LTNB, Part II — Trip to Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta is a magical place. I had heard much about it’s sacredness and beauty, and I saw and felt them for the first time on my drive to Portland in June. I knew I had to spend more time there, so my friend Karen and I (here’s a link to her blog) went at the beginning of this month.

We drove the four hours to the town of Dunsmuir,  arriving at our motel by mid-afternoon on Monday, October 1. We were greeted almost immediately by a beautiful, pure white pussycat. He was super friendly and starving, apparently a stray. And I loved him. I didn’t fall in love with him. I didn’t learn to love him or grow to love him. I just knew, the instant I saw him, that I had always loved him and always would.

Because I loved him, I wanted to take him home with me. He spent a couple of nights in my room, gobbling cans of Fancy Feast and snuggling with me on the bed. I told him that if he wanted me to, I would take care of him for the rest of his life. I promised him undying love and all the cat food he could eat. I named him Shasta and opened wide my heart to hold him.

In the end, Shasta the cat chose his freedom. I left him behind some food, and the hope that he would live out the rest of his live in whatever way pleases him most. I realized that my time with him was like my dream of standing on the bridge. Perhaps that was why one of my cats appeared there during the dream. I have further come to see that throughout my life I stand on that blasted bit of bridge. I am alone, even when friends surround me — human and animal alike. I am always an island unto myself, yet I need not be a rock.

I am glad to have known Shasta, both the mountain and the cat. I am done with regrets over any part of my life, because regrets are just another way to hold on to the past. I wrote a new song when I returned from Mount Shasta — my first new song in many months. Below is the first verse, and the chorus:

My love lies sleeping under Shasta snow,
and the times we had, only we’ll ever know.
I will never love again the way I loved then–
I will love even more, because I’ve opened my heart.

Shasta snow falls over the water,
Shasta snow falls over the grass,
Shasta snow falls over the mountain,
brings me quiet and peace at last.

~Love and Blessings,
Selene~

Long Time, No Blog — Part I

I decided it was finally time to make a blog entry, after more than a month away from the blogiverse. Or blogosphere. Or whatever you want to call this fantastic other world we have all conspired to create.

Where have I been? To Shasta. To the Pinnacles. To the heights and depths of myself. I’ve spent a lot of time immersed in dreams, both in the process of dreaming and in the analysis of the dreams. One dream in the past month has been emblematic, so much so that I may paint the central image from it on the drum I bought (more on that later).

In this dream I am dressed in a long, golden-yellow gown and I am striding ahead of a large group of people, leading them away from a city under attack. I walk out onto a bridge, and then the world explodes around me. When the smoke clears, I stand on a blasted section of the bridge, alone. In front of me, darkness and jagged edges of concrete. Behind me, the same. I know I am relatively safe because I am standing in the center, with one of the bridge supports (the only one left) directly beneath me. On this concrete column are rusted metal rungs leading down into dark, roiling water — the only apparent way off the blasted piece of bridge. Above me dark clouds fill the sky. One of my kitties — the black one with two white patches (on her neck and lower belly) is with me on the bridge. I know this even though I do not see her.

Waking from this dream, I thought I understood the message, and I did — in part. I have since discovered there are many, many layers to this deceptively simple image, and each layer holds its own message. For me, the loudest message is: Everything has changed, and you must alter the way you have always walked. For most of my life, my path has been forward, onward, looking toward the future because (I was convinced) the future held the happiness I so desperately wanted. I believe the dream was meant to tell me “Happiness is here. Happiness is all around you, if you will only stop moving forward long enough to take it in.”

Being with myself, steadfastly in the present, is proving more difficult than I would have imagined. My forward movement for all those years kept me safe, provided a buffer from pain, from noxious things in my daily life with which I did not want to deal. If I try to list them all in this post, it will likely be the longest blog post ever made.

I promise I’ll be back soon with more. My life certainly is exciting — that I cannot deny. Thank you for reading, and for any comments you wish to leave. I appreciate your kind regard.

~Love and Blessings,
Selene~