This here goddess was raised in a military family so YEA I have some mixed feelings when it comes to Memorial Day.  I’m one part free spirit and one part “a loudspeaker bugle reveillere was my alarm clock”.  The duality is certainly becoming more apparent as I age into what I can only assume will be the beloved but weird “Old Healing Lady on the Edge of Town.” 

My Spirit is one of lightness and freedom, it’s expansive and curious. The energy of the military bases I grew up on felt so heavy, rigid, single minded. I’ve lived on beautiful cliffs and hillsides around this amazing world, much of it unceded land ripped from their original stewards at unfathomably high costs. I’m woo af yet here lies this part of me, threads of soldiers and the battlefield.  I’ve consciously and unconsciously tried not to look at that side of me with varying degrees of failure. Denial is a lost cause... but how do I reconcile all the parts of me? Well, I’m working on it, or rather I can feel it working through me. 

On THIS Memorial Day I find myself reflecting with a maternal compassion and sharing in the collective grief and mourning of soldier and military healthcare worker lives lost around the world. I’m making a choice to not focus on the tanks, bullets, greed, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. I give them no power. I’m thinking about people like my brother's dear friend Julian, so young, a being full of potential, who’s story would end on the battlefield if he didn’t have so many people keeping him alive today with Remembrance. I remember the fallen, I feel you, see you, sit with you and tend to you today along with so many others holding a sweet healing space for you.

I saw a vision of the true “soldier” spirit. I see the truth of the ancient, ancestral expression: The Warrior Spirits, Our Soaring Eagles, The Brave Souls who  put their lives in service to the heartbeat of the Village.

We remember you, celebrate and love you. Bright red poppies and a salute to you on this Memorial Day.

Photograph from upper left: My dad, Colonel Paul D. Adams, US Marine Corp veteran/ my brother Stephen Adams, US Air Force veteran/ an early photo of my Dad in uniform/ my aunt, Anjetta Atkins, US Army Nurse Practitioner (Gulf War veteran)/ my cousin, Dr. Chris Atkins, US  Air Force veteran/ Dear family friend Julian Scholten, US Air Force, fallen, but not forgotten.

#memorialday #gonebutnotforgotten #thankyouforyourservice #gratitude #blessings #besoothed