Secret Life or Hidden Dialogue

Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck Prompts — What is the secret life or hidden dialogue of your cat, dog, fish, or turtle — whatever creature you have at home? Mice? Your old jade plant? That Christmas cactus?

I don't have cats, dogs, fish, or turtles at my house. I am allergic to cats and dogs. My husband is the mouser when field mice make it into the house. He traps them. As for the plants mentioned, I have plants that take the toxins out of the air.

No, I don’t have a jade plant yet. I do currently have two Christmas cacti, though. A friend asked me to transplant his plant into four plants, returning the original planter to him. I did that. Then I gave my daughter one for her office that was flowering, and that left me with two, one to get rid of.

Not sure what the hidden dialogue or secret life of my plants. If they work to get toxins out of the air, that is great. I live in farm country where Roundup is one of the poisons used here.

I’m sure it gets into my house, even though we don’t put it on our field. I hope they are thinking they are great, look good, and are doing a good job of clearing the toxins from the air.

Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck Prompts — Beings are a mystery. What do they want to say, to tell us? Here are some other topics around those entities that inhabit your living space with you:

What they do when I’m not home?

What won’t they tell me even if they could?

Who is the person they see in me?

What are their dreams?

What’s the secret life of your inner animal?

In the Ojibwe language, some words are animate and others are inanimate. My example is that stone is inanimate, and rock is animate. What is the difference? An animate rock has energy. A stone does not. Small children can pick up a rock and then pick up another stone and can feel the difference. I can’t tell the difference, but many others can.

As a child learning Ojibwe, I didn’t understand this. Now I do. So I don’t believe anything is running around in my house when I am gone. I just believe there are more living things in our world than we acknowledge.

I use stones/rocks for an exercise I do with program participants, so I believe there are rocks with energy in some of the rocks I have in my house. Life, in other words.

My Native American name is Red Tailed Fox Running with the Stars. I have interpreted that to mean that I am the fox and all of you are the stars. No matter who I am with or who is reading this. All stars.