I am sitting under the tree that still has many leaves to shed. Those already fallen, spread around my feet, a carpet of gold.
I had to come outside. With the walls pressing in, fresh air was needed.
The temperature of the world has surely gone down this past week as the world reels in the wake of atrocities with many innocent caught in the middle.
Little ones, growing ones, parents and elders.
Easter Saturday. A day of waiting, of unknown. liminal, empty, uncertain. A day of dark, of facing death and loss. A day of grief, of resistance and perhaps gradual acceptance. A day of feeling all the losses, all the pain and sorrows, a day of not turning the other way, but simply and profoundly: being with. As hard and uncomfortable as that may be.
What is happening on this day is not visible to the eye. It is stirring beneath the surface, perhaps imperceptible to the point of nothing. But there is something happening, for even simply bearing the unknown is something. To not turn away even when we don’t know how to move forward is transformative.
To breath through whatever feelings may be coursing through our bodies, while not gasping for distraction or any kind of numbing, is piercing and is alot. We come out the other side changed and ready for Easter, for resurrection, for new life. But in order to truly come out the other side, it seems that Easter Saturday, this liminal, achy, lost, nothing-ness but alot-ness needs to happen and is part of the recipe for awakening, for spring.
As a teen I began contemplating how Easter Saturday might have felt to the friends of Jesus. They who truly didn’t know about Sunday being round the corner. Who were only feeling the loss and confusion. They who didn’t have the benefit of the future, of knowing that resurrection – as promised as it might have been – actually would come to pass. How would that day of emptiness, of coming to terms with the death of their most beloved friend and teacher have felt? Devastating we can imagine, as we all have had such moments, days, weeks and years, when that which was most dear to us, most important, was gone to our perceptions and knowledge. Gone. With no guarantee of return.
Today and these past weeks, as our whole human family faces and deals with the covid-19 pandemic, I feel we are in a long, drawn-out Easter Saturday. A time when life is suspended and heightened. When the Unknown looms larger than ever. Grief is at our finger tips and takes over in waves. Fear crawls just under the surface and explodes here and there. Hope sparks and swells, hope for a saner tomorrow. We are waiting, while our former lives are upended, up rooted in suspension.
An image that has come to me during these weeks is of autumn leaves tossed up in the air. The leaves are up there, swirling, suspended. They have not landed yet. What the collective result of this pandemic and our collective response to it will be, is not yet known. All is tossed in the air.
As my husband (and main companion in sense making around this unprecedented and historical moment) has pointed out: as we seek to understand what is really going on in the multi-layered, suspended and heightened moment we are now living, there are so many dimensions, agendas and forces at work, it can be near impossible to get a complete picture. What we can do, however, is to look back to say November of last year, and notice all the vectors already at play then. For what we do know of this moment, is that all is heightened, and each of these vectors, these agendas, is now on steroids.
All are seizing this moment is one way or another.
Those whose call it was to become a spiritual teacher or supportive coach, now have a window in which to step up with wisdom to share.
Those interested in confusing the population and disseminating false news, or simply shocking with the latest dramatic news, what a moment.
Those who have long felt our earth needs a pause, here finally a chance to reconsider our trajectory.
Those who are amongst the most decent of humans, ready to simply serve, are showing up with such fervour and courage, we can only bow in appreciation and cheer with the fullest of hearts.
Those whose deepest need was to stop, to pause, and rest, are finding an invitation to do so now.
Those who are keen on mandatory vaccination, are seeing this as their moment.
Those who have been working tirelessly for greater income equality, now their efforts are finding an opening.
Those who have been scheming for more authoritarian regime, this is their moment too.
Those who always knew that gardening was a quiet revolution, now is their time.
Those who see individual freedoms as nuisance, now have a moment to squash these.
Those who have longed for greater collaboration, it is happening.
Those who have always carried care for the whole at the centre of their beings, this too is their moment to act in a heightened way, even if just by staying home, but also in tireless research for treatment of this virus, in care for the sick, in providing essential services, in leading with integrity.
There are many many forces at work, all of their agendas, all of their vectors experiencing and making use of this heightened moment in the course of our human unfolding.
These forces — both those aiming for greater good, beauty and truth, as well as those aiming for the opposites — are on steroids at present. Heightened. Intensified.
And what the outcome will be when we consider all these vectors, all these individual and collective wills and actions, decisions and values — all these leaves thrown up in the air — is not yet decided. We don’t know what the outcome will be. We feel the intensity. We are feeling all the days of the Easter Journey — death, the in-between, and the resurrection — all at play simultaneously.
And perhaps most of all: we are feeling and experiencing the “in between” — the Easter Saturday part of the journey. We don’t know if Easter Sunday will happen. We don’t have the benefit of knowing the future and being reassured by it. We don’t have assurance. It could go either way. Collapse and constriction, or renewal into healing and care for the Whole. Or a mix of all of it.
Held in liminal space, with vectors flying in all directions, this is our moment to encourage the breeze to move those leaves in the direction of greatest goodness, truth and beauty.
This is our moment to encourage trajectories of kindness, forgiveness, sustainability, coherence building, sovereignty and dignity. This is our moment to nurture every strand of connection, insight and care.
This is the undecided, elongated moment wherein the tides could turn, as a whole, one way or the other.
And so, my dear beauty makers, goodness tenders and truth tellers, let us do our best to help the breezes blow in the direction of sanity for this humanity, this planet, and all that lives within and upon it. May resurrection happen. May we find our way to what we have been dreaming, hoping, praying and working for.
The ways to do this are as myriad as we are. For some it may be tending to their children with presence. For others it may be fervent dedicated prayer. For some, gardening. For others, thinking out of the box and helping create meta-systemic change. The paths are many. The potential of resurrection, of a next stage in our humanity to actually feel like Easter Sunday, like the most wondrous spring morning, is with us. May we show up for it.
With all my love,
m
CORONAVIRUS : Taking steps for y-our health
This protocol was put together for our families, drawing upon our own best practices and experiences, as well as recommendations from integrative health practitioners, a biochemist and nutraceutical expert, a family doctor, two nurses, and numerous medical articles and research. We sifted through the information with the intention of discerning what made most sense from our vantage point, was doable in our households, effective and safe (keep in mind these doses are the ones we are comfortable with for adults – do your own due diligence, and remember “if a little is good it doesn’t mean a lot is gonna be better/safer, so dosing recs are really crucial”). I am not a medical professional. This is not medical advice. The information is given for educational purposes only, and is not intended to advise, diagnose or prescribe. I share it here in case it can support you in your efforts to navigate this novel virus and your overall health. Please consult your trusted physician regarding COVID-19 treatment, especially if you are pregnant or have comorbidities like diabetes, respiratory diseases, CVD, hypertension, or cancer. Take from this what is relevant for you. Do your own discernment. There is currently no one standard treatment for COVID-19. There is plenty of research that nutraceutical measures that flood the body with compounds to enhance the body’s natural immune response can be helpful in preventing and supporting the treatment of viral infections. I will keep updating our protocol here as we learn more.
With love, and best wishes,
Miriam
To Let Come
I am not a calendar with
Straight lines etched across my self
And tidy numbers telling me
Which day and month I am
And which page I should next be turning,
Which intentions I must be setting and what should be released
Instead I lay beside the winter coat
Of the hibernating bear
And borrow her slumber for a while
What is it we fear so
This dark time of year?
We cover up the dark with glitter
Lights and noise and stuff and lists
Busy days, excess plastic and wrapping
Good stuff too — food and song and sweet gifts
Once upon a time, when my daughter was a wee lassie, I spent a few evenings bent over the sewing machine, stitching together little bags from colourful scraps. Twenty-four bags to mark the journey of Advent for her, a cherished tradition from my childhood in Switzerland that I wanted to pass on. The bags were then filled with “pretty little things” as she would call them, and sometimes a treat (dried mango, chocolate, some nuts). Oh, how she loved this daily gift and preparation toward Christmas! It suited her 4-year old self quite perfectly. Read more
In my home country – Switzerland – on All Soul’s Day – we wander to the cemeteries, and honor the dead. The cemeteries in the small mountain villages are alive with young and old, visiting their loved ones who have travelled on.
This year my grandmother died. I spent a week with her, just before she passed. It was a holy week, I will cherish it for always.
And tonight some words arise as I sit here in Canada, visiting my grandmother on this All Soul’s Day with my thoughts, memories and the heart that knows no distance. May your loved ones who have crossed the threshold join you this season when the veil is thin, the moon just a slice.
She did it
A strong heart, beating for over 840,960,000 breaths,
A sparkle of soul, finding the glisten of humor for over a century,
A keen caring mind, ready for wit and reflection for over one thousand two hundred months,
A heart so merry and kind, pouring out generous love for over a century.
A life full of friendship, tended relations, enfolded in a hearth she helped build,
A long life, complete with grace, hardship, pain and blessings,
Choosing over and over again to surrender to what is,
To see the gift hidden in the furrows of human turmoil.
Hands soft and gentle, reaching out in caress till an hour before departure.
A person ready to leave her earthly garment, so very ready.
But how, when there is no sickness and no accident?
How do you get out of a body, an old and fading body, but one with a strong beating heart?
We ponder together. We laugh and we wonder.
A puzzlement not met before.
We wait. Chat. Sing. Touch.
We rest together in the precious lit up moments of an unknown threshold.
And then. She does it.
A nap turns into a change of breath,
A depth of slumber like no other,
Turns into a release of breath.
She did it!
The first words that come to me as I hear of her death.
She did it. She crossed the threshold, over to the other side of the veil.
She left her body behind, she climbed out and on.
Her heart, her over one hundred year old heart stopped beating,
And freed her soul to travel on.
Bless her heart. It was a grand one.
A truly grand mother was she.
_______________________________
My grandmother had a deep abiding love for Mother Mary. I sang this Ave Maria (by Gounod) at her funeral and share the recording here in the spirit of my grandmother and this all soul’s day.
I had a long chat with my mum this Sunday and am left with a buoyed sense of being held that lingers on into the afternoon, into the evening. As I stand at the kitchen counter, chopping veggies for supper I notice this “heldness” and my thoughts go to the many who don’t have a mama in this earthly form anymore, be this through death or other separation. They don’t have this person in their lives who has known them since little, since in-the-belly times, who has seen them and helped them grow up through the many stages, stumbles, ages, rejoices. One day I too won’t have her to call, to hear her voice any more. That time will come for all of us.
Arising from this reflection, I pour this sense of “heldness” over to those without mother, over to you. It belongs to all. It is not mine to keep, whether it flows from my mother, from our relationship, or not. This heldness is everyone’s birthright, and those of us in the blessed place and space to receive it directly, may we share it out and around so that it touches all those sons and daughters who miss their mamas, to all who don’t feel understood, supported by their parents, to all those who have left their elders far behind on a different continent or worldview. Read more
Last week in our parenting course, one set of questions we reflected on as we consider where we come from and what we pass on to our children was:
“What do we include and bring along from our past?
What do we choose to release and discard?
And what do we transform?
In short: keep, chuck or recycle?
My lovely neighbor, Sally, sent me this photo from our community’s recent day of the dead celebration. As I sit with the many lights on the grave sites, the lineages that have come before us lie there, still. Their efforts ripple on, we carry them on within us.
Then I look at the photos of course participants’ children: wide-eyed, open, core-goodness yet unhindered. Their future in formation.
What do we as a culture pass on to our children? What chain reactions in our lineages are ready to die off, be done with, healed and laid to rest?
What can we do, within ourselves and between one another, to truly lay our dead to rest, by consciously facing and choosing what we inherit, rather than continuing an unquestioned hand-me-down version of humanity through generations?
May the light our ancestors shone, continue to guide us.
May any trauma they felt and died stuck with, be healed through us.
May we forge a new future, together.
In my weekly phone chat with my 98-year old grandma this morning, we spoke about this and that, and with it being the Day of the Dead here in Canada (in Switzerland where she lives, they celebrate All Saints Day tomorrow), we also spoke of death, of dying, of our shared love for graveyards and for visiting friends and loved ones who have passed the threshold.
I told her about the possibility of keeping a loved one’s body at home for three days after they die – to wash, to embalm, to love and release, recently inspired by a Facebook friend’s incredibly moving account of such an experience. She liked that idea. She is one of those people least afraid of dying in my circle. She has always had a friendly relationship with the end of our physical life and stands firmly in the felt-sense that there is a Beyond in which we continue.
We reminisce shared visits to her husband’s grave in Zurich – my nono. I talk about how her great granddaughter, 5-year old A., used to love wandering through the cemeteries in Switzerland to visit the graves, to ask questions, to lay flowers on the beds of fellow humans we had just met there and then.
She says she would like to sit and visit more with others who have died, to say farewell, as they leave regularly in the home she lives in.
I speak to her of the Day of the Dead celebration here in the valley – how we gather at the community-owned cemetery, candles burning on all the mounds and graves and altars, and a huge fire lit with flames reaching up to the moon. And how we gather in procession, singing ‘dona nobis pacem’ and ‘may the circle be unbroken’. She likes that too, is so open and present to the ways of staying close to the dead, to death.
And so we share across the ocean our moments and reflections on death, on being with death, on dying.
I hang up with gratitude for her alive embodied self as well as for her willing-to-release spirited self. A charming, resilient, joking, tender, wise soul she is.
In this photo she and I are walking in the yard of my childhood, looking for slugs and upon finding them, chucking them into the stream. It sits on my desk. I talk to her about this too, and she laughs, remembering how the slugs still found their way back to the lettuces.
Life. Death. The mystery of their interwoveness continues to mystify me. And: such chats with my grandma fill me with comfort and confidence.
To all you who have passed on from this embodied existence – all you friends, loved ones and inspiring ones I knew of but never met – you make what lies beyond a friendlier place, as you track on ahead. Blessings upon your onward journeys. I salute you today especially.
Keep in touch. Let’s journey together.
