I tested this morning for cucumber flower essence for depression, took some. It’s been like someone opened a shutter in the basement. Light streams in. I feel so positive. I realize I may have been depressed for a few months, if it’s possible to be depressed while expanding and in love and growing and alive at the same time.

I’ve enjoyed a series of bumps in the road that have brought me into the present moment. It’s this magical, divine, ever-morphing miracle. It’s too amazing to be believed. And it is even despite the great challenges of our time. It’s still God, and it’s still unfolding exactly as it’s supposed to.

Lately, Mary O’Malley, author of “What’s in the Way is the Way,” is my teacher, as is Thich Nhat Hanh, Oprah Winfrey and Depak Chopra, my beloved, the people I encounter, and Life itself.

Slowly I unplug from the storytellers that have driven a wedge between me and life. One day at a time, each moment, I bring my heart to my fear and it helps us both. To discover mirth now too among my former ashes! Glints of diamonds sparkle here and there in a world formerly overly gray…just yesterday.

My darling doggie trotted beside me on our morning walk. Oh, how I’ve loved this house and these foothills. I still can hardly believe that everything with our move ratchets forward, that swatches of change slated far into the future appear now on my horizon. More surprising: That the terror that seized me now seems to have evaporated almost in total. It’s an adventure we embark on, no less. And into this sunny morning I feel trust, faith, and confidence that all will be well. Magnificent even. And that is a gift!

Oh, my beloved! Last night we partook in an ancient ritual turned modern rite: We held a practice conversation on health care in the tradition of Living Room Conversations. We failed miserably. We learned. Afterword, I felt almost in tears and kind of frazzled. So my beloved and I traipsed back up the stairs and we did sound movement, an exercise where we take turns making sounds and movement to every emotion, mirroring each other.

I said, “She out-knowledged me!” about this one health care academic.

“She out-knowledged everyone,” Christopher said, and smiled. “She said she’d out-knowledge us at the beginning, and then she proceeded to.”

“And she was so graceful, she did so without ego!” I complained. He frowned, deciding whether this was so. “I want to be the smartest person in the room!” I declared. And we both laughed.

“I don’t want to be a moron!” Christopher said, joining in, arms raised. “I’m the smart guy!”

Somehow this freed me to no end, like owning my ego’s protestations brought all of me, my ridiculousness included, into the light where I could laugh and laugh.

This is a fact: It is uncomfortable not to know. “Don’t-know mind” is one of the themes for Christopher’s and my union, and I’m taking to it like a bull to mud. At first, I’m pissed off because I wanted water and I have no idea what this brown muck is. But then I lay down in it and everywhere am cooled and soothed. It’s a systemic thing, to let go of the idea of knowing or being right. It’s so fucking humbling, and yet exactly what the doctor ordered.

I say my prayers. I slept like an angel…until my continuous glucose monitor roused me from the deepest sleep blaring at me that my blood sugar was low. At last I rose, drank some juice, and proceeded to try every trick in the book to fall back asleep raging, raging, knowing that resisting the awakening only made it worse but unable to help myself. “I’m having a tantrum! I can’t stop!”

Finally, I opened a MAP session and begged for help. Peace found me at last, then sleep.

I cannot just dip my finger into the river when all of me rebels. I don’t know how to silence the bulls that refuse to lie down in the mud, that stomp and get even hotter and refuse the solace.

Sound-sensing cells in the ear.

And yet, like grace, morning comes cool and gentle into my life, sparkling and new. I am ancient. I am all people. I am the birds that chirp gently, the sprinklers spritzing green growth, the people walking their dogs, the mosquitoes. My heart beats steadily on. And I seize the day, remembering somehow to breathe.

My child gets her wisdom teeth out today. I’m brought to my knees with desire for her health. Her vulnerability begets my own. What would I do without this privilege, the medical insurance? I say thank you and bow my head and, like my compatriots around the table, I vow to do what I can so that everyone, no matter their background or situation, can have safety, beauty, food, water, shelter, health care…enough. I feel miserably small in my desire to help. Then I remember (again!) what Thich Nhat Hanh says: That only through our own peace and happiness can we bring others peace and happiness. I must trust that this vast intelligence, Life, knows what it’s doing and pray that it will show me the way. Even if it’s what’s in the way that’s the way….

July 7, 2017