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SS

Stephanie Sugars
Welcome, dear friends and guests!

SS

Love dogs with sharp teeths and claws - dropping this tattered cloak

Paradise Ridge Winery Sculpture Garden

Currently between shows

http://prwinery.com/art-more/gallery/

xox

Corey Harris - Special Rider Blues

I woke up this mo'nin

Looked at spec-special risin' sun

I woke up this mo'nin

I looked at special risin' sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGfbYtw1e4

xox

Strength to Change

Nasrudin was now an old man looking back on his life. He sat with his friends in the tea shop telling his story. “When I was young I was fiery – I wanted to awaken everyone. I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change the world.

In mid-life I awoke one day and realized my life was half over and I had changed no one SO I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change those close around me who so much needed it.

Alas, now I am old and my prayer is simpler. “Allah,” I ask, “please give me the strength to at least change myself.”

xox

An old man’s wisdom –

My former partner’s old and widowed father asked that no one send holiday cards, that he was set for life. He proudly showed us a cotton string strung with maybe 10 Christmas and New Year cards. Judging by the cards’ style and the brittle yellow tape, his collection had been around for many years. It was an ingenious solution to both holiday decorating and consumer waste, folding into one card-sized packet in the off-season, then opening to all-in-one holiday cheer.

I appreciate now that many of the cards must have been addressed to both his deceased wife and him and sent from others long dead.

xox

For my happy birthday wishes, I’ve a stack of cards in a basket that I can pull out and reread. So many kind, loving, supportive messages. Many senders wishing me a happy deathing, but that is a birthday of a different sort. So, the message is dual – farewell, well-come, loved one.

Like my former father-in-law, I’ve got all I need for this stage of life.

xox

At a recent visit with the hospice chaplain, I spoke about feeling stuck in this life, in this body, as if I’d been waiting to die for a long time. Not with depression or resignation, but rather wondering whether the transition would ever, ever arrive.

She objected and said she doesn’t see me as stuck at all, that I’m still engaged and with patience, my time of transition will come.

She asked me to send myself back to when I began this period of waiting and I chose my 40th birthday, though it could have been my 30th or 20th or first or even date of birth. She then asked me to imagine a bowl to hold this time and to look within and tell her what was there.

My bowl was the volcanic crater of Maui’s Mount Haleakala and it held the whole sky, including the spectacular sunrises I witnessed there years ago. Yes, walking that crater is dark, arid and gritty. But there exists beauty too – the sky and the silversword plants along the rim. And my spirit encompassing the whole.

My physical journey has often felt like this, yet I know that my spirit is whole and under no threat.

xox

I woke from a dream where I’d been an impetuous gay man. My ex and I had precipitously adopted a dog with razor sharp teeth and claws, a propensity for biting and tearing my flesh. My ex, angry with me, encouraged its aggressive behavior, then sued me for dog-support, since I couldn’t care for the dog. As blackmail, he planned to leave the dog with me for an unknown period of time. My friends, a young gay male couple (my 30 year old self) dog-napped the dog to spare me as I was dying of AIDS and weighed all of about 90#, unable to stand or walk on my own.

What a mess I’d made of our lives by bringing this dog into a doomed relationship. What a quandary.

The dog feels like the cancer in my belly – greedy, grasping, biting and clawing.

I offer it my most tender organs, but it feeds on my resistance, not my acceptance.

My resistance to dogs and death is duty – the obligation to be “used up” before I die.

All through this dream, my spirit is whole and fine. I am good.

xox

Life imitates art – I leave my cottage this morning and Mabel comes with wagging tail, throws herself at my feet, belly exposed for my rubs. Who'd resist this dog?

xox

“Love Dogs” by Rumi.Translated by Coleman Barks

One night a man was crying,

“Allah, Allah!”

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

“So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?”

The man had no answer for that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick, green foliage,

“Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing you express

is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs no one knows the names of.

Give your life to be one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF4_KZfIfVI

xox

Yesterday, I saw my oncologist of not-quite 24 years. He’d not seen me for two months and was visibly startled by my decline. For the first time he brought up the topic of death, asking me what I think it will be like.

I began to cry as I described the release and relief I feel knowing that this body will die.

My meat suit, my sacred vessel, my living temple on earth is a heavy and tattered cloak to bear now. During sleep, I tug the rags around me, but rather than collapse beneath their weight, I soar.

He reflected that he’d not seen me cry before, but I reminded of a time years before when I felt so frustrated with my body. Yesterday’s tears were ones of joy.

I’m always sure to thank him and tell him of my love for him. And yesterday, I turned up the volume, appreciating his support of my unconventional treatment choices and especially my gratitude for healing my fear and distrust of doctors. Got him crying too. So we worked our way back to love and laughter and leaving until next visit.

These love-fests!

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