No. Please don’t go. You don’t know how dark it will be down inside that hole. No. Don’t go away. There are those who walk & talk but inside they are not the same.
You don’t know. You’ve not seen eyes where nothing there behind them lies. Reflecting distant galaxies absorbing all your fantasies. Until they leave you all behind.
And you wonder what you did down here alive with all your time.
Because they say hi and they say hi and they say hi and they say hi- That’s what they do, that’s what they do, that’s what they do.
And they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die- They live from you, they live from you, they live from you. And then you sink into the blue.
Like a friend. You follow till you’ve lost yourself around too many bends. Smile. Play pretend. Dance or cry it doesn’t change what happens in the story’s end.
You don’t know. You’ve lived in truth where trees and birds protected you. But in the city there she lies the light of towers in her eyes. She knows what happens in the end.
Did you think you were the first time that she found a funny friend?
Because she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi- That’s what they do, that’s what they do, that’s what they do.
And they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die- They live from you, they live from you, they live from you. And then they sink into the blue.
Faces fade into the black. Words that can’t be taken back. A pact that flows into a hole. Now you know the place where all the dreams that die will go & go.
Because she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi and she’ll say hi- That’s what they do, that’s what they do, that’s what they do.
And they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die, no they won’t die- They live from you, they live from you, they live from you. And then they sink into the blue.
I’m scared because tomorrow an astrological storm begins. It’s in James’s chart, not mine, but those are the worst. My transits tend to play out more internally- I draw a black cloud in my journal- while his involve car chases, explosions & wild animals.
Maybe it will be okay. My current strategy is to try to talk about transits as much as possible before they happen. “By the way James, tomorrow at 2 pm you’ll have an explosive rage transit.” He still feels the energy, but expecting it makes it less likely to be randomly projected at the nearest target (me).
This works well for little moon transits, which only last a few hours and are mostly about feelings anyway. But the upcoming storm is about 8 days long. The sun will ignite an underground river of slut fuel. A couple titans duke it out in the house of sex, death & money. It may be okay. Storms happen all the time. I just try to worry about them as much as possible before hand in case it helps.
As I shared before, I’m currently having a Saturn square Mercury transit. It’s basically shining a spotlight on all the negative thoughts I hold, all the things which bring me down. So while the voices are telling me I suck day and night, the good part is, it’s also giving me a chance to change some of my problematic thinking.
For example, I’d like to retract a blog post I wrote a few days back, expressing my love for the book ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” I’ve decided it’s a crock of shit. And this is after 4 years of devotion. I even put the author on my top ten heroes list.
Cause when it comes down to it, what the book is really saying is suck ass constantly and you’ll have less friction in your relationships. Which is true. But is it a good way to live? Cause all those aspects of yourself you suppress just pile up behind you like ghosts. Eventually they cause problems of their own. Suppression of self is an emergency measure to use when kidnapped- it shouldn’t be a long term marriage strategy. It can’t be the ideal.
Although things are going pretty well with James. We found a new hobby. Watching movies. In the theater, where popcorn is $5 but refills & melted butter are unlimited. It’s the best thing ever. I like it when he chooses the movie so I am immersed in a world of foreign, exotic energies.
Not to sound schizophrenic, but it really feels like these movies are being handcrafted by God and filled with special messages just for me. I learn so much about astrology, the future, men, myself and everything really. It’s great.
2. The Black Phone. This perfectly expressed the third decan of Pisces we are now in. A time when people must be willing to confront the darkness and finally gather courage to stand and fight.
3. Jurassic Park. Traumatic. People getting eaten triggers me. I ran out of the theater crying, but James used logic to calm me down. He said the dinosaurs were CGI and not puppets. Therefore it would be impossible for them to eat anyone. He also explained that watching bad guys get eaten is good for men’s testicles. (I’m paraphrasing.) So I returned to my seat and watched the rest of the movie. It made me feel tough actually, and getting tough in preparation for 2024 is one of my goals.
4. Elvis. A beautiful movie. I didn’t get to extract its meaning though, cause at the end when I was crying and letting it all sink in James began whispering in my ear all the clues that Elvis was gay. I felt his theory held water but the mental processing erased the movie’s emotional impact on me. Using intellect to dry up emotion is the gift and curse of Virgo.
(Warning, this post is about astrology. If you have no interest in the subject, as I hope most of my readers won’t, please skip ahead.)
It has been challenging to communicate recently. I am back in that state of writing songs & posts but not publishing them cause everything that comes out of my mouth seems so dumb.
Of course, this is nothing to worry about, just the natural result of Saturn squaring Mercury.
So allow with me to share with you my best tips so far for dealing with Saturn transits.
1. Recognize what is happening. During a Saturn transit a gray/brown cloud hangs over your head causing your brain to fill with critical & gloomy thoughts. But these thoughts aren’t real. They are just your brain’s way of trying to make sense of a heavy presence.
Once you realize you are being touched by a spirit and gloomy thoughts are simply your intellect’s attempt to translate this energy, the negativity should start to lose its grip on you. After all, you aren’t really depressed, you are just in the presence of a depressed spirit.
2. Now you need a way to metabolize the energy so it won’t continue hanging over your head. I know 2 basic techniques..
A) Take up a Saturnine activity that appeals to you. Study history or geology. Collect antiques. Find ways to be more pretentious and condescending. Run for office. (This is what I did when my transit began, but I lost the primary.) Attend funerals. But don’t cry. Think dry. Pompous. Boring. Heavy. Old. Historical. And fibrous.
B) Alternately you can double down on your life’s purpose. Saturn is all about earning a place in society (preferably a high one) through your contributions. So remove distractions from your life and refocus efforts on what matters most.
But do use your third eye to peer down the road a bit- are you building something that will bring you security and respect in your elder years? Or are you walking a dead end path? Do you own the fruits of your labor? Or can the rug be pulled out from beneath you at any time?
If, for example, you are working in your brother’s lemonade stand, this would be a great time to begin working towards a stand of your own. Or at least to find ways to hedge yourself against the vagaries of the future. Saturn is not just about the past- he also looks forward to see which of his efforts will endure and accumulate. These are the pursuits he wants to spend time on.
And lastly you must lower your expectations. Temporarily. During a Saturn transit you are wading through mud, so if you expect progress at your normal speed, you may be discouraged. Move slower than usual if you must, but don’t stop. The strength you gain while pushing through mud will serve you well once the transit lifts. Then you will feel you are walking on air.
Me during the Saturn-Mercury conjunction. Or was it Saturn-Sun? At any rate, I felt so bad about myself this was the closest up picture I would allow James to take.
Have you read “Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus”? It is insane. The author describes my conversations with James word for word. He states the exact words I am hoping James will say, then the exact words James says instead, and explains the reason for the disconnect. It’s incredible.
I was going to share some muggets I learned, but decided I must first read it over and over, every day for an hour or so, until it becomes a part of me. The principles make so much sense while reading, but in real life you get lost figuring out how to apply them. I just need to simmer in this wisdom until it becomes part of my bones.
The basic gist though is don’t wear yourself out doing nice things for men. They don’t like this because it reminds them of their mother. What a man really needs is:
A) Permission to be emotionally unavailable so he can do man things, like think about problems. Men go into robot state to recharge and they must fully recharge before they are capable of bonding.
B) Approval and acknowledgment. But this doesn’t have to be as exhausting as it sounds. Think of the man as a robot. He only needs a straightforward acknowledgment of tasks completed and problems solved. “Thank you for taking out the trash.” No goo, no frills.
The most important mecret though is that men hate criticism. And they hear criticisms in statements which females would find loving. Because their core insecurity, is “Am I powerful? Am I capable? Am I being viewed as powerful and capable?” Females, on the other hand, are wondering “Am I lovable? Am I loved? Do I have care and support?”
For this reason, females love it if someone offers to help them. They share ideas and advice as a form of affection. They like being fussed over. Offering a man help, advice or fussiness, however, can easily be construed as an insult. You are telling him he is a pathetic little boy who can’t do anything right without mommy’s help.
So never offer to help men. Don’t give advice or suggestions, unless they ask. (When men DO ask for advice, however, this means they truly want it, whereas females may ask for advice when they are actually seeking care and affection.) And avoid criticism as much as humanly possible.
Now I’m still not 100% sure what you are supposed to do in cases where you are riding bucket seat in a car that a man is driving off a cliff. Is there some way you can suggest he turn left that won’t mortally offend him and cause him to press the accelerator harder? I can only hope multiple readings of this book will reveal the answers to me.
Still, the good news is- give less. Save your care for yourself. When you make yourself happy, that will make your man happy too, since he will take credit for your happiness. Likewise, when you are unhappy, men take credit for that. Hence, the expression of natural emotions like sadness and anger can be construed as insults by a man. Your tears may be telling him that he sucks as a husband and you wish you had married the neighbor.
This is the other tricky part. Females thrive on expressing the full range of emotions. If we emit happiness all the time, we become frayed and brittle. Negative emotions are our healing waters, where we go to regenerate. They give us depth and wisdom. But to men, they are threatening. And an insult to their competence as husband.
Women talk about negative feelings to heal and create bonds. Men don’t do this. If they express negative emotions, it means they are trying to attack or blame someone. So when they see women being negative, they feel attacked. And they counter-attack. Then women go into shock because they don’t understand why they are getting attacked when they were looking for love and bonding. Degeneration begins.
Now, the book says that if men can truly understand that expressing negative feelings is part of female nature- and not intended as an assault- they can gradually restrain their defensive impulses. They can learn to just listen and even say things like hmmmm, oh really? and tell me more. Then they discover that by simply listening, the female’s negative feelings magically transform into positive feelings, including love and appreciation for the listener. This gives men the sense of accomplishment they crave.
So the real challenge lies in convincing men not to be threatened by female style expression. How to do this though, when there is no chance men will read relationship books themselves? * I don’t know, but it must be done. Cause even if a female does everything right- gives space, appreciation, zero criticism etc- if she can’t express the full range of feelings there is no chance she will feel satisfied. She will either pop or fade away, and the man will be left with the very sense of failure he was trying to avoid.
A picture James took of his fingers. This is supposed to reveal something about his manhood. Isn’t it fascinating how we are basically living with a foreign species yet go through life imagining we inhabit the same reality?
Male and female. Living in happy harmony. (Slippers has a shaved leg since she had an operation for a sports injury. The truth is, I am afraid she got the injury from Patton humping her. Something for which I feel a lot of guilt. It was so easy to train Slippers that I didn’t realize what a challenge Patton would be. But I think he has been successfully trained out of this and she is recovering well.)
* I just read this to James and he said you could get men to do this by simply explaining it to them. However, you may need to be patient and remind them over and over that you only need them to listen until they are able to retrain their defensive reflexes.
Republicans tend to extol the virtues of self-reliance and self-interest. To believe their responsibility is primarily- sometimes exclusively- to their family and close friends. This is a practical approach to life. It’s more sensible to focus on being a good provider than to try and Save Africa. Growing your own business is likely to produce more prosperity for the world than giving to charity.
And yet there is also an opposing principle on which the survival of humanity depends. Sacrifice. We are only here due to the sacrifices of those who came before us. Their willingness to use their life or lay down their life for people they would never know. Their willingness to allow their family to experience hardship for the good of the collective.
When greed and focus on me and mine becomes too strong and a spirit of sacrifice too weak, humans are vulnerable. No one steps up to combat threats. Instead they focus on minimizing damage to themselves and their families. And so the threats grow increasingly stronger until protecting oneself and one’s family becomes impossible. Everyone must be willing to risk something for the collective or none of us survive.
We’ve seen a lot of this selfishness in recent years when too few wanted to stand up to the mobs because it wasn’t in their self interest to do so. No one wants to lose their job, their friends, get yelled at. And so the mobs, the insanity, the bad things grow stronger and stronger, hurting all of us. In coming years this will continue. Unless we can muster a sense of devotion to the higher good, unless we take risks for the collective, we WILL be overtaken by tyranny. Selfishness leads to mass death.
But sacrifice is not only essential for survival- it is part of what makes life worthwhile. It opens the spirit to everything transcendent and beautiful. To make a God of one’s own survival…. there is something grotesque about it. It traps us in a world of meat. Only through giving our life away does our existence begin to take on meaning.
This is the story of Jesus whose symbol- like Pisces- is a fish. When he sacrifices his life out of love for humanity, he gains life eternal. His suffering is temporary but his joy is permanent. Because really we are already eternal beings stretched beyond death, but until we care about something more than ourselves we remain unaware of this. Even when you place your family’s survival above all else, what are you teaching them? That the purpose of life is to survive? Then life must have no purpose, because they won’t.
Sacrifice opens us up to receive from higher realms. We grow inspired, uplifted, empowered. We have two more years of Neptune in Pisces. We must use this time. If you believe bad things are happening, then stand against them. Do not simply try to minimize the impact on your own self. Unless we love the collective and risk ourselves for those we will never know, we all fall down. Don’t save your own hide at someone else’s expense. Instead take a bullet for an unknown brother.
P.S. Love of one’s own life is a beautiful red flame and without it nothing else is possible. To survive is the first law of the jungle, a religion I subscribe to. Unless one values survival, risking it has no meaning. Unless one cherishes their own life, they can’t develop that love for the multitude which opens the gates to heaven.
First the sound of laughing. Life is all around. I lie. Close my eyes again and I Feel it falling down. I fly.
I can see behind me. I see you. I remember then when you Were my only blue.
All the waves come crashing To my mind that’s how it goes. I was stationed like a pool. You were free to go.
Falling down into me Now I can’t explain why I’m Reaching out to touch your face Touch me back and then I fly.
Hover in the air to watch you there. You were getting bored the more that I tried. And my arms blew all around you like a storm and nothing more. You stayed inside.
Raining down again I try To remember all you said. But the pieces never fit Piling up inside my head.
Close my eyes again and I I see you. Take me back again to when You’re my only blue.
I feel like the group mind is my retarded little brother. He’s so SSSSLLLLLOOOWWWW. A fire breaks out and four years later he shows up with his extinguisher. But now storm clouds are approaching. Hey Retard- LOOK! Do you see that?!?
No, he doesn’t. He’s too busy rolling around on the floor, whacking off to the idea of himself as a fireman.
He’s never any help in the moment. But once the battle is over you can bet he’ll show up on the field to take selfies, then whack off to the idea of himself as a soldier.
Like now, what are people talking about? They are still responding to concepts like ‘toxic masculinity’ ‘believe all women.’ They are still calling people snowflakes. All moments that have passed! (I am making strangling movements with my hands while thinking about this cause it frustrates me so much.) Meanwhile they ignore the threats which are clear and present.
Snowflakes. I got called a snowflake today for the fact that- personally- I find the Heard trial triggering. I find it triggering that she owes 10 million for an op-ed. I find it triggering that people are treating her like a piece of shit when- for all they know- she actually was abused.
Really I should take it as a compliment because I do plan to be a snowflake in years to come. Snowflakes are exactly what we’ll need in the fiery, insensitive days that lie ahead. I claim a right to my own feelings and a right to express them regardless of whether or not they are the feelings someone else believes I should have.
The snowflake phenomenon was only in play during the latter half of the 2010s decade when Neptune was in the second decan of Pisces, which turns people into whiny entitled babies. The problem with those snowflakes is they weren’t real snowflakes. They were bullies in snowflake disguise. Neptune represents what people try to *appear* to be, what they see as ideal, not necessarily what they are.
So the problem with snowflakes circa 2019 is they weren’t really sensitive, they just used concepts like empathy and sensitivity as an excuse to bully others. I guess the overly self-indulgent attitude was a problem as well. Micro-traumas demanded staying home from work to binge watch tv while wearing face masks. But you can guarantee that will be ending soon.
Likewise, the anti-male sentiment people are now reacting too is also in the rearview mirror. It has been for a while. In the past couple years, women have been the main target under group mind attack. Karens. Amy Cooper. Ashli Babbitt. Men in women’s sports and restrooms. Men debating whether or not women have the right to live if it would require an abortion. People saying dumb shit like female on male violence is a serious problem as the Taliban forces women back into their homes. Please don’t hurt me retarded brother. I know the words of 2019 are still ringing in your ears. But I’m not attempting to mount men and force them into eternal submission. Just saying what appears to be true. Men need to finish licking paper cuts which are four years old and move into the current moment. It’s embarrassing.
So what’s coming up? Fire. Aggression. Anger. Athletes. Soldiers. Action. No more laziness. No more philosophical discussions. Dogs. We will all become dogs. But hard dogs, street dogs, dogs that have no owners to soften them.
So I am preparing for my usual position of opposing the group mind as it moves around the zodiac. I plan to become more sensitive. Start taking bubble baths. Float around in them for hours while drooling on myself as tears pour from my eyes.
In case you would like to read more about this from an astrology perspective…
I have to say though- sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night panicking, because in all these years Neptune has been travelling through Pisces I have done nothing but talk smack about it. The truth is Pisces has a lot to offer but every time I try to write something positive about it I suddenly become too lazy to move. So I don’t know what to do about it.
Good things have come from these years though. Things I am only now beginning to appreciate as our Pisces time is drawing to a close. I just saw the movie Top Gun- which I feel accurately captures the values & perspective of Neptune in Aries. I am afraid I won’t cut it in this vigorous new world.
(Hi- this is Julien from the future dropping in to tell you I just wrote a post explaining one of the gifts- sacrifice- that can be gained from Neptune’s transit through Pisces.)
Ugh. This Depp/Heard trial is triggering me in too many ways. I don’t know where to begin.
1. It is scary that most people chanting “AMBER TURD!!!! AMBER TURD!!!!” know little to nothing about the facts of the case but are still eager to see Heard’s downfall.
People are acting like this is a pushback against #metoo when really it is the exact same thing. Someone makes a claim and ignorant monkeys go wild, chanting for blood. The fact that it is a man making a claim that a woman lied & abused him makes it no different. Same ole mob justice as before.
2. It is scary that Heard is on trial simply for writing a short op-ed stating that it is dangerous to oppose powerful men because they will make you pay. One in which Depp is not directly mentioned, nor abuse detailed.
In her words “Imagine a powerful man as a ship, like the Titanic. That ship is a huge enterprise. When it strikes an iceberg, there are a lot of people on board desperate to patch up holes — not because they believe in or even care about the ship, but because their own fates depend on the enterprise.”
So if Heard- who does in fact have a mountain of evidence to show Depp was violent- is not even allowed to make a passing mention of abuse and now owes Depp ten million for doing so- what does this mean for the rest of us? Are we allowed to speak about our lives or not?
This is a tricky subject because I realize people can lie and in most cases there is no way for bystanders to know the truth one way or another. But just as ‘believe all women’ does not seem like an appropriate solution ‘severely punish anyone who claims abuse’ doesn’t seem quite right either.
3. It is scary how people are using this to push the narrative “Women batter men all the time but the men are just too shy to come forward.”
In this corner of space time we currently inhabit, it would be very, very hard for almost any woman to batter her husband. I don’t know if people are ignorant as to physical differences between genders or simply feigning ignorance. Sometimes I wish men could be placed in cages with apes, left to fight them, and then tell me that strength does not matter when it comes to beating your spouse.
And it isn’t just strength, bone density, quicker reflexes etc- men are simply more aggressive & likely to commit violent crimes. Since this pattern holds true throughout all cultures and historical periods, we can safely assume it applies in the domestic realm as well. And I do not mean this in an insulting way, but simply assume it is a reflection of their role as warriors of the species.
What’s more, the idea that men are ‘too shy’ to come forward is ridiculous. Claiming to be the victim is the first move many abusive males make. I have read that most men claiming to be the victims of domestic violence are in fact the perpetrators themselves.
4. It is also annoying how people brush to the side that he was older, richer, more powerful, constantly on his own turf surrounded by employees, body guards & security staff. He was a king on his throne who could throw hissies as he wished. To accept that he was dominated by Heard- who was 22 when they met- seems close to believing that Clinton was sexually abused by that gold digging hussy Monica.
5. Heard is constantly being held to conflicting standards. When she videotapes Depp smashing things, that proves she is abusive. (Who would videotape their husband? She is obviously The Abuser!!) When she doesn’t, she is lying. (If this happened, why didn’t she record it? She is The Abuser!)
When she photographs bruises, she is guilty. (Who would do a photoshoot after being attacked? She is The Abuser!) When she doesn’t, she is guilty. (If he had hurt her, there would be photos! She is The Abuser!!!)
When she doesn’t cry her expressionless face proves she is the abuser. When she does cry her ‘fake’ tears prove she is the abuser. Literally whatever she does or doesn’t do becomes the evidence against her.
***
Men on social media keep asking why I care about this dumb trial. It is too petty to be worthy of serious consideration they say. But to me, it strikes at something core to the female experience. For men, dangers occur mostly in the public sphere where they can be seen, talked about and taken seriously. For women, dangers mostly occur behind closed doors, coming from people they love, whose reputations they are honor bound to protect. In a sense, females live much of their life in a veiled world which it is considered unseemly to discuss, for that would be “airing dirty laundry.”
And I don’t know what the solution is. People do need a private life and people to witness their dark side without exposing it to the world.
On the other hand, this arrangement frequently places women in danger which they are not allowed to talk about. They can’t seek support. (Unless they are willing to abandon their life & live like a refuge in a flea infested shelter.)
Not only are they deprived of the emotional comfort that comes from being able to share pain and stories, they are also unable to learn from each other’s experiences.
I’m always encouraging the females I know to write about their experiences with men and publish them. Anonymously if needed. The goal is not to take men down. But we desperately need more light to shine on how females experience life with men behind closed doors. I truly feel that more women sharing their stories could change the world. At least the world females inhabit. A world which may be too petty for men to even think about.
P.S. One more thing that bugs me about this trial is people freaking out about Heard admitting to slapping Depp. “She just admitted she was the abuser!” said a youtube lawyer. “Case closed!!!”
For starters- once again, in this physical reality a female hitting a male is pretty much a non-event. Females probably experience more pain than that during sex, unless the man’s dick is really small, yet we still manage to smile and enjoy ourselves.
Secondly, if displaying any bad behavior makes one “The Abuser” then we are all “The Abuser.” To me, domestic abuse refers to a pattern of using physical violence, threats, control of resources, etc to dominate your partner and place them in fear of you. It is crystal clear Heard did not hold this position relative to Depp.
And finally, I would like to say that I don’t really like words such as “The Abuser” and “Survivor.” Domination and abuse are somewhat woven into the fabric of life. Being on either side of this equation at a given point in time should not become one’s identity. “The Eater.” “The Eaten.” We are all of these things to some extent. I guess we have God to thank for that. I hope he knew what he was doing.
We met Slippers when we were living in a holler. It’s hard to describe how a place can be so dull and so colorful at the same time. Sort of like lifting a rock. First you only see brown then you realize there is life swirling everywhere. Strange creatures and you have no idea what they are doing.
In the world I grew up in, the meaning of life was clear- to be rich and important. But these aren’t the aims of life in a holler. I’m not sure I ever figured out what the aims were. But certainly not to climb a social ladder because such a ladder didn’t exist.
For starters, the majority of people were animals. And even the animals seemed rather stuffy and affected compared to the principle actor- Nature. Nature was top dog. He controlled plants, mountains, creeks and weather. Humans and animals were both second fiddle to him.
Perhaps this gave humans and animals more in common than they have in cities. At any rate, it didn’t feel much different walking down the street with a goat or a random child. Even the conversations were similar. All beings ran the gamut from deadly (copperheads & criminals) to unbearably cute. There were many involved in crime and many who appeared to have stepped right out of a story book. Sometimes they were the same people.
So on any day’s walk you would encounter chickens, goats, a sheep, children, at least one pedophile, horses, a pony and many many dogs. It was the dogs though who would accompany me up and down the road.
When I first met Slippers, her name was Nasty. She lived on the mountain’s side with a teeny dog named Banjo who was mean as anything. Even when Slippers reached 70 pounds, if 5 pound Banjo came after her she would lie on her back screaming while he tried to bite her and I ran around her immobilized body trying to kick him. Banjo’s owner was a 10 year old boy. He would try to kick Banjo as well but we never succeeded. He kept a long hunting knife in his top overall pocket with no sheath. It would keep falling out over and over again and he’d just pick it up and stick it back in.
I’m sorry I was trying to kick a dog but that’s just the way it was there. Little kids carried guns and shot birds. Pedophiles sat on their porch flirting with kids. Dogs raced cars in the street and sometimes lost in a big way. Kids tried to rob you and so did the adults. I was just one more animal trying to protect my own.
Dog ownership in the holler was not the same as suburban dog ownership. Dogs were considered more or less their own people and it was frequently ambiguous who they belonged to. Multiple houses might claim the same dog. They mostly lived outside and roamed freely. No fence, no leash. They ran the holler together in packs. One or more pack would accompany me on my walks. At first I was scared shitless of them. But soon they became the best friends I had. The only friends really.
There were the Peanuts, Bear, Jax, Jack, Lily, Toby, Nasty, Brownie and Dingleberry who would escort me through the holler. And then a few other dogs- like Banjo and Xena- who would just run down from their houses to attack. It was a world where you needed friends.
Eventually Nasty’s ownership transferred to another family though not much changed since she still ran with the pack. They renamed her Pretty Girl. I continued calling her Slippers which was the name I gave her when we first met because she seemed so refined to me.
Pretty Girl’s new family lived down by the creek which during floods would turn into a crazy river. A bridge crossed the creek leading to their house and when floods came the kids- about 3 and 6 years old- would be tied to the bridge so they could enjoy being tossed in the racing flood waters. Until one day the flood pulled the bridge away. After that it was just a couple of planks over a 12 foot drop. People in hollers are not very safety conscious. Pretty Girl’s new dad would stick his hand down a copperhead nest to show us the eggs and pull up poison ivy with bare hands.
So Pretty Girl played in the road like all the dogs did and one day she got hit by a car and couldn’t walk anymore. This was not an uncommon fate. Few dogs there were more than a couple years old. One day James was driving down a major road in the city and found traffic had been stopped because the dog pack had managed to leave the holler and was standing there in the middle of the road. Luckily they knew James and all hopped into his car and he drove them back home.
After getting injured Pretty Girl just rode around on the back of her owner’s tractor. One day James got a really bad feeling that her owner might decide to ‘put her down.’ Pretty Girl’s family foraged in the dumpster for their own food so they didn’t really have the resources for a dog, much less an injured one. He went to their house one night to ask if we could have her but the owner said she had just been picked up by a rescue group. She was given surgery and renamed Bailey. Eventually she went up for adoption so we adopted her and moved her back into the holler.
Her friends were glad she was back. Lily would come over and rap the door with her paw each afternoon wanting to play with her. They’d go out on the back porch and wrestle together. Until one day Lily got kidnapped. She had ‘prestige’ looks so she’d probably been sold for money. I knew who did it too, but didn’t say anything cause Lily probably wouldn’t have lived much longer if she stayed. Her owner went through one dog a year. His last pony had starved to death. People in the holler love getting new puppies and baby animals but once they become adults their incentive to keep them alive isn’t as great.
So now I’d walk Slippers on a leash while her old gang ran wild around her. Generally she didn’t mind except for when they’d spot a deer and then BAM the dogs would fly up that mountain wall and she’d scream to go with them. They didn’t have long to live but it wasn’t a bad life either.
In the holler the people are more like animals and animals are more like people.Slippers greeting Jake. Just like Lily, he would sometimes knock on our door to say hi.Jax following me through snow. I miss him. It hurts to think about him actually.The creek as it was receding from a flood. During rain storms it could get several feet deep above the road and you couldn’t get in or out of the holler.The same creek not after a flood.Nature was #1. Then Animals. Then Humans.Two second class citizens hanging out in Plant World.Goats say hi in the road. They ruled this part of the holler then further down the dogs’ turf began.Some dog pack members. (Bear & Two Peanuts)Dingleberry says hi.Slipper’s home when she was Pretty Girl. Before the bridge got washed away. To the right, you see one of the Peanuts getting ready to race a car. Her passion. She died this way a few months later.
