Gone From My Sight...

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

-unknown (to me)

This was on the back of a program from a memorial I went to last night. I thought it was beautiful and it gives me comfort.

The Death Card

Death is all around me today. I woke last night at 3:45 in the morning, fear of my own "nothingness" swallowing me up in the darkness. I can remember the exact moment that it dawned on me that I would die some day. My mother tried to pacify me but I was inconsolable as I imagined the void - it was terrifying. I was 7 years old and I had just learned that a family friend had died.

During the day, my belief in an afterlife calms me. As I have gotten older my fears have diminished. But sometimes, it sneaks up on me and I am as socked in the gut with terror as a little girl, realizing that some day, her life will be over. Gone.

Tonight I made soup for a woman who is waiting for her husband to die. I called over to see when I could deliver it and learned that he had died earlier this morning. In three days I'm going to a friend's memorial, she was around my age. This morning I spoke with a dear friend about her mother's passing - she died last week on my mother's birthday - life and death.

The conversation with my friend was very special - it is a privilege to me to hear somebody's "death story." Similar to a birth story, it is always personal and highly individual. The times I have been around death have also been times when I've felt the most alive and grateful. There is a feeling of being completely out of the "self" (i.e. ego) and being more in the high self or soul body. I'm not sure what awaits me after death, so I will devote more effort to be conscious and present in this life. To continue to open my heart and love all (yes, I mean ALL) the beautiful people in my life.

ps - the picture above is a Day of the Dead altar that Andy and I created in November. As I see the faces of my grandparents and my father I feel my heart burst with longing and love and joy and sadness - all at once. And I know that there love lives on in me.

Las Flores

Hey now,

The picture above is of an African Violet that has been blooming non-stop for over a YEAR. That is inspirational to me. I feel like I have a plant version of a Virgin Mary face in a tortilla. I think it is my own kitchen miracle and every time I see it I give thanks for the constant gift it is choosing to bestow on us.

Today I went over to our neighbor's house to discuss our shared garden. I am SO excited about this!!! We walked the property and talked about all the vegetables we would like to plant. And I am excited because I am planning on covering our garden fence with morning glories - one of my absolute favorite flowers. I can't wait!

I love flowers...right now I am sitting in my kitchen smelling the spring dirt smell of daffodils, mixed with the rich, chalky smell of potting soil and rosemary. We bought a rosemary plant (which is hilarious if you're from SF because they grow as weed bushes all over) and it desperately needed re-potting. It was wilting and I could FEEL its unhappiness. Do you ever get feelings like that? I feel so bad when my plants need watering, it's like when I have neglected the guinea pig and I just KNOW he's hungry. Terrible.

Anyway, Andy gave me 2 cyclamen for Christmas (one pure white and one fuchsia pink) and in the few weeks they've lived here they are not thriving. So today I went down to the back garden shed and chopped ice away from the door so I could open it and picked out potting soil and larger pots. Then I turned my kitchen into a disaster area of dirt, dried leaves, roots, plant food and plastic starter pots. BUT! I now have the happiest plants!