Iona chooses to stay .....

A

Again you will find me , walking along with the four legged gods on the clay outer village roads.   The mostly unused ones.  The sky is indigo and the moon, almost full is rising.  The air is crisp and clean and the scents of syringe flowers and honeysuckle offer themselves as the constant nasal blessing.  These two scents together can throw me into ecstasy so easily.  A subtle blast.   There is a huge spring in my step and I think it is partially propelled by the enormous smile on my face.  Leaping into the air, almost onto the surface of the moon. 

The owl swoops in front of me.   We have met up a few times of late.   He sits on a lamp pole and I walk towards him with such a feeling of awe spreading over me.  I hold my hands out open to the side.  We stand like this for a while.  Then he flies to the next pole.  And again I approach him.  To me he is the sacred teacher,  and I am on the ground under the moon.   This happens for eight poles.  He then flies off.  And a song comes on my ipod that has me dancing along this moonlit road.   It really can’t get more perfect than this.   A contributing factor being that the creator of the song is also the owl.

I return home and bring in the dogs beds and refresh their water.  Cover the rats.  Close the gate.  Switch of the geyser.  None of the kids are in the kitchen .  I fuff around closing a window, picking up a book, stroking a cat.  I am washing my face when Iona comes into the bathroom.  She is pale.  Very pale.  But she is calm.  In that instant I know something momentous has happened.  She goes on to tell me that  she had been swinging around on the boxing bag.   And when it was really spinning she climbed to sit on the top.

The only thing was that her dolphin pendant on a thread which was around her neck got caught in the boxing bags thread and she was being strangled.  It was getting tighter and tighter and she felt feint.  And then she decided she was not going to die on a boxing bag strangled by a dolphin and with all her strength she tore if off her neck.  There is a big welt where it dug in.

And of course I know this beautiful being will one day no longer be in her beautiful body.  And I won’t be able to mourn because to have spent 11 years with her and the joy and the laughter that she is is such a gift in itself.

And yet the most, most supreme gratitude arises, that this beautiful being is ALIVE today.

And I know in the light of the potential devastation that is looming for many this is not relevant –

I just wanted to say thank you to Life for this being who is JOY herself still walks amongst us.