in with some friends I had met while still a seminarian, and who were active in the Peace effort. They lived in the Haight-Asbury District – the colorful home of the Hippie Movement. One day I picked up and read the Bhagavad Gita – an ancient Hindu Bible -- and this little book had a profound and lasting impact on me. As I read the verse:

“He who does My work, who is devoted to Me and loves Me, who is free from attachment and from enmity to all beings, goes to Me.”

a resonant epiphany rang in my heart. I proceeded to look up meditation in the phone book, found a Zen Center nearby, and began studying Buddhist practices geared towards the discovery of the truth of one’s own nature. To really serve others, I realized that I needed to “know myself” first, and this seemed like a good place to start.

Many of my friends were now experimenting within the growing counter-cultural movement sweeping the nation, and I found myself living right in the epicenter of it. I eagerly drank in all that this new world was serving up, but what most appealed to me was the focus on universal love woven within the songs and proclamations of this emerging vision. Nevertheless, I had learned by now that vision without action is a dream, just as action without vision is a nightmare. I was still propelled by that early call to “do something” about all the suffering around me.

At the time, the Viet Nam War was in full flare and, having forsaken my theological deferment upon leaving the seminary, I soon became the recipient of the dreaded draft notice, requiring me to report for a physical in preparation for induction into the army. I did not want to shoot people, I only wanted to serve and nurture them. Consequently, I applied for Conscientious Objector status, necessitating an appearance before the Draft Board to argue my case.

When I stood before the esteemed assembly of citizens who were trying to turn me into a weapon in thrall to the military-industrial-banking complex, I explained as patiently as possible how wrong-headed it would be to send me on their killing errand. Apparently, my sincerity was convincing enough to Board, and so I began 2 years of Alternate Service as a Child Care Counselor at a residential school and treatment center in rural Northern California for emotionally scarred pre-adolescents.

I was assigned to a group of 10 very unhappy, abused, and bewildered boys that I came to love, and I carefully watched over them, and also made sure that they ate properly. I had the kitchen substitute fresh fruits and vegetables for the standard white sugar and flour products, and eliminate institutional processed foods as much as possible. Rather than letting them sit around and watch violent cartoons on the weekends, I would load them into the van and take them to the parks and beaches of Northern California, and let these inner-city kids get the feeling for the freedom to be found in nature. At bedtime, I would give them tender backrubs, and tell them little stories to ease them into the night.

It quickly became apparent to me that the common source of these kids' disturbance was a profound wound at the emotional heart of their being -- they had found out early, and invariably violently, that they were not loved, and so I was moved in my way to address this with them, and by grace I was opened to a previously unplumbed depth of my own heart to compensate or balance the hurt in theirs. I literally fell in love with them, to the point that they recognized my love for them as real, and their behavior began to modify as they came to trust this love.
Of course, I was totally delinquent when measured against the conventional medical establishment's rules and standards. In the evenings, we would all do a bit of guided meditation, and they fell asleep without being dosed with their prescribed sleeping pills, and in fact I gradually stopped giving them their anti-psychotic meds, because they had ceased their acting out and were developing relational skills which allowed them to deal with their anger and frustration in a more natural manner.

Within several months, my group began to stand out from the others at the treatment center, since there were hardly any episodes of violence or acting out that characterized the other units' daily behavior. In fact, we all had more and more pure fun together, and were eventually touted by the administration as an example of successful "rehab" work to visiting authorities. After about a year, the staff psychologists decided to study my group in depth to determine why they appeared to be making such rapid progress, compared to the other units, and of course that's when they found out I had weaned the boys from the heavy chemical straight-jackets that had previously been used to artificially manage and control their behavior. I had replaced drugs with hugs, more hugs, a natural life style, listening, yes, and even meditation - I had begun studying Zen with Suzuki Roshi at the time, and applying his teaching to child care, and they all loved their morning and evening "mendatation".

Naturally, the bureaucratic shrinks were flabbergasted, and promptly fired me. The dear children all gathered a petition on their own to keep me there, but I had violated the prime directive -- do not mess with the pharmaceutical protocols, regardless if they're poisoning the children!

As grace would have it, I soon thereafter got a letter from the Government indicating that my services were no longer required to fulfill any remaining Alternative Service duties, and so my next stop turned out to be Mt. Baldy Zen Monastery. I still often think of those kids, and so many millions more like them, and how rare it is in this world that even a handful come through to peace and rest, all armor laid down like Prasad at the feet of the Beloved.

[Chester]

Another strange twisted part to it. My step-mother had pancreatic cancer. They had given her all sorts of pain medication yet she refused to take any of it.

The afternoon of the day she died, her Mom, who had been with her for the nine month ordeal of comforting her daughter through the stages of her death, I and my father were in the master bedroom when she asked my father while looking straight at me, "Sam, what did you do with Ginger's pain drugs?" Clearly she was worried I might steal them and oddly the thought had never occurred to me.

My Dad replied, "No worries, I flushed them."

Clearly he had decided already what he really was going to do with them. That's how he went out. I recall cleaning up the small bloodstain on his desk... I assume where his head had laid... the blood from his hemorrhaging via his nose or mouth or maybe his ear.

I added this because of the irony that Ginger wanted to experience her last days as coherently as possible. Everyone said how weird that was. Yet that act gave Dad the weapon he needed which he would not have had otherwise. Something tells me they are together and smiling.

[Arrowwind]

Posted by modwiz (here)
I write this because I have not witnessed discussion of an empowered adulthood..

An empowered adult. I see these stories as a reflection on finding power, our challenges, the tyrannts that repress us, our fears and how we overcome them. Great learning for anyone on a path. Each story is an intimate mirror. We all have stories of power that we rarely discuss with anyone, never mind taking time to write onto a page and we all have stories of how we found our power or lost it as the case may be, as well as what kept us from knowing it. Its an endless road getting though the obstical course on our way to enlightement... and enlightement is like a forever unfolding flower, its beauty and power keep growing and opening and opening and opening... and along the way we keep advancing and learning, overcoming that which holds us back by entering new experience, new pathways of revelation, unshakling ourselves from imposed or chosen limitations through the grist of living experience.... for me, I know I still have quite a ways to go regardless of how blessed and forgiving my life has been. I have stories of power, and I will share them as time goes by. Otheres here do also.. takes time to get your feet wet when things so intimate as these kind of stories are told.

[another bob]

Posted by Arrowwind (here)
An empowered adult. I see these stories as a reflection on finding power, our challenges, the tyrannts that repress us, our fears and how we overcome them. Great learning for anyone on a path. Each story is an intimate mirror. We all have stories of power that we rarely discuss with anyone, never mind taking time to write onto a page and we all have stories of how we found our power or lost it as the case may be, as well as what kept us from knowing it. Its an endless road getting though the obstical course on our way to enlightement... and enlightement is like a forever unfolding flower, its beauty and power keep growing and opening and opening and opening... and along the way we keep advancing and learning, overcoming that which holds us back by entering new experience, new pathways of revelation, unshakling ourselves from imposed or chosen limitations through the grist of living experience.... for me, I know I still have quite a ways to go regardless of how blessed and forgiving my life has been. I have stories of power, and I will share them as time goes by. Otheres here do also.. takes time to get your feet wet when things so intimate as these kind of stories are told.

So very well said, Thank you Sister!

Really appreciate your wise and wide embrace here!

Blessings!

[RunningDeer]

[Arrowwind]

DarkNight – Chapter One - 30 years ago - a true story

I had already been a year and a half into the mysteries of living in Taos when I came upon this 100 year old adobe that set close to the edge of the rim road in Arroyo Seco and the nearly as old woman who resided in it.

I was being cast out of Ski Valley, or so it felt in the moment. The woman I had been sharing an A frame ski lodge with just up the road from the little town center had asked me to leave. I had never been asked to leave anywhere before so it was a new state of considerations to contend with. My usual insecurities came to the forefront. Not good enough, not smart enough, not friendly enough,not nice enough. The thought forms that resided within were surely my enemies that I had battled with countless times before. So often that they seemed more like old friends, those whispering voices that confirmed to me my due place in the world.

But the other voices that I had been calling in were much stronger now. I had walked much. I had walked the world. The roads of Arroyo Hondo. Of Colorado.The mountains of California and Montana. I had walked and walked and in silence enough to know that who I was was not those voices nor the images they attempted to project upon my person hood, upon my very soul. These voices were just reminders of who I was not and never was. They were just the few remnants of the battles in my head that had long plagued me but were now mostly gone, lost to the endless roads and forests of my walk.

I now walked the rim road towards Taos Mountain along the cliff down to Valdez.The beauty of the place filled my cells. The smell of earth, my senses afire.The colors of life shined upon my eyes. You could stand on the rim and look out to the horizon to the edge of the world and there at the edge was always a display of form, color, contrast, fire and water, air and earth in always a new dance. My senses reeled. I would forget the voices in my head and know my part and place on this earth. I would caste my sight over the valley below. Valdez,Valley of the Witches and wonder how life there differed from mine. What mysteries, what untold secrets and conspiracies resided in the mud houses below?

Here I stood above, impervious to the histories and scandals. Independent of social dictates. Somehow for the first time in my existence I felt I was free. Free of it all, even the voices, although still there, did not rule me. Like any other evil in the world it may be there but does it rule you?

The 100 year old house was surrounded by an adobe wall with a gate that faced towards the front and the west of the house. There were huge cottonwoods to the south side. It looked unkempt. As though it were almost melting into the ground destined to return to its source.

There behind the gate a white light appeared bobbing up and down. “Who goes there and WHO are you? ’’ the pointed questioncame at me like a slung arrow. I was just walking down the road minding my own business.

I approached her then, seeing now her face fully and her crown of white hair reflecting the afternoon sun.. “I had heard that there was a place for rent down this road. Have you heard of it?” I asked the old woman as she opened her gate.

She was short with glistening white hair, cut much like the Dutch Boy on the paint can. She was wrapped in a shawl of many colors of jade and rose, turquoise and sunset. Her feet where knurly, wrapped in Birkenstocks. Her cheeks were distinct red circles as though made by old fashioned rouge pads. “No” she said. “But you can live here”as a broad smile crossed her doll like face.

Hmmm. I thought. Perhaps this is it. She opened the gate further and I entered.

“I have a room for rent. It is $100 a month. You are welcome to stay as long as you want but this is not my house and at any given short notice you may have to leave. I don’t know when that may happen, It could be anytime but perhaps not for a long time. Is that agreeable with you?”

I told her I would have to think about it. The next day I moved in.

The house was a traditional old adobe with a few quirky additions. The central room held the main sitting area and kitchen. Off to the north and the south were two bedrooms. Up a step or two to the west another room that I was essentially forbidden to enter as it belonged exclusively to her daughter.

And the house smelled of cat urine. And try as I might I could not eliminate it.The boncos in the main living area were covered with old woven pueblo blankets and pillows and some woven things that looked more like they were from Oaxaca.If you washed them the cats would just return to do their deed. And there certainly was an abundance of cats and periodically a litter of kittens to amplify the aroma. After a while I gave up and learned to surrender to the dictates and spirit of those who preceded me.

Aside from this one distraction that was somehow surmountable for me the house wastfull of interest. Everything was old. And everything had a name. Well most things anyway. Some things, Kathleen said did not merit a name. The cups and plates, the table and cabinets. Book stands and shower room all had names. The outhouse was Acrapolis and the old Ashley wood burner was Cherokee.

Kathleen was old. 84. She had been around some. Educated and lived in Berkeley but originally from the area of North Dakota where those characters from Little House on the Prairie found their origin. She said in fact that she knew the family which the story had been written of. After the death of her husband and the raising of her children she had decided to commit her time to learning and telling stories, which she did often. She had many stories and sometimes she would have little gatherings in the main room of her home of local storytellers and those who wished to learn the art. No one special really. Just local folks with a story. I even tried my hand at it a couple of times. Stories were fine but not of particular interest to me. Sometimes the ending of a tail was so preposterous or just plain flat that I wondered why I sat there to listen at all. But the stories I loved from Kathleen the most were of real life. She would tell me of everyone she knew and how perhaps they got to be where they were.

I’ve always been aware that my life was a precarious spiritual journey. Although I did not always affirm and conclude daily that this is what it is all about. I would have, on occasion, great moments of revelation that would dazzle and excite me and incite me on to the next awareness even across long periods of what seemed barren experience. Within those long drawn out segments of barren experience, I came to realize, was the making for the next revelation. Revelation is perhaps a strong word. Things would not always be earth shaking and full of jubilation or excitation or blinding light. Most often just a simple awakening from a series of experiences that showed me some small truth about my reality. Living in that house with Kathleen seemed to condense my experiences. Seemed to speed things up. Seemed to catapult me into some of the larger questions and acts of faith. In and around Kathleen and her home is where I would do my battle of light and dark,face the dark night of the soul and win.

It was close to winter solstice. Taos and its surrounding areas are the darkest places I’ve even been at this time of year. The night would be pitch. It was hard sometimes to find my way from the house to the car. The darkness was thick like a sheet of black velvet across your face. It almost had solidity to it.The flickering light from the kerosene lamps, the smell of its oil burning, the black soot upon the walls, all worked to create a sense of place, a sense of warmth in the dark and chill of winter nights. It became my welcome refuge,much like the feeling of an animal warding off the winds and weather in its cave.

My room was large enough, with a double bed, a wood burning Franklin fireplace,adobe walls, vega ceiling, adobe floor. The walls were thick and could keep out the bitter cold of the 7,400 foot altitude in the winter. Always there was the adobe dust that settled about on everything. Here you lived, breathed and resided in the earth. You are always aware of the elements nipping at your heels, making you get up and move, to contend with the forces that challenge and would overcome you quickly and without mercy if you allowed them. The morning excursion to the ****ter was always my first reminder. My daily wake up call.The Acrapolis, that on first hearing its name, mustered up images of old Greek ruins of dignified stature, was in fact the outhouse some 60 or so paces from the back door. In snow, wind, rain, pitch of night, there it beckoned you to its place of personal sanctuary.

Then there was wood. This sacrifice of wood. The daily chore.. The splitting, the hauling. The smell of it. The feel of it. The Zen of it. The endless flow. Like a river of wood from the back entry where the stacks stood to the mouth of Cherokee who consumed fiercely and regurgitated its ash upon all the shelves and seats and curtains throughout the house. I did this chore for Kathleen. I did it for myself. But clearly for Kathleen. And others came too, from the neighborhood and participated in the Zen of wood.

But the house was good and strong and deep walled and even in the darkest of the months the house could go unattended several days without freezing. So if for some reason on any day you could not manage to muster any further than your chamber pot you knew the house would endure the cold and you could pick up where you left off the next day or the next with the Zen of wood. Some mornings when Kathleen was away and an early rise took me off to the Ski Valley to work,the house went without heat. I would fire Cherokee every other day or so. And bury myself in my room next to Franklin and there I would meditate, write and too often, sober up.

Drinking was a new experience for me. Not that I hadn’t drank before. But I had never drunk with any regularity. Here it was every evening. Wine. Too much wine. And when Kathleen was home she would break out the bottle of sherry that somehow seemed to be bottomless. We would sit in the night with Cherokee blazing. Kathleen at the kitchen table, her preferred place and me in the high-backed stuffed chair,each with our glass of sherry. Everything in the room looked so old. The books shelved from the floor to the ceiling in covers of leather with gold print.Other paperbacks yellowed with age and smelled of mold. Many of the books I had tasted, a page here and there. At times it seems that the books spoke through their covers, beckoning and reminding that their story was not yet fully revealed to me as heir gold letterings would glimmer in the firelight. Then Kathleen. You could feel the spirits of a 100 years dancing around her stories. Sometimes the night would be filled with her stories. Other times we left each other to our own thoughts or books.

One evening Kathleen told me that there were forces in Taos and especially Arroyo Seco that were dark. But that she had friends here who looked out for her and she looked out for herself and those who were in her home. She also told me that she was once attacked by a witch but through prayer and ceremony over came her. Witches were known to fly at night in the skin of an owl she said.. She filled her home with a protective light, but she was not sure if she could maintain that protection if she was away. She was warning me. She was going away for a while. A few weeks. Just a little trip to China. She would be back in due time.

In the spring the cottonwoods outside my bedroom door bloomed. They sent off so much white fluff that the ground, as it budded forth with new life, would seem to be covered in snow again. One early morning I got up to look out the window to the back. There was Kathleen in the grassy area between the house and the Acrapolis,raising her arms to the sun as it came over the mountain in the east. The dew on the remains of last year’s plant life glistened as though they were made out of stalks of crystal glass. Green things were sprouting from the ground. White fluff from the cotton woods glistened in the air about her as though she had pulled the very stars out of the heavens to encircle her. Everything looked aglow with yellow and white and green. There she was amidst the light and life of spring, spinning, dancing, with her shawl of many colors flying in the breeze.I could see she was singing but could barely hear her. This went on for a few moments then she was gone. Off into the Acrapolis.

Oh! Ok. Just a little trip to china. A few weeks, a month, and she wanted me to look after the place the best I could but she could not be sure that I would be protected. She would fulfill her longtime dream to go to China and collect stories there. To see the great wall. To dance upon it. That I would even entertain the thought that she was too old for such a trip was not permitted. I remained silent until it was time to wish her good travels.

Shortly after the weather just started to get warm Kathleen set off for China and a new litter of kittens were born. I had the house to myself and them. Still I was drinking too much but I never drank so much that I felt I couldn’t drive. I was always very careful of that. But it was enough to make me feel unwell often. I was not holding any light.

The first morning after she departed I was home to stoke Cherokee and look after things, tend to the kitten box and make sure all was well. I got up to make my way to the Acrapolis and gazed into the card board box full of fuzzy little kits to find 4 heads and one decapitated body and a bloody mess. Shocked and nauseous, I ran into my room and sat on my bed to gather myself together, which didn’t take long. That mess was not to remain in my house a second longer. I threw on a jacket, grabbed the box and took it to the cliff just outside the walls of our adobe compound and threw the box and its horrific content over, down into the Valdez, the Valley of The Witches. I went back and sealed any entrance a cat could enter by, smudged the house and spent too much time wondering how such a thing could occur.

That night while sleeping I was awakened buy a noise at my bedroom door. Not the door to the main room but the door to the outside as all the bedrooms had. I immediately felt afraid, which was not like me to do but my nerves were still on edge a bit from the horror I had found in a box earlier that day. I got up and when I saw that nothing was there I returned to bed. A few minutes later the noise came again but then passed and I went back to sleep.

Suddenly I was awakened by a terror! A man had come through the door and thrust himself upon me. His weight held my bones fast to the bed. I could not move. But this was not a man. It was something else! Something that more that terrified me but horrified me. This spirit or energetic thing that had passed though a sealed door was entering my body. Not physically. Not like a ****. But energetically he was pushing his way into my spine, up my spine in to my head. I started to scream. I could feel my mouth wide open but no sound came out yet a horrific scream came out of my psyche that propelled this entity out of me and back though the closed door.

I got up to check the door. It was locked. My mind was spinning. It was so cold.I threw some wood on the smoldering fire and quickly returned to bed.

I lay there almost paralyzed in fear. But the alcohol from the night before combined with the exhaustion of my struggle to throw that thing off soon sped me off to sleep as though it was just a bad dream.

But soon into sleep it came again. This time I felt no weight on my bones just this thing trying to get into me. I could see its face and it looked every bit the demonic face that you would see in any medieval book and it intended to devour me. To take me over. To enter my spine and push itself up. Again I started to scream and no voice came out but it left anyway only to soon be upon me again.This time the battle was waging fully. My will alone could not chase it out. So I did what I rarely ever did in my life. I prayed and to a god I did not even align myself with. I prayed that Christ would confront this enemy and caste it out for all eternity. As soon as the thought form of Christ entered my mind my mind was filled with a blazing cross. My mind filled my whole body and my mind had become a cross of blazing all consuming light. Instantly this demon, this impetus retracted and convoluted upon itself as it seemed to be energetically sucked out through the door and back into the night.

I was never bothered again.

After a few weeks Kathleen returned from her China trip. I came home from work and found her lying on the floor on a pad next to Cherokee. There she slept for almost 3 weeks. I barely saw her stir. I would make tea for her and leave it with little sandwiches before I left in the morning. In the evening it would be gone. But not a word from her. Just sleeping there on the floor for many days.Finally after a few weeks of this I came home to find her up and having prepared a small dinner for us and the stories of China started to come. I listened and saw through her words a very foreign land revealed to me over the course of many days and dinners.

Finally,“Well tell me. How did my house do when I was away?”

Still that night disturbed me. I had come to realize that it was a true power struggle and it had fully stopped my drinking. It was some days before I found the words in me to tell Kathleen what had happened and only this most direct question brought me to it. I told her of the demon at the door and how it tried to enter my body, and I told her of the cross of light.

“Humph.” This meant that she was going into some serious consideration of the event.

“Well? What do you think?” she finally said.

“I think I had a battle and that I won. I think that I didn’t know how to win but I won anyway.”

“Well,of course you knew how to win! You thunk it! You thunk that cross! Nobody else. Pretty good for someone who is not a Christian, I would say. You seem safe to me now. I would say that you seem much stronger and clearer.”

“I don’t drink anymore. That’s for sure. I think that drinking made me vulnerable.”

“Perhaps.Most likely, I would say so, but I told you that there are dark forces around here and that I couldn’t hold the light when I was so long away. I think that demon had probably been looking for a way in for sometime. I’d been bothered here before. When I first moved in. I had to work hard to seal the house and the property corners. Down there in the valley there is trouble and they don’t like people of light coming around. I and a few others have had to stand our ground here. Such as it is here in Seco,really for much of Taos, but it has been getting better these last few years.”

“Before,when young people first started coming here there was lots of trouble. Hippies found dead on the roadside. Lots of trouble that no one ever got to the bottom of. It was a real battle going on for land and power. But I think some of the problems have faded away, either by death or surrender, I’m not quite sure.Anyway, I hadn’t heard of such a direct assault like you got in a while”

“So what comes for you next anyway? It feels like you are at a portal. But to what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. "I really don’t know. I feel strong and clear now, like I have a part of me that had always been missing, but I don't know where I am going. One thing I can be quite sure of is that something is coming my way. I feel a change a coming."

[Arrowwind]

Trying to fix the font size above but having no luck. any admistrator please help.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Arrowwind (here)
Trying to fix the font size above but having no luck. any admistrator please help.

Fonts "fixed" .

Well, fonts removed ... but at least it's readable.

[modwiz]

Posted by another bob (here)

Posted by modwiz (here)
I write this because I have not witnessed discussion of an empowered adulthood. I feel like a different species reading the stories here. They hurt my heart and seem so needless. I realize, my life is a blessed one and perhaps it is not one that others can pursue. I would like to be wrong, but the numbers indicate a trend.

I will retreat, count my blessings and leave some here..

Rad, why not write a bit more about your vision of an empowered adult? The thread is, as we called it, a blank canvas, awaiting any brushes, to paint with whatever colors, so if you feel it has so far been imbalanced in one direction, start it going in a new direction. That's what the freedom of a blank canvas provides!

Blessings!

Bob, I believe 9eagle did that and I witnessed the results. I have a lower pain threshold than her. I see nothing but woe and demonization in pursuing your suggestion. It is a noble one, however.

[another bob]

Posted by modwiz (here)
Bob, I believe 9eagle did that and I witnessed the results. I have a lower pain threshold than her. I see nothing but woe and demonization in pursuing your suggestion. It is a noble one, however.

Many felt well served by Chelley, although I understand her reluctance to return. I assure you there will be no demonization on this thread. It's for adults only, so maybe reconsider if you are ever so moved, and watch how things develop, you may be pleasantly surprised, Brother!

Blessings!

[Flash]

Posted by modwiz (here)
Parents. I picked them for their genetics and the ability to stifle me in my early years. Too early an emergence for me would have led to disaster. I was crucial for them to be heavy handed.......and they were. Like any performance, flubbed lines, miscues, wrong notes, they happened. The hindsight of it all is pleasing in the extreme. Little deviation from plans and side trips have proved useful. Any other view of my childhood would leave me disempowered. The lessons of childhood are about having no power. Adulthood is about being in your power. I have a rich life ahead of me and the minutiae of my childhood would be like the clothes I wore then. Useless baggage and sentimental trinkets. I remember the good parts because the past is a flexible as the present and future. Timelines run backward as well.

I write this because I have not witnessed discussion of an empowered adulthood. I feel like a different species reading the stories here. They hurt my heart and seem so needless. I realize, my life is a blessed one and perhaps it is not one that others can pursue. I would like to be wrong, but the numbers indicate a trend.

I will retreat, count my blessings and leave some here. I hope this thread provides some balm for the soul and found paths for healing.

Apparently, according to Write4change, I won the sperm lottery. Sounds messy to me.

It is fine if childhood trauma have been processed instead of repressed. As long as they remain repressed though, it is difficult to have a true fully empowered adult. If this thread help the remaining processing for some, great, lets do it. Sometimes just opening up to others does the trick.

I am happy your childhood has been processed Modwiz. Great to have one at least who is empowered.

[sleepy]

Another Bob,

What an incredible story. I do enjoy your writing. I wonder how your boys are doing today. Have you ever thought of looking them up? They were lucky to have you.

Arrowind,

First off, thanks for making that font bigger. Thanks to Paul too. This was another fabulous story. “So, what comes next for you anyway?

Edit to add: Missed a few posts. This thread is growing. Thanks to all for sharing.

[Arrowwind]

Posted by sleepy (here)
. “So, what comes next for you anyway?

.

Chapter two is not yet written. It may never be written. Thats the real dark night of the soul story and rebirth and Im not ready to put it in print... dont know if I ever will be. It almost like a diamond that I hold inside of me, precious and very personal.

[sleepy]

Posted by Arrowwind (here)

Posted by sleepy (here)
. “So, what comes next for you anyway?

.

Chapter two is not yet written. It may never be written. Thats the real dark night of the soul story and rebirth and Im not ready to put it in print... dont know if I ever will be. It almost like a diamond that I hold inside of me, precious and very personal.

While that is disappointing, I totally understand. If you ever decide to write it, I would love to read it.

sleepy

[RunningDeer]

Posted by Flash (here)

Posted by modwiz (here)
Parents. I picked them for their genetics and the ability to stifle me in my early years. Too early an emergence for me would have led to disaster. I was crucial for them to be heavy handed.......and they were. Like any performance, flubbed lines, miscues, wrong notes, they happened. The hindsight of it all is pleasing in the extreme. Little deviation from plans and side trips have proved useful. Any other view of my childhood would leave me disempowered. The lessons of childhood are about having no power. Adulthood is about being in your power. I have a rich life ahead of me and the minutiae of my childhood would be like the clothes I wore then. Useless baggage and sentimental trinkets. I remember the good parts because the past is a flexible as the present and future. Timelines run backward as well.

I write this because I have not witnessed discussion of an empowered adulthood. I feel like a different species reading the stories here. They hurt my heart and seem so needless. I realize, my life is a blessed one and perhaps it is not one that others can pursue. I would like to be wrong, but the numbers indicate a trend.

I will retreat, count my blessings and leave some here. I hope this thread provides some balm for the soul and found paths for healing.

Apparently, according to Write4change, I won the sperm lottery. Sounds messy to me.

It is fine if childhood trauma have been processed instead of repressed. As long as they remain repressed though, it is difficult to have a true fully empowered adult. If this thread help the remaining processing for some, great, lets do it. Sometimes just opening up to others does the trick.

I am happy your childhood has been processed Modwiz. Great to have one at least who is empowered.

Make that at least two, Flash. Even in my younger years I was empowered. I wore the colors of the rainbow across my body, but my spirit was never broken. I never wavered from what I believed to be right and true.

I agree that it is critical to rid what holds one back from seeing their beauty. It takes an empowered being to be vulnerable enough to clear the gunk, or admit to themselves when something isn't working. It takes guts to change and to forgive. It takes courage to live one's Truth, even if it means walking the path alone.

[another bob]

Posted by Flash (here)
Great to have one at least who is empowered.

Anyone who steps up to share their story here is empowered, imo.

Anyone who even makes the effort to appear here in this realm is demonstrating a power that is rare throughout the whole universe, so I just don't buy any put-downs that might arise from some arbitrary and conditional interpretation on somebody else's level of personal freedom.

The proclivity of humans to pass judgmernt on each other is one of the great diseases of the mind, and the root of most of the strife we witness daily on this rock. Let's rise above that.

Blessings!

[another bob]

Posted by sleepy (here)
Another Bob,

What an incredible story. I do enjoy your writing. I wonder how your boys are doing today. Have you ever thought of looking them up? They were lucky to have you.

Thanks for your kind words, my Friend! It's been nearly half a century, and I long ago lost track of the fellas, once I entered the Zen monastery, then moved to the East Coast, where I started a new life for the next quarter century, which was also filled with many endings and new beginnings. I pray that they all had the opportunity to keep what they had learned when we were together, and build on it. Blessings to them all!

[Chester]

Posted by mariposafe (here)
Nancy: - Another mind blowing story, I agree with Bob, your autobiography would be a great read !!!

What would the title be? Clearheart? I had the same wish when I read your post, Nancy. And you are an excellent writer and you also love to write so... anyways, justonewish from justoneman