THINK ABOUT LIFE: Helping Someone Else

THINK ABOUT LIFE: Helping Someone Else: "Link"

Helping Someone Else

copyright 2011 by Danise Codekas

A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.-Tobias Wolfe

It takes a lot of time and energy to write a book. I often wonder, sitting in a graduate or research library, if there isn’t more info, I need, based upon the numerous citations, books, articles covering whatever topic I happen to be researching, which have not been examined.

I should live in a library, since the past 2 weeks, I have been spending a lot of time researching, and shaking my head when some query comes up nil value.

I think there are special times during the year or, maybe in life, when research perfection arises, with the correct query terminology. And the primary results display across the screen, or in the file.

It is heaven when it does. Who has time to research 642,000 references on the same topic, just because one of the words in the query happens to be cockatiel? Not that I have ever researched that word, however, I imagine you might after reading that sentence.

It is May 16 and I realize that, for many, the end of their high school and college years come to an end, at graduation. The apple trees are blooming in my back yard and the 100 year old lilac bushes are smelling good. However, I am at the library doing research on publishing sales, specifically, eBook sales.

Since writing is my thing, knowing where the industry is heading helps me make some decisions in my career, like next manuscript or which publishers. This year contracts and eBook royalties are part of my writing life challenges, and I always like to know where the industry is heading before I buy a ticket on the publishing super-highway.

Back when, I dated one of Buckminster Fuller’s relatives. Fuller is one of those people who amaze me, as a creative genius. I will build and live in a geodesic dome soon. Soon, is a relative term, as the world moves from one eon to another. Maybe I should just say that before my death, I will spend time in a geodesic dome.

With all the time I have spent designing the perfect dome life, over the years, soon that little architectural wonder will house me for a while before my last walk on earth.

Alex Hailey, once said, that every death is like the burning of a library. Profound and true, as far as I am concerned which makes it imperative for me to enhance my research skills. Having too many secondary resources is worse than having only one primary, I believe.

At least, I feel that way today, since all of the research has led to secondary data, and the primary answer or template I need to enfold a lot of info into, has not made an appearance, yet. Guess, I will have to write THAT book, too.

Back to Bucky Fuller, who once asked: What can I do that isn’t going to get done unless I do it, just because of who I am?

Now, it is a relatively innocuous question, until that last dangling phrase, that one after the comma. Unique consciousness, no one on the planet like you challenge, and, perhaps, a raison d'être to finish writing a book, quit screwing around trying to pick a color for the porch, or the 14 songs you need for your new  album, or waste any more time deciding on what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Whatever you choose, it will be exactly the right thing because that is who you are and you are the one with power to do it. It is when we begin to believe that the person next to us can read our soul that stupid decisions are made that never reflect, who you or I really, truly are now.

How many times has a friend or spouse, jumped in to help you make a decision, because you did not want the responsibility, and the end result was unappealing to you? Many times, I would think.

Many times people will compliment me on my writing talent. They think it is some kind of a gift from the goddess and I woke up one day and, like Beethoven, it was mine. Well, that is true. Not the talent, though. The knowing it was mine. It is what I did. I wrote.

I also became a voracious reader and will spend weeks, months, at a time, reading in preparation for writing. Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for who writing is more difficult than for others. Steinbeck said that a good writer always works at the impossible.

I am working on the impossible this week. Everything I start, whether fiction or non-fiction is an impossible work of art which somehow displays on my screen, or on the page, from my 5th chakra. I can always feel my fear of revealing what’s in my head or heart, in my throat chakra. A writer is a typing, scrawling, chakra clearing dynamo.

Whenever I am getting close to an answer, revelation, or final chapter, my entire life seems to tilt, for a few weeks before. In this instance, it has been for the past 2 months. My life has been shaken up, hosed down, and I am watching it all happen, Life happens like that for us all. Seems random however even random has reason and results and consequences.

Now, it all makes sense. The research, the challenges, the fear about me, my life and my writing. I am close to a change, in the throws of changes  which are transforming me, and my writing life.

I knew there would be a reason for this book, at this time. A different reason for why I started it. That’s the way  book is. You get a reason t write it. But once it is done, the real reason is revealed. Kind of like the surprise ending.

It really had nothing to do with readers. It has to do with me.

As Anton Chekhov once wrote, a book ought to be an ax to break the frozen sea within us.

It was April, when I was in the Bering Sea. I watched the glacier walls collapse, into a blue-green,shimmering sea.I was mesmerized by colors, rainbows, and the enormity of frozen monuments, sculpted by cosmic-creator power, unlike any mass seen.

And, like my trip through the Bering Sea and old Russian island landscapes, or working on a new piece of writing, or designing the perfect geodesic dome, my life always comes down to one idea, or two, which seem to bring me back to the true meaning of why I am here, apart from the bills, research, gasoline prices or dead dictators.

This week is simply to get things in order so I can be freer to create.Nothing holding me down that does not support my energy and my lifestyle. Boxes of saved papers, books no longer used, boxes of old computer cables and floppy disks, never to be used. What about the electric typewriter?  Should I let it go? Sell it? IBM Selectric II with 10 different font balls. MMMMMM.

Know that whatever, I or you, are creating is healing me/us, expanding our consciousness and may even help someone else in the world.

May this suffering serve to awaken compassion  – Prayer to Qwan Yin

The You, You Are Now

So many people trying to hold it together while their lives implode, explode, and advance. More people, I met this week, said that they "didn't see it coming". "It" was a change in their life.

The sick kitty was released to its next life, last Friday. You can read about our journeying together in the previous blog. He chose a good time to spin off into the ethers, as the double gates of Beltane were shining in the heavens, which made May 5 and 6, the perfect astrological time to move into the next dream life and release of the old. Transition is the word for the week.

Perfection in movement, tone and a new love resides, in my heart, toward a sweet animal, who will be remembered over my lifetime. I think we all remember our pets, maybe in more detail than we do ex-fiances, spouses or teachers. I think it is the unrequited love factor, animals bring to us, which is unlike conditional human love.

A friend challenged me this week to create a new book, on an issue, that has been nudging at me for the past year. Creativity is easy to float through. It is the anchoring it , in written form, that becomes crazy. I have had to release pre-formatted ideas about how the ending should be, and also, it took a while to understand that I had "others" expectations, of my writings, stuck in my head, for a long time.

My writing has a Danise-flavor to it. People who read me, who like or challenge what I write, expect me to keep along the same authoring pathways, they are comfortable with now. I, on the other hand, have made a few cosmic and personal leaps in the past few months and I think it is about time to just quit telling myself it is important people like what I write. Yes, I like the fact someone actually reads and comments on my work. Nice to get pats on the head, once in a while.

If I flip the entire experience and unplug from the old ways of writing, it will go 2 ways. More readers, or more critiques of the ideas. At this point, I look forward to both, so I guess I may as well tip over my old monument to myself. That female author is breaking up the mold.

It is a real interesting dynamic, now, with a lot of writers and musicians, I know, who are trying really to hold onto their old tempos, paragraphs and life styles, as they battle the present that confronts them. They have changed and are afraid they will not be recognized or as profitable, if they just drop the old ball and pick up the new drum-stick, pen or laptop.

Hell, even my taste in music has changed in the last 2 months, and looking over some of those musicians, I no longer listen to, I realize it is because they are still doing the same old stuff, with a couple extra beats, without bringing in their new consciousness, because they are afraid to stand up and say the old is over, I am done with the past. I am done with you, fans-who-want-another-hit-like-the-last-one,  and now I have to be who I really am right now.

So many holding on to relationships, words and notes which are creating disharmony in their loves and lives and it resonates against my new consciousness. Even reading their blogs, the lack of enthusiasm about the life events, is so obvious. I just had to shut down for a while, and went so far as removing TV cable from the house. A new awareness is coming through and iut is a profoundly important moment in my life.

Kitty knew where he was going, when he left the planet, I am sure. I am finding out, this week, where I am going, in my new manuscript. If you do not admit you've been holding onto the old style, because you are afraid of how you will be challenged, that new zing of life changes,  coming toward you, will take a longer to find you. When it crashes into your awareness, there will be alot more clean-up to do in your fearful, little mind and heart.

It is time to let the world see, read, sing along with,  the you, you are now.

Little Soul’s Purpose

Today has proved to be an amazing day, in a very strange way. Something I swore I would never do again, I did and there may be a good ending this time.

It began with a stray cat, who spent his time walking from hone to home, meandering across hills and into my forest for months. Who was responsible for him was never clear, so I assume he was the watch cat for this side of the hill above Puget Sound.

Christmas, I found him meeting me every day, as I came home, and eventually, with the weather as hellascious, as can be ,above the NW Pacific inlets and tributaries, we became friends.

He would visit for a while, warm up and then let me know he was ready to go out again. He never begged for food or water, although, he was offered kitty high tea, whenever he came to chat.

A few days ago, he showed up looking worried and asked if I could assist him, as he was bleeding from his ear, and a very large mass had grown next to the damaged ear. He still continued to come and go, seeking my healing skills, and allowing me to clean his ear, which continued to bleed or discharge puss from it ,on occasion.

I became a little angry with his owners. He must have them. So well behaved and loving. The back porches or yards I would see him sitting in must be one of his own properties.

In the past 2 days, he has sought to be held and comforted. He has slept in blankets, let me hold him in the sun, under the apple trees, for the first time. We both realized, he chose me to help him, no matter what the outcome.

He went to Dr. Janey for a chip scan. No, no one had been implanted. We worked on his ears and fed him organic, herbal foods for healing, however, yesterday, his eye, next to the ear, began or turn inward, bulging, or retreating into his skull. I waited for him to give me a sign, he was ready to go, and this morning, when he came in, he walked into my closet an laid down.

I was heartbroken because all of my animals always went into the closet and laid down, before leaving me. 

So, today, we went to the Tacoma Humane Society, and because, whoever this loving creature is, someone may be looking for him.

At the very least, and most frightening for us both, perhaps his time has come and I was the one he chose to lead him away from his pain, into his next life time. I accepted what he showed me he needed, this morning, when I drew him out of the closet.

At 2PM, he was in their humane hands. I cried a little when I got home, knowing this was something he wanted. He wanted to be healed and knew that if he could not be healed, then his life would be remembered by the people on the hill, whose gardens and lavender bushes were his to enjoy.

Last evening, knowing he was getting ready to release me, to do something I swore I could never do again, he laid on me as I sang the Buddhist chants for transition, hummed OMs over and again, and then, stretching up, reached his two paws around my neck, and hugged me, in a way I can only describe as incredibly compassionate.

I called the Tacoma Humane Society, at 5PM, to find out about new resident A449076. I know the vets there make a thorough exam and decision about an animal’s ability to heal. Evidently, they thought he could.

They treated him and he is under veterinary care now, which means he has been treated, probably drugged and out of pain. I knew he was enduring tremendous pain so to spend more time in his gardens, and take tea with me,when this morning he was within a dark closet, alert, with pupils the size of quarters. That action of moving into the closet, for me, with cats, is always a sign they are beginning their breath release and transition rites.

Animals know when their time is near and they will always seek extreme quite and darkness, as any human would who was about to leave their physical body behind.

Through the right food and care, we got him healthy, for the treatments he is now undergoing. Tomorrow morning I will find out again how he weathered these 20 hours in vet care. His picture will be on their web site, incase his owner is looking for him. However, I think this angel is on his own.

I miss him and glad he showed me that losing an animal, does not mean there are not other animals, that can be as loving and caring as their predecessors. I have lived without them for 3 years, since the deaths of my own cats and dog.

The strength to take an animal to be healed or released ,from their pain, is a very hard thing to do for me. The healing is one thing, seeing them in pain is another, however, to let them go, is the worst.

I asked my brother to take him, for me, however, something about this animal demanded I face it with him. Whatever, that is which is incontrovertibly entwined, between an animal’s and a human’s two hearts, which remains forever, in memory.

This animal, this lovely male sweetie, once again reminded me how wise are those 4 footed that walk the earth. He chose me to help him and taught me that sometimes one does have to take responsibility for someone else’s life, and their are rewards and memories of long standing, for doing so.

Will I bring him home, once he is healed, or will he release, this world, and go on to his next 9 lives?

Will have to wait and see tomorrow.

His vet bills and adoption fees will be steep and the Humane Society needs the donations for the kindness and work it does for animals and humans. Donate, if you can.

I miss him, however, he is resting, healing and has the chance to survive, if it is his little soul’s purpose.