How To Die by Edward Abbey

HOW TO DIE — but first, how not to:

Not in a smelly old bloody-gutted bed in a rest-home room drowning in the damp wash from related souls groping around you in an ocean heavy with morbid fascination with agony, sin and guilt, expiated, with clinical faces and automatic tear glands functioning perfunctorily and a fat priest on the naked heart.

Not in snowy whiteness under arc lights and klieg lights and direct television hookup. No never under clinical smells and sterilized medical eyes cool with detail calculated needle-prolonged agonizing, stiff and starchy in the white monastic cell, no.

Not in the muddymire of battle blood commingled with charnel-flesh and others’ blood, guts, bones, mud and excrement in the damp smell of blasted and wrung-out air; nor in the mass-packed weight of the cities atomized while masonry topples and chandeliers crash clashing buried with a million others, no.

Not the legal murder either — too grim and ugly such a martyrdom — down long aisled with chattering Christers chins on shoulders under bright lights again a spectacle an entertainment grim sticky-quiet officialdom and heavy-booted policemen guiding the turning of a pubic hair gently grinding in a knucklebone an arm hard and obscene fatassed policemen everywhere under the judicial — not to be murdered so, no never.

But how to:

Alone, elegantly, a wolf on a rock, old pale and dry, dry bones rattling in the leather bag, eyes alight, high, dry, cool, far off, dim distance alone, free as a dying wolf on a pale dry rock gurgling quietly alone between the agony-spasms of beauty and delight; when the first flash of hatred comes to crawl, ease off casually forward into space the old useless body, falling, turning, glimpsing for one more time the blue evening sky and the far distant lonesome rocks below — before the crash, before…

With none to say no, none.

Way off yonder in the evening blue, in the gloaming.

Movement

Moving through life

Moving through greed

Movement restricted

Movement freed

Let’s not pretend 

We don’t know the deal

We’re gluttons for stuff

Neglecting what’s real.

Moving through life

Your unique pace

Calling upon source

Eternal grace

Point your body

Towards a new plan

One less pent up

At last you stand

Move with meaning

Be light, understanding

An easy pace

One less demanding

Making better choices

New motivation

Stimulate and inspire

Divine creation.

Tricia Schwaba, from the archives

Lunar New Year

Today begins the Year of the Snake according to the Chinese Zodiac.
Today’s a great day to clear out the clutter physically and emotionally- release the old shit that does not serve you or the greater good.

Today begins renewal. Add good stuff whatever that means to you.
Do what you must to stay strong and clear during this very tumultuous time in our nation and around the globe.

Wishing you peace, prosperity and good health ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤍

Tricia

Wood Snake Art by Grace Noel

Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power.

Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

May You Continue... A New Year Wish

My wish for you is to claim witness to your own beauty
To continue to see yourself well beyond the filter of humanity
To nourish the subtle energy that flows through you
That sustains you, that transports you, that loves you
That is you

My wish is that you continue to offer yourself unfettered love
That you honor your practices of self care
The reverent practices of self sustenance
The practices that are kind
And may you splash that kindness outward

My wish for you is that you take your long spine out into your world
That you continue to stand proudly root to crown in your gracefully aging body
Releasing the petulant kinks that inhibit pranic flow
That you ground like the pines deeply and securely
Never toppling despite the threatening storm
Being a balanced inspiration for she who is untethered

My wish for you is that you continue to honor your unique power
By gently bestowing it outward
Pouring it into the inevitable pockets of weakness you will encounter
Continuing to be the steady unwavering beauty-drenched soul you are
These are my wishes for you today
And for the rest of your days

Tricia Schwaba 2024