The next number of posts, all titled Conversations on… come from email communications between a dear friend and me. With her permission, I am publishing excerpts from them because I feel they pertain to everything we’ve been discussing on the blog. Kate has been in the process of trying to figure out how to be a writer and still maintain her teaching job. She has very recently decided she must leave her job and fully embrace a “writing life.” At her request I’ve changed her name and am using initials for people she brings up. Those of you who have not read any of the earlier Conversation pieces, may want to go back to have a better understanding of Kate’s progress. You’ll find her story under the topic category, “Kate’s Story.” It’d be great if you all would join our conversation…
From Jeane:
I am deep in a deadline situation for tomorrow’s post (will tell you more later) but I wanted you to know I’m sending golden New Mexico light your way. I’m SO SORRY to hear about this new awful attack! We will put our hearts together and make some sense of it—maybe not right while it’s happening…
later:
Wow! I’d forgotten about the bees! I am inclined to believe Miles is a different lesson, as you say. He definitely doesn’t fit in the thoughts I sent you earlier—unless it’s an acceptance that we don’t get to control anything, even the things that matter deeply—that there will be misinformation and misdiagnoses and there’s nothing we can do about that. So I guess strength of will doesn’t help here either…
I DO still believe we are one with the Universe and with nature. I do still believe it is a benevolent system that strives for our greater good. We just can’t always see it when we’re in it—like the loss of Llano 2—like sales being so challenging this season. I also think, in many ways, we are tested, and the tests seem to come when we are hanging by threads, when we are vulnerable. I don’t know why this seems to be true. Perhaps they’re better tests that way.
For all that I can philosophize and search for meaning in this, Lyme Disease is just such a cruel blow and I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with it on top of everything else. I feel deep and utter compassion for the pain and confusion you’re feeling. All I can say is we’ve both lived long enough to know you will find resolution and peace—SOMETIME. I wish it for you sooner than later. And I’m so grateful you caught this fast and are being treated before it’s done too much damage.
It is possible the Universe is triggering some of the old stuff so you can see it, purge it and heal. Try not to fear that you will shut down again. I do believe we create what we focus on and I think you are way past that possibility anyway.
Thank you for your point about my growth and the perspective it’s given me. It really is why I do the blog. But, as you know, lately I’ve been wrestling with my own demons. Tonight is a good night, though.
From Kate:
I’m working hard to go with the flow (and keep my leg elevated). I’m also trying to keep my sense of humor, which was for the most part lost to all this craziness and misery for the past week.
From Jeane:
I had an epiphany this morning about your situation that was pretty powerful. Let me tell it to you full strength and see if it feels at all real to you: The Universe is telling you to STOP everything except your rest and healing.
I see two things about the garden: 1. I believe you said it had been several months of back-breaking labor to create it. The Universe sent the woodchucks to tell you to stop working on it this year. You’re not supposed to be engaged in back-breaking labor, even toward a cause you love. 2. I think you may have some real fear issues surrounding money having just left your job. You said the garden was going to see you through the winter. I think you’re being asked to trust that you’ll make it through the winter without the garden. The Universe wants you to look realistically at your fear and not hold so tightly to this sense of lack and almost pending doom. MF has a good job. He will take care of both of you financially. It’s going to be okay. Let go of a seeming need to be part of the income, even if by just supplementing it with vegetables.
Do you remember when it was so devastating that Llano 2 was lost? [this was a painting that Kate bought from me last season—it's when we met—and it was lost in shipping]. I don’t believe we would have come to know each other without that event and the ensuing communication it required. It felt terrible when we were in it, but it occurred for our greater good.
So you have these woodchucks taking your garden and you pull out “Kate the spitfire” to deal with them. You will save the garden and you will garden, because your family needs it almost to survive the winter. So, in spite of all your precautions, you get a horrible tick bite and LYME DISEASE for god’s sake. The Universe is telling you to STOP. If you rise above Lyme Disease and push through this new challenge with your usual strength of will, the Universe will up the ante until it finally gets you to STOP everything except healing, letting go and finding new ways.
I had to let this spill out the way it was “presented” to me, so I hope it doesn’t come across as harsh or mocking in any way. I just see so much of myself in this process you’re in. It’s so close to being almost exactly the experience I had when I left my corporate job and New Mexico seems to be my continuing education. I think I told you that I experienced a shattering of self when I came here—a total stripping down of everything I’d come to know as me. I’m in the process of putting myself back together again, deciding which pieces to keep and what shape to make me.
To be continued…
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Love to you all,
Jeane