Once More Into The Fray

12/23/23 As my days on this current housesit in Colorado Springs are fast coming to a close, I both lament & cherish how I have languished & wallowed in the peace & routine of the past 5 weeks. Lament because I always wish I would have done or accomplished more in my time spent in the comfort & luxury of a home by myself. Cherish because of the existence of so many more amenities than I possess when living in Hammy, so much more room & ability to move about, cook in a full kitchen, take a hot shower whenever I desire & use a flushing toilet, have running water, do yoga & stretch without the confines of a 10x6 space. This will be my last housesit for who knows how long, my last dog I will walk or love on, & I am sad. My time here has been wonderful, in a nice neighborhood & city I have grown fond of, despite the presence of why I have always avoided the Springs in the first place since moving to Colorado over 30 yrs ago - the military, the conservative Republicans, & the Christians. But I have come to see, as I have traveled around Colorado & the whole of the U.S. over the years, that those groups exist everywhere. They cannot be avoided, & therefore must be accepted & embraced, if I am to be by them (yeah right! :)) The family I am sitting for are a VERY religious couple, Super Christians. Both of them are ordained ministers & missionaries, & their house is filled to the brim with every book on Christianity that has seemingly ever been written, even one authored by the wife. Normally this would bug the shit out of me & my cynical self of the not so distant past would give rise & ridicule their belief system & way of life. My life has held absolutely no place for organized religion, much less people who travel to other countries to shove the teachings of Jesus down foreigners’ throats. But given all my self growth & evolution & rise of my consciousness that has occurred over the past 10 yrs of being alone & on the road, I now know that faith in something greater than ourselves & humanity is essential if we are to navigate our path in this life to any sort of successful & purposeful conclusion. There is something to be said for people who give the whole of their lives over to ANYTHING other than themselves & their own selfish, ego driven needs & wants, as most of us do. So I now have the utmost of respect for anyone who does such, in whatever capacity, in whatever arena. It may not be my cup of tea, but it doesn’t have to be; it is faith, devotion, & belief in something nonetheless. I am being tested in my life right now, as we all are on a daily basis with our own unique set of challenges. I do not think I am special or that the world should stop & take notice & give me sympathy or pity, or that my challenges are even that big a deal in the scheme of the hardships that billions of others in the world are suffering, but nonetheless they are my own & they still hurt & I still suffer. I know also, because I have faith & trust in The Great Creator, that everything not only WILL be okay, but it is ALREADY okay, BECAUSE I have that faith & trust. I woke up at 4:30 am this morning, forlorn, exhausted because of my sleep issues, & unable to go back to sleep because I instantly started thinking of my troubles. I pondered spending the whole entire day in bed, being depressed & useless, as I still sometimes do. Everything, including myself, seemed meaningless in life. But I pulled myself up anyway, albeit not until 10 am after having snatched a few more hours of shuteye, & willed myself to make something of the day. As I plodded thru, where once I would have worried & feared almost constantly, now I know when I get in that state of mind that all I need to do is stop, breathe deeply, & believe. Believe in myself & my abilities, my strengths, my faith & my trust in a higher power. And that higher power is love. Love is all there is to cling to in this raging sea of inequity & unfairness, violence, hate, & all other ego-driven consequences of man’s ever obvious inability to conquer himself. And even though I am so utterly alone right now, being tossed at every turn by unkindness, scorn, being shunned by even my own children, I know that I must remain steadfast in love & kindness myself, even if every fiber of my past being is screaming at me to do otherwise. And so I will continue to move forward on my unknown journey as we speed with reckless abandon towards a new & tumultuous year, ever hopeful that with it will bring new joys & opportunities for me to reach higher highs & greater love & knowing of the miracles that surround each of us everyday. I wish the same for each of you & all of humanity. The only way to fight evil in the world is to conquer your own ego first thru the power of love. God help us all as we plunge once more into the fray.