Lazarus Owl and the death of the dead

They said you were the best
But then they were only kids
     Then you would recall the deadly houses you grew up in

I still haven't dropped this owl shit.. you don't have to read it. I've been thinking about it - the owls, and dead swan = death. = transformation. It was two owls, I've come to think of it as the 'Lazarus Owl' - the first one, I thought I killed, the second, showed himself to show I had not. In between was a dead swan. Symbol of sacred love, the mysteries, poetry.. perhaps I should think of it as the Christ Owl. Is that blasphemous? ;)

It was about the end of my Self here - the 'me' I had come to know and identify with, and the requirement to let go of that .. before I can again re-create myself in a new image. Seen in its most simple - death must come first, then acceptance of universal love - the 'mystery' - then (and only then) - rebirth. It said, sitting on the branch, "look, look - I am here alive in the woods, I cannot end, I sacrificed my Self so you could see."

I grew up in a deadly house. People died in it, before I was there. My grandmother killed herself there in 1956 or so. She haunted it. Now, sometimes, she haunts me. Because you cannot run from yourself. (But can you walk?)

In my house I was the pet-burier. I wanted to be a good son, I never raised a fuss. It was natural for me to serve, and that can be good or bad. 

Funny, only as I write this do I see  - I had thought the thing I needed to let go of was my image of myself as a small-town professional, doing some environmental work, being part of a community, which has been really hard (to make work) and really rewarding. To embrace the next step. And it may be so. 

But moreso - it may be time to leave an old family pattern behind; of self-sabotage, self-destruction (sometimes literal), self-limiting. Errand Knight. This blog is, at least partly, about being a warrior in the world. In a little piece I wrote years ago I said, "the greatest battle we can ever face is with ourselves, battles on the outside don't matter and are not real - the only thing that counts is the battle with our selves."

We don't need to relive the patterns of our past, and yet we do - like echo's. And they are so hard to change.

Sometimes the only way to win a battle is to give up. One can only have the rebirth after the death, after the surrender and the mystery... 

my memory is muddy

what's this river that I'm in?

New Orleans is sinkin', man

and I don't wanna swim..