A Death, An Eclipse and the Gift of a Bird

Cedar Waxwing Bird that I rescued from the middle of the road

or how I have been coming out of hiding

I disappeared for a bit. Not because I was hiding; rather, I was healing the deep heart pain of losing my soul dog, Mochi. It was an unexpected upheaval, but it was also a catalyst for an even bigger shift within my own life.

I have felt incredibly stuck for the last two years. So much so that I isolated myself because I was so ashamed of not wanting to be an active participant in life. I felt so much shame for not being where I wanted to be in my life—for having to walk away from a certain way of living in order to survive and still waiting for the thriving part. I have been doing the deep work for decades. You know, the work that everyone is now awakening to on our planet, but who “seem” to only go through it for about a year or two and then they are actively pivoting into a brand new life. You can bet it agitated me to my core to wonder what the hell have I done (or not done) to not be able to escape the incessant inner chatter that I am not living right.

There had been so many plate tectonic shifts in my personal and professional life and even more in the environment around me and within the terrain of my body. At times I believed I was malfunctioning. After years of being deeply attuned to my physical body, my emotional world and my mental space, I was also able to deeply attune to those around me and especially to those who entrusted me with the care of their soul.

It felt like a gut punch to no longer be able to navigate this alone. It is in moments like this that I begin to question what is true and what is real. I think many of us have seasons when we lose the plot a bit and find ourselves scrambling to make meaning, to have a secure sense of understanding within which we can order our thinking and develop a map of sorts.

But what happens when everything dissolves in front of you and you are left with yourself?

What happens when the very world around you is collapsing and changing in a tangible, seeing it with your own eyes kind of way? The madness I feel is because I feel and I have wondered how those around me are not somehow affected by this dissonance and instability? My sensitivity and ability to see the patterns around me has made me feel separate on multiple occasions in my life. The feeling of life not quite being real and the sadness and despair of so much suffering has knocked me from my axis multiple times.

In the moments before Mochi took his last breath, assisted by the vet who had given a very grim diagnosis, I was simultaneously very present with him so that he knew that he was held in these last precious moments, and, I could feel myself drifting away from my body. In therapeutic terms we refer to this as disassociation, yet in this moment, it was an opportunity to be through the veil with Mochi. He was already accepting of his experience and while I knew he was in physical pain, he was also very much reaching out to me with his infinite soul. And I was feeling it. There was a moment of awareness that allowed me to “see” beyond for a moment, to remember what I can only seem to remember in moments of silence and stillness, and even then, they are few and far between.

Our extrasensory perceptions are so valuable. They are valid. And, it appears as though they are getting stronger as we continue to rectify our right relationship with the Earth and with Life itself.

I knew that I had put up some thick heart walls over the last years. Protection, I might call it. Even if the walls were not intentional, they were felt because I was no longer able to feel my way into the next iteration of who I was becoming. Maybe my nervous system was running the show, or maybe I was choosing to escape the very real world stuff in lieu of staying in the dreamy, fantasy realm of possibility without any definitive action. Maybe the protection against very real human disappointment was separating me from fully living. In fact, none of these descriptions are inaccurate andwhat was truly happening was by design. It was a choice I was making to slough off the old skin that had been willing to accomodate a certain level of life that was no longer fitting who I truly yearn to be.

I can throw in the word authentic or even real like the skin horse from The Velveteen Rabbit story, but as a writer I am leaning towards not giving it a word or a definition. There is just something happening and it is new to me. I always want to have a demarcation line, a way to determine the before and after, yet sometimes that just isn’t how it happens.

This state of life I am is unlike what I have experienced before. And I am sure many others can concur. But it is also not new. For eons there are tales and stories of the transformation process of the individual, of the empire, of the planet and all of the flora and fauna.

There are thresholds and markers.

There is eruption and disruption, chaos and destruction.

In the end, something else is formed.

I may not know how to organize this new form of me or even the new form of the world around me. For once, I might be okay with not attempting it either. I recognize the ebbs and flows of my own emotional waves. I sense the encouragement along the way from both human and more-than-human messengers.

In fact, it got me thinking that maybe I want to be a little more like Mochi than I realized. I want to accept what is without having to create a story around it or about it. I want to acknowledge the state of mind, the season of being, the texture of the sense of self, the interpersonal components of relating and say, “ah, this is what is here now.” Because what is most certain about all of it, is that what is here now, won’t be the end of the cycle and it certainly won’t be the stopping point.

Over the years, through various versions of my belief systems, I have developed safety mechanisms about death. My personal story with death and funeral homes as a young child and my own near death at age 26 certainly shaped the narrative. Losing my beloved Golden Retriever, Blue, in 2019 also added a component. And then losing Mochi, so suddenly this year, seemed to rip the curtain back.

Blue taught me that grief is a portal and when we choose to enter it, we are transformed. Mochi taught me that sudden death is a key to unlocking the gate that holds our fear, rendering it alive, and plunging us into the inbetween of eternity and presence. For if we face the fear while it is alive, we slowly take away its power. Sometimes when we stop feeding the monster, we can get close enough to meet it in a compassionate way.

The returning that I have begun to traverse, is one that is a stripped down version of my old identity. It is more raw, sometimes quite shabby, yet it isn’t as heavy to carry. I would love to release the cloak of shame, and I believe that the more honest I am in my expression and writing, that it will continue to become tattered so that the threadbare garment melts away. After all, who are we to judge another’s life? Why would I hold that against myself? I sat with this throughout the day yesterday knowing that a celestial event was in the process of occurring.

The partial lunar eclipse last night cloaked the moon in red. Sporadic clouds covered her face and I watched in the darkness as inch by inch she was covered in near totality. I spoke aloud to the God I have come to understand, the essence I choose to believe helps right my compass back to my True North in moments of doubt. I admitted to being ready, to eclipsing the old stories from my life so that I can see with new eyes and fly with new wings.

Earlier in the day, I rescued a beautiful Cedar Waxwing who was stunned in the middle of the road. We communed for twenty minutes as I held her in a blanket and waited to see if she would fly again. I was overcome with peace, with presence, with an understanding of the fragile balance between life and death. I chose to drive thirty minutes to the nearest wildlife rescue with the hope that they would be able to rehabilitate the bird and then I would be bring her back to its home. It was a choice that felt right and that brough me back into right relationship with what matters to me. In our communication, the tiny bird shared that she felt “peaceful with me” and knew that I was there with her and for her. In that moment, it was all that mattered.

I carried that moment into the eclipse. I asked for guidance and I also asked that I would be aware enough to know when I was receiving it.

And so it is that I continue to exist and walk, faltering as I go.

Bearing witness to each moment, each encounter.

Coming back, once again, to the simplicity of natural things.