Spirits and Ghosts

(This is certainly not an original idea and I'm not sure where I first read this metaphor/simile but this is how it resonates in my life.)

Like a ghost on a mission I have a routine of haunting the rooms of this house. Sometimes I float through checking lights, doors and locks: sometimes clumsily knocking things around and sometimes stealthy like a ninja - quiet, quick, and completely unseen. One of my superpowers is invisibility. 

I enjoy occupying the spaces I've made, rooms of particular purpose. Moving through each doing upkeep, cleaning and other work until the evening when it's time to attend to myself with relaxing rituals of inhaling/exhaling, movement and stretching, heat from the sauna and gloriously hot baths. It's therapeutic to dissolve into my surroundings, releasing tension and restriction. 

The rooms I inhabit the most have collections of things that are homes for my overflowing spirit - similar to haunted dolls and dollhouses but not scary, just charged with my excess energy. I am putting away some of my magical things for a while, letting them rest. Like trusted allies I want to care for them and treat them with appreciation. Also these things are not for all eyes to see. I don't feel comfortable letting strangers into my home, my sanctuary.

Our 25 year old roof and windows need replaced so we're having people come to give estimates for those jobs. Most of them have been fine - not intrusive nor bringing bad vibes. The ones who are like us, who have actually done the physical labor and are honest and upfront, do not leave behind any negative energy. But there was one who left me feeling the need to sage the entire house and take a bath in holy water. On the surface pleasant, nice, polite, but the unclean spirit leaked out all over the house where he insisted on lingering in each room longer than necessary. I was uncomfortable with his presence in my most private areas - my bedroom and bathroom. Spiritual hygiene requires the rooms where we sleep and take care of our most intimate needs be guarded from intrusion by anyone with deceitful or other untrustworthy motives. After he left I decided to treat each room with a sage spray (didn't have any to burn) and before going to bed I burned frankincense and copal on the front porch to drive away and place a barrier against any loitering unclean spirits and energies.

I wonder how many people actually fall for sleazy sales tactics and how those who use them can sleep at night. How can they profess that they are "going to the kingdom of Heaven" after manipulating people with unethical practices? Of course, anyone's salvation is between them and God, but I am allowed to call out their bad behavior when they are trying to take advantage of me. I was not impressed with his attempt to justify his actions after I confronted him, very politely, with his unethical approach to sales. No sir, I don't think your CEO pays you so much that he can't afford to send you to the same house twice. If he truly valued his customers he would send you out as many times as necessary to satisfy their needs. And no sir, claiming your windows are the best available does not really make them worth six times more than any others (or actually better for that matter). And no sir, your presentation of your competitors' prices did not even make any sense when they were a fraction of the cost you quoted for your products. Is that really supposed to be some kind of flex? "Oh, look at me, I way overpaid for these windows that some guy claimed were the best available"? As if drastically overpaying for windows is going to give me some kind of status? No thank you. I'm old enough to better. And finally, no sir, I'm not signing your contract today just to get slightly less overpriced windows. (No sir, buying windows cannot really be compared to buying airline tickets. Besides, not even first class flights cost as much as one of your ridiculous windows.) That whole tactic of pressuring people with a today-only discount is the worst. I guess it works on some people sometimes, maybe enough to keep the practice going, but that just is not the best way to serve people and provide them with goods. It is greed, and greed is not good. 

Be gone unclean spirit, leave my home and never return.         

Undoing the Laces

Wait a minute, baby
Stay with me a while
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me about the fire

Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home

And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match
He was singing

And undoing
(Oh-oh-oh) and undoing
(Oh-oh-oh) ooh, the laces
(Oh-oh-oh) undoing the laces
(Oh-oh-oh)

Said, "Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop"
But now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for
But when you build your house
Oh, then call me home

Hold on, the night is coming
And the starling flew for days
I stay home at night all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there, yeah
Ask me and I'm there 'cause I care

In the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone, they say it doesn't matter anymore
If you build your house, then please call me home

Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change and don't you ever stop
Now it's gone, no, it doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house, I'll come by

Oh, Sara
Oh-oh
Oh, Sara
Crazy, there's a heartbeat
And it never really died (ah)
Never really died (Sara, ah)
Would you swallow all your pride?
Would you swallow all your pride?
All I ever wanted was to know that you are dreaming

Sara by Fleetwood Mac

I'm full of mixed metaphors and random thoughts right now so this might not come together as well as I'd like. 

My shoulder is healing. So very slowly, but steadily. Physical therapy is such an essential part of the process. I am grateful for the knowledge and assistance my PT provides. Healing movement and touch. 

My last blog post was pretty somber. I was in a dark place emotionally, really feeling like the anti-hero wounded dragon casting wards and cinching tight the laces around my heart, closing off and containing the bleeding stuff. Tied those laces pretty good, or at least I thought. 

The other night I was sitting in the dark looking out the window and appreciating the shadows cast by the outside light. Not all darkness and shadows are scary or threatening. No shadows exist without light, but the darkness came first anyway. Does the light carve out the darkness giving it shape or does the darkness contain the light to its own designs? 

Sometimes I need to be in the dark, sensing the night sounds, sights, smells, and air on my skin. Our bodies are of nature and need to be in nature not just when it's pleasant, light, and warm, but also when it touches our thresholds of comfort. Our thresholds need to be tested and exercised. It is another form of therapy to feel the cold and the hot and sometimes our bodies tell us what they need. Sometimes our eyes need to look in the darkness, adjust to their perceptive limits. Sometimes our ears need to listen to the stillness of the winter night and hear the movements of the nocturnal creatures that also listen intently and move with purpose. Sometimes the cold, clear air carries subtle scent waves of burning firewood, and sometimes vehicle or dryer vent exhaust. Our machines are part of this world too. I've learned that the sounds and smells carry differently depending on the moisture and clouds. Machinery and traffic sounds carry very far through the fog and low clouds.   

Sometimes we need to relax into the world and just exist as part of it. I've been grounding myself a lot by exhaling and pushing stale energy into the earth. The inactivity of this long recovery has my chi a bit bound up and stagnant, so now that movement is becoming easier I am working on improving its flow. Healing creates bi-products like scar tissue and spent fluids that need worked out from the elemental level - air, water, earth, and fire.    

Heat is what seems to be most healing right now. I just need to be in hot water sometimes. It helps improve the circulation, warmth and bloodflow, relaxing scar-bound tightness and stiffness. It makes therapeutic movement easier. Undoing the scar tissue laces around my shoulder. 

What I am needing more of now is therapeutic touch. I have a massage scheduled next week and I am so glad to be able to get back to that part of my wellness routine. 

I feel like my heart needs some kind of additional therapy as well, to deal with the loosening laces around it. Do they need to be retightened? Are they dissolving like internal sutures? I'm not sure if I can trust anyone to touch my heart. Being wounded creates a sense of self-protection and guard. The wards I cast don't know if they need reinforcement or repeal. The kind of touch that best heals the heart isn't quite available anyway. 

The song Sara quoted above is the song that makes me cry about losing my mom so long ago. It's just the whole sound of the music- melody, rhythm, harmonies, and part of the lyrics. It's a dreamy emotional song- hypnotic and lush with a sadness laced with hope. Mom loved Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks. Mom was kind of an exotic gypsy like Nicks. Mom is the poet in my heart. I came out of her so there will always be that connection in my heartbeat. The aura of that song will always undo the laces...