Tangled Roots and Broken Bones

While most of my focus these days is over On The Gaia Path, I'm also still working to complete my memoir "Tangled Roots & Broken Bones," a scripted journey of return to the Ozarks, land of my birth, home of my ancestors from the past 150+ years. This has been a remarkable inner adventure, fraught with peril but ultimately rewarding and illuminating. 

Curiously, and quite unexpectedly, my work on this manuscript has traversed a decade of experiences, all of which have impacted me on every level of my being. From ancestry to accidents, from pandemic to death, from sanctuary to political upheaval, life here as bridged one spectrum after another. 

Hopefully, I will soon be able to share portions of my own journey with others through publication of this project that I've wrestled deeply with (and within myself). Partly because I truly desired a process of self-reflection as I revisited early essays ... always with an intention toward healing, peace, and love.

Time Passing

 I began this particular blog in 2009, during a time of shifting goals, energies, and life circumstances. But this wasn't my first blog, oh no. A decade earlier in 1999, I got my first home computer and created a cumbersome blog to also write about holistic healing for animals, plus I ran an online forum for natural healing modalities to help cats and dogs. Having my own web site, even back then, was also helpful for advertising my fledgling pet-sitting business! And there were a couple other blogs as well: one geared toward spirituality and my yearning for a pilgrimage, the other dedicated to the memories of all my fur-kids who had passed on. 

Now that I'm in my sixties and 'officially' retired, I realize that I've left a lot of alphabet footprints for some curious person to unearth later. May the words I've shared inspire and heal others!

Two New Novels!

 I'm delighted if a bit late to share that I published two new works of fiction last year; one is the third novel in my Chantilly Lace trilogy and the other is a stand-alone novella loosely linked to a character in the aforementioned series.

The novel Exhaling Metaphor is a bit on the dark side but was cathartic to write. 

The novella Mystery at Aspenglow Chateau is lighthearted, the perfect contrast for me while I wrote the above. 

Both are available on Amazon (as e-books) and on Lulu (as paperbacks), along with the rest of my writing adventures -- see sidebar for links.

Hope you are all well out there!

Sudden Loss

 

Our two elder kitties have died – and within just a few days of each other. They had lived together, and with us, since both were kittens. Otter came to us as a foster kitten almost 21 years ago. Navarre was adopted more than 17 years ago. Both passed away in their sleep, peacefully based upon outward signs: Otter on Friday and Navarre this morning. Like many creatures who live together a long time, they were apparently more bonded than we realized – outwardly they were both extremely independent. While losing them is hard, especially so close together in time, we were blessed to have them in our lives for such a long time!

For me, in addition to losing them as companions, their deaths mark the end of an era, so to speak. They were the last two of my animal friends who had been part of my life in Maine, the last creaturely reminders of a different phase that is now long past except in memory.

The photos are of them in their primes back in Maine. Each one will always have a special place in my heart, gone but never forgotten, residing there among all the other beautiful cats and dogs I have cherished through the years.