You Never Returned

It's been a long time since I posted in this blog...however, I'll be returning to the place that inspired this prose-poem next week, the land of the Cherokee, the rivers of the Tuckaseegee and Natahala. It made me think of this prose poem I wrote a couple of years ago and so I thought I'd bring it up to the top.

It was there in the misty mountains where my life began and ended. You left me at dawn, promising return by nightfall. I waited for years in the meadow of songs where we had built our love on pledges of golden sun and milky starlight.

You never returned.

Only the music of the storm was my solace. Shattered by the force of time and weather, I became blind. On my knees and with fingers numb from cold, I tried to find the path before me and stumbled into the dark echoes of the woods to seek shelter. Finding comfort on a bed of hemlock, I slept next to the gray wolf who consoled me as I wailed, holding me in his paws and licking my brow.

You never returned.

Only the laughing crows and battle cries of raptors could be heard in the forest. Songbirds fled to sing their cheerful melodies in less mournful places. My tears became the creek that flowed from the great mountains into the Tuckaseegee. Beyond an eternity of hope, shards of my crystalline heart can still be found.

You never returned.

__


Dedicated to those left behind on the Trail of Tears.

Cat of Arc on Power

Hi, Cat of Arc here.

Here's the thing, there's no point in harping on things that everyone knows already. As an entity from another dimension, it is clear to me that everyone actually does know the truth, they just look the other way. So why go into a big long discussion about nuclear power and how horrible it is in every way conceivable? This is obvious. The bottom line is all the plants need to be shut down now, and all nuclear things need to be disbanded and safely disposed of. (Good luck with that).

There is not a single being on Earth that doesn't know this at a cellular level. The issue of why it still occurs is the bigger nebulosity.  That's due to another kind of power altogether, but I didn't come here to talk about that either, because you already know that.

No, I came to discuss another kind of power. The kind of power that you use to activate your muscles, go out into your yard and plant food and the kind of power that gives you. But see, I don't even need to tell you that because from my all knowing perspective, it is clear to me that you already know that too.

I can already hear those voices in your head complaining that it is not possible in your particular circumstance for one reason or another.  Well here's my answer for that — know who your local farmers are and be their friend. Support their CSA, yes if you read my earlier posts, you'd have noticed this isn't the first time I've mentioned those letters while extolling the virtues of Community Sustained Agriculture.

Or help out at the local community garden. Find a way to be involved in the sustainable, organic and locally grown food chain. That is true power, and you know that I am right.  Because I'm an entity from another dimension and can go anywhere at any time and inhabit any body— animal, bird, sealife or human, even plants, rocks and the interior of a supernova — I am always right. But I really don't care whether I'm right usually, I just want to see you evolve to know the possibilities of your potential. In my quests through time I see different possibilities, many look quite bleak.  I hate to be so dire but what can I say?

Cukes, not nukes!

Cat of Arc, signing out.

PS, you really gotta get a new government, and I'm not talking about the other party.  You guys are toast with your lack of ability to sway the decisions toward a pro-geosophic and human evolutionary possibility. Yeah, Earth will be here for a long long, time, that is true in all the possibilities I've seen, but you? Not in very many...but it's still your choice, for now...

Cat of Arc on Enlightenment

     Ok, here’s the thing…maybe some of you remember me, I’ve been here before — I’m an entity from another dimension and I have possessed the body of the owner of this blog in order to speak. Usually she doesn’t know what happened until the article is posted and then she might remember vaguely that she was used for my purposes, but in this case I don’t think she’ll mind.
     In fact, she has barely been using this blog at all so she shouldn’t mind. The truth is she hasn’t had anything to write about lately, nothing is personally troubling or upsetting to her which is usually what inspires her poems, her various relationships are all pretty much in good standing and life’s pretty good, so she hasn’t had anything to complain about. She writes for the paper, and she has her Facebook presence for her artwork, and she keeps busy doing other things like gardening and playing music so her blog suffers. Not that a blog has feelings, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t care whether it gets posted to. All this to say that I don’t think it matters that I am now usurping it in order to do my entity thing and tell you all the truth as I see it.
     And I see the truth from a different perspective than humans — because I am an entity I have the ability to go anywhere without the burden of the time concept and I can be in many dimensions simultaneously, all of them actually. This doesn’t mean I think I’m better then a human, it’s just that I remember what you forgot…in fact a day will come when you will all realize that you have this talent as well, but for now I know I have it and I’m going to share it with you. Essentially so you have the opportunity to evolve because currently, it’s not looking good on the evolution front for the humans. Or for many of their animal companions and fellow wild creatures and other living things on Earth, which is itself living and will continue to live, but quite possibly without you.
     See, the humans are still living in the dark. And because of this they have an insatiable need for light. Humans are capable of projecting their desires onto things that look like the real thing, but are actually a false thing.
     You’ll notice that most evolutionary rhetoric has to do with the word light:
“Seek enlightenment”
“Illuminate me”
“Love and Light”
“Come to the light”
“The darkest hour is before the dawn”
“Let there be light”
etc.
     And humans are all seeking that light, and looking for it so hard that they are completely blind by how bright it actually is all the time. And so, in their infinite capacity to look right past the obvious, they misplace what light actually is for something else. Something THEY created, a construct, a made up thing, they call it a Light Bulb, and in order to keep that thing shining, giving them the illusion of light, they created something else and they called it Power and they plugged into it and that’s pretty much when they completely forgot who they are. I say they because I hate to offend YOU in case you actually remember, but I do mean YOU.
     To the humans, power is a drug. I don’t think I need to explain exactly how you are all addicted. But you are so addicted that you have forgotten how to survive on the most basic of levels. Because the Earth is a garden you know, and gardens need tending, or at least basic understanding of what is food and what isn’t. And that’s important because when you become unplugged — and you will the time is coming for that, and soon — knowing about that tending will become far more important than any light bulb or plug in options.
     Yes, it’s ironic that I am usurping a plug in option right now in order to say what I have to say, laughably ironic, no doubt, but that’s the great thing, we entities can take what went wrong and use it for good, and all of you humans can do that too. You can use what you have now in order to prepare for what will be, and I strongly caution you to do that now, while you still can.
     I’ll leave you with those thoughts for now, but I will be back. Back to talk about specifics, I realize this article was a tad general and perhaps vague, but rather than bombard you with my opinion on how things should and shouldn’t be, I wanted to give you an opportunity to think about your own addictions, and why the humans have fallen to a level of complete complacency about this very dire situation. And what are you going to do about it? Think about it…I’ll be back.
Signing off,
Cat of Arc

Wedding Day

Self Portrait - Wedding Day Valentine's Day 1980

A nervous smile paints her face

Her hand grabs the folds

Of satin and lace

Dreams

Dreams

Of unicorns and white steeds

How much you thought you knew

Once upon a time

Dusted, rusted and yellowed

A photo in a box

Claire Claire Claire de lune

Riddle

Deep in the cave

In the hollow empty places

Stagnant air caresses the skin,

A thousand velvet tongues.

How long have …

It doesn’t matter, can’t remember.

Hands mingle with a shape

A box … a secret … rusted shut,

A key … washed away

Sometime long, long ago

In a tide of floods passed?

There is a path, a way out

But once this room is abandoned,

The secret may be lost forever

Is it worth it to stay

When tongues turn to flame?

Listen

Oh Listen to the cold wind howl

Through canyons of your shredded heart

Where branches rip the tangled soul

And lay you naked, bare

As wolves devour you whole inside

Just listen to the echoes there

(She’s gone, … gone) through canyons, wide

Submerged in silent grief

Where kindness kisses drip like tears

lift frozen wings on tufts of air

through inner walls that hold up mirrors

Tears flow from you to me

Yes wings, as Virgil’s guiding hand

Will keep you on the path through hell

Where labyrinths are sinking sands

And eyes, averted, blind you

But there, where tears and soul combine

The maze's path reveals a light

As river flows join ocean wine

You stand upon the edge

Oh listen to the ebb and tide

As ever passing winds subside

You watch the tears beside your guide

Where grief flows to the sea

Oh, be the tide, and be the wind

The blind, the guide, the tears, the slain,

Yes, be the kindness and the sin

On melted wings, fly free.

©2010 Cat Vibert

Wachet Auf

Breathe with me now and then awaken

(...)

Repeat:

There are no gods, there are only metaphors

(There are no gods, there are only metaphors)

Stories of adventures of gods on earth are metaphors

(Stories of adventures of gods on earth are metaphors)

Fairy Tales are metaphors

(Fairy Tales are metaphors)

There are no soul mates, there are only compatible or incompatible significant others

(There are no soul mates, there are only compatible or incompatible significant others)

The soul mate idea is a Fairy Tale

(The soul mate idea is a Fairy Tale)

True love is an earned state after a long period of trial and interaction

(True love is an earned state after a long period of trial and interaction)

Riding off into the sunset is a Fairy Tale

(Riding off into the sunset is a Fairy Tale)

No one will save you except you

(No one will save me except me)

Compassion and kindness are human qualities to nurture

(Compassion and kindness are human qualities to nurture)

Established personal boundaries are to be respected

(Established personal boundaries are to be respected)

Listen and observe rather than push forward an agenda

(Listen and observe rather than push forward an agenda)

It is not kind or compassionate to disrespect established personal boundaries

(But…)

No buts, you simply can not force love, friendship, religion or belief upon anyone

(But then I’ll be spiritually bereft and will have nothing to hang on to)

Belief in Fairy Tales and Illusions tends to end badly

(But it’s all I have to sustain me!)

Try this, fall in love with Earth, seasons, the mystery of coincidence, earn romantic love with another through long periods of trial and interactions, listen, connect face to face with neighbors, witness whatever you can witness and without judgement, all this is happening now with no illusions, breathe and tap into that, reality is enough, now breathe and awaken.

(…)

Stalkers and Why They Suck

Since this is my resurrected writing blog and I haven’t really advertised it yet, that I’m doing this, I’d like to discuss something that makes me very uncomfortable; stalking.Yes folks, it’s a rant. I’m writing this up for two reasons, one, for the record, and two, I’m curious how you would deal with such an annoying and unwelcome situation. My desperate stalker has resurfaced and refuses to stop making attempts via email to communicate with me and to continue to suggest that “we be friends”. Some background, I dated him in the late 90s for a few months until it was evident that he was not someone I wanted to be dating, and so I stopped. That was when the stalking started. He wrote to me many times a day at first, so I had his email blocked. That’s when he started writing from different email addresses. Every time I’d block one, he’d make a new one. And then I changed my email, but he did a ‘whois’ search and discovered my new one. Every email uses my name as the subject heading. One day after deciding that I wasn’t reading his letters, since I wasn’t responding to them, he sent some 60 odd emails with the letter typed into the subject headings. At this point I contacted the police, and an officer came over and gave him a call and asked him not to bug me anymore, that I didn’t want further contact with him. The officer told me that without some kind of threat of violence in the emails, there was nothing that could really be done. It was just an annoyance and I’d have to learn to deal with it unless I got a restraining order. The officer also warned that restraining orders can have untoward effects by potentially causing him to become enraged and violent, so advised I be very careful before I decided to go that route. (Once when being interviewed as a juror for a stalking case, I was chided by a judge for not getting that restraining order. I didn’t get selected due to obvious bias against stalking…).

The officer’s call had no effect on his behavior, he continued to pursue me via email. When I got back together with a former boyfriend a few months down the line, my very alpha boyfriend wrote to him and tried to use common sense and reasoning (intermingled with a ‘she’s mine’ attitude) to get him to stop bugging me. That worked for a while, I think it helped that stalker-dude knew I was with someone else and no longer available. However, that only lasted for a year or so and after that, I have continued to get letters from him a couple of times a year every year since, and it is now 11 years. It tapered off for a while, but after I started keeping a blog, he started writing again, speaking on points he'd read about in my blog. He wrote to me last year, pleading for friendship, saying how much he missed me, etc. and you may recall that I called him out on my blog and clearly restated my boundaries in public for all the world to see. Many of you spoke to him via the comment section, and I thank you for supporting me there. He saw it, wrote me a letter saying my post was ‘creepy’ and ‘goodbye’. Since then, he wrote again a few months ago, again pleading for friendship and speaking idealistically. I didn’t answer that one. 

He wrote to me again last week, again pleading for friendship. I wrote him back this time, again restating my boundaries. He again wrote back and called me an asshole. He also stated, ‘I know more about you than you would feel comfortable discussing.’ I wrote him again and stated that since our interactions — when I choose to interact — always end up in him calling me names, why can’t he just have mercy on both of us and leave me alone forever! He wrote back and said he didn’t read my email. I left it at that, and now I’m writing this on my blog. I’ve saved all the emails since 2007 as evidence should it come to that.

The thing is, if you Google how to handle cyberstalkers, you will get a long list of how to get your information offline from every possible place. The problem is, if you have a website, your information is public via a ‘whois’ search. He knows this trick well, I learned that 11 years ago. I have a very public online persona, and I simply can’t afford to be offline as a businesswoman. The internet is a powerful marketing tool, and I want people who are interested in my art or writing to be able to find me, which means the stalker can find me, and that is really a problem. The laws about what to do about the stalkers themselves, those are horribly out of date. This Internet universe is still relatively new, and it takes a long long time for laws to be made and enforced. Especially laws that cross state lines. But no one should have to put up with this kind of harassment from anyone! And yet this kind of harassment exists, and it leaves the victims feeling helpless, violated, and a very unpleasant shroud of fear to interact normally with people. That fear extends beyond the internet, as I gotta tell you from experience folks. Although I do think I handle it pretty well, I notice the tendrils of mistrust that worm their way into my life as a result of this harasser’s very unwelcome attempts to communicate. There is the option of a civil suit, but frankly I don’t have time or money to engage in a civil suit. Nor do I want the ‘opportunity’ to have to be anywhere at all near this guy. All I really want is for the whole thing to just go away. There are reasons for good clear boundaries, and anyone who violates a clear boundary that you have made, the circle of protection that you have placed around yourself, is essentially committing a crime of the spirit.

Catvibe's Writing Place Resurrected With New Name

Well friends, I am resurrecting this blog as a place to dump all my word combinations.  It just wasn't working for me to write freely as I wanted to over at the other place, so I made that other site strictly an art site, and this is where I'll write stuff.  Capeesh?  I don't have anything to write at the moment, but at least I have the home.  Those who have been here in the past may have noticed  I changed the name of the blog.  The last name was created in anticipation of my travels in 2007, and that's just not happening these days.  This name is inspired by a T-shirt I have which is a cat sitting in front of his catbox, with his little piles of poo all neatly arranged and the sand perfectly raked into little hills. The cation is 'zencat'.  It's just, just so...well you know, perfect. 

See you soon with something better than this to read.  I promise.

A New Blog for a Different Time

Dear Friends, this is my last post at Witnessing a World of People and Places. This blog has been a rich and amazing experience, and although I set it up initially to keep my family and friends informed of my travels, it has become something far richer. However, I'm not traveling much these days, in fact I'm lucky if I make it out of my house, so the title doesn't really fit anymore. Now, I've begun a new business as an artist, and I wanted to make my blog fit my life as it is now, so I've moved. Please come to my new house, I can't wait to see you and serve you up some eye candy for the soul! I will be updating all of your links onto my page in the next couple of days. Yes, I know Sarah's blog is on there now. She's been giving me the visual A-OK! Nothing like having a little help from your friends!

Please update your links to www.catvibe.net/blog.

Love to all,
Cat

Headless Buddha gets selected for show!

Dear Friends, I am very excited to announced that my Headless Buddha with Blue Moon and Orchid was selected by a juror to be in a very intimate and competitive art show at Grace Community Church in Mills River, NC. It's the first time my art has ever been in a show, and I'm so excited and honored to have my work selected. The opening is Saturday night from 7:30 to 9:30 and is open to the public.

I am taking a blogging haitus for the remainder of November. I'm writing a novel as a participant in the NaNoWriMo.org annual writer's contest. The only way to win is to get to 50,000 words by the end of the month. I'm a few days in and at 9300 words, so I'm plodding along.

In addition, I'm also taking a class and learning how to use Wordpress software to have an online store for my prints. I intend to have this up and running by the beginning of December. I am taking pre-orders for the above Headless Buddha prints. If you are interested in ordering one or more of these prints, which look beautiful when printed on textured fine art paper, please email me at cat@catvibe.com. I will also be offering others, but I haven't tested the printability of all of them yet. Do let me know if you have interest in any other images on my blog, and I will test and see how well they print. For instance, the Headless Buddha and New Moon doesn't print so well. Calibration is key! I'm working out the kinks.

In any case, I am so grateful for all of your ongoing support. You must know how much each and every one of you mean to me. I cyberhug you now. Did you feel it?