I spent an hour in the big barn watching the chickens prepare for the night, with Frieda. Peaceful, interesting. Chickens are rarely still, hunting and pecking for bugs, worms, garbage. Sometimes, when its hot, they dig mud and dirt holes for them to bathe in, while Winston stands guard. But when the sun starts to set, they make their way to their roosts, as high as they can get, and they make soft clucking sounds and settle in. It is a peaceful, even spiritual time, like communing with a donkey.

I also had another lesson in Fear Fighting today. In our society, which is driven by fear-mongering profiteers much of the time, you have to have fear fighting tools. When I got divorced, I was one of those people who knew little of their own life, and nothing about money, maybe the name of my bank. That changed, and money has always terrified me. I can rarely bear to look at my bank account. This weekend, I started feeling a lot of the old fear, and it was because I had not looked. I looked today, and it was low, as I feared, and I had to move some money around, like people do all of the time.

As my agent always says, a writer’s life is unpredictable, there is no check every week.  You have to keep an eye on it, and my instincts were good. I had just as much as I thought I did.

So I did what I had to do, and was frustrated by it, and felt better immediately. Fear never makes things better. You cannot run to it, give into it. It lies in wait like some slimy thing and just springs up if you avoid it. So my tool is to face it. To trust myself.  I will look at my bank account at least once a week until it no longer frightens me. It is far less  frightening to know the truth than to run from it.

May have found a naturopathic physician who will be my doctor. I am almost out of the conventional health care system.

Come and see the inner spirits of chickens, coming home to roost: