She had 14 good years said the vet. He was right. This last year has been a rough one for her.

So yesterday at 3.20 pm Queensland time after a day of park and beach, chicken and way too much bacon, she went. Softly with a chocolate Lindt to help her on her way.

Beloved Bliss,
small one with the great heart,
May the path before you be made of warm sunbeams
and the scent of every tree and ocean wave you ever loved.
May your body be returned to Earth
with gratitude for every step you took beside me,
may your spirit be carried by the gentle ones
who know how to guide souls home.

You were my ground when my world shook.
My witness in grief and repair.
My teacher in presence.
My reminder that love does not need words,
only attention.

Go now, little guardian.
Run beyond pain, beyond age, beyond effort.
Run into the great remembering
where all animals know they are holy,
and all love is instantly recognised.

If you wish, come back as wind on my ankles,
as warmth at my feet in the night,
as the sudden calm in my chest
when I forget to breathe.

You are not lost. Not gone
You are merely translated.

And I, who loved you in form,
release you
with a broken heart
and an unbroken bond.

Walk in beauty, Bliss.
Walk in light.
Walk with the ancestors of fur and feather.
Until we meet again
in whatever shape love takes next. ...

I went to the mountain
that does not explain itself.

Rain stitched the hours together.
Rice paddies breathed in rows,
green as patience.
Coffee arrived like a dark ally—
bitter, grounding, honest.

Silence did not make me small.
It made me precise.

I slept.
Not as escape,
but as recovery.
The body remembering
it is not a machine for endurance
but a drum
that must be rested before it is struck again.

Words came back to me
without apology.
Not the polite ones.
The true ones.
The ones that do not flatter the wound

or negotiate with illusion.

I learned the difference
between spiritual nicety
and depth.

Nicety keeps the peace.
Depth keeps the soul.

Nicety smiles platitudes easing the well lit self involved
Depth stays, uncomfortable on the ego even when the cost is love.
The island smiled
Not everything sacred is meant to be kept.
Some things are meant to be completed.

And you close the gates.

This is shamanic courage:
choose truth over harmony,
presence over performance.

I did not leave Bali lighter.
But I left anchored.

The silence still walks with me.
The mountain knows my name.
And I no longer confuse kindness
for strength of the fiery soul ...