—FROM EF—

Well, hello, New Year! We’ve just had a week of glorious rain, and then today is golden sun and blue skies—for just this day. Tomorrow we will return to blessed rain. I am profoundly grateful that this year’s fire season was a dud up here. In other places, not, and that is a grief, but I’ll take the blessing here at full value.

No, we didn’t earn a hangover. CB had been recovering from a mild Covid episode, but may be experiencing the “Pavloxid bounce” since he’s suddenly engulfed in profound fatigue. I have no idea how long this will last, but it’s a regression to the onset of his illness. What is, is. I am holding to the thought that this, too, will pass.

I always have a span of difficult dreams at this time of year, and am always glad when the rising of the light lifts me out. Last week I had a corker, beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. When I jolted awake, I was still immersed in what felt like a neural fireworks, streaks of light and webs of sticky electricity. I’ve only once before had to do this kind of battle to come back to grounding, and it was epic.

I had to talk myself in and down, talking out loud—your name is Elizabeth Fuller, you’re 82 years old, you live in Sebastopol, you’re in your upstairs bedroom. Conrad was still positive for Covid and was sleeping downstairs, so I was alone. It took a while for me to flail myself out of the electric web and be able to see the dim light of the early dawn, and my heart rate was slow to slow.

The only other time I had to talk myself down like this was after CB had his open-heart surgery, and I had invited all our beloveds to send healing energy. I crouched in a corner of the family waiting room of the hospital, used all the magical skills I knew to open myself as a node, and waited. I felt the rush of energy, and when the surgeon came to tell us it had gone well, I embraced our kids, who had come for the vigil, and we went downstairs to celebrate with a breakfast. I didn’t close the gate; bad magical practice. That night, every demon from the west side of hell clamored in my brain, and all I could do was keep chanting: help me. Help me. I can’t come through this, help me. I came through it, and understood it later.

So this is a new year, and my mind and my brain are ready for a reset. What’s to come? I want to be ready, tuned in, able to face whatever comes. I’m attuned to the possibility that it is likely to be hairy, but I take comfort from an old movie we watched last night, “Holiday.” In an amazing final shot, Cary Grant (who was a child acrobat) sees the woman who has captured his heart coming around a corner toward him. He has just done a handstand, for reasons unknown, and embarks on a back-flip as she comes into view. He vaults into the back-flip, sees her coming, and doesn’t complete the flip into standing up. Instead, he sees her, reacts, and falls flat on his face on the floor. It’s the perfect comic completion.

I hope to enter this new year in the spirit of Cary Grant’s back-flip. Make yourself vulnerable, see the path into your best life, and fall flat on your face in tribute.      

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