Lately I have been feeling a bit like an accumulation of flesh wandering through this spacecraft of substance called Earth.

Lacking human connection or connection to anything.

This is not typical for me.  And it’s been freaking me out.

I used to feel differently – somehow spiritually connected to the plants, animals, oceans and humans surrounding me.

I’ve been deeply questioning the whole meaning of my life and purpose on this planet…mostly convinced that none of it matters in the least, overcome by nihilist through and the influence of others…. but still seeking some kind of answer to these unfamiliar feelings.

As strange as it may seem…  I feel like I got an answer…

My older brother’s life as a human was ended nearly 7 years ago. I think about him every day, for the most part, and while time heals all wounds – time also has no limit.

In the past few days, he has been coming up in multiple unrelated conversations. This is really not so normal. People who knew him generally avoid talking about him, for my own sake and for theirs. The ones who usually bring him up, do so unknowingly. Often it’s acquaintances, who become immediately embarrassed and uncomfortable when they dare to ask the common question regarding siblings and I choose to divulge that what was once four is now three. So sometimes I lie.

So now I’m undecided if I have created this occurrence today or if it is real – or if both are possible at the same time- but in this moment it feels so very real.

7 years ago this now abandoned house was full of laughter, kimchi, homemade sauerkraut, home grown dreadlocks, yoga, craft beer and many herbal concoctions. We all worked as apprentices on an organic farm a few miles away- and this place was known as the “[in] Terny house”, the term coined by a favorite farm worker Brian, who was a common figure in life on the farm- he lived in a group home and worked as a cart boy at Aldis Grocery, his life long dream job.

We lived here for free as compensation for hard work on Maysies Farm and Conservation Center. For me, it was the best of times that soon became the worst of times. I made lifelong friends in Andy and Libby (wherever you are) and I learned more about life and myself than I honestly ever wanted to. After the long wet farm season of 2009 came to a close, I asked if I could stay living in the Terny House, while the other farm workers would move on to other farms or different jobs.

Today, I was driving near the Terny House and something told me to go take a look around. It’s now an abandoned house on a few hundred acres of property, fenced off and boarded up with grass more than kneehigh. I have driven past it multiple times in the almost 7 years that he’s been gone but today I just needed to see- to walk back to the sacred spot I used to dance in the woods crying in hysterics- because I didn’t know what else to do. There was nothing else to do.

I held powa ceremonies for him and read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying out loud to myself- in an attempt to be convinced that detachment from it all would make my heart hurt less. This was the same place where we exchanged our last text messages- fighting as brothers and sisters sometimes do. Also the last place he helped me relocate, bringing my bed and belongings when I first moved in. This is the place where I had to learn one of life’s hardest lesson – of loss and being lost.

Today I needed to be there – for now, in this moment, I will say he brought me there.

He told me to keep walking where there was once a foot path and now is a deer path –

I think he needed me to give him space to show me that we are still connected, and energy really doesn’t even go away.

This time we have on this earth is not isolated or contained it is a continuum. While we engage in senseless activities happening throughout the world there must be something greater- perhaps much simpler than we have imagined.

This house holds so many emotions in its falling down walls and rotted out steps. The kind of emotions that are easy to remember, an unwelcome but familiar pain.

Like the look on Paul’s face when I came home for the first time after hearing the news- feeling like a hollow shell of my self as I awkwardly and tearfully accepted his condolences.

No one ever knows what to say.