The Magic Between the Living and the Dead

“Have you ever seen a deer so small, it’s like the size of my dog,” Brad* said.

“I didn’t realize it was dead,” I said when we decided to get out of the car.  Its head had been smashed in.  It was the smallest fawn I’d ever seen and the blood had collected in a small puddle around its ear.  Its eyes were open and lifeless.

I stood over the body and the cars seemed fast so close to us as they swished by.  This is man and nature colliding, I thought.

“We can’t just leave it here,” Brad said.

“I’ve got my medicine bag in the car,” I said as I crossed the busy street more carefully than the doe had attempted.  We didn’t have a lighter so we prayed over the body and sprinkled sage and copal over it.  Brad closed its eyes before lifting its body and carrying it into the woods to place behind a tree.  We both squatted there and Brad and I both saw it breathing.  Brad said its body was stiff, though I hadn’t touched it. 

The sunlight crept through the trees and the shadows danced on the fawn’s belly.  The belly inflated and deflated again.  Brad and I crouched there looking at one another in disbelief.  This was magic.  This was sacred.  This was real.  We both bore witness to the miraculous dance in the time that exists between the living and the dead.

There have been many studies done where people don’t see things because they  don’t expect to see things.  How many things do we miss in our awareness because we believe it to be unbelievable or perhaps unexpected?  The mind is a very powerful thing - it can train itself to react to a very strict reality, but what happens when you begin to open those windows of consciousness? When those rules that dictate reality begin to bend so slightly? How much more aware will you be?  How much more will you see?

*The name was changed.  

The Yoga Project: The Beginning of my Destruction (Day 4)

Something happened to me in class tonight.  Yoga happened.  (dun dun dun – insert melodramatic orchestra here).

I left class crying and feeling defeated.  It will take more than a simple blog-post to fully comprehend what is happening to me.  I believe it's transformation.

The word “transformation” seems to be this ethereal new age term that cannot be explained in a pragmatic manner.  That is precisely how I feel about my strong emotional reaction to a physical practice.  Yoga is hard, much more difficult than many things that I’ve done and emotionally, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

There is a saying about destruction being necessary in order to rebuild (rebirth).  I believe I’m currently in the destructive phase right now.  I can only hope the plans I lay out after this phase are better than what I am currently in the process of destroying.

Through this I am realizing what yoga really is.  It is a challenging practice.  It is rigorous for your mind and body.  Yoga is a mindset, it is not a destination, it is not a competition, and it is far more than I understand right now.  It is powerful.

There’s something to be said about finding your breath through the discomfort of this process and being able to hold the pose.  I feel as though I am going to be here for a while. 

Day 19: Staying out of Hospitals

One thing very few people know about me is that I HATE hospitals.  Yes, I know no one really likes them but I think I hate them more than most people.  I loathe the smell.  I hate watching the half dead – their yellowed faces waiting in wheelchairs attached to complicated machines, the tubes of fluids, white coats, white walls….all of it.  You walk in there and it’s as though you've crossed between the world of the living and the world of the dead.  I’m particularly sensitive to this change.

I had a meeting at a hospital this past week.  In a weird way it reminded me of why I’m fasting.

My mother thinks that I’m doing it to lose weight  but it’s not about the weight.  Dropping weight is definitely a welcome side effect but not the purpose.  The reason is so that I don’t end up between worlds: in purgatory with white walls and white coats.  I’m doing this fast for my health.

Allow me to explain: I don’t have many fears.  Spiders could crawl all over my skin, I’m not afraid of walking around in dark forests at night – I find it riveting.  I have lived alone in deserts, owned snakes etc.  One thing I do fear is not being in control of my body or health.  I fear cancer; diseases so severe I cannot cure them of my own accord.  I fear having to be bedridden in the world of the half dead.

I strongly believe and have always believed that what we put into our bodies creates health or disease.  I became a vegetarian when I was 15.  When I was 18 I explored veganism (poorly – do not do this when you don’t know about nutrition and are living off dorm food).  The past few years I’ve teetered back into eating the occasional poultry dish (but never beef or pork) while remaining primarily a pescetarian.

One thing we don’t think about nearly enough is that the meat you eat today is not the same meat that your grandfather ate on his farm.  The fruits and vegetables you enjoy today are not the same that your great grandparents grew.  These are chemical-laden products produced for mass consumption and profit.

Here’s some food for thought: if you don’t drink organic milk chances are you are being exposed to the Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), an artificial hormone given to cows to increase dairy production.  The United States of America is the ONLY industrialized nation where milk produced with the aid of BGH is allowed to be sold for human consumption (thank you Monsanto lobbyists).  Let’s think about this – rapid growth means rapid cell production.  Rapid cell production…isn’t that like cancer? 

Beef cows get treated with similar hormones to develop more meat because more meat = more $$.  We’ve all seen the heart breaking videos of chickens with overdeveloped breasts that they topple over.  Yes, you may say I’m crazy for fasting for 40 days and detoxifying my body by living off fresh vegetable and fruit juices, but considering you just had Burger King for dinner (and some hormones that probably cause cancer), maybe I’m not so crazy after all. 

The idea of a juice detox or any fasting detoxification program is to give your digestive system a break.  A liquid diet saves it the energy and constant work of digesting your food so your body’s energy can be spent on cleaning out the other organs, revitalizing cells, etc.  Juicing maintains 95% of the nutrients from the fruit or vegetable which means your body gets tons of micro nutrients to help your cells stay healthy.

So perhaps I am crazy or perhaps I'll avoid hospital beds and machinery a little bit better than others.  I can only hope.

The Goddesses and me - a journey through cycles

Viene todo a su tiempo…

Youth is fleeting.  I’ll be 27 in February and for whatever reason, 27 has a special significance for me.  To me it wasn’t 18 that represented true adulthood or even 25.  It was 27.

Slowly, I’m beginning to realize how precious time is.  I have no idea where this year went.  The fall always seems to fly by so quickly particularly because it’s my favorite season.  Then comes the winter; it springs to summer and then fall again.  I’m beginning to understand cycles in a way I’ve never known.  Even the cycles in my own body as a woman, my emotional ups and downs are becoming increasingly easier to predict, so now, in the dead of winter of my mind, staring out at the icy blue patches of ice across my driveway I remember the smell of green grass and the sight of trees budding.  What goes up will come down eventually and furthermore what comes down has nowhere else to go but up.

Following the change in the season I am reminded of the life/death/life cycle that women used to know so well.  Women used to be in charge of the dead in ancient societies.  They would not only birth new life, but they would know when to let go of life, having intimate knowledge of the life/death/life cycles.  Just as there is a time for birth, for living, there is also a time for death.  There would be no life without death, no light without dark, no forward without backward and no future without past.  There is an ebb and flow to life that cannot be realized without embracing Death. 

Coatlicue

I think of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of death and rebirth.  How ominous is she who destroys life?  How beautiful is she who creates it. Women in many ways live with this duality. 

In some Native American cultures women are not allowed to participate in ceremonies when they are menstruating because they are considered too powerful.  The menstruation is a symbol of a woman’s power to destroy life. 

Isis

I remember the story of Isis– the Egyptian Goddess – birthing life from death through her love with the ability to create something from nothing.

So as I wander through this earthly existence starting to feel older and more grown up I am reminded of Grace that exists in all stages and that viene todo a su tiempo (everything comes at its time).   I am thankful for all stages of womanhood, not just my youth, but great gifts are given at all ages.  I will not fear crow’s feet around my eyes; I will thank the Crows for their wisdom.  I will let the white take over the black of my hair as a symbol of my duality – reminding me that Death approaches with every breath and that fact gives me more reason to live a fuller life.  I will embrace the power of my cycles allowing my blood to remind me of my ability to create new life.  There is a reason we are affiliated with the moon - her cycles from full to new to full again every 28 days resonates through a woman's body.  I am but la hija de la luna, the moon's daughter learning from my my mother.


I leave you with this fantastic song I wrote this blog listening to:

Growing flowers to understand dying

I went to the cemetery today to visit my grandmother. While I was at the cemetery, amidst the feelings of sadness and sorrow watching my family pray over her grave, I thought of death. 

Wandering past tombstones and the ghosts of children and veterans lingering in the gray cold of fall’s first chill I couldn’t help but read the tombstones of the living.  I stood there wondering about these living ghosts’ current lives.  I wondered if having a headstone with their names on it in some cemetery was cause for them to wait for death instead of celebrating life.

To have your tombstone readily engraved while alive was an idea that baffled me.  When you’re young you don’t think much of dying. 

Beloved Mother, Beloved Daughter, Beloved Wife, Boring, Boring, Boring…what will my tombstone say?  What legacy will I leave behind?  Will I be one of the many Beloved Daughters?

To my family reading this, please PLEASE put something creative on my tombstone – better yet, put something funny.  That way when people walk by, they’ll know that I ENJOYED life and am probably enjoying death (if that is possible, I have yet to find out).

I kept praying in my mind, conversing with my grandmother’s soul, asking for guidance on my next steps in life, wishing there were some sort of manual saying, “please proceed to this destination for the next two years…”  Then something happened.  Through some odd epiphany of sorts I felt that this is it.  This is such a time of beauty and uncertainty I’m only going to dream about later when the path I’m carving through cluttered forests becomes cemented and far too easy to trace. That’s when I’ll sit back missing the wilderness of unchartered territories and missing what I have now.

I have choice now – I can choose what path to walk, what terrains to venture into or stay out of and how to do it. 

Out into the wilderness I go!

Gracias Abuela!

P.S. If I die and my tombstone is one of those run of the mill beloved daughter, beloved wife titles to showcase who I was in life I will haunt my loved ones until they change it.  So if some months after my death you experience odd occurrences such as finding your work files in your refrigerator or your toothbrush in a cereal box you obviously messed up. 

My final act will be to make people leave my grave laughing instead of crying.  How would you feel if every time someone came to visit you they just burst into tears?  Thanks for the flowers and all, but damn, is the thought of me that much of a downer? 

P.P.S. You all know how much I love all animals so you better bring your pets, I don’t care what the cemetery rules are – it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission (Mayor Daley quote – can you tell I’m from Chicago)?

P.P.P.S. I just found out that there are elephants buried in the same cemetery as my grandmother and that little fact, my friends, made my day.