How has your world changed over the past five years?

2004.  That was the year Mark was killed in Iraq.  He had grown up to be an Army  surgeon, and went to Iraq to sew people back together.  He wore a U.S. flag do rag on his head when he operated.  He made friends with an Iraqi guy who owned a tobacco shop.  Yes, Mark the doctor smoked.  But they would both die in the same month for the same reason.  Pat Tillman died later that month in Afghanistan.  That was the 2nd to the last year that I spent time with my family.  Obviously it was a big year.  There were 3 funerals for Mark, and I ended up thinking more about him after he died than when he was alive, because he was ten years younger than me.  But believe me, I've thought about him a lot.  His mother, Roberta, was always so kind to me.  Roberta lost Mark's dad, too, the following year.  One could say without hesitation and without romanticizing it, that Mark's father died of a broken heart. 

After that, I remember the insides of classrooms and the warm, open fields of Nebraska in the summer.  We went to Lincoln, Nebraska, to study their neighborhood organization, and how people there worked together to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods.  And you know how that is.  The whole time I was there, I would remember scenes about the family and about Mark.   There was a woman with us that we were sheilding.  I thought she would be my friend forever, but she decided in 2005 to move in with a taxi driver.  He was ok.  She was ok.  She has since left the taxi driver, but she is on her own now.  That much is good.  But the other thing that happened in 2005 was that I met nuclear physics guy, the person whose web site is always linked to my profile.  I had no idea that we would still be friends in the future, but indeed, we are.  You never know.

In the summer of 2006, I started to visit a website named Zaadz.  I had found out about it by reading an article in What Is Enlightenment magazine.  Zaadz is now called Gaia, and WIE is now called EnlightenNext magazine, but hey, we're all still around, more-or-less.  Being able to meet up with the amazing, outstanding, interesting, like-minded, creative people I met started major shifts and changes in my life. 

The entire time my husband was not a part of any of this.  He traveled at my side never.  He reflected with me never.  But he is a person of great LOVE in my life, the father of my children, and author of more wonderful things than I can count.  He was not well for a long time, and this took a toll.  So, when I found an outlet on Zaadz, where I could talk to like-minded, kind, smart, nonjudgmental people anytime about any silly idea, I tended to use this site as an outlet.  My first blog was in September, 2006, so I guess I've been blogging for 3 years, now.  Sometimes I feel like just "pulling the plug" and leaving the site, allowing all my blogs to be obliterated. 

In August of 2008, as some of you readers will remember, a bunch of us got together and rented two houses on the Oregon coast and got to know one another!  That was SO much fun, and I really do think of you all and miss you!  Oh, let's do that again!  That was the coolest thing!  Which is why I would never just leave.  But what I'm working on now is how to value all of this and reintegrate my life.  We are always building and unbuilding, weaving and unweaving.  We are like Penelope waiting for Odysseus.  We have FAITH.  We know there is meaning in life, and we are willing to wait for it.  We weave and unweave; our heart continues to burn true.  Perhaps we are waiting for our True Self to burst forth from within.  We await, as no doubt Penelope did, Jung's Hierosgamos, the sacred marriage, the union of opposites.  As far as I can tell, this union occurs in my life both through balance and by transcendence, and both are infinite processes.  And so we are companions along this endless journey, as we dance the yellow brick road.  Thank you dear heart, for dancing with me!

Now, since Michael has passed to another world, things are changing yet again.  I come here a lot less, now.  I suppose that's because I don't use this community as an "escape" anymore.  What I seek is my true connection with you.  I'm asking myself to create a time to be with you, to read your blogs, and to allow your beautiful spirits to stir my heart, to inspire and humble me, as before.  My love, I have strayed.  Can we drink May wine in October and talk about this?