The Camino Blues

Well....

It's been a L-O-N-G time since I have posted anything... I got a big old case of the Camino Blues when I got home. Didn't realize quite how blue I have been, until I recently started to see in technicolor again! I talked about it with Sue Kenney, the woman with whom I walked the Camino, and she shared these wise words with me: " The journey back home is just as challenging as the journey to Santiago. You are not alone."

Just hearing this normalized my experience and I just allowed it to be what it was. And I began my journey being home...

And so I want to share with you an extraordinary experience that happened in my back yard just this past weekend. I was sitting at my computer, which when I look up from it, I look outside across my front porch into my west yard. It is beautiful, with big tall green trees that run beside our community water ditch and best of all, has a classical labyrinth that my husband, Steve, created last summer. There is also our tramp, and that standing beside it on this particular sunny afternoon, was a deer, a doe quietly standing there, not moving. Seeing deer in Boulder is not unusual at all, but there was something about her that was different. At first, I thought that maybe she was sleeping standing up, but then every few minutes as I would look up, she would haved moved a step or so, slowly toward the house.

Steve went out to get the mail, and thought that she was going to "charge" him, given her position. But no...nothing in her energy was charging or moving at all. Then I looked up again, and noticed that there was drool falling from her mouth. As I looked more closely, she seemed like she was wasting away, losing energy with each delicate footstep, and that she was asking for help. We both knew that something was seriously wrong with her.

We made several calls and got a hold of a ranger from the Open Space department who happened to be close by. He came over, and confirmed that she had "chronic wasting disease" - which perfectly described her condition. There was nothing that could be done to save her, and that what was necessary was to shoot her, both to save her from suffering, but also to save her from infecting other deer.

So, there in our yard, and within the first outer spiral of our labyrinth, the ranger shot her. In the head, close up. She didn't move, didn't run, didn't do anything, but stand there and accept what was happening.

I couldn't watch. I couldn't even be outside at this point. All I could do was send her lots of love and blessings for a safe and quick journey and stay inside with the two youngest kids and their friends. My older son and his friend were outside with Steve witnessing all of this, and my older daughter happened to not be here at all for any of this.

But I heard it...I heard the gunshot. It rang out loudly, over the traffic. So quick, so sudden, so final.

And she fell instantly down toward the center of the labyrinth.

A short while later, before the boys, Steve and the ranger moved her body, I went outside, and thanked her for her gentle presence. I knew that she had come into our yard, and our labyrinth on purpose. She needed our help. She wanted to die ion sacred ground, and so she chose the labyrinth. And we answered her pleas for help, although I wish her death could have been less violent.

This week, I asked that her energy be fully released from this land, and to be completely free to go onto the next realm, wherever that may be. We have been asking ourselves, "What are the lessons from this extraordinary event and gift? What do we each need to learn and receive from this?" A friend also wisely asked, "What needs to die?"

Deer medicine teaches us to use the power of gentleness with the demons and saboteurs, both internal and external. Perhaps her powerful gift to us is to remind us that sometimes we need to let go of the battle with those aspects of ourselves that tirelessly try to keep us from our true brilliance. We can be so loudly consumed with battling them that we forget that a little self love and compassion can transform everything. Let the battle die, and actually be at peace with even those shadow parts of ourselves that we love to hate. Allow the hate to die, and to truly choose love and compassion and acceptance for ALL of who we are. Choose love and compassion for ourselves, for each other, and even worst critics and enemies. What then would our world look like? What is truly possible then?

I am now a pilgrim - I live my life as a pilgrim. And I walk our labyrinth everyday as my sacred pilgrimage as I live my life here at home with my family. It reconnects me with the sacred path of the El Camino, the Celtic Camino, and the sacred path that we each are on, every day of our lives, no matter where we are, what we are doing, who we are being. Every step is a sacred, blessed step - for we are alive on this beautiful planet.

Now, when I walk our labyrinth, I have a friend who joins me. She gently walks beside me as I swerve and turn, twist and double back, and reminds me, "Gentleness...gentleness...walk in gentleness, and allow your true brilliance, love and beauty to come shining forth. I will show you the way."

And then, yesterday morning, three young deer - two does and a young buck, bounded across the ditch into our yard. They were young, joyful and lively. We all saw them, and then they were gone. For me, it was the completion and the healing of the event of last Saturday. I knew that we had received the gifts, released the trauma, and that we have begun to walk in gentleness.

Thank you, Deer.