Musings on a Sunday Morning…
I have a green lacy dome above me: the enormous arching branches of beech trees, whose abundant leaves overlap and layer to form a magnificent and perfectly proportioned roof. Beyond it is the sky, so far beyond that the blue is endless. I can understand why the ancients thought the earth was flat and the sky a dome arching overhead, hiding heaven. Oh, but how unhelpful it is that heaven was put out of reach and ‘god’ with it.
Touching Heaven
I think of the times in my life when I have touched heaven; how my heart breaks open like a dried seed pod and I find it rich with potential; or it feels like an ocean coming into the shore of my being, wave upon wave. I have touched heaven lying in the arms of my beloved one; and when I have sung to my days’ old grandchild, snuggled into me and he has drifted into sleep; and when the speed of my doing doesn’t outpace the rhythm of my breath and I allow my worries to fall away. Then, there I am a human be-ing, embodied, heaven close as my breath. Not beyond me, out of reach, only given on reward at my death.
One Truth?
I was recently with a friend who insisted that there must be one absolute truth and, given the lack of evidence to prove God, the truth must be that there isn’t one. There were so many flaws in that argument for me but I knew they would engage only our minds and so I said nothing and smiled.
“But there must be just one truth, mustn’t there?”, he persisted.
“Maybe”, I said. I’m not sure whether I infuriated him or he wrote me off as an idiot.
Four Blind Men and an Elephant
On reflection I might have told him the story of the elephant and the four blind men – you may know it.
Four blind men were taken to an elephant. One was given the tail to hold, one directed to feel a leg, one an ear and one the trunk. Afterwards they were asked,
“What is an elephant?”
The first man said, “It is like a rope”.
The second man said, “No! It is like a tree trunk.”
The third man said, “You are both crazy, it’s like a banana leaf.”
And the fourth man said, “You are all wrong! It is like a hose!
They all started shouting and a fight broke out until a person who could see said,
“You are all speaking the truth, but only part of the truth. An elephant is much more than any of you know.”
How can I, with my tiny brain and limited perspective, proclaim categorically on ‘THE truth?’ I can only say what is true for me, now– two qualifications. So here are some of my musings on my current truths.
On death
Death is an inevitable consequence of life.
Death means that our bodies are no longer animated by breath.
Do my beloveds who died exist somewhere, free of location? Maybe
Have they been in bodies before? I don’t know.
Will I ‘see’ them when I die? I don’t know.
I don’t know very much. But watching the seasons and nature, it seems to me that life and death are not linear but cyclical.
Just to go off on a tangent here for a moment, where I am sitting on the tree branch, there is a hollow and it is filled with what I think is called ‘detritus’. It is a mix of last year’s leaves (and many years’ worth before that), empty beech nut shells, broken twigs blown down in the wind, little clumps of moss and threads of lichen. It is rich, teeming no doubt, with life I cannot see, creating the potential soil for much more life to come. It is a habitat and process of enormous wealth but it looks like death and decomposition.
On grief
Nobody is an expert on my grief (or yours) and there is no definitive road map; but there are those who can shine a light on our terrain.
There is a grey dreariness which saps joy but joy can emerge from despair.
Bypassing grief doesn’t work – it comes back and bites you on the backside.
Grief will happen to almost everyone as a consequence of being born.
It is survivable although sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.
In time, grief has the potential to bring me into deeper connection with myself and humanity.
It is, like death, a threshold. To cross that threshold requires resilience, authenticity and self compassion, all of which grief itself will teach me.
Seeds of guidance
The childhood guidance I invented and followed was, “Be true to myself”. What the ‘true’ is has changed or rather evolved from that young seed and softened considerably, I might say it is now ‘soft petalled’, but essentially it holds good. Here’s what it means for me now:
Love matters – let Love guide me.
Kindness matters – let kindness be my guide and my default.
Authenticity matters – I can only truly be the me I was born to be.
The outcomes of these things are not my business – I’m not kind in order that… – but being kind (including to myself) is my business, because it’s true for me.
My friend is kind. I’d like to tell him that kindness is my Truth. And I’d like to ask him if he is touched by the beech ceiling and feels the magic in decomposing leaf litter and ask him what matters, what is true – for him.
With love
Nickie
News
Feeling Brave!
A couple of kind and generous people have asked to pledge or support me. I want my blogs to remain completely free of charge but I also would like to live with a little more financial ease. So as a way of opening myself more fully to what might like to flow in with love, I have started a Buy Me a Coffee account. If you feel moved to buy me an occasional cup or would like to keep me topped up on a monthly basis, please visit my page and place your order! Thank you so much.
Song and Silence for Peace
Please join me if you can for a beautiful day to send our love on the wings of our voices to people and places who need peace. In offering peace we feel peace ourselves. Let’s do it together.
More information and to book here
This is the last event I shall be running in the summer. More coming up in the autumn: groups, retreat, one off events, on my own, collaborative, in person and online. I’ll keep you posted here.