A new season is upon us as we pass the threshold of darkness and begin our journey towards the light. I sit here in my small single wide trailer with my big dog, tiny cat, and man of 27 years. We are so comfy and settled despite our challenges, and our lives are filled with gratitude for all that we have. My home may not be clean, but it is tidy and the chores are attended to. My dog may be challenging to ride in the car with me anywhere, and loves to bark, but he never runs away, is an incredible listener, and I feel safe and emotionally protected at his side. Steve may have his physical challenges, but every day he does the dishes and cooks us amazing meals. I zone out to music and rest in my phenomenal chair that was passed on to me, and Steve loves his stool at his bar table where he does the crossword and Wordle, and watches endless football as well as late shows often. We have our routines, and we are very comfortable in our cozy and beautiful home.

I am challenged in many ways. Lately my past trauma has come up in my writing, and during my last moon time, with a very heavy flow, I found myself processing intense sexual trauma as well as mourning my abortion that happened when I was twenty and severely mentally ill. I am grateful that I have the comfort of my home and bed, the peace that this island and community brings me, and family close by that I am open and honest with and who support me authentically at every curve. Lately, I have been going to less meetings, because they too take energy and focus. Since the pandemic, I have been attending meetings every day, often multiple times a day, and I do service on Wednesday and Saturday, so at least I am present at those two meetings. Another program I have been attending since the beginning of October, I have been attending five days a week at 7am, though this last week I only attended Monday through Wednesday. Every night when I lay down in bed not long after it gets dark, I look forward to my alarm going off at 5:30 am and the 7am Al-Anon meeting that I will get to attend. Weekends have been a short reprieve, despite my service position on Saturday that is in-person. Even that, I have missed a couple weeks due to challenging times.

My mental health is stable, though I am dealing with increased sensitivities. I feel like I am having to build strong boundaries against immense psychic pressure, and for that I am using my strong faith and prayer. Since attending Al-Anon, I have returned my journey to orbiting around faith in a christian God. For years, I have been attending a secular meeting, and I love atheists and agnostics. They are true thinkers. All along, I have not abandoned my personal faith and belief in a God of my understanding, but I respect all walks in life whether one is a believer or a non-believer. More than one reality, belief, dimension, and God exist in this world for a reason. I come back to science in this regard, because nature, psychology, philosophy, math, and numerology, all point to greater understanding and they strengthen my faith. Science, Art and Religion, I see as three points of a triangle. They all are separate points and ultimate truths, and they also are connected and one. I can explain the entire universe at any point, but all three differing realities exist and are incredibly important to our existence as a human race.

Diversity is real. It is realism. We must allow diverse communities, cultures, cuisines, and faiths all to exist together and separate, but ultimately interconnected just as the mycelium or trees in the forest. We may differ in how we look, what we believe, where we are from, what we digest in media, or what we eat, but we also share a human story. I believe, and this is a scientific belief, that we really do have a communal subconscious. We travel there in our dreams, our lucid dreams, and our prayers. We can be together as one and still not believe the same way. I am grateful today of all of the micro communities and families that I belong to. Bless you this Christmas, or whatever season you are celebrating, and I hope that you too can find a place of inner peace amongst all of the struggle, darkness, and pain that we all must live with and ultimately learn to let go of in this life. Death is universal. So is birth. All life is born and dies. But while we coexist, I just hope that we can work on bringing peace to one another, for though we are different, we share in this universal truth.