To say I’d stepped into Siva’s ring of fire and been shaken so much until I didn’t know what direction I faced would be an understatement.
Memories to capture of these last weeks:
Some are too hard. Some fill me with yearning and sadness because they are full of love that is now without a conduit to be expressed.
Closing the door of the new room I temporarily inhabited. Expecting the jingle of wind-chimes that, for years, was always on bedroom doors of where I’ve lived. The absence of them in the last four years making this expectation very confusing. Explained by that feeling of home being present. Of having a place that is cared for and full. Gratitude.
A tea house. Learning how to pour. A candle under the hot water carafe (is that why they’re called tea-lights?) Going to the shore one last time and listening to the halyards jangle on the boats still in the water.
Downtown Boston. Arriving in the evening. The vast expanse of downtown highrises. It’s not the biggest city I’ve ever been in, but it’s the one with the largest downtown. Awe mixed with a hint of fear. Like here is this giant beast, every part of it alive and crawling. People everywhere. More people seen in one sweeping view than I’d seen in the last few months combined.
Kind people at the station. Helpful and jovial.
An hour or two of sleep before the two people in the seats across the aisle started getting to know each other. Two in the morning is not a good time for conversation. After crossing the border the seating got all disarrayed. The social norms of staying in the same spots were forgotten and I headed near to the back of the bus where I could have two seats to myself. Attempts to whisk off into dreamland foiled. Light on the thin membranes of my eyelids. Stubble poking through flat, snowy, wind-swept fields. Canada.
Attempting to order tea in French. English being automatically returned to me. Entire trains full of people—there are so many of them! Am I really another one of them, one of these inhabitants of a city?
I am anonymously autonomous. The most striking part of me that helps me fit into city life is that I walk fast.
Friendly staff at Futureshop where I buy a cellphone—only after looking up to see when Mercury went conjunct (it was at nine yesterday morning, was able to therefore buy a communication device without worry.)
~
Siva: the destroyer of obstacles. Life turning on a dime.
The Divine destroys but also creates and sustains. I rely on all of these three parts of the Hindu trinity to make my way into the world.
I’m thinking about a moment in my last days in Maine, walking home in a blizzard and turning instinctively towards the shore. It was night and the faint light of occasional street lamps reflected off the endless falling flakes of thick white snow. I took each forward step toward the water in this eerie yet peaceful dampened quiet. I couldn’t really see in front of me, everything was grey. I trusted, though, and realized how symbolic a moment it was as I walked, then gathered up snow, rolled it into big sticky balls, and shoved them down the steep hill to the rhythmic tide below.
It’s time to step into the unknown. And it’s time to play.
Guenevere Neufeld 