Dear brother Salim from Missoula wrote of his time in Yom Kippur and said,
“Tonight I learned of a prayer I’d not before heard. Part of the Mourner’s Kaddish, it goes like this:”
When I die Give what’s left of me away To children And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry, Cry for your brother Walking the street beside you And when you need me, Put your arms Around anyone And give to them What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something, Something better Than words Or sounds.
Look for me In the people I’ve known Or loved, And if you cannot give me away, At least let me live in your eyes And not in your mind.
You can love me most By letting Hands touch hands By letting Bodies touch bodies And by letting go Of children That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die, People do. So, when all that’s left of me Is love, Give me away
Some simple but urgent guidance to get us through these next months.
I awoke on Saturday, September 19, with three sources in my mind for guidance: Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), the young Jewish woman who suffered much more injustice in the concentration camp than we are suffering now; Psalm 62, which must have been written in a time of a major oppression of the Jewish people; and the Irish Poet, W.B.Yeats (1965 – 1939), who wrote his “Second Coming” during the horrors of the World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic.
These three sources form the core of my invitation. Read each one slowly as your first practice. Let us begin with Etty:
There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too … And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.
—Etty Hillesum, Westerbork transit camp
Note her second-person usage, talking to “You, God” quite directly and personally. There is a Presence with her, even as she is surrounded by so much suffering.
Then, the perennial classic wisdom of the Psalms:
In God alone is my soul at rest. God is the source of my hope. In God I find shelter, my rock, and my safety. Men are but a puff of wind, Men who think themselves important are a delusion. Put them on a scale, They are gone in a puff of wind.
—Psalm 62:5–9
What could it mean to find rest like this in a world such as ours? Every day more and more people are facing the catastrophe of extreme weather. The neurotic news cycle is increasingly driven by a single narcissistic leader whose words and deeds incite hatred, sow discord, and amplify the daily chaos. The pandemic that seems to be returning in waves continues to wreak suffering and disorder with no end in sight, and there is no guarantee of the future in an economy designed to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and those subsisting at the margins of society.
It’s no wonder the mental and emotional health among a large portion of the American population is in tangible decline! We have wholesale abandoned any sense of truth, objectivity, science or religion in civil conversation; we now recognize we are living with the catastrophic results of several centuries of what philosophers call nihilism or post-modernism (nothing means anything, there are no universal patterns).
We are without doubt in an apocalyptic time (the Latin word apocalypsis refers to an urgent unveiling of an ultimate state of affairs). Yeats’ oft-quoted poem “The Second Coming” then feels like a direct prophecy. See if you do not agree:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers in this sad time must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. If contemplation means anything, it means that we can “safeguard that little piece of You, God,” as Etty Hillesum describes it. What other power do we have now? All else is tearing us apart, inside and out, no matter who wins the election or who is on the Supreme Court. We cannot abide in such a place for any length of time or it will become our prison.
God cannot abide with us in a place of fear. God cannot abide with us in a place of ill will or hatred. God cannot abide with us inside a nonstop volley of claim and counterclaim. God cannot abide with us in an endless flow of online punditry and analysis. God cannot speak inside of so much angry noise and conscious deceit. God cannot be found when all sides are so far from “the Falconer.” God cannot be born except in a womb of Love. So offer God that womb.
Stand as a sentry at the door of your senses for these coming months, so “the blood-dimmed tide” cannot make its way into your soul.
If you allow it for too long, it will become who you are, and you will no longer have natural access to the “really deep well” that Etty Hillesum returned to so often and that held so much vitality and freedom for her.
If you will allow, I recommend for your spiritual practice for the next four months that you impose a moratorium on exactly how much news you are subject to—hopefully not more than an hour a day of television, social media, internet news, magazine and newspaper commentary, and/or political discussions. It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place.
Instead, I suggest that you use this time for some form of public service, volunteerism, mystical reading from the masters, prayer—or, preferably, all of the above.
You have much to gain now and nothing to lose. Nothing at all.
And the world—with you as a stable center—has nothing to lose.
And everything to gain.
I don’t know about the rest of you my beloved friends, but Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying hit me hard. I don’t remember such a feeling of despair and grief since the 2016 election.
Out of that and the rest of this unique and difficult time, a new poem has been rising up. It may yet evolve, but here it is in its current manifestation.
From These Ashes ~ a poem in honor and remembrance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg ~
How does the phoenix Rise From these ashes?
My overstressed soul body Already hunched nearly to the earth Beneath The weight of Fear and Separation Grief and Sorrow Greed and Ignorance Illness and Death Smoke and Fire
Felt the blow of her dying Like a final death stroke Pounding my wounded, naked soul into the deep ashes Of the blackened forest floor.
How does she rise from these ashes?
The blow left me bleeding Blood and sweat pouring down
The blow left me weeping Snot and tears flowing
The blow left me dying Shit and piss evacuated
Body and soul decaying into the ash.
How does she rise from these ashes?
How does she possibly rise?!
Blood and sweat Tears and snot Shit and Piss Decay… All mingle and sink into the Ashes.
Absorbed by the earth The microbes and mycelium gather And feast, and dance, and nurture
And a single seed Dormant beneath the black gray ash Sparks to life On my essence-enriched nutrient soup.
This is how she rises.
From the ashes below my prone form Sprout tiny green leaves
Quickly, Miraculously, They grow Surround And lift that still Silent soul bundle,
Through the mist Through the dissipating smoke Through the rain-soaked clouds
Ocean salt rain washes away Ash, Shit, Piss, Tears, Snot, Blood, And sweat.
A pristine Glowing soul body is offered in love, life, and light To the warm golden sun Which has risen Again.
This is how she rises. This is how we rise. This. Just this.
You could become a great warrior And help to free yourself and the world Though only if you in prayer become sweet lovers.
It is a naïve human being who thinks we are not engaged in a fierce battle, For I see and hear brave foot soldiers all around me going mad. Falling on the ground in excruciating pain.
You could become a victorious warrior And carry your heart through this world like a life-giving sun Though only if you and God become sweet Lovers!
A friend just sent a link to this eZine. These writings are from last year during the smoke-filled days of summer here in the NW and the fires in Australia.
Disturbing, yet beautiful and profound to realize the totality of the air we are breathing in these times.
One of our dear ones from Talent, Oregon sent out a note to let us know that they were safe and their property was spared. But they are living in a wasteland with no services, no water, no connections, only devastation, smoke, and ash.
Yet he shared this beautiful poem. May it hold us all in the midst of this apocalypse.
All those days you felt like dust, like dirt, as if all you had to do was turn your face toward the wind and be scattered to the four corners.
or swept away by the smallest breath as insubstantial— did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?
This is the day we freely say we are scorched. This is the hour we are marked by what has made it through the burning.
This is the moment we ask for the blessing that lives within the ancient (and current) ashes, that makes its home inside the soil of this sacred earth.
So let us be marked not for sorrow. And let us be marked not for shame. Let us be marked not for false humility or for thinking we are less than we are.
but for claiming what God can do within the dust, within the dirt, within the stuff of which the world is made and the stars that blaze in our bones and the galaxies that spiral inside the smudge we bear.
As I sit in the odd darkness of our smoke-filled skies, this photo essay from the Global Oneness Project feels particularly poignant and timely. The post for today is copied below (follow the link connected to “Dark Skies.” to view the photos):
Darkness is a theme that photographer Roberto “Bear” Guerra documents in this new photo essay “Dark Skies.” Due to light pollution, dark skies—a term indicating places around the world where one can experience the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy —are endangered. Bear said, “Given the myriad ways in which we humans have all but severed our connection to the natural world, perhaps none will prove to be as profound as the loss of the night sky and of our connection to the dark.” These photos question our collective discomfort with darkness. They invite us to reconsider our fear of the dark and to welcome the night sky as a window into the exploration of mystery and awe.
Bear writes, “This photo essay was conceived as a meditation on our profound distancing from the natural world—of which we are all just one small part. What we are currently experiencing during the pandemic is yet another manifestation of this loss. And although the city streets where I made many of these photographs are now empty, I hope that these images will still help us to consider how we might reconnect—with the night, with the natural world, with each other, with ourselves.”
“Dark Skies” and its theme of darkness is an invitation for students to embrace their imagination. “I wonder,” Bear writes, “how I can guide my own child to embrace the night and understand that without darkness we are not just incomplete…we fail to dream.”
to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you down like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.
…In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer?
Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater? Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.
We have come to be danced not the pretty dance not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance but the claw our way back into the belly of the sacred, sensual animal dance the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance the holding the precious moment in the palms of our hands and feet dance
We have come to be danced not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance but the wring the sadness from our skin dance the blow the chip off our shoulder dance the slap the apology from our posture dance
We have come to be danced not the monkey see, monkey do dance one, two dance like you one two three, dance like me dance but the grave robber, tomb stalker tearing scabs & scars open dance the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance
WE have come to be danced not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance the strip us from our casings, return our wings sharpen our claws & tongues dance the shed dead cells and slip into the luminous skin of love dance
We have come to be danced not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance the mother may I? yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance the everyone can come to our heaven dance
We have come to be danced where the kingdom’s collide in the cathedral of flesh to burn back into the light to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray to root in skin sanctuary We have come to be danced WE HAVE COME
