Eco Goats!

If you doubt for a second that Capitol Hill - I mean my neighborhood, NOT Congress - is wonderful, then get a load of this. Congressional Cemetery, a beautiful place for so many reasons, decided to bring in a herd of 60 goats to clear the underbrush on the periphery, close to the Anacostia River. Someone there today said they paid a pretty penny to use the goats, as opposed to the hideous machinery that would normally be used, which would cost half that amount. I salute them!

Here's a link to the Washington Post story about it. Flock of goats? Who wrote that headline?

It was a big story on the news, a barometric reading that indicates just how inert DC is in August. Nothing is happening. Nothing. Hence a story about eco goats gets top billing. What is not to love about that? No news is good news!

As much as I enjoy it, I don't go to the cemetery often because it's not good for me to spend too much time with the dead. A little while is great and respectful, but too much time is not healthy.

The goats brought a ribald life force to the perimeter of the space. There were people and kids there, and a lot of reporters. It was rather fun.

Even so, as I walked away from the cemetery, I took special care to brush the dead away. As usual they were hanging on, grasping my ankles and wrists, wishing to be dragged along. To what end? Oh those dead. I shook my arms and legs, brushed out my energy. I raked through my hair, using my fingers like a comb.

Something about my energy is attractive to ghosts.

When I think back to the days, not that many years ago, when I spent much of my time with the dead, I feel sad. The spirits that stick around after death are either here to provide guidance to the living, or are lost or wandering, and very clingy.

It's the clingy dead I was brushing out of my energy field today. My sense has always been that they think I can help them in some way. I tried. Even after many years of ritual on Civil War battlefields and in cemeteries, I'm not clear I helped even a small increment of the lost and wandering ghosts. The work was grueling and unhealthy. After those rituals, food tasted moldy, I felt weary for days, even weeks after the magic. My dreams were insane. What was I doing?

These days, I wish the dead well. I remind them that any time they want, they can go into the light. Their ancestors are waiting to help them. Ah, but the clingy, wandering dead are like stoners. They can not get it, that liberation is immediate if they want it. They wander. What's it to me?

Fall is still a twinkle in the eye of the weather gods, but already the dead are more apparent.

I love the dead, but for now, I am alive. I choose life, thank you. I choose life. L'chaim.