disappearing Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

A “Nothing” – (c) Karl D. Weikel

A Cosmic Reminder

Life is weird.

It’s just strange how you can be going along, living your life, basically minding your own business and doing your best to be as conscious as possible, when – thwack!– you get hit upside the head and challenged to hold your center.

That happened to me today.

And it wasn’t until I got home this evening that I felt the repercussions and even fully realized I’d received a spiritual thwack! upside the head – a cosmic reminder of why I engage in the discipline and commitment of my 1111 Devotion.

An Unexpected Flood of Sadness

Come to think of it, I was hit with the overwhelming wave of emptiness as I was driving home from my session. I told myself it was because I hadn’t eaten all day, but I knew that didn’t ring true. It’s not an unusual occurrence for me not to eat on days I see clients, and it doesn’t bother me at all. The truth was, I was missing Karl. And it was creating a pit-in-the-center-of-my-chest kind of sadness.

The short explanation is that my client had a connection to my son Karl that they didn’t even realize. When the appointment was initially set up, I’d had this vague tickle at the back of my mind. In the minutes before they arrived for their appointment, I literally wrote in my journal, “Why does that name sound familiar to me?”

I whipped out my phone and searched the name in my email, just to see if perhaps I’d seen this person a long, long time ago, perhaps in another context, unrelated to my shamanic practice. Maybe as their lawyer?

Nope. No record.

Realizing the Connection

There was no recognition on either of our parts when they arrived. They didn’t even mention that my name sounded familiar, so I shushed myself, opened Sacred Space, and began the session.

It didn’t take long before I realized that their son and Karl had had a strong bond back in high school. Indeed, so strong that, the last time Karl was home, the final Christmas and New Year’s holidays he spent in Pennsylvania, indeed, on Earth, he’d made a point of getting together with this friend specifically to give him permission to imitate Karl’s artwork – a unique art form he’d developed and honed since elementary school and eventually won awards for in high school, as well as in independent juried art shows.

An Uncommon Generosity of Spirit

I’d always wondered why Karl went out of his way to give this friend his ‘blessing,’ so to speak. I’d been shocked when he told me he intended to do it; and was even more shocked when he followed through with it. Perhaps on some deep level, both of us knew his time was growing short. Did he know? Did I know? It’s impossible for me to answer.

It was such a profoundly magnanimous gesture – loving and kind and generous. Made even more so because he’d only discovered through others that his art was being copied by this friend; his friend hadn’t disclosed it himself.

So why would he do that, I wondered. Why would he make it OK to be copied, imitated?

I remember standing in the kitchen and asking Karl, “Why?”

And I distinctly remember him shrugging and saying, “It doesn’t really matter in the end, Mom.” I just looked at him, struggling to keep myself from saying all the things that shrieked in my mind. Of course it mattered, I wanted to say.

Non-attachment and Serenity

“He knows,” Karl continued. “And I want him to know I know. But I also want him to know I give him permission.”

How could I argue with that? Karl’s attitude was intensely serene and – there are those words again – generous; magnanimous.

It was not unlike how I’d felt in Ann Arbor the year before, when I watched him give away to a homeless person the food we’d wrapped for him to take on the long bus ride back to California.

His non-attachment and serenity were profound. And I have to admit, I struggled to find them in my own heart. I wanted to feel ok about it; it was his art, after all. His talent and imagination. His vision.

In the End…

I was sad to notice that very same friend failed to come to Karl’s Gathering, held only two weeks after his death. Their meeting had occurred only ten months earlier. Surely it gave him pause?

And I was sad to realize my client didn’t even recognize his name. It was as if they’d never been friends.

I miss Karl. I miss his spirit. And most of all, I don’t want him to disappear.

Which reminds me of the entire point behind my 1111 Devotion.

(T-1022)

“Disappearing” – Photo by L. Weikel

Disappearing

Over the past several days I’ve had a recurring experience, albeit in different areas of my life and involving completely different people and encounters.

But I was struck today by the thread between all of these situations and I didn’t like the feeling.

Of course, it could just be unique circumstances adding up to me feeling that there’s a pattern here. Or, I really am disappearing.

It’s not only been creepy. It’s been infuriating.

A Pattern in Our Society

And yeah, I’ve read articles about how women who reach age 50 or so tend to just start blending into the wallpaper of other people’s awareness. Most of those articles seem to emphasize invisibility in the context of men and being noticed by or considered attractive to men. And while I’m not making it my life’s mission to actively become a hag, I’d also say I’m assiduously not into primping. Never was. Never will be. And lucky for me, I guess, Karl knows that too.

But there is evidence that the invisibility arises within other contexts as well. Contexts in which it’s patently stupid and an obvious loss to both society in general and in whatever industry or profession women work throughout their lives. Everyone loses when women are rendered irrelevant and unseen, muted and ignored, simply because they’re no longer of child bearing age.

And I have to say, I never thought I’d experience this attitude being directed toward me. I guess I thought I was immune because I’ve never cared one way or another about ‘looks,’ beyond, you know, basic personal hygiene and wearing eclectic clothes.

And then there’s the hair

And I haven’t changed in that regard. I’ve also not given one shit about going gray. Indeed, I love my gray hair – and the thought of putting poison on my head and letting it seep into my scalp, so close to my precious gray matter, makes me recoil in organic horror. (Why would I go out of my way to avoid ingesting gmos, pesticides, and other stuff that’s bad for you and then deliberately let poison soak into my scalp?) Because I’m afraid to be my natural self?

Dumb. (For me.)

Yes, I’ve watched people close to me feel compelled to color their hair by the realities of our obnoxiously youth-worshipping society. You know – so they won’t become invisible. Because ‘old’ equates, for women, to ‘invisible.’ And I understand their fear in the corporate or professional world, but it makes me wonder: how do we change that culture if we continue to acquiesce to it?

Which is another reason why I refuse to do it.

But all of this is superficial. All of this is yackety yack about the packaging, and making the product (me – or us) look like something it is not.

Why? The Perennial Question

And I guess that’s what has always been at the foundation of my refusal to consider that I might actually be disappearing. I’m only starting to hit my stride! And my confidence in myself and in what I ‘do’ has been earned. By years of doing. Of experiencing. Of enduring.

Why the hell should I feel compelled to gussy myself up like some 30 year old when I’ve been there already? I’ve raised three kids (with Karl), headed my own law office, worked for a major feminist legal advocacy organization, made dinner every night, and managed to get to most soccer games, musicals, plays, and track meets. Doing all that wore me the hell out.

And I know, I know, it’s a tired old trope, but damn – men (who have not in the main had to ‘do it all’ in order to think they were bad-ass, but only had to ‘do their job’) can become gray and a little thicker around the waist and they are considered distinguished. Not me. Not us. If we don’t color our hair and Goddess-forbid do even more heinous things to our bodies, we become dismissible. We’ve ‘let ourselves go.’ We need to look in the mirror.

The Crux of This Post

Up to now, this post is not addressing what I initially set out to write about. Because what I experienced this week was an invisibility of a different kind.

It may have been related to how I look. But I don’t think that was it.

It was simple disrespect. It was being blown off. Why? I have no idea.

Not only did I feel like I was becoming invisible this week, but I also felt like I was standing behind a glass (soundproof) wall. People may have seen my mouth moving, but they sure as hell weren’t listening. Even when I repeated myself, over and over. Gently at first, thinking they perhaps hadn’t heard me. Then more forcefully because, damn it, I meant what I said the first time, but having to repeat it sixteen times made me a little cranky. Like – stop poking me.

And what I was saying might have been important. It just may have had some validity or at least been worthy of consideration. Otherwise, I wouldn’t spend my time saying it. Time and a lot of hard-earned experience (a lot of which has turned my hair gray, I might add), are pretty much all I have to give.

I’m not saying everything I say is correct, necessarily, nor a pearl of wisdom. Whether it was my opinion on where to stop or what to eat, or a question with a bit more heft.

If you ask me something, then at least respond as though it has registered.

You know – so I don’t feel as though I should pantomime my response or act it out in interpretive dance.

Otherwise? I realize I’m disappearing.

And I may or may not go gently into the night.

(T-1049)