Spirit and Sage

Practice writing every day.
This will be my mantra. The Abbey is where I'll practice the discipline.
I'm in formidable company among such accomplished poets and writers. No matter! I've been invited here and made to feel very welcome. If I sometimes babble, stumble, fall and make grammatical mistakes, it's all a part of the process.

Even though I just arrived at the Abbey yesterday, I was called away for a short time already. Spirit work. Last fall, friend of mine took his own life in a violent and tragic manner. Horror of horrors, a shotgun blast to the head accomplished the mission. This happened very near my home, right in the place where I walked my (now deceased) Lab, Buddy. Tim felt that he could not overcome his addiction to alcohol and opted to permanently end the problem. I tried so hard to help him, as did others, to no avail. Daily,I've gone to the spot where he took his life. I recite the Our Father and Hail Mary. I wish his spirit well. This has not been quite enough, however. Yesterday, the medicine woman in me was urged by her inner voice to go and purify the ground and air in that space. I had to be fairly discreet in doing so, as there are often people around that area. I can imagine what they'd think, watching a middle aged woman walking in a circle, a lit bundle of sage in hand,lips moving wordlessly, behind the Elks Club. (No irony there, it was Tim's watering hole.) No doubt they'd suspect that I, too, had imbibed too plentiful an amount of firewater. I've fought that particular demon myself, battling long and hard, holding to the truce that stands today. That's why I am so sad for Tim. He "gave up" a day too soon.

I did it. I took my sage and smudged the grounds and the air in the space where a fellow human being and friend died. At first, I felt nothing. No energy force at all, either positive or negative. I stood silently for a moment or two, looking to the sky. I observed one wispy cloud, one lonely cloud, that took on the shape of an angel waving good-bye. A black bird came, seemingly out of nowhere, flying swiftly over and away from me, disappearing over the tree tops. I released a spirit. My own.