On The Road Again

By Bev - July 18, 1999

We have been in the Flathead Valley for 3 years now, enjoying the beauty that surrounds us with The Swan and Mission Mountains to the East, Glacier Park to the Northeast, Big Mountain to the North, The Cabinet Range with it's new ski area on Blacktail Mountain to the west and the magnificent Flathead Lake taking it's place in the south. We went to the Standing Arrow Pow Wow yesterday hosted by the Kootenai Indians who are part of the Flathead Indian Reservation's Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe. As usual, we were moved by the drumming, singing and the dancing, reminding us of another time in our existence. I found myself dancing with them in my mind.

We have met many soul mates here and have danced the dance of the life journey with them, honoring our differences and our sameness. The patterns of the lessons of expectation, perception and judgment have woven themselves through our experience with them. We thank them for their contributions to our lives.

I hoped that we were finally home, and that it was time to buy that house and work with the devas and nature spirits to develop the garden my soul has been yearning for since we left Washington State. Gardens are such an example of the ease of rebirth, the seasons coming and going, the gentle change occurring on the land, one preparing for the next in a orderly way, and finally the plants and flowers in full bloom, the recreation of plenty and beauty.

I know we are like that when we allow it to be. I have said "off with the old, on with the new", many times and some of the times this happens with grace and ease, and other times we insist on drama and control, and the games begin! We have just completed yet another cycle of this. On our refrigerator door is a sign that, paraphrased, says that God can and will handle all our problems and does not need our help, so, we can relax and enjoy the day.

As I write this, we are three weeks away from being "on the road again". We arrived here in June of 1996 and before the year was out those inner stirrings that we should move on had started. We did not share those feelings with each other at that time, but in the next 2 plus years we pondered off and on, do we or do we not, move again and if so, where? We had almost decided to stay here, buy a house and settle in for Y2K and had looked at houses and property, but again we realized that somehow we did not feel in harmony with that decision. Our next decision was to try to answer the question of where we might move. We have a family story telling about our decision to go to the Kalispell MT. area in June of 1996 instead of Bozeman, MT. where I thought we were going.

Back to the drawing board. Is it Bozeman now? Tatiacha, Eric and I went to the area and rejecting a larger city area, we focused on Livingston and Big Timber and fell in love with the Crazy Mountains. Man has inhabited these mountains for the last 11,500 years. The Crow Indians called them, the Blue Bird Mountains. There are several stories on how they got the name, Crazy Mountains. I like the story that a woman, maybe Indian, maybe white, went mad, possibly due to an attack, causing the death of her family, and fled to the mountains. She was left alone because Indian custom was that they should not bother crazy people. They were originally "The Crazy Woman Mountains".

We went back several times looking at property and houses in and near both communities, with a view of "our" mountains. The last trip we hit and killed a deer on the freeway close to Big Timber. We interpreted that as a reminder that we had overlooked another issue that required gentleness. We knew it to be a painful issue much like the death of the deer. We knew that we could not ignore the sacrifice of the deer.

We had known that sometimes the spontaneous behavior of Tatiacha and myself was troubling to Randy. He wanted roots more than we did and a sense of being part of a community in the physical sense. When he followed us around the country, he always left part of himself behind. He tried to make it all right, but over the past ten years the pain of this loss increased. We all knew it was time to talk about what we had all known. Randy has decided to go on his own, not split with the family spiritually, but find the parts of himself that have been left around the country… a type of vision quest, so we are supporting him in his search and will be separating with this move. We will see that all e-mail gets sent to him and hopefully soon he will have his own computer.

As all this was going on, I was having trouble separating from my job at the local hospital. I really felt that I had something to contribute and wanted to see it through, although there was great resistance from those that did not want change. This made for a very difficult challenge and that was the problem. I was feeling I should see it through, or was I feeling I could be the savior? I had a similar job as a Director of Nurses at a Seattle Hospital and when I left (worked for 6 Administrators in one year), I had a definite sense of failure with a blow to my self esteem. I know now, that was the beginning of my search for meaning and ultimately God. In the present instance, my self-esteem was intact but I had to wonder if I considered my effort too necessary, or what was the attachment for this job? I thought that maybe we could buy a house and I could stay here in my motor home until I was ready to move. The replacement of the car (totaled when we hit the deer) and dealing with the insurance company pushed this issue from my conscious mind. Spirit must have been working through this time because when the car problem was solved it was clear to me that I would leave as soon as possible.

I gave four weeks notice and we notified our landlord that we would leave by the following Sunday which would be August 8th. The family will leave the area together.

You will find Tatiacha, Eric and me somewhere near the Crazy Mountains where we will be working on a "Honoring the Woman Within" workshop. We may be out of touch by e-mail for a short time but the new and improved website will remain.

It seemed to me that it was important to talk about how difficult it is to get clarity in the physical density. We think that we understand what direction we are to go and then we go through a process of verification or bargaining until, as in the Shaman's death, we surrender and allow the new life to come forth. Our constant lessons of expectation, perception, and judgment pursue us relentlessly. If we could only learn to move with the gentleness of the deer and allow the needed changes to come forth, to be born into our lives with ease. We just have to let go of the drama and control and allow the God within to shine and lead the way. God Bless… MamaMel