If I can't understand yet why I am on this journey– could you please show me I am on
the right path, how I might be of service...
When you put out a call from your heart...the Universe usually hears you... And if you are open to receiving whatever the answer is....and not what you think it should or expect it be...the Universe can respond in short order...
No sooner than having driven a couple of hours out of Santa Fe, I pulled into a rest stop just east of Gallup, New Mexico. As I got out of the car, I heard a woman cry, "Help! Help me! Please?" as she leaned over another woman. It was her mother–who'd collapsed and had a heart attack on the way to the restroom. Their two dogs in their wagon–a Basset Hound barking and howling in front, and a Pit Bull against the back window.
I called 911 though she'd called but wasn't sure if she'd told them where she was...and on a cell that makes all the difference. Once certain they knew, I squatted down beside her... She was crying silently and breathing in small gasps as her mother lay on the cement walk unable to move and barely audible. I rubbed her back and held her mother's other hand as the minutes ticked and the breeze cut the day and the sound of the highway streamed behind us, both of us re-assuring her mother, "They're coming...they'll be here very shortly...very shortly..."
When the ambulance arrived, and they loaded her mom on a gurney and into the ambulance, they suggested she was too upset to drive, so I offered to wait until a friend came to retrieve the dogs. The car could wait until later...
As the ambulance drove off, I turned to the car and slowly let the dogs out one at a time. I walked them–then got Ruby out. Ruby squatted and then laid down in front of the Hound and rolled on her back until the Hound seemed assured she was nothing threatening. The Pit ran around in grey circles entangling the leashes, and then we all sat on the dry grass in a tangled web of rope and paws.
We stayed there for sometime....walking the area....sitting on the dry grass and dirt and sharing the treats I had in the car for Ruby. And then as they all three began to settle, I realized, I didn't even know the young woman's name, nor the mother's... I had told her my name but I couldn't remember her giving me hers.
As I sat there talking to the dogs, listening to the trucks passing and looking into the distance of the New Mexico landscape, I thought, "Ok. You're right. This is enough–to be exactly where we are in the right moment, because we never know how we might be needed, how we suddenly might be uplifted into purpose. And sometimes, we're needed in ways we don't allow ourselves to be present to because we're too busy looking for something different– something that 'looks' more spiritual, has the appearance of spirituality. But what could be more spiritual, humanly divine, than a woman struggling with her life?
When the young woman's friend, Alice, showed up, I learned their names were Marcie and Nancy...
"Marcie and Nancy..." I repeated.... "Marcie and Nancy..."
"And the dogs?"
"Juniper, the Pit, and Haiti, the Hound." By that time, Juniper, was rubbing her head into my legs...
And then just like that, after several niceties, we hauled them into Alice's white Jeep and off they drove back to Santa Fe....
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For two days now, I have been in Sedona, Arizona, and the energy is wide and deep and high. Somehow, it was the place I wanted to be for the Eclipse and the Super Blood Moon in Leo this January. A Blood Moon and an Eclipse to activate endings, beginnings, and the shedding of things that no longer align... An Eclipse of deep waters and re-birthing, an Eclipse to release old patterns and bring closure.... An opportunity to bring in the new by releasing the old...
I stopped this morning in a Starbuck's not far from where I am staying. I sat by a window with my latte and started to write...and then a man walked up to the table next to me and sat.
"Hi...I just wanted to say 'hi' this morning...I see you here frequently..."
He had confused me for someone else, but that didn't stop us from having a conversation. I listened as he told me about his upcoming day and then suddenly about his wife he'd lost just this last September. Rose was her name...they had moved here from Colorado three years ago... it felt like a brief time, he said, that they had had together...
"I thought we'd get to walk together longer," he said. "I thought, I would go first...." his eyes moving from mine to the window, then down to his hands... "I saved too much of everything for retirement...." "I thought, there'd be more time...not less..."
And then, as if he'd told me a secret that he didn't mean to share, he quickly said, "Well, it's been so nice, but I got to get to work...." And that was that... we shook hands...we exchanged niceties... He hurried out the door... and I sat and stared out the window.
Not much later, a young man in his early twenties–if that–came in with a backpack and toting a puppy with a handkerchief collar and a slim rope of a leash. The puppy came right over... He played at my feet, then laid down on his back. The young man began to slightly tug on the rope to reign the puppy in, and I said, "It's Ok. He knows I've got a dog...he smells her..."
Then he got up and moved to the table next to mine.
"I'm not from this planet," he said (and yes, this is what he led with). "This country is not a good place to be from–in twenty years it will be better, maybe then it will be alright...and then, I'll want to be from somewhere...but right now, who wants to be from anywhere....who wants to be in this.... I don't want to be from anywhere right now..."
I listened as he enumerated the atrocities he saw occurring, and then he told me how a long-time friend he'd come to visit here had just asked him to leave–couldn't understand what he was doing, why he dressed so.... what all this nonsense was about other dimensions and energy... why he'd left college.... and why he didn't want to be from anywhere on the planet...
His name was 'Quadro...' the puppy's name, 'Raj...'
I asked him where he was headed....
"I don't know...I'm just going" he said, as he dug through his pack. "I don't understand why everyone is being so cruel, so mean...it's like I get dumped on because they think I can handle it...because they can't give the crap to anyone else in their lives...so they give it to me thinking I can handle it...but everyone's got their shit...everyone...everyone's got their own shit..."
"Yes," I said, "a lot of people are hurting right now...a lot of people are confused, afraid..."
I could have told him I too was traveling...I could have told him that I also had changed my name... I could have told him that in a while these people–they might understand, they might start to look at themselves and see it's not about others, but about themselves, their own choices... I could have also told him the world is actually pretty beautiful right now....just as it is...even with all the difficulties going on–that they are a sign of the change taking place and not to be afraid of them....to find instead the other side of those events where people were connecting and consciously not aligning with all the suffering...and that yes....things will be Ok.... he is absolutely right... I could have said all that....
But I didn't....Instead, I listened as he talked about the energies he was beginning to experience, what he was feeling and how it made him think differently, and then I let him use my computer to email someone after he'd pulled out his IPhone that no longer had service... I was hoping it was a parent he wanted to email, someone who really wanted to know where he was, that he was OK...
"My dog likes you..." he said. "Yes..." I said, "they tend to..." and I reached down and rubbed his belly...
Quadro talked a bit more and his puppy slept on my feet... I gave him my muffin and said, "It's going to be a beautiful day, you know. It is...there's not a cloud in the sky...It's going to be a beautiful day..."
And then he looked up and smiled..."Yeah, it is..." and for the next while, we just sat there...his puppy draped over my feet....people coming and going...his breath and body growing less taught and tense from the hurt, the disappointment, he had experienced that morning... He was blue-eyed with sandy hair...He was educated and disconnected on some levels, but also sure...resolved...simply not sure how....
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A bit later, Ruby and I drove to Bell Rock and began to walk the Big Park Loop with shorter loops around Bell Rock, a climb up it, and a loop around Courthouse Butte and more... we put in a good seven hours of walking, climbing, resting, praying...
At several points in the day, Ruby and I had plenty of time on the trails, and off, to be quiet, sit, breathe... But even out there amidst the Red Rock, scrub brush, succulents and pines, we ran into stories...stories that seemed to just keep birthing into the air–like so many missives sent to the Universe....
There was the father and son....the father a painter and his son in his early teens...he'd lost his wife this year to cancer...the boy, his mother....they were out there looking at a few scenes the father was trying to paint...to re-see, re-capture...
And Ruby–in her dog's big Joy body–she got us all talking as we stood, sat, and looked over the tremendous landscape...and then the man spoke of their loss and in a moment's quiet with Ruby at the boy's knees with a stick to throw, the boy said, "My mother used to come up here with us...she liked this shelf here...she would say, 'Here's where there's good energy... and we'd sit up here...then eat...'"
For a moment, there was silence, and only Ruby running back and forth to the boy with her stick–back and forth. Suddenly, the boy started talking and asking me questions as he tossed the stick–"Where are you from? Why are you here?..Where are you going?"
I tried to answer each question as briefly as I could, but also as honestly as I could in such brevity.
And then suddenly he was talking about his mom...the way she'd be there with a certain look when he got home...how she 'hated' his 'collaged wall' in his bedroom–it's sticky mess of photos, clippings, etc... the whole mess of it... and the food she'd make and leave on the counter...just leave there...for him and his friends...
His father sat near on the ledge, his head bowed listening... and it was then I realized his father wanted to know him the way his wife knew their son...he wanted to know that part of him...
We sat there for a while...the three of us come together on a ledge to be there and to listen to whatever needed to be said. Ruby ran, fetched, cajoled whoever she could. In the distance there was the sound of laughter of other hikers, and the sound of the wide open sky as loud as the blue of the day...and then time moved on....
Not too long after they left down the trail, Ruby and I were still sitting, looking out over the valley north... and then suddenly the father re-appeared from around a tree on the trail.
"I just want to say, 'thank you'...'really'...that's the most my son's spoken of his mother since she died... It's the most he's been real–about her–around me..." Tears were streaming down his face as he tried to wipe them away, but by then, I too was teary-eyed with gratitude for the gift they had given me without even knowing...
I gave him a hug, this man I didn't know, but who wanted so much to touch his son, to reconnect, to be with him....
With my arms wrapped around him, I told him, "It's going to be alright..." "He's going to be Ok... You both are..."
And I meant it...
_____________
Since I left New York, I haven't truly known why I was suppose to drive across the country... why I've felt so compelled, called, to do so... I partially wanted the reason to be about T. and his decision not to act on the love I know is in his heart, that I had experienced...but the truth is...that would be wanting it to be more dramatic than it is.... This journey is not about that...not about him... Oh, he is here... He is threading through the moments like a hidden stitch suddenly made visible...and it's not all pain, or full of sorrow...mostly it's gratitude and love... and more gratitude... and truly wishing both him and I joy in our lives... Yes, there are moments of sorrow, disappointment...but it's not the larger why, the larger vision of movement...it's a thread in the weave of being....One of the threads... One of the wings on the air...
Since I posted "There's always a love story...." I've heard more stories about love on this journey than I could have imagined hearing in three days. And during not one of them, did I feel compelled to offer more than really just listen... At another time, I would have tried to offer more...but somehow it has simply been clear...the energy is so wide, so open, so deep.... everyone just needed to be heard, needed to have a vehicle to be seen through–to be acknowledged without obligation... to simply be witnessed...
Later, alone on a ledge of Bell Rock and offering a prayer to the Universe–offering gratitude and asking to be shown whatever it is I need to see, what I heard inside was, "You've spent a year experiencing deep change and movement in quiet stillness... This now is about stillness in movement...stillness without direct direction...."
Sometimes, we are exactly where we need to be as we show up...and not needing to know 'the why' beforehand...not needing to do anything but be there..."
In gratitude,
Allannah
Note: As you can see, there is now a donation button at the top o the page... As it turns out, driving, writing and tending to the girl's walks is a full-time occupation. I am realizing to keep it up, we will need to slow down our pace. If you feel called to make a donation, please know $5 will buy coffee, $10 will contribute to 'pet fees' each place requires, and $20 will add substantially to a tank of gas. We are, as always, immensely grateful...
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