I did the first draft of this back in October 2023. Never finished it. Looking again at it, I see that it fits with my previous post about Vocation. How amazing!
From my journal for November 23, 1995
I wake to terror. My husband said yesterday that we will owe the IRS over $100,000 for this year’s capital gains taxes, and that sets off a round of fear.
I come up to my desk and find a note to myself: “CLARIFYING: Does this belong to the social-political world? or to the path with heart?” and that reminds me that Neskaya is a path with heart. And that starts a warmth inside and drives the fear away.
November 24
Christie said something the other day about me teaching her that it was good to cry. Then Lydia and Ed and Asa showed up. They prowled around here for a while, Lydia showed me a video of the short ski-skates she’s been dancing on — I think I’ll get a pair. Then we went over to Neskaya. While we were there, Lydia said something about how I had been the one who had first given her a glimpse of a different way of living. (O yes, I remember lying on rubber rafts in her cove and talking about my book) She said I had always been on “the cutting edge” and that was a hard and lonely place to be. That kind of validation and support means a lot to me right now, as I continue to struggle with the hopelessness. I told her how I felt like I was “exploring the bottom,” she said she had done something like that herself, described a vision of a past life in which she was killed by priests who wanted to steal her light, and she understood that they couldn’t do it. She said that since then she hasn’t felt afraid to be herself in the world. That gives me hope.