Carry On and Carry On

I want to be gentle about this, but I'll still be honest. I'm already tired of looking for the helpers. Sorry, Mister Rogers.

Anytime anymore when catastrophe strikes, someone posts a picture of Mister Rogers, saying that his mother responded to any bad news by telling him to look for the helpers, because there is always someone who is helping.

This is true. It is also just one little thread out of the entire tapestry of experience and observation.

Redirecting ourselves away from negativity is useful and very much necessary, I'll admit. If we didn't do this, we probably wouldn't have made it past the caveman days. If we remained stuck worrying what was going to happen next or didn't consider the possibility, however slim, that things could change for the better, we as a species could not have made it to the present day.

So instead, we ventured out of the cave and tried those berries, ventured closer to that pretty dancing orange stuff where the lightning just struck, whatever. And those of us especially who believed in a higher power--within us, outside of us, or both--believed that life could continue somehow: maybe for us, maybe for someone else, but it would indeed go on.

That's what it's all about, going on. It's not just a feeling. There is more to hope than simply hoping. It's an active thing. It involves doing something as if what you are doing matters, as if the future exists. You plant a tree in hope that someone after you will sit in its shade and look after it. You brush your teeth in hope that you will be munching corn on the cob for many years to come.

It doesn't mean to keep calm and carry on. Calmness is a very temporary state of life, unless you are experiencing a coma or a morphine drip. It is possible to carry on while, well, carrying on. And sometimes you should! Keep loud and carry on. Keep doing whatever it is you do and carry on.

Chop wood, carry water. Take a bath. Replace the batteries in your smoke detector. Life goes on whether you do or not.

Donate blood if you're able. Get your marrow typed. Clean up a highway or a river. These things are also necessary, and they make the world better for others as well. They may seem small and unrelated to the bigger picture, but they get you out of the house at the very least, and at the very best they can save the lives of people and wildlife.

And if making some noise will improve the situation, or at least improve the silence, do it!

These are all very conventional things to say. You may be jaded about these suggestions. I offer one more.

Do something today that feeds you in a non-physical way.

It doesn't have to be an entire Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, although I have seen people perform that to lift a group's mood. For me the other night, my 'ritual' was as simple as smudging myself with white sage and watching the last part of Fantasia 2000, where the spring fairy brings the earth to life after the firebird has scorched it.

At times like these, witches often say 'ground and shield.' I agree with this excellent advice, for every day and for times of trouble. It is a good beginning. Keep going with that.

Get your feet in the dirt or in a body of water. Put your face to the sun. Feel the breeze outside. Dance around a fire.

Live!

The news can wait.

The Thing with Feathers

I want to be angry. I just don't know where to direct it. Angry isn't like sad. With anger, you feel that you could do something.

Should I rage at the chemical companies, the hormone companies, the polluters, for possibly harming my friend? Is it the doctors, the medical industry, for failing to find out what was wrong? Should I be angry at her family for giving her some sketchy DNA? I just don't know. All I know is she's under 30 and facing some scary odds. I didn't know how scary until I looked it up today.

Can I justify what's happening to her? Not really. I could say that Kali just loves her that much or Cerridwen is transforming her in her enchanted cauldron. While it may be true, it doesn't show the mercy of a friend. And my religion is more about kindness to my kindred than the grand plans of some wiser being; what is wiser than love?

At least my faith doesn't require me to look happy all the time. At this point in my life, that would be too much to bear.  Still, I can't scowl this away. Complaints--and money thrown along with them--may improve the longevity of future cancer patients, but I'm more concerned about this one, right here, right now.

If I can't complain it away, I also can't ribbon it away. If I were the guy from the movie Jeffrey who wore a jacket covered with awareness ribbons of every color in the rainbow, I could make all of them teal and it wouldn't bring my friend one more day of health.

Can I help her get better? Maybe by surprise. That sounds better than no.

When I do energetic work on someone with cancer, I get a distinct sensation. It's like pouring water into a bucket with a big hole. No filling up. No sticking to the sides. Any other time, I'd feel someone brimming over or perhaps bouncing back like bread dough after kneading. Some sort of signal that you're done, at least for now. I don't get that feeling here. (I'll still work the work, of course.)

It's strange not to even be able to know for sure of something I can do to make a difference.

And for this one situation, for this one friend, it's not enough to say 'I don't know' and be calm about it.

Now, it's true that every moment we are alive is a gift, a miracle, possibly a fluke but a wondrous one. The fact that it happens for any length of time is startling. Who is to say how long any one of us has?

It is beyond my control.

Where is hope, that 'thing with feathers that perches in the soul'?

I think of Adah, the genius wounded healer in The Poisonwood Bible, who found she could finally reach that thing with feathers with her one good hand, but only after it had fallen.

Yet I reach out, beyond my grasp, so that my friend may stand.