Life

Encounters that let me know I’m in my 40’s

Seeding

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Bees, Birds & Planting Everything

Once again we find ourselves in the season of preparation, a mild winter and time for reflection almost over as our attention is drawn once more to our gardens. How do we prepare for the busier season ahead, including periods of contentment and connection? Taking a deep breath feels differently than it did in February 2020, cool air reaching into my lower lobes before a warmer version is expelled ever-so-slowly. “My body is strong”, I tell myself, when in reality it’s my mind and spirit that’s trained over the past few years. Gratitude hits different. It often draws my hand to my chest and makes me pause to relish a detail, a feeling. These usually aren’t special social media moments, but temporarily meaningful, like the taste of fresh cilantro, a sweet message from a friend, or salmon-colored sunrises and sunsets.

Spiraling into our next cycle of evolving seasons is both exciting and worrisome, feelings I hem in with meditation and intentional action. Intention points the way, gives me a start. Before I made my list first, now I dial in to what I am aiming for first. Many gardeners do not need university studies to tell us bee populations have declined; observation comes naturally, as does learning the soil, plant needs and the seasons. My plants thrive for different reasons, each it’s own entity with distinct needs, but leaning on one another or hugging at the base, roots mingling mycelium, yet unified in their need for sunshine, water and pollination. Gardening wisdom from other gardeners is most valuable. A positive memory from my often frightening childhood is a flower garden with brightly-colored zinnias bordered by gold marigolds my mother planted, a seeding of her peaceful gardening life to be realized a few years later. Now she is a Master Gardener, both her knowledge and gardens multiplied many times over.

New plants aren’t as exciting to me as they once were. Anything I plant now is resourceful for the birds, bees, and/or my table. Robins, finches, and wrens all make nests in our yard from natural plant materials I left for them last season, pampas grass stalks and tufts blowing across the lawn along with spent seed pods. They find plenty of bugs and worms to eat in our soil buffet. Every year there are more birds, to my delight, especially when I am simply rocking and watching. Bees first food is typically tree pollen, not the later blooming dandelion, which lacks an essential amino acid, but is like junk food-better than nothing. Fortunately, our village was awarded a grant for free trees to diversify the local tree canopy. I’ve noticed how development frequently leaves few trees behind, maybe planting a sapling here and there in a poor trade. Saplings and new trees need care, and often protection or correction in order to grow into healthy self-sufficiency. Humans have a lot in common with them. We, too, grow stronger and more resilient to storms, when we are fed by diverse roots/experiences and people. What an interesting and grand garden it is, at times.

In mid-spring, violas, lily of the valley and dandelions lure floating bumblebees into my domain, while other bees stay high in maples and other trees around the neighborhood. Taming the spread of the violets, dandelions and lily of the valley in our yard the old-fashioned way feels futile at times, but it’s taught me to appreciate imperfect beauty and the futility of complete control. Those three “weeds” take the place of a personal trainer for me (so many squats) and remind me I’m just a guest here. I only pull clover from the garden beds, not from the lawn as it blooms all season and attracts pollinators. In our local orchards honeybee hives are sometimes brought in for pollination season, then removed as soon as petals begin to drop.

Quality of seeds and my choices seems to carry more weight each passing season. Last year I felt the tug to try new things. As a novice food grower, I planted a “tried & true” pole bean variety that’s been around for decades, which produced many flat and fibrous beans along with some good ones. This year I’ll plant a newer organic pole bean seed. Two years ago I spent about $50 to grow 3 lbs of potatoes in tubs. I dumped the potato dirt in a heap that fall. Last year I had a single healthy potato plant among the beans. I also experimented with sunflowers two years ago and found seeds planted directly in the soil rather than started in pots indoors, grew four to five feet higher. Last spring I planted lettuce indoors that only resulted in “micro-greens”. My take-away is that I can spend as much effort and resources as I want, or I can slow down, take note and learn what thrives by what means. I can also rely more on Mother Nature. Presenting a hypothesis that in lower Michigan we have a microzone 7 currently-mild winters with temps mostly above 0, very wet springs and long dry summers. This year, rather than heed the warning about how hard giant blue hosta seeds are to germinate, I’ll scatter them in a bed and let nature decide.

What are you planting this spring and summer?

Switching

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Memory lane has more bends and double-backs now that I’m almost fifty-five. Today’s meandering walk began unexpectedly, as most of these trips do. While hip pain has put a dent in my dancing routine, I’m still swaying; determined to go with the flow of life rather than drowning in a what amounts to a puddle.

Thinking about these hips, I remembered a seasonal friend named Leonard, who helped me make more money as a waitress. I say “seasonal” only because we lost touch when he stopped working at the restaurant where we met, a natural fate of most coworker friends from my 20’s. Leonard bussed my tables within seconds of customers leaving because 1. I tipped him well, and 2. We were friends. How he helped me most is by advising me to swing my hips when I walked through the restaurant; apparently I had a complete absence of this feminine wile (sorely lacking in this generally, to be honest). I remember laughing hard, likely because we’d smoked a joint, and responding how I’d have gotten in trouble for “switching” if I’d done that as a young person. Such overt manipulation seemed nasty to me, until Leonard told me I was leaving money on the table; men watched me anyway. I love blunt people, as I often miss subtlety.

My mother is very no-nonsense and as far as one can get from a femme-fatale. She taught me faith, resiliency and work ethic, values I hold most dear. Now my aunts, on the other hand, they switched their hips naturally, each of them sexy and feminine in different ways. I saw one as a nurturer in tank tops and short shorts rooting for the Steelers very loudly and being funny, easy to laugh and give out love, while another had a powder poof on her dresser I thought was magical, wore flowing caftans, and had beads in the doorway to her music room. Another had a smile bright as the sun and made me feel special every time she turned it on me, her walk in heels the epitome of womanhood in the 1970’s, and another who asked me if I was hungry every single time I walked through her front door and ushered me to her kitchen for at least some koolaid, maybe a secret cookie, and a probing question or two about girl stuff.

So, I channeled my aunts and practiced switching slightly, Leonard often reminding me during shifts. My tips increased with a few customers, and every cent helped us, my delighter and I. One of my regulars gifted me a black silk tie for my uniform, although I’m unsure if that was because I started switching, but it happened not long after I adopted it. Fortunately, I was paid an hourly rate at my next job, but I never forgot Leonard’s advice because it felt like overhearing guys in a locker room.

Then I meandered further, and remembered dancing as a teenager and how I swung my hips for hours on end, gyrating to Prince, Madonna, Adam Ant and Bobby Brown. Of course, that made me pull up “Every Little Step I Take” on YouTube, the first cords encouraging muscle memory and dancing with Bobby and his crew. Stopped for a second to remind myself not to do those criss-cross moves fast enough to trip over my feet, but had a good laugh wrapped up in good times. Funny thing is-my hip feels better.

Expiry

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

We were all valuable according to a bright choir of assurances along Directorate Pathway #5. Oxygen converters planted every half meter pumped out relative affirmations intended to keep travelers’ headspace positive and productive. “Laws of Greater Good insure our survival” I repeated in my “for the record” smiling tone, while my gut pitched in a grief, anxiety and repressed anger soup. In my newish sun goggles, still snug with zero leakage, I tilted my head, stuck my eyes on a windowless brick tower, and prayed my tension wasn’t observable to Oversight.

“3 Month Extension” a transparently thin slip of bamboo with her name and new expiration date spit out the holographic lips of Appeals Agent #47. A miniscule neon oval recorded my reaction for my permanent profile. “All decisions are final. Promptly exit Expiry Appeals Tower #3 along the green line and have a positive and productive day”. Its serrated mechanical arm rose from the wall next to me, pointed and tapped on the line. I’d entered maybe 10 minutes before and they didn’t give me an opportunity to plead as I’d rehearsed. Glossy purple toes my little sisters painted 3 days ago stuck out of size 10 wraps, which seemed glued to the floor. We needed more time. Perhaps naively, I’d hoped we would receive one of those 20-year extensions I’d heard about more than once in the past week. They probably didn’t even exist, my mind raged now. “Do you require assistance to exit?” Agent #47 tapped again, this time leaving a smear on the top of my wrap.   

“No”, I spat, then added, “thanks” for the record. My legs finally moved, their green line taunting me. As I pushed out the door, I envisioned the 5 of us laid out under a neon dancing tree canopy, mesmerized by whispering leaves and tiny, yet noisily chittering, birds who dove at one another as if playing. My step-father Ghistar taught us about finches. Our family spent as much time as they could afford in the protected areas since they’d partnered five years ago and moved into the grower community, a step up from the recycler community.

“Lithia! Wait up, Lithia!” Henny’s arms enveloped me before she’d fully stopped running and threw me a little off balance as I stopped. Normally, we would’ve laughed at our clumsiness. Instead, I sobbed into her shoulder, the rough hemp uniform scraping my cheeks and nose, her shaking body a confirmation she knew the outcome. “Ok, let’s get to my place so you can collect yourself before going home to tell everyone”, Henny’s words rang with clear pronunciation of each word.  Although I could tell it hurt, she pushed me away and wiped my face with her sleeve, uncaring of snot smears. “Stop crying”. People jogged a bit to distance themselves from us. Recorded distress could result in a series of supervisory visits from Safety Officers, and debits. Henny’s unit was second from one end of grower units, and easy to slip into unnoticed during the day while growers worked and most kids trained.

Inside she raced to her room for a hat, while I admired a holographic image of Henny’s lineage all the way back to her great-great grandfather, Mach Lipnee, in 2072. He and his wife had five branches, and each of those had at least three. Large thriving families a Lipnee source of pride, Henny was one of five. I imagined them all perched on the expansive padded bench made of bleached driftwood and dense navy canvas, a sizeable table of real wood set in front of it. In this scene of mine, Eutechia, Henny’s stout mother, her knee-length braid the color of tilled earth coiled on top of her head, brought a bamboo platter of steaming vegetable hash to the rowdy crowd from her all-green galley kitchen splayed against the opposite wall. Not for the first time, the colors brought growing fields, sandy beaches and deep lakes to mind, and tickled a recollection within me. Henny returned with a forced smile. “Here, you can give it back later. Don’t argue, just let me. I still can’t believe Ghistar expired.” She stuck her favorite cowboy hat with ties on me and it popped up from my unruly crown of curls, turned copper by intense sunshine and my hatred of hats. “Here’s a Simplifier. You’re gonna need it, I’m telling you”, she pushed a tiny cup at me while I shook my head. “When you face your Mom and tell her she’s only gotten a bit of an extension, you’re gonna break down, Lithia, you know you will. Then everyone is gonna lose it because you never get upset. That’s why she sent you”.

“You’re right”, I relented. “Such a good friend, always looking out for me. If I didn’t have you…”, my throat closed on me then. “I love you”, I managed, gulped the Simplifier and rushed out the door.

There’d only be three of us if Mom expired in five months, only me and my little sisters. How could I meet the daily, monthly and yearly requirements of the grower community? “Damn it”, I muttered to myself. We’d end up in a community my mother had worked so hard to pull us out of, a harder community my little sisters didn’t remember and weren’t prepared for even a little bit.  My own beatings flashed across my mind, as did feelings of vindication when my fist drew Ninbur Sokolov’s blood.

Dr. V plucked me off my track of spiraling despair when he noisily settled on his porch in a reclining wooden chair he made from a dying hardwood, and yelled out, “Hi, Lithia! It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

All your days are beautiful, Old Man. “Been a little hard, Dr. V, but you’re right,” I looked around us at the neatly kept gardens in front of tidy home units. A toddler laughed across the way as his mother played peek-a-boo. “In the grower community it’s always a beautiful day, even when it storms. Not sure, though, if we’ll be able to stay, ya know, with Ghistar’s expiration”. I wasn’t sure why I said it to him, perhaps his age made me comfortable enough to announce my fear despite the Simplifier.  Maybe it was how everyone kept their distance from us over the past week, even at community meals. Dr. V took a sip of whatever was hot in his cup, both hands almost entirely white from sun damage, and stayed silent behind his sun shades. Mother and I worked from dawn to sunset over the past week, weeding, planting, and picking. Our household’s weekly credits were halved with Ghistar’s absence.

“When do you finish training?” Always the professor.

“With extra time in the fields and studying every weekend, I can finish in a year”. “Grower training is a two year course so you can incorporate the wisdom of changing seasons. You’re gifted for a 2nd generation grower, thanks to your mother.” Dr. V was a professor of agriculture and natural science, a role he seldom relinquished. “The plants and trees have an energy I can’t explain, especially when they are fruiting.  Ghistar wanted me to take the planning qualification course, but now…” I looked up at gathering clouds and ordered my tears to fall back into my skull.

“You make your own fate, your own legacy, Lithia. Ghistar is a loss to our entire community, as you can appreciate. We will all have to adjust, especially your family.” He said it as if it was not only obvious, but already a done deal. If I could just finish my training everything else would fall into place; not places I’d dreamed of, but places my sisters and I had a chance without having to resort to crime. When my father was alive and my mother in grower training as well as her recycler job, he withheld food so I’d be hungry enough to steal packets of noodles. He said he began his career of taking at six, too. Still love those noodles.

“I don’t know about fate, Dr. V, but I can try. Do you think I could borrow your bike for a little bit? ” I’d grown more bold than ever in the hour since I left Expiry Appeals Tower #3 with my mother’s piddly 3 month extension.

He hesitated, then nodded, as if pleased. “Only if you tell me how long they extended Calliandra’s expiration. Promise not to tell a soul.” He held up his pinky for some odd reason.

Paz’s family lived in a coveted end unit in the recycler community, although none of them performed the hard and dirty work of recycling. Instead, they sold time. For generations, people from every community bought illegal extensions from the Sokolov family while the government, in return, held them in esteem. The scarce naïve complainer simply expired. Ghistar warned me about them, “They’ll use their lab-created physique to lure you in like a thirsty doe to their pool of short cuts for status, for a better unit, for training, for kids.”

Ninbur Sokolov, my only childhood enemy, flung open the door before I could jangle the bells, all six feet of him grinning, gangly and golden. I’d partner with him if he’d agree to wear a fine white shirt identical to the one he currently sported, rolled at the sleeves, casually unbuttoned, daily. My smile and appreciative stare encouraged him.

“I thought you’d never agree when father told me about Ghistar and your Mom. Who would’ve thought when I was pounding you bloody we’d end up partnered!” He noticed the look on my face, thankfully. “Aww… what a blockhead hello after all this time. Sorry, Lithia. I can do better. You’ll see.” He took my hand and excitedly gave it a squeeze then instantly let it drop when he felt my tremor.

 “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Son!” came a bellow from Paz as he advanced down the hallway with a tap-tap and loud exhalations. The bald “Maestro of Time”, as he referred to himself, had grown wider in the years since Lithia’s family moved, and he’d acquired a cane. His eye shades hinted at day blindness, a common malady in humans who didn’t expire at an average of fifty years. Nin wouldn’t have that issue. Their impressive family lineage holo shone above the arch where he paused, a massive tree with too many branches to count quickly. It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself as I appreciated a forest holo running the entire length of what could only be a Great Room, with a simulated blue sky above us.

In the middle of a sea of unknowns, I prayed for Ghistar’s guidance. Although I couldn’t fathom why Nin liked me now, I was thrilled he didn’t greet me with an insult, or worse-a slap or shove. “Nin, maybe we can start over, now that we’ve grown up and can express our… feelings differently?” I purposely moved closer and looked up at him with wide-eyed innocence, instinctively sure of his attraction. His eyes widened for a second in confirmation.

“You young people! I swear you’re gonna combust!” Paz guffawed, hugely amused by himself. “I know, I know. I was young and full of fire, too, once upon a time.” Quick as a wink, his mirth vanished as he warned, “This is a legally binding contract you are negotiating with one another, with my oversight, of course. As you know, it ain’t standard for folks your age to partner.”

Still looking up at Nin, I began negotiations. “I want ten years for Calliandra Daire in exchange for my partnership with Ninbur”.

“Come. Sit.” Paz lowered his girth into an immense wing-backed chair before a welded round table ten feet across. He slowly rested his cane against one arm and took in my shadow of unruly curls. “You don’t look all that strong for a grower.” As if he could see me.

“Dad. Stop.” Nin’s jaw squared, a good sign.

“There’ll be time for courting, Son. Right now let’s stick to reality, as harsh and ugly as it is.”

His purpose clear to me, I responded, “People often underestimate me, Mr. Sokolov.” A smaller wingback chair located directly across from him called my name. “Will you sit next to me, Nin? I’m so nervous.” May as well admit it and wring some benefit from my obvious terror. I angled my body toward Nin and slightly away from his father after we sat, the latter predictably pouting.

Ghistar’s voice rang in my head, “What 19-year-old wouldn’t be afraid? Only a foolish one.” Ghistar also taught me the crucial strategy of right timing.

“Who would’ve thought when Calliandra and Ghistar ascended to the grower community, his recycler blood would expire him decades early? His brother Myser cost him everything after ALL the years he labored and trained, ALL that wasted time. Such a shame.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled at me in contradiction to his words. “This hand-crafted paper of lily stalks, rose petals and iris stalks has served for all of my children’s partnership contracts, but none bring me as much joy as this union between you, Lithia Daire, and my youngest son, Ninbur. Of course, we will begin with a priceless gift of 7 years of life as an extension for your mother in exchange for your lifetime partner oath to Ninbur Sokolov. He wrote my name with a quill he dipped in purple dye and the words, “in exchange” before I stopped him.

“No. I bring more than 30 years and a healthy bloodline. 15 years seems fair, now that I reason it out.”

Paz’s glare made me look at Nin, who once again took one of my hands in his. “Ten it is. The Partnership celebration will take place in January so we can have a day ceremony.”

“Wait! This January? Give me just a sec.” I counted on my fingers; only five months from now. Nin squeezed my other hand in his. “Is January ok with you? Will you be ready? I mean, damn Nin, this is the rest of our lives. If you need more time to, ya know…”

He appeared to seriously consider pledging his life to me in just five months’ time. “Yeah, I know. Listen, Lithia. To be honest, I’ve sampled women from every community to the point that sex with a stranger is just tedious. Let everyone think we’re too young, but I know I want to be partnered to you, only you.” His eyes were honest.

“Nin, I can’t say that I’ve sampled anyone, but to be honest, I did kiss a couple people after I practiced on our home bot.” He smiled then.  “Would February be ok with you? It may sound silly, but I feel like 6 months will be easier for my family to accept.”

“February is perfect, Lithia.” He leaned over and kissed me softly, to my surprise. “Please indicate the month and year and we will decide on the day after we discuss it alone, Father.” Nin addressed Paz while he held my gaze. Butterflies fluttered in my belly as I felt his intention and admired his nerve. To say Paz dominated the space was an understatement, but Nin held an air of independence without being disrespectful.

Stop it, fool, I admonished myself. “I hope everything flows this easy, Nin. I think the next point is children. We’re going to make the most beautiful legacy, Mr. Sokolov. I hope to present your first grandchild from Nin within a year of earning my grower cert.” They both studied me intently while I let it hang in the air.

Ghistar told me once, “People don’t need to know what you know, nor what you don’t know. Don’t get caught up with showing off because we’re never as bright as we think.”

“Lithia, you know from my blonde hair and gold skin I was a lab baby, right?” He looked so vulnerable I almost felt badly, but this was for life.

“You can still make babies, though. Of course, I knew”.

Paz appeared uncomfortable as he shifted his weight and struggled for words. “Well, the thing with lab babies is they have to marry a live-birthed human. It’s the law, you know.” I nodded. “It’s also the law that they can’t reproduce more than two humans, despite there being no proof of any abnormalities in their offspring. If you think about it, two allows you to pour into them and not be overwhelmed with work and mothering.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” My silence spoke disappointment better than any words could, a trick I’d learned from my mother. “I’d like us to live in the grower community, then.” The sheer anger on their faces made it hard, but I kept on, “We can come visit often, but I want our children to live where people are kinder and less stressed by their work, where “positive and productive” is a real attitude, not just a joke. We will be the first Sokolovs to live in the grower community.” I looked at Nin and he appeared to consider my proposal.

“Father, I won’t become a grower, if that’s what you’re worried about”, he chuckled, “and I like the idea of getting a new start, maybe moving us all up one day.”

The wind kissed my face as I pedaled as fast as possible to deliver my news. It would be ok, maybe. There was so much I needed to talk to Henny about, but first I had to tell my mother she had a ten-year and three-month extension.

“There you are, Lithia. Where did you go? We have company and the best news”, my mother stammered a bit on the last line. What was he doing here? “Dr. V, I mean Ivan, has gifted me ten years in trade for partnering with him. We just signed the contract. Isn’t it wonderful? Now you can finish and get that extra qualification.”

Cocoon

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Over the shoulder

fate altered my course

Bends of loss

a portent of

rebirthing

Spun in a labyrinth

Where I colored my enclosure

with future and rose

Chances Are

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

A New, Yet Familiar 2023

I want to believe in positive change, in a better year than last, an easier, graceful year. Wouldn’t mind a fairly “boring” year, I tell myself, anyway. Meditation, writing, research rabbit-holes, art, and lots of music are my simple blessings, along with my loves. I refocus a couple of times a day on building stories, managing my sometimes dicey health with too many strategies to count, surrendering a lot of empathy and sympathy for friends and strangers to Universal Love, and reviving optimism and humor. This feels habitual now. From what I’ve learned, chances are my same ol’ baggage will be with me at the end of the year, maybe a bit lighter. Chances are I will apologize less and love myself more by N.Y.’s Eve, too. Chances are I’ve healed the past… unless my secretive psyche surprises me.

Chances are the stories I have to tell are different this year, and hopefully get better with consistency. I will read interesting and well-written books, and more of them than last year since it is a highlight. This year will be different than last, chances are.

Alt Journey-Untethered

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Part 13

Phoebe stepped off the elevator of her building into a creek bed of soft silt, her bare feet slightly sunk as cool water and shock took her breath and almost toppled her. Her size nines helped her balance, not for the first time. Above, an eagle soared on a robust wind that blew her untrimmed cap of hair away from her face and made her eyes water, wings edged in white tilted this way, then that, as the eagle swooped over distant pointy pines on a hill covered with heather, briars and bent grasses. Her eyes landed on twinkling stars against a blinding sapphire sky. Except, these stars had wings. Pulled forward by her curiosity, hope bloomed and she craned her neck to search for signs of Shana. A whorl of starlings appeared like a spinning iridescent spiral, their whistles and trills vying for Phoebe’s attention, but her eyes were glued on the circling Eagle, who finally dove into the dark-needled towers, and did not ascend. Phoebe could almost feel a rush of adrenaline from a victory she presumed; prey consumed piece by piece until the eagle was sated. “They cannot hide you from me”, Kaz laced his whisper into the high-pitched starling noise and broke her reverie, “You belong with ussss. Your friend begs for her Anam Chara, her sworn blood sister, to join her, to soothe her tortured soul. Can you hear her cries?” A flurry of feathered recriminations momentarily smothered Phoebe and she heard Shana’s plea, “Don’t you love me anymore, Phoebe? Phoebe, Pleee… aghhhh!”, Shana’s scream ripped through Phoebe’s heart and brought her to her knees in the cold stream. A spiral descended with her crumpled body at the center. Bluish black wings battered her head and blocked her view of the sky and silvery winged stars that weren’t stars. When Phoebe tried to raise her arms they pecked her with what felt like dull needles.

“Agree to be mine, Phoebe Monteer”. Her loins stirred as she envisioned Doyle muddy and choking for breathe. Her will submerged his head in a puddle of runny excrement. “I will give you this power over him for lifetimes, I promisssss”, Kaz’s maneuverings tickled her sacral chakra and snaked its way upward to her solar plexus in a steely grey line that sliced it open and spilled her self-esteem into his mouth.

Phoebe saw herself standing over Doyle’s wrecked and miserable form, her eyes golden reptilian bulges rendering her vison into slits; flames of orange and blue crowned her and licked over her hunched shoulders and down her back. Her throat constricted abruptly, a bright yellow utility rope around her neck pulled by demon’s birds. “I can’t breathe! I don’t want to be that, that… fucking monster! Let me go! I said “No”, damn it”, she struggled against the rope, both within and without, and raised her hands palms-up into the murmuration of starlings as far as she could. It was all the invitation they needed. Sprites of light, her stars with wings, zipped between gaps in the spinning murmuration, then entered up her nostrils, into her ears, and through her open mouth. As light energy radiated from her head and neck, the rope faded and loosed until it disappeared all together. A cough of slimy tar erupted as Phoebe regurgitated Kaz’s manipulations. Sprites cut through lesions and dark attachments from her mind to her bruised and abraded heart. She crossed her hands over her chest and brought Doyle’s handsome face and trim athletic body to her mind’s eye, complete with his smug grin, hair and eyelashes so blonde they almost glowed, and haunted eyes she’d not noticed before. Her heart clenched. He truly suffered, Phoebe realized. Maybe not for the same reasons, but he hurt without her help.

Saint Joan arrived as Phoebe retched and led her out of the stream and to the foot of the Eagle’s hill. The Angel smoothed her damp coppery hair away from her face, each touch a blessing. “You are not responsible for Shana’s choice”, Joan instilled in Phoebe’s sacral chakra, a pool of tarry guilt-laden vomit absorbed into rich brown soil and grown over with silvery thistle which bloomed before her eyes. “You are not alone, Phoebe Monteer”, Joan sliced a shallow ruby river in the center of Phoebe’s chest, her blinding blade brisk, and gently worked a mossy orb behind her sternum. Verdant tendrils decorated Phoebe’s heart chakra and instinctively twined between her bony ribs with spongy paddings of life-giving mycelium. Crevices and cracks inflamed with remorse received a trickle of grace.

Phoebe pushed away the light being hands of Saint Joan. “Can you bring her back? to my world, I mean? Or in dreams? like before”? She rubbed the ache in her chest, her eyes desperate and longing.

Joan considered what answer served Phoebe’s soul, and decided to bend the rules. “That soul is being healed, Phoebe, just as you will heal. Some.” The Marys had warned Joan not to speak of her Anam Chara’s location. “You will find your purpose. It will help. Some”.

Sickness swam in Phoebe’s belly, again. Of course there wasn’t any way Shana could come back, return to their future. Her empty mottled yellowing body, with it’s black ring of destruction around her neck, had been reduced to ashes, while her soul was only El-knew-where. All of it, every nightmare aspect, because of Doyle. Except, she couldn’t forget how she felt about Shana those last few weeks, nor forgive herself. “Neither of us will heal without the other, and you know it. You All KNOW”, to which Joan shook her darkly-capped head, her face serious, but her gaze manic with devotion, a happy and infuriating juxtaposition.

“Just leave me then”, she spat at the angel.

Not bothered, Joan pulled her by the hand, “Come. Climb with me”. Chainlink mail in gleaming silver encased Joan’s form from ankles to neck, and tinkled with her steps, while Phoebe found herself clothed in hairy sackcloth and slightly abraded with every movement. The Saint prodded her, “Should you be punished for your failures?” and her bare foot landed in more thistle on the hillside. More slivers needled her soles with every step until she cried from pain and left behind miniscule dots of blood. Her neck chafed against the rough fabric, already raw from Kaz’s rope. Still, Phoebe began to climb without being pulled.

John the Baptist-style penance, she thought. Thistle gave way to rocky ground, cool stones worn almost flat held with ribbons of moss, and roots of thorny bushes. “I don’t know… should I? I feel like I’ve been punished, like my life is a punishment now”. Into a knee-deep hole one of Phoebe’s legs descended. “You could at least guide me, Saint Joan”!

Joan lent her an arm to pull herself up, but did not lend her strength. “You have to pull yourself up, Phoebe Monteer, since the hole is yours. You create them as you go, like your mistaken need to be punished”. As any influencer knows, Joan of Arc included, humans rise to challenges.

Phoebe grunted with effort as her hands climbed the Saint’s arm and pulled on it so hard she fairly flew out of the hole and onto her backside. She yelped as tiny needles pierced her tenderest flesh. It occurred to her that Shana would still be dead no matter how much she punished herself. The sackcloth morphed into a cotton shift of white that blew against her ankles and tops of her feet. Climbing on the rocky ground she found fewer and fewer thorns as she ascended and her long feet seemed to heal the crimson dots as quickly as they were produced until they were not any longer. Her breathe came rapidly as the climb became steeper and the Saint walked a few feet to her right.

“Phoebe Monteer, you will make a difference for many souls on the earth plane”, Saint Joan of Arc placed this truth in a tiny diamond and approached her before she could take the final steps to the apex among the pines. With her fingers pinched, she put the diamond in Phoebe’s Third Eye chakra in the middle of her forehead. “We will guide you, as will a familiar who, although not a replacement for your friend, will bring you comfort in this lifetime”.

Phoebe found herself back in the hallway outside her loft, key in hand, a mewling sound at her feet, just as she took a final step and an eagle alit mere feet in front of her. Anxious, she looked down to find a kitten, black as a moonless night. Her heart pinged with recognition. “Oisin! Welcome, my little Angel”. Shana scooped up softness to look it in neon green eyes she could swear she’d seen before.

“Hello, Phoebe”, Oisin intuited and made her laugh out loud with delight. When she opened the door, Doyle stood in her kitchen, upright and unharmed just as she’d pictured. He smiled like a kid himself when he saw what she carried.

Alt Journey-Igor

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Part 12

Pink May Blossoms

A growling thunder grew louder outside the loft’s single-pane windows and provided cover for 3 deafening cracks like sniper fire, each earning a jump from Doyle as he grappled with memories played on an incessant reel since he awoke that morning. The tiny jade plant he’d hurled across the loft lay broken on the kitchen counter. “Bad karma for your own evil”, Kazmir whispered in his mind. Had he gone mad himself? His long fingers raked through his unwashed hair and made it stand on end. Phoebe’s channeled anger couldn’t possibly lift him, or rather slam his body, into a beam 12 feet in the air. Except his back sported a bruise the length of his spine, the width of the beam overhead, and his skull throbbed without a touch-a persuasive set of evidence. Then there were the dreams. Doyle remembered all but one of his “research subjects” had expressed doubts about reality, and this gave him a sliver of denial he mistook for a life raft. Phoebe had all but forced him to drink her “tonic”. His scattered mind forgot the exact order of last night’s events. “I don’t feel like myself, like my head’s in the clouds for real”, he remembered Shana had said one afternoon after he’d dosed her with two hits of LSD. She’d not been “herself”, or the Shana from before that trip, ever again. He saw her bare feet swinging over his head and pulled on one, but it was stiff and purplish… wait, that wasn’t Shana. The lace of her nightgown filtered sunlight in a floral pattern on the pink wall behind his mother’s dead body. Doyle slammed his hands on the table as a sob escaped his throat and urine soaked his jeans, just as it had once soaked his Pooh pj pants. Kaz whispered in his ear, “Did you drive her to it?” and “Admit it. You pushed Shana to it”. “Nooo! No! No!”, Doyle yelled, “They did to themselves. They did it! They left me”! Phoebe heard his anguished cries from the landing, unsurprised and unmoved for the most part, except for a sliver of enjoyment, an intriguing new feeling not entirely unwelcome. Thunder clapped and grief made way for anger as she wondered again why Shana hadn’t broken it off with him when it became obvious he had control issues. While the tail-end of Eddie Money’s If I Could Walk on Water streamed through the loft’s heavy security door, Phoebe hesitated a minute then drew back her key as Roxette’s It Must Have Been Love started, and decided to eat in the cafeteria for the first time without Shana. Her urge to distance herself couldn’t be denied, no matter what Dr. Pressman had advised regarding Doyle’s apology and atonement. The stench of pizza puke would likely ruin meals at home for a few days, anyway, and the radio was not her friend lately.

An almost black horizon to the east crackled with bright white jags as Phoebe zipped her jacket, pulled up her hood and made her way south, across the quad still littered with white and pink tree blossoms, colorful flyers and a few Styrofoam cups in the mix. Only a couple others were out, both headed in the same direction as Phoebe- toward the student center and hub of university life outside of classes. They had almost lived there during their freshman year between aerobics, the pool, their freshman dining plan, trivia and ping pong tournaments, T.V. lounges including movie nights, and the acoustically impressive performing arts auditorium where they’d seen P.M. Dawn and Bow Wow Wow. Memories made her smile a little. The girl’s tiny shared room in Lindbergh Hall had been stuffed with coats for every season hung on the end of the bunk, dozens of highlighted worn books in boxes under the bed, multiple mediums of art supplies in copy paper boxes labeled in black marker, records and cassette tapes along with a simple stereo set on the desk, and Shana’s boots and Phoebe’s picture albums scattered and wedged into corners. Thankfully, there were lockers in the communal shower room down the hall where they used one for jeans and sweatshirts-their “uniforms” that first year. Her mother would’ve been proud of how they coped and organized their lives after she died. The few times Phoebe couldn’t summon up her Mother’s voice within, Shana had stepped in with her stories of a better tomorrow. Her heart clutched in her chest and she found it hard to swallow for a moment until someone behind her cleared their throat, “Excuse me”. “Oh, yeah, sorry dude”, Phoebe moved aside and wiped her eyes quickly with her her sleeve. Rumbles overhead muffled what they said next as they turned their heads to reach under the sneeze guard, which was good because she didn’t want to speak to anyone at that moment. She wondered if Shana enjoyed her “better tomorrow” as the two friends wandered away chatting. With long sighs she built what her best friend would’ve called an “emotional mountain of a salad” and watched the storm arrive through a northern wall of glass. Charcoal rivers poured across the sky, painted over golden wisps of daylight, and cast the vast space around her in shadow. Mini cyclones of debris-laden wind bent trees this way and that and stripped them of their final blossoms while rain lashed against the glass. Shana would have loved the impressionist watery view, may have created a charcoal rendition of it in black and white. Perhaps I’ll do it, she thought as she blinked hard. Three golden orbs in the distant dark sky, obscured as if by smoke, moved further away until she could barely notice them. Storms usually reminded her of her mother, of standing at her graveside for hours until the rain ceased and a patch of white sky shone through, backlit by blinding sunlight. Phoebe didn’t think of her mother now, nor the parting clouds that day four years ago. Loneliness abated more and more as she planned Doyle’s metamorphosis in her mind’s eye. Kazmir stoked her anger with visions of Shana in the coroner’s drawer, a single pinprick on the inside of her arm. He’d pay. Each stab of her fork met with a sharp squeal. He’d pay much more than that, she decided, and was rewarded with a deeply pained groan from him as in her mind’s eye Phoebe imagined her hands, strong and pulsing with navy blue veins, painstakingly stretch Igor’s cervical vertebrae and hold the bones apart. Lightning cracked both in the sky before her and in his limbs as the nerve passages narrowed, shocks unlike anything Doyle had ever felt. Thrilling bloodlust throbbed upward from her base and allowed Death himself to will her phantom hands gleefully with a handsaw across bony protrusions, back and forth, back and forth. Flashes of brilliant azure and silver pulled one hand away in a vacuum of energy to her left as her mind appreciated her handiwork and joined her will to flare the smoothed bone outward. Phoebe’s teeth bit down on a carrot as her right hand stabbed a forkful of lettuce, malefic energy alone holding her nemesis in a vengeful stretch. Kaz tickled her heart and Phoebe giggled as Doyle gasped and sucked at the air, his throat constricted. Phoebe willed Shana’s final gasps for breath to play on repeat in his ears, then connected the pieces of bone with tremendous force, Igor’s bones fused with Death’s contribution, Phoebe’s intention and Doyle’s karma. Torturous heart-rending grief rippled across campus and up Budway Avenue to 333C at the top of steep wooden stairs, the loft Shana had insisted was kismet, then flowed back again to the dining hall to form a circlet of deathly energy shot through with daggers of blame, regret and revenge. Death and Kaz had a lot of material to work with for her soul’s imprisonment. The last of Phoebe’s loneliness abated, as did the powerlessness that had hounded her since her ambulance ride. “He thinks you’re weak“, came an unfamiliar voice as she thought of Doyle’s intrusion, his schemes, his selfish pleasure-seeking at Shana’s expense. At her expense. “He wants to control you like he did Shana”, Kazmir planted in her mind, “He plans to steal all your money”. That was crazy, but what if it were true? A poisonous vine sprouted as she realized again she was on her own. Phoebe’s soul stiffened, a golden thread in her star chakra severed even as her ancestors the Tri-Eloh petitioned The Marys for her salvation. “Why show him mercy? Make him earn your forgiveness with service.” The idea of cocky, handsome and brilliant Doyle as Igor took on more life, fed by her friend’s betrayal and absence. She envisioned her hands as they separated the upper trapezius and viewed the levator scapulae behind it. Doyle regretted ever meeting Shana, ever wondering what darkness resided within her. “I don’t deserve this”, he thought right before Phoebe remembered what that particular muscle did. Her thumb and forefinger pinched it resolutely and twisted it an infinitesimal tiny bit, which allowed Igor to take small gulps of air through his mouth. Thunder exploded overhead and the cafeteria emptied as tree limbs and loose lawn furniture hit the glass. Kazmir flashed memories of Shana pale and sickly during the last month of her life. “I should’ve helped her, made her listen, fucking done SOMETHING”, Her own spine tingled when Phoebe’s phantom hand caressed the ligamentum nuchae with her fingernails and left inch-long horizontal slices that deepened with accusation and made Doyle’s soul howl as she tinkered with his voice box. The tickle in her heart increased and spread to her belly. Death laughed and so did Kazmir as Phoebe, entirely given over now to her crude surgical maneuvers, sobbed Shana’s name. Eyes glazed and golden, together they pulled on tendons her probing fingers discovered underneath the fibrous nuchal sheet of cartilage until Doyle’s skull angled to the right at 45 degrees over his shoulder and his arms stiffened straight. “He knows his anatomy even better than me“, Phoebe thought when she realized his heart raced and entire body shook in stark terror, unable to get up from the floor. Drool covered his chin as he mewled, “peeee… sorrreeeee”. Satisfied and a bit excited to see him, she drew her consciousness back to her physical body with a backward count of ten. The storm was all but over, the wind and thunder gone, natural and man-made debris mixed at the bottom of the glass wall. Phoebe wiped her eyes on her wet sleeves, pushed her tray aside and appreciated a pink glow to the west before she said out loud to no one, “I suppose it’s time I go meet MY creature, my Igor.”

The Marys allowed familiar assistance for Phoebe, not the requested Guardian exactly, but the Tri-Eloh thought they might be able to convince a supremely soft-hearted Angel to inhabit a cat for a few years, or maybe a short decade considering how quickly Death and Kazmir corrupted Phoebe. Of course, it was all up to Oisin. The Marys reminded the Tri-Eloh of Doyle’s soul’s merkaba, how close he was to a cage of his ancestor’s bones, and urged them to review both it’s contract and lineage. The Tri agreed to assign a research angel to the task, however Saint Joan asked to be of service as she’d taken an interest in the endurance of the Anam Chara’s soul bond. Free will complicated the universe, however it also led to surprises Death never saw coming.

Alt Journey-Creature

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Part 11

Flower of Life

“We are fashioned creatures, but half made-up” ~ Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Originally, Frankenstein seemed an easy essay to knock out due to it’s familiarity, Phoebe insisted in her second session with Dr. Pressman since her discharge a week ago. “But it was Shana, not YOU, who was familiar with Mary Shelley’s work. I think it would be productive for us to focus on your enmeshment with Shana so you can move on and successfully finish university. This essay is as good a place to start as any. I’d like you to further make it yours by writing it in your space in the apartment, not you and Shana’s shared space, but yours alone. Do you think you can do that?” As always, Dinah Pressman’s tone remained even and confident, as if no one had ever told her, “No, I will not.” Phoebe would not be the first. Although it had been Shana in their senior year of high school who crafted her first “A” paper, the friends had discussed both the Creature’s and Victor’s motivations and torments at length, to the point of arguing. Only a few years later, death, alchemy, and the nature of the creature weaved a tale beyond imagining in Phoebe’s mind. Kaz’s whispered comparisons between her and Victor, Shana and the Creature, made her question her friendship and true feelings. Was she mindlessly motivated by a savior complex? Shana had saved her many times, and at other times they’d leaned on one another, like when they touched on their grief. Was she “enmeshed”, and where was the line between love and this handicap? “I’ll try. It’s an open loft, ya know? I usually wander around, look out the windows by Shana’s bed ever so often; helps me think.” “No need to be a purist, Phoebe”. “Trust me, Dr. Pressman. I want to get away from everything that reminds me of her, but it’s impossible. Maybe it would help if I start packing up a few of her things this weekend”. Or maybe she’d ask Doyle to do it, but she kept that thought to herself. The psychiatrist looked at her with kindness, but Phoebe didn’t sense pity like she did when they met in Resting Pines. She decided to take it as a good sign despite the doctor’s misunderstanding. She’d never needed Shana for school, but for writing projects they’d excelled by teaming. As her mother used to say, “what one doesn’t think of, the other will”. Shana usually said Phoebe overthought it, just as she currently did. If Mary Shelley could imagine such a psychologically complex tale, surely Phoebe could write an aspirational final essay without Shana’s input. “I’ll see you back here on Friday and you can let me know how it went. From what you’ve told me, I don’t expect any surprises from Mr. Regan’s progress report this week. I’m happy to hear the nightmares have resolved, but don’t be concerned if you have them until your mind is more settled about your new reality.” Phoebe couldn’t tell the doctor about the pain of being eaten alive or what it felt like as she slithered on her snake belly across the bottom of a lake, and certainly not about her recent journeys to unimaginably exquisite or horrifying spaces, nor angelically-guided reunions with Shana’s essence. Her secret existences were still better than her reality. Phoebe felt as if she hauled around a leaden head and heart, despite lighting a candle for Shana every day in a campus chapel. But, disturbed as she was, she still could not imagine how Shana felt in her last moments, couldn’t fathom what lies ran through her friend’s head, but she began to imagine.

Tchaichovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers played vibrantly from her dented and taped boom box and instantly grated on her nerves. Coke cans and Oreo crumbs littered her mother’s silver-flecked formica dining table; what Phoebe recognized as pages-thick advanced chemistry exams along with his rumpled test key covered stains, and by association-memories. Of course he’d set up right where she and Shana normally studied the most. Phoebe tossed a can into the kitchen sink, then another with satisfaction. He’d be up most of the night if he planned on finishing, she thought and heard the shower’s signature pipe rumble as if in agreement. “I’m ordering pizza!”, she yelled through the frosted pane of the bathroom door and stood transfixed as he turned the water off and stepped easily out of the tub. He knows damn well I can see him. Doyle stretched a towel between his hands and slowly sawed it back and forth on his backside. “Russo’s? Will you get onions and mushrooms on half? Sorry about the music, didn’t think you’d be home for a while yet”, he called. Barone’s was right around the corner, but Phoebe thought she could be a little flexible this once. She turned the music off with a shake of her head. Who, other than Shana, listened to The Nutcracker in May? “Please bring a 2-liter of Coke, too” she told the chill voice on the phone. Loose sweat pants and a high school track sweatshirt fraying at the cuffs and neck signaled a trickle of inspirational flow in her mind, the issue of Victor’s responsibility to his creation tugged at a thread of an idea, but it broke, again. Essays required her flavor, but for an “A” they required fresh blood, a profound realization. Professors got off on student’s epiphanies, the more vulnerable the better, unless it crossed into uncomfortable territory and kept going, as she’d mistakenly done only once. Did she have a responsibility to Shana? If so, she’d failed entirely. Phoebe caught her light blue eyes at the moment they turned golden in a star-shaped mirror swinging on a strand of wooden beads in a breeze from nowhere. Shana had held her steady on a wobbly barstool when she hung the mirror, her Christmas gift, from a rusty nail head. She’d called her a star, her very own true north. Am I a monster? Phoebe remembered waves of possessiveness and rejection she was ashamed of when Shana started dating Doyle, similar to the creature’s envy when he spied Dr. Frankenstein with his new wife through the window, the two happy and laughing with no care for him. Her stomach growled in time with a single hard knock. A couple notes to help her pick up this thread of self-reproach and, simultaneously, restrict her personal revelations on the page. Her eyes changed more often when Doyle was near, the only “trigger” she’d figured out, so far. Phoebe stuck her head out from behind a paneled screen painted with golden and bronze wild mustangs in full gallop and smiled at the delivery person before she stuck her tongue out at Doyle’s back. Although they’d settled quickly into a routine, both taking refuge in their schedules, she hated him living here, in her and Shana’s loft. It was perverse, but she reminded herself it was temporary several times a day. Clearly unamused, the pony-tailed teen rolled her eyes at Phoebe then smiled extra wide when Doyle handed her a five. “Have a good one, Dude”, he said distractedly as he flung the door closed and she was forced to step back. At least he was also pressured by finals. “Put it over there on the coffee table”. Phoebe waved at Doyle with a pack of doubly thick paper plates he’d bought when he got her cheerios, bananas and milk before her discharge, his first act as her “guardian”. He’d confessed he hated washing dishes, to which Phoebe gave him no reply. After a couple days, he’d mostly given up talking to her, except when he woke her from night terrors. Phoebe was lost in thought when he cleared his throat. “You can run it past me if you want, your essay. I’ve got a load of papers to correct, but I can’t go back to that right now. I’ll have just as many after tomorrow morning’s exam. Please. You’d be doing me a favor, which might work against me, but if it would help… up to you”, he ended with a shrug. Emotionless, she stared through Doyle, as she’d done dozens of times over the past two weeks. When she looked at him she always thought the same thing, but if she killed him, she’d never write the essay, never receive a final grade for the single class she didn’t drop. Desperate for another viewpoint, she reconsidered her tact and surprised him. “Any thoughts on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? I’m thinking about the doctor’s responsibility to the creature, to his creation” Phoebe wrestled a piece of pizza crust with her back teeth as she forced her eyes to focus on the man who might be responsible for her best friend’s death. “One of the saddest books ever. God, I hated the end. Lemme think. Oh yeah, freshman paper on Mary and Percy toward the end of the semester, so depressing. I cast him as a predatory type and her as a literary genius. Don’t some people believe they were cursed? I think a lot of my classmates took that angle.” He wasn’t an English major, Phoebe reminded herself, but he thought in an orderly, and linear fashion, suited for science. “Yeah, I don’t give a shit about Percy. This essay is about Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, in other words-the subtitle’s inference” Phoebe watched Doyle turn Prometheus over in his mind, his hooded eyes slanted away from her and to the ceiling, brows flattened. “Well… what do you have so far? You’re saying Prometheus or Frankenstein’s ambition is the crux your thesis? I can’t remember how he… wait, ok, he was chained and pecked to death by a bird every day, a punishment from Zeus, right? How does that fit?” Phoebe let the question hang in the air for a moment as if she considered what he’d said, when in actuality she pictured Doyle chained to a mountain top, vultures feasting as other flew away with his entrails. Her breath quickened. “Yeah, for stealing fire and giving it to humanity. He over-reached, changed man’s fate. I propose Mary Shelley likened Prometheus to scientific experimentation with unintended consequences. At least that’s what my interpretation is right now.” She had to admit the pizza was better than Barone’s. As she wrapped cheese around her finger, Doyle rose and wandered barefoot over to a narrow window, dusky light . He ran one long-fingered hand through his still-wet blonde mane and let out a loud sigh. “Is that supposed to be directed at me?” His voice let Phoebe know she’d hit her intended target, but she didn’t expect him to hurl the little jade plant he’d given her when they first met against the brick wall behind her with surprising ferocity. Shards of green pottery landed in her hair, but stopped short of the pizza, thank goodness. Phoebe rose quickly, more than a little afraid, but even more angry at this person who had the audacity to insinuate himself into her life after he helped her best friend, her soul sister, self-destruct. Doyle realized his mistake when Phoebe’s eyes changed from blue to golden elliptical-shaped viper eyes, and with a gaze, lifted all two hundred pounds of him quickly until a beam on the loft’s ceiling cut into his back. He froze, suddenly afraid his struggles would plummet him to the hardwood below. “Let me down, Phoebe! I’m sorry; I swear it won’t happen again!” “No, it won’t.” She struggled to hide her shock at this ability, intent on keeping control now that she had it. “You almost had me fooled, you fucker.” Her face twisted with grief as she remembered what this man took from her, took from them. Doyle groaned loudly and doubled over on the ceiling. A voice inside cautioned Phoebe, but a different instinct took over as she envisioned her viper self ‘s hinged jaws take a bite from his center, right below the belly button. No thought existed for her when she entered his thoracic cavity. As the golden viper Doyle knew was Phoebe coiled inside him, it flicked it’s forked tongue like a whip and cut tiny slices in the tissues between his ribs. She slowed within his body and felt his wildly erratic heart call to her from behind a lung. He screamed as her flat head pushed hard against the pinkish lung and pinned it aside. “Noooo, Phoebe, Pleeeee…” his gasp ended, the pain a sudden suffocating blanket of dark mercy he mistook for Death. Kazmir could not be happier with his quick transformation of the girl.

The Merkaba is 2 tetrahedrons resembling a soul’s light body

By the time Phoebe returned from the library with the name of the rock (Caucasus Mountains, likely Mount Elbrus) Prometheus had been chained to, she’d also come up with a solution to the problem of Doyle Regan. His entrails and organs were intact when he awoke on Shana’s bed behind a screen painted with a gloriously colorful garden, complete with birds, bees, a copper fox and Monarch butterflies. The viper was gone and Phoebe’s eyes were blue and intent as she watched him warily. He’d been having nightmares since Shana hung herself, but nothing had prepared him for the experience they’d had earlier. “There’s another one… another version of Frankenstein. Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein gave me an idea.” Doyle felt odd. Slowly he rolled over and put his feet on the floor. Phoebe put two frames and Shana’s fairy cards in a copy paper box she’d also gotten at the library. Doyle sprang up and ran toward the bathroom as three slices of pizza ejected from his roiling belly not only in the open toilet, but all over it. Ten minutes later he still dry-heaved into the bowl, face red as tears and snot flowed. Phoebe handed him a cold wet wash cloth, one of the thick white ones she’d given Shana for Christmas. “Don’t worry, Doyle. I’ll take care of you. And you will take care of me.” His stomach suddenly calmed. He wasn’t sure if he felt afraid or just very sick. “Here you go”, Phoebe handed him a dainty tea cup, “I know you said you didn’t like tea before, but this is like a tonic, a little medicine to help you go along. You see… you are going to be MY Igor. Now, sip it ’cause it’s really hot”. The sweet tea did seem to soothe his nerves and slow down his anxious heart. “What is it?” Phoebe smiled at him placatingly before she slapped him satisfyingly hard, like she’d wanted to for quite some time. “Don’t worry about it. You should get back to those exams, and I have an essay to write. In a couple of hours I want you to help me pack up some of Shana’s things and we’ll move her screen. Then you can have her bed for the rest of the summer.” He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t feel like arguing with her, of that he was certain. An hour later Phoebe wandered over to the window as Doyle sat at her mother’s formica table and corrected chemistry exams as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Phoebe’s essay flowed like a spring creek on a sunny day.

Food and Drink, Gardening, Health, Life, Uncategorized

Attending the Bones

Gallery | Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Peace Through Rituals

Healing is an ongoing process, seemingly without an end point, a path spiraling upward and down again as life deals hand after hand, a few winning, most reliant on how mindfully I play my cards. In a world where masculine energy is celebrated for achievement, athleticism, and material success, we often yearn for and bemoan a lack of feminine energy-compassion, acceptance, natural beauty and nourishment. While we all possess both Ying and Yang energies, our world is currently brash and incongruous with a surplus of violence, greed and unmet desires for more of everything. The more we want, the more we consume, our well-being sometimes clouded with overwork, frustration and envy. I began learning mind-body practices five years ago and as I made rituals of my own, my mind and heart connected in a profound way which eventually awakened my soul to a richer existence.

5 rituals for Balance and Resilience

  1. Writing/typing a page/note helps me see where my mind is and corral self-defeating assumptions galloping toward triggering situations and people. Words are precious to me; how they can be curated, constructed, or destructed with an intention to relay a feeling or a grand idea is evidenced in quotes we refer to centuries later. Writing has been a purging and healing ritual since childhood.
  2. Cleaning is often a ritual. I use a handmade turtle rattle as well as 432hz or 528hz music to move out heavy or unhelpful energy, and smudge with white sage, incense, or palo santo. I cleanse the front door, my desk, 2 small dressers on the sides of the bed and my altar with distilled water plus a few drops of peppermint or lemon essential oil to both disinfect and purify energy. My bedroom is a sacred sleep/intimate space and keeping it clean is part of Feng Shui for the bedroom.
  3. Lighting a candle and staring into it for a few minutes , or closing my eyes after lighting it and sitting in stillness or meditation/prayer has given me profound insights and often solace. It takes practice for the mind to quiet, but focusing on breathing helps. I have an altar in my office with crystals, bits of nature and female statuary I find empowering. This is a personal choice guided by Spirit, however I know a few practicing witches and do not mind being called one. If I accept any label it is Writer and Friend, who’s interests are varied.
  4. Gardening is ritualistic with it’s seasonal to-do lists, year after year of amendments, new life, relocations, death, and as of last year-food. It’s not a big garden, but every time I water the giant hostas, the pole beans or even the petunias in flower boxes, I feel motherly and grateful at the same time. There is a definite reciprocity and satisfaction to natural law with the ants, the droughts, the storms that have whittled down my sense of entitlement. Every year is different, seasonal rhythms often upset by something happening far away from my home.
  5. Cooking with fresh foods and spices can be a creation ritual, as is making tea. When I was tired and stressed from working at a highly-pressurized job, I admit I didn’t appreciate good food as much as I do now. That’s the thing about being overworked-I spent a lot more on convenient frozen and packaged food only to become ill. Now I know health is wealth. This is also one of my favorite ways to show love.

These are small ways I cope with a busy digital world full of stressors vying for my attention. Rituals have signaled my spirit that I love me; a big difference from 5 years ago. I hope it sparks something for you because each of us adds to the whole, and most of us can use some lightness, a reprieve, however small. Namaste

Nourishment
Sweetness
Sustenance