Join us for October's Invitation this Thursday! ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
October 2022 Invitation
Join our October Invitation! Thursday, October 27th at 5:30pm (Note the change from our usual)
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Private Meditation
As winter approaches and there’s a natural turning inward, I’m offering fifty percent off private meditation classes for the month of November. In person and online options available with flexible scheduling. Please book directly.
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I’m grieving the deaths of a mouse family. I left the garage open one night. In the morning, my tools, my bikes, the beer in the fridge, all the other miscellaneous stuff that fills a garage was still there. It was such a relief to discover nothing was missing. Except, a couple of days later, I realized that while I had not lost anything, new visitors had taken up residence. Every time I would open the garage door, a scurrying of movement would ensue.
The mice went right to work spreading the sack of bird food, destroying my seed packets, chewing holes in my picnic blanket, crapping all over my work bench, and shredding the toilet paper on the supply shelves.
Eventually, I accepted the necessity of an intervention. That was how I came to spend twenty minutes in the pest control aisle of Target debating the most humane ways to kill a mouse. The old-fashioned traps seemed the quickest, but I worried I’d hear the crack of the metal and panic. There was simply no way I was going to use that glue board. How could I bare to look at those cute little mice and the lengths they would go to be freed… chewing off their own limbs or pulling their entrails from their bodies. The poison box advertised each cartridge killed up to twelve mice. I read to see how long the poison took and if they suffered. That’s what we do as empaths, we fret over the suffering of sentient beings, even mice.
The evening before I set out the cartridge, I had a conversation with the mouse family. I explained how the garage wouldn’t be safe anymore. Alternative living arrangements were suggested. The next day I opened the garage door to see a gray mouse standing on top of a box of egg curtains, fully upright with what appeared to be a small fist shaking in my direction.
Today when I pulled the car into the garage, there was no sign of scurrying, no new messes to clean up. Only the quiet stillness of death and restored order. Now I’m mourning the mice family that lives no more.
Empaths are often chastised for our emotional sensitivities. Instead, exploring our emotional fields offers an advantage. Our intuition is highly developed, allowing us to examine intentions, read behavioral responses, check projections, analyze relationships and be responsive to children, family, lovers, and friends. We do not need to catalogue feelings as weakness, hide our “too soft” selves or isolate from the world’s cold realities. It takes far more courage to feel your way through this human experience. Sure, numbness is efficient. With enough exposure and denial, it’s easy to become desensitized to the suffering of others. If you train your eyes to look away often enough, they stop seeing. If you justify or rationalize someone else’s pain, oblivion will certainly find you. Just don’t confuse heartlessness for strength, or intellect.
Experiencing the rich colors and textures of our own lives means developing the full range of sensing, all that is happening to those around us with love and understanding. Whether it is the homeless man in the neon construction vest, back hunched, head down standing openly on street corner, or the immigrant mother in hiding, clutching her child’s hand, compassion makes us better humans.
Mouse Memorial Service
Tuesday, 11pm Our Church of Open Heart
52 Empathy Lane
Infinite, Universe 70981
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