The Mist Down the Mountain | Catherine Viel

By Catherine Viel, December 4, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

December 3, 2022

On the day I set out,
the mountain is high in front of me, the unreliable god of mist and fog…
Everything becomes lucid.
~Clifton Gachagua, Mountain



This morning, I’m dealing with another episode of my cat’s wounded stomach. Painful, messy symptoms, multiple veterinary consults, medication injection blessedly provided at home by the mobile vet…Not exactly Wagnerian opera, but in my small world, a tragic epic nonetheless.

I needed to change the channel from dreariness, so I looked out front where the art show called Nature is painting its canvas. We have rain, always miraculous in midst of perpetual California drought. The leaves are still changing, brilliant reds and golds vying with the deep red metallic color of my neighbor’s car. The clouds mist down over the mountains as if blown from above by a vast, gentle breath.

As I’m writing this, looking out the front window, a hummingbird hovers, peers in, darts away, returns. Spirit offers encouragement wherever I look.

*****



Yesterday, motoring through the misty rain to the vet’s in Santa Barbara, I stopped at the Garden Street intersection just past the mission. I felt a warm glow of gratitude, not for the oppression of religion but for the goodheartedness of parishioners.

It drifted through my head that my worrying was useless. That I need to have trust and faith that all will be well and everything is happening exactly as it is meant to. For my cat, for me, for all of us.

A flicker of irritation followed, as it often does. That’s all fine and dandy to say “I need to trust,” but how the heck am I supposed to do that?

Perhaps it was a little miracle from the energy of the mission, trailing after me like a wisp of cloud, but the idea bloomed in my head: like everything else you want, just ask.

So I did. I asked the beings of light to give me trust and faith. And a deep breath followed by preternatural calm flowed through me.

*****



The mobile vet went out of her way to drop off medication yesterday evening. We discussed the cat’s cautiously optimistic progress, his medications, the treatment plan. As she was about to get into her car, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “We will get him through this.”

I thanked her and made my way back into the house. A few moments later I thought again of what she’d said.

We will get him through this. Not, He will get through this. Or, You’ll get him through this. We.

Tears sprang to my eyes. Spirit reminds me in more ways than I can count—the hummingbird, the message from the mission, this magically generous veterinarian—I am never unsupported. All I need to do is ask.

And even if I forget to ask, assistance and support are drifting toward me, subtle as the mist down the mountain, tangible as the generous rain.