The Changeling Sky

Back to summer for us for a while, and the cats are happy. Max spent most of the night on the couch, I don't know why. Perhaps the unicorn meat eating cats crowded him. But he is back in bed, and the cats are outside. I wanted to see the moon tonight but the rain clouds are in the way. I will have to content myself with my container garden, with the impatiens and the dahlia, the daisies and the begonia.

I will run out of cigarettes before dawn, so I will count on you to keep your head down, until I am replenished. I know not many of you smoke anymore, but it definitely helps with menopause. I need to quit, anyway.

This day, and only this day, I will ask for sobriety. I will let myself be bounded by the walls of today. That being said, I am glad today is group therapy day. Sometimes there are nights when you can't get in touch with anyone and the only thing to do is hunker down and try to calm oneself. But that's what happens when you sleep in shifts.

I drifted into thoughts of my own past in the meeting yesterday. This is never wise, but I had company, which limits the impact until 3 in the morning, and a couple of cups of coffee later. Thoughts about the past are problematic at this hour of the morning, unless I pull up happy thoughts, and really, how happy can one be at this hour?

Now that I have completely confused you about how happy/unhappy I am...I just don't like thinking, all the way around. Eckhart Tolle is right, when he asserts that the mind is a horrible thing, full of manipulative, mean, nasty doohickies that will drown me if I can't get around it. Instead, I must transcend it, work what program I have and have a spiritual awakening. It's just that at these wee hours, I am hard pressed not to be honest with myself, which is very confusing. This doesn't feel like the road to a spiritual awakening, but the road to madness.

I suppose I need to get rid of the old pain memory that is associated with the mind, the physical. I have to be willing (key words) to let pain go. Only it's hard to let it go when it's happening.

But right at this moment, I am mostly happy, despite some drama going on in my life. I have a roof over my head, too much food to eat, clothes and my animals. I don't want to drink or cut. I would like to visit the forest with moonlight, but the night is dark. So be it.

The air is moist and the ferns on the edge of the trail thrive. Here and there, blue spotted rocks rise from the pine needles in rounded shapes. The sharp bark of the pine trees are jagged in the dim light. Other trees line the path as well, some maples and the Old Oak.

I'm sorry. I can't do it.

My mind turns again and again to the field, where I have been for days. I like the forest when it is sunny outside, and the leaves have left what trees they will. I like to see the twigs beneath my feet, and the color of the moss on the blue-lichened rocks. Sometimes flowers, tiny and perfect, spring from the moss, and I have to be extra still and careful to see them. Or the forest in springtime, when the mountain laurel comes out...

But in the autumn, I love the field, that will be gold soon. The grasses are still green, but the wind that blows over them speaks of leaves that turn, and the colors of the forest and the ever changeling sky.