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THIS TIME LAST YEAR . . .
I inhabited a liminal space, helping care for my mother-in-law, (who happened to also be my very dear friend) Bonnie, in home hospice. I think back to that time, a 19-day stretch, with such reverence - most specifically because it clarified where and how we were meant to spend our days.
In that case, there was no question that we'd be doing anything other than being with loved ones, sharing stories, laughing, crying, going for walks, taking naps, listening to birdsong and music, cooking for each other, marveling at the gentle breeze and the rooster's song, refreshing the flowers by her bedside daily, noticing the overlapping emergence and decay of each bursting bloom of the season . . . forsythia . . . narcissus . . . magnolia . . . eastern red bud . . . lilac . . . lily of the valley . . .
We did not give a care to the 'real world' - as if anything could be more real than watching the mystical cycles of life and death right before our very eyes.
The punctation of pending death brings life into such clarity. As we inch toward a full revolution around the sun since our Bonnie bid her body farewell, I can feel the familiar pull . . . away from the weight of the stressors so easily produced by these backward systems that we inhabit in everyday life.
We give so much power to these trappings of 'civilization', as if the systems currently in place were a foregone conclusion. We act as if they are inevitable, instead of products of the imagination, fabricated by people acting out of fear, trauma and scarcity.
In reality, nobody can escape that we are all a part of one collective life force. We all live and we all die and it is a miracle that any of us are even here. What a pity to squander so much of our existence fretting about so many inconsequential matters. What a supreme waste for us all to be complicit in manufacturing so much pain and suffering. What a shame we'd allow any systems to exist that did not grant everyone the time and resources to - at a bare minimum - tend to shepherding new life in, and honoring lives dearly departed.
How can borders hold more truth than a tree peony in bloom? How can anything on our never-ending to do list hold more priority than gazing at its tissue paper thin petals during its fleeting flowering window each year?
How can we let anything hold more power than the unfurling growth of all of the leaves in your eyeshot right now? How many can you count - hundreds? thousands? millions? - that have all burst into being within the last few weeks. Just take a moment and let the sheer power of the cycles of nature take your breath away.
And why do we continually let the forces in this world convince us that we are meant to stare at our screens instead of the moon and stars? Or punch in a certain number of hours, instead of spending our days living and loving each other? How can we re-orient toward helping each other be nourished, clothed and cared for? How do we outwardly and openly grieve our losses together, as proof of how lasting love can be even when someone or something's physical presence vanishes from this Earth?
We're taking this moment to pay our reverence to death and decay. They are the very thing that give birth to new life, gifting us beauty and bounty beyond our wildest imaginations. This wealth is not accumulated, but undergoes a necessary cyclical birthing, building, and shedding. What a gift that we get to be in relationship with it all - that we get to learn from the inherent wisdom of this Earth and the magical forces that renew life over and over and over again.
Bonnie's parting message to me was, "You are magic." I am. It took me a year to really, deeply understand it. And my message to you is: You are magic. We all are. It's time we all believe it.
To revolution,
Tay + Dor
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