Journal for Thursday, August 1
3rd cup of tea: It was beautiful outside when I walked Mocha, cool, sunny, sparkling. But I could not experience it. This mood doesn’t have the weight of depression, it’s more a sense of why bother? why bother to cook and eat? Well, I have to do that to walk the dog, and I do care about the dog, even though I’m almost ready to say I don’t give a damn about anything else. But that’s not true. I do care about elephants, I do care about people who are refugees from violence, who have nothing to eat, I do care that the oceans are clogged and strangled with plastic… I care about all of it, but I can’t do anything about it. I feel totally helpless, and worthless, a miserable blot on the beauty of the earth. But then I think that I’m not the only blot. True, but it’s also true that I have no excuse. I’m safe here, have food, shelter, am well taken care of, not targeted by Trump and his SS. But I see that the system that grinds down those who they’ve declared dispensable, has also ground me down.
I’m reading “God So Loved the World” and I just got to the Crucifixion, to the cry of “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” Yes, that’s where I am now. Forsaken by God. Rejected by God. Useless. Nothing to give.
“God So Loved the World” is the life of Jesus, told by Elizabeth Goudge.
I read through the bits of my blog, where I say I am a shaman, and my work in the underworld is valuable to the whole, and I wonder who she’s talking about. Not me.
Am I sitting here feeling sorry for myself? No, it’s more a kind of hopeless anger — no use being angry at her, she’s not worth the energy. It’s not like she could make something of herself if I gave her a kick. I can’t find any compassion for her. She thought she was so great. What an asshole.
“Asshole” is not a word I use. Not sure which part of me is using it. I guess it’s the part of me that refuses to do something someone suggests to me that will help me, that sounds like a good suggestion, and inside I feel the closing down and backing up, so I say “No,” feeling like a bad person. No. I’m tired of the struggle.
An attempt to do something practical. Deal with the mail, pay bills. I open a Calendar from the African Wildlife people, there’s a picture of elephants on the front, I throw away the request for money and I start to cry. It’s not that I don’t have the money, they will keep me here even after I run out of money, but it feels wrong to take advantage of their generosity and spend more than I absolutely have to. O gosh I feel so trapped.
I sent a good sized check a while back, to help train people and dogs to track and stop poachers. I love elephants, I consider them intelligent and caring, and better “people” than human people. Some of this I learned from Deena Metzger.
As a result of revisiting my reverence for Elephant People, I signed up for a monthly gift to the African Wildlife Foundation. I feel a little better, but I have tears in my eyes.