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Host, Virtual Tea House
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Last year on solstice I posted about the life and death in 2003 of my dear friend Katrina. Her death somehow allowed me to move from my 20 year stint in hospice work. This year on summer solstice, I am again posting about the death of a dear friend, although one whom I'd only known--physically--a short time. Our connections go deep, as she was the beloved of one of my former beloveds. That soul connection via an intermediary, T., helped us dive deep and go strong.
Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1997. At that time I was working in hospice in Colorado, and I remember the furor over this act, with the fears of 'slippery slope' being thrown down like a gauntlet. Although I voiced the party line 'hospice does not hasten nor prolong death', I secretly admired those plucky Oregonians and their cheekiness towards the federal government. State rights have prevailed and although there are always issues and opposition to any dialectic, Oregon has maintained the right for terminally ill patients to self-deliver lethal doses of prescription drugs to end their life. Here is the official 2008 report for the past 10 years of actual utilization of both the physicians' prescriptions written and the utilization of those prescriptions to end life.
One of the interesting issues shown in this report, although not unexpected, is that the actual usage of the prescriptions lags behind, speaking primarily to the comfort that the prescriptions provide for those who are suffering: they know that they have the ability to choose to end their lives if whatever their treatments--including hospice--does not alleviate their suffering.
The following is not a treatise in the rightness or wrongness of assisted suicide. It is a story told from one particular perspective of one beautiful passage from this side of the River Styx to the other by a brave woman. Please honor this as a personal story and not a political statement.
Having moved to Oregon after my hospice career was closed--like a good death--with celebration and honoring for the amazing path it is, I'd never participated in an assisted suicide, as it is not legal in any state except Oregon. In my 20 years of learning at the feet of the masters, i.e. the patients and their families, and later as an administrator who cared for the professional caregivers, I'd learned a lot about the natural process of dying. But not much about the beauty of what another path towards 'a good death' can look like.
So when asked by A., in her late 50's, to have a soulful, in-depth discussion about preparing her for self-administered death from metastasized sarcoma, I was both honored and a little anxious. I didn't believe I had experience in helping someone prepare to stop their life before a disease or accident did it more actively. But her request, because of the depth of connection I felt -and still feel with her- urged me to say yes.
Below is a transcript of our dialogue over a 24 hour period, May 2-3, 2009. It was one of the most intense, beautiful and rich experiences in my life. A. choose to end her suffering less than two weeks after this dialogue, and although I was not there in body when she left, I was there in spirit, applauding her courage, grace and dignity.
Also included collages I have been working on since then, honoring both her beautiful life and graceful passage. I believe A. has been helping me with them.
The following conversation is almost verbatim, as A. asked me emphatically to write it all down. I did so before I left her home, printed her off a copy and apparently she read it several times in the following two weeks. The dialogue somehow served as a touchstone, a grounding for her in those last two weeks, as she did the final preparation.
I am B., by the way!-- Beth
My experience of what A's last breath might have been like. Notice her horse is present and accounted for.
A conversation between A. and B.
May 2, 2009
We walked with A. in her wheelchair to a place on her beautiful property. A. took occasional hits of her medical marijuana (which by the way made her symptoms much more manageable for many months before her death). I smoked a hand-rolled cigarette. We found a place to sit under ancient dripping Douglas Firs. I sat on the bottom of an overturned canoe. There were lots of spaces for silence in this conversation.
She started the conversation very directly.
A: I feel so fuzzy. Do you think my grogginess is a function of me checking out emotionally?
B: My perspective only: it’s a physiological function of the disease process as well as the powerful drugs you are taking to manage the symptoms.
A: I like thinking that it’s a physiological function. That’s pretty helpful, actually. I feel there are powerful forces, things going on in my body. I…where do we begin?
B: Hm…let’s start at what the issues are that might be keeping you from being peaceful, or are distressing in some way.
A: Well, there are decisions.
B: Can you say some more about the decisions?
A: Well I feel like I have no experience in dying.
B: I paused, asking silently for some guidance, which quickly came. I am wondering if you’ve actually had lots of experience, not in physically dying, but other kinds, all through your life.
A: Like?
B: Like a divorce. Like other hard leavings in your life. Like all the animals you’ve euthanized.
A: Hm. That’s true. I guess I have had some practice. In the emergency vet clinic that was a lot of my practice. There were nights when I’d have to euthanize 5 animals in a single shift.
B: And were you present for the animals and their humans?
A: The best I could be.
B: So what do you know about the right time and all that is necessary for a 'good' euthanizing?
A: The people have to be ready.
B: And the place—what about the setting?
A: It should be peaceful.
B: What else? What about the animal itself? And the method?
A: Yes, the animal needs to be ready. They’re usually ready before the people. And the method needs to be humane and appropriate.
B: So we’ve got the animal ready, the people ready, the setting peaceful and an appropriate method. You really know a lot about this.
A: Yes, I’m not really afraid of dying, although I’m not looking forward to it. It’s just the pain. I don’t want to make decisions out of a state of pain.
B: Seems like there are at least 2 scenarios. One where you let the natural process take its course and somewhere along the line, you make a decision to not make a decision and you just slide on out. The other is where you know that you are going to make a decision and it’s just a question of when.
A: So how do you know when?
B: You’ll know.
A: I’ve always been a little glib in saying that to others. How the hell do I know that?
B: Yes, that showed a bit of hubris on my part to say that.
A: And yet, it’s true, I will know.
B: I also believe that. Have you ever watched the documentaries where one wild animal is the predator and another is the hunted; many times before the final moment there seems to be an exchanged glance between them that is like asking ‘is it the time?’
Some understanding passes between them and it’s done.
A: Yes, I’ve seen that as well. So…my disease is my predator?
B: Yes, you could see it that way. So 'the time' is when you have that moment of understanding and allowing and turn to look at death full in the face and say 'yes'…
A: That’s very helpful.
B: And in many other cultures death is not such a scary thing. Maybe religion has placed a level of meaning on something that is basically an unknown, a mystery, an organic event, but not something to be feared. Note: there’s a discussion about the purpose religion may play in keeping society in 'proper' order that isn't included here.
A: Yes. Death is an interesting physiological phenomena. Have you studied it much? Note: here’s a conversation about my experience with death and dying and about her curiosity at the mystery of it all. What is death, anyway?
B: I guess you could stand back a bit and ask 'and what is life,' for that matter?
A: Oh, yes, that’s a helpful way to think about it. 
This collage was my experience of A's soul during our time together--grieving, yes. Ancient, yes. Open, yes. Still delighting in blueberries, yes.
There’s a conversation about death being artificially separated from living in our culture. We also talk about my work with children's grief, and what they taught me: grief is to be dosed, interspersed with play and peanut butter sandwiches. And we also talk about how death may be like life--a type of dream-state. We both have great wonderment about all this and sit in silence a great deal during these conversations.
B: And in other cultures, such as in some Mexican mythology, beings are born with life and death together in the same crucible. Death is then one’s constant companion throughout life instead of a stranger.
A: Hm! That’s interesting. But what would make death then come to the forefront, to become prominent instead of behind our shoulder?
B: I’m not sure. That’s part of the mystery. But animals and plants do not seem to fear death. They are competitive for space and nutrients and instinctively try to live, but the actual piece of dying doesn’t hold meaning for them. Maybe that’s where religion has gotten in the way—it’s put a layer of ‘meaning’ on death and the afterlife that is not organic. So the plants and animals show us a different way to be with death.
Long silence while the trees drip and the cats wind around our legs and purr.
B: What do you think happens to the essence of us when we die?
A: I’m not sure, but it seems like we break up into particles that are constantly being reformulated into new life. Like these little dancing shiny particles in the air right now. Can you see them?
B: No, damn it, I can’t! But I believe they’re there!
A: They’re all around us, and the cats are hanging around too. The cats like the particles and they’re curious about you, B., and who you are and what you’re doing. It’s pretty interesting!
B: Hah! They are surely hanging out! We are both smiling, petting the cats. More silence.
A: I sometimes wish I had more of a path.
B: Tell me about that, can you?
A: I think it’s helpful to have a spiritual path of some sort. Maybe it helps you when you come down to dying?
B: Sometimes it seems to, but not necessarily. The people I’ve noted their deaths as ‘well-done, graceful exit, stage left’ are those that have practiced dying throughout their lives, so they 'get it'. When it’s done they slide on out, without a hitch. They have made practicing dying their spiritual path.
A: Hm. Practicing. Tell me about that again, my brain doesn’t hold on to these things, but I know that’s important.
Note: we then talk deeply about her experience of being with dying throughout her life and that all she’s lacked is a consciousness, a languaging for this.
This collage is an attempt to put A.'s innate kindness into image--her path was kindness.
A: Yes, but a path, wouldn’t that help with the practicing?
B: It does help some, but it’s not necessary. Would it be helpful for me to lay out for you how I see your particular path? It is just my perspective, though. I believe, and again it's just my definition, that our paths are nothing more than how we engage with life and the quality of connections that we have.
A: Sure.
B: You have a host of very good, deep, ancient friendships. You have sweet connections with your children, your animals, this land, your home, T. You’ve lived an extraordinary life in the quality of your connections. You have helped people and animals in your practice. You have helped in other countries, working to make your corner of the world a more peaceful place. Your partner, T. is *anamcara to you, and willing to do whatever it takes to help you through this. That’s a remarkable thing, to end one’s life with all that richness of connection!
A: Are you saying that I could be extremely grateful for all that?
B: That’s an option…
We both laugh out loud. Then A. is very quiet, very still, looking at the sparkles of light…
A: I wish you could see the sparkles.
B: Me too!
A: What about J? (A's daughter) How will she do? I was present for my mother’s death—it was very peaceful, very good death. And I’ve never felt disconnected from her. For awhile after her death I was almost peeved—like, I can’t get away from her! But now, I’m so glad, it’s almost like she’s part of me.
B: Ah! And have you noticed any difference in that connectivity since you’ve known that you are yourself dying?
A: Well, I’m glad she does not have to witness this, my decline. But then again, how do I know that she isn’t?
B: Have you noticed any more/less connection with her?
A. Yes, actually more connection.
I don't say anything, but she sees the inference. More silence.
A. Are you getting cold? Should we go towards the house and get a blanket or you?
B: Yes, that would be good.
We move towards the house, settle in with blankets on the walkway.
A: So, how do I move towards my death, less fearful? How do I know when it’s time?
B: It might help you to identify the necessary ingredients again (we do this together): timing; people who are going to be staying on this side, prepared; setting; method. So, if you were looking at a stage at this scenario, how would it look?
A: On the deck that T. built. T. is by my side. All my animals are around, except my horse. The birds are all over these feeders, talking trash. My kids... Where is J in this setting?
B: Where do you want her to be?
A: I don’t know where she wants to be.
B: Important question to ask her. You have more conversations with her that need to take place. She cannot be disconnected from you and this important event, but she doesn’t have to be physically present. Same for M.( A's son)
Note: a conversation takes place about the differences between how males and females relate to difficult emotional material, how they grieve. A. gives some input about how her son and daughter may do with this. And T.
This card depicts the passage over the River Styx with Charon as ferryman. In the background you see A. and T.'s canoe. A masthead from a Viking ship wanted to be in the collage, too. There's ample light to guide the passage.
A: I guess it’s important to make a plan isn’t it. So that it isn’t that pain makes the decision about how it comes down.
B: That would seem to be helpful. You also have the other option we talked about—just sliding into it…
A: Well, that doesn’t seem to be as pro-active or responsible to me.
B: The people who are around you and care for you learn different things in that scenario, equally important. Your children are taking this all in on a very deep level, and no matter how you go out, they are learning about living and dying from you.
A: Yes, that’s how I see it too.
We go in to the house for dinner. A. still has a wonderful appetite and we share a delightful meal that T. has prepared with great love. It is with exquisite ordinariness that we laugh, talk, joke and enjoy the meal and each other.
Later, we all read and then I am honored to give A. a foot and leg rub that is delightful to her, nourishing to me, and helps her go to sleep.
The next morning we putz about, and when the sun comes out, we go out and sit in the place that A. has identified as where she may want to be when she leaves. We sit and talk, T. joins us, it starts to rain and we sit in the rain, under the umbrella, with our hearts engaged, talking about life and death as if they were twins, joined at the heart.
Awhile later, I get in my car to leave for my journey home. I know I will not see A. again, but our paths have joined for eternity. She is my beloved teacher, my mentor, an honored guest in my heart-home. On my way home over the Cascades, I stop by a river and take a nap. I wake up knowing that my work is done. I will be a support for A. and T. but I can rest now.
Her death was a thing of great beauty, as described by T. A's hospice nurse was immensely helpful. A. was surrounded by her children, pets, garden and T, just as we had laid it out. The photo (not shown here) taken minutes before her death is a stunning tribute to a life well-lived--her smile says it all. Her memorial service a week or so later there at her home and gardens was attended by many who wanted to honor this woman's compassionate life--the same woman who in her humility feared she had no path.
'Freedom from the known'. This expresses what I sensed A's experience was moments after she left her beaten down body.
I have been forever altered by this experience, in ways I can't yet express. I am grateful to A. for allowing me to walk beside her during this brief time. And a huge thank you to T. for allowing me to publish this so soon after A.'s death.
T. will be publishing some of his thoughts and poetry about this experience here on the Virtual Tea House in the next few weeks. I am looking forward to experiencing them as additional enlightenment from this experience.
This collage is in honor of the gracefulness of A's life and death.
*Anamchara/anamcara—a soul friend who is, in a perfect world, with you through most of your existence, including your death. For most of us in these days, it is someone who commits to walking beside us through the difficult parts of our journey, and themselves waking up as they help us wake up.
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Don't live that way.
...dress like me
...talk like me
...think like me
...learn like me
...worship like me.
In short, see the world as I do.
Assimilation
photo from wikipedia
The study of evolution has opened our eyes to the astounding diversity of ways that humans and all animate things adapt to our environments, as well as to the stabilizing strength inherent in that diversity. However, what we are learning from biological processes at play in evolution has not been evident in US policy related to either native peoples or immigrant assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilating particularities into the dominant culture has been the piéce de resistance, or so we've been led to believe.
Are cultural, artistic or religious particularities so different than biological ones? Aren't we stronger, more flexible and able to withstand a vicissitude of impacts if our particularities stay just that? We can learn and grow from diversity of perspective but not with the goal of becoming like 'the other'; the goal is, from this perspective, to allow the diversity to strengthen our particularities.
Ceasing to either force assimilation or alternatively appropriate others' cultural and belief systems as our own, instead diving deep enough to find our rootedness, we find those roots entangled, but living harmoniously and sometimes symbiotically. There's an artesian well of strength and joy in our particularities living and dying in vital, convoluted evolution. But they are not the same roots, and they don't make the same trees.
Thanks to the talented and prolific Gautami at rooted for this week's One Single Impression prompt: assimilate Follow the link to appropriately assimilate a variety of responses to this excellent prompt.
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They hatched, those chickadee babies, last Saturday, or at least that was the first time I could hear them as I sit on my back porch. By Monday, their requests for 'I need that bug much more than my brother does, Mother' were clearer and more insistent. Today, Thursday, it's a regular cacophony when they hear one of the hard-working adults come close to the box.
Got me to asking some questions:
- Do those parent birds eat any of the bugs for themselves and not regurgitate or poke them in those huge baby beaks? Or are they on a starvation diet from the time the shells split to the time the chicks flop out of their nest?
- The adults are constantly feeding these guys. I timed it last evening...every 2.5 minutes one of them is diving in to bring a happy meal. How do they keep that pace up? Where do they find that much food so quickly?
- Is this the same pair that comes each year, or are these last year's chicks who remember this porch, this set of humans and animals, and know our harmlessness?
- Do the parent birds sleep with the chicks at night? All's quiet if I go out after dark, but I can't tell who's home.
- Some years there will be a second batch when this one's done...I get exhausted thinking about it!
And first and foremost--how long does it take to grow a feather? It must not be like growing a hair, because that takes a relatively long time. If these hairless ones on Saturday are going to fly before the 4th of July...how fast those feather cells must be multiplying. It's dizzying to think about.
And then...the deeper questions creep in:
- Why do I get exhausted? Is it because I'm thinking about so many things at once? If I only thought about one thing, The Chickadee Effect, would I be able to accomplish more of the real goals?
- How much does a body really need to survive? Are the birds in 'the zone' and surviving on doing their duty?
- How do these birds get so smart? Is there more to instinct than strictly survival? There has to be more to human basic need procurement than just gimme. Maybe not. But those parent birds are getting more than just procreation out of this endeavor, I'd imagine. Maybe they sleep well at night--in the box or out, dreaming of a future of free flying and plenteous birdseed for their babies. What do they know--not just on a physiological level, but on a connected one? They seem tenuously connected to me, the Giant Keeper of the Porch. What do we share?
That's about all I know for today; obviously all I know are questions. Love to hear your thoughts or your own questions!
Photo from All About Birds. I will add a photo of the nesting box when I can get my LiveWriter to do it correctly!
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Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the will to win
We drew a circle and drew him in.
-- Edwin Markham
The walls of human understanding have various purposes, textures, designs. But their intent is often to keep something--a person, a mental state, a group, an idea, a dogma, religions and spiritualities--safe from challenge and on-going discovery of the truth of inherent polarity. It's not that what the wall is protecting is not-true. Both the wall and the wall-challenger have aspects of the truth, as truth is not unilateral. It is this-and-that. When this-and-that are mixed up in a fine stew it can be called wisdom. And from wisdom comes compassion.
Collage done in May 2009
She says:
you're out of bounds
out of grace
out of luck.
I think:
what the @#$%?
Am I different than
I've ever been
just because the Question
has come to life through
my cracked vessel of a voice?
Love says:
Down, girl.
Small thinking is just big thinking
with the wrapper still on.
Responding in kind is not kind.
I say with my feet:
Call me fool
because I am that.
But
Heart cannot be co-opted
to live in a place
once cozy
now
grown too small.
However,
if you'd like to come
visit for a cup of tea
in my new digs,
delight in
a laugh and
some bread, cheese and wine,
what's the harm?
Fire in the holy of holies
burns while I
beat out the rhythm
of my welcome
bare-footed
open-hearted.
*Hegel's dialectic: as a thesis arises it is met with its polarity/antithesis; synthesis is birthed in conjunctio or the 'this AND that' mentioned above. Synthesis in turn becomes the new thesis, only to be met by antithesis..and its 'deja vu all over again'. This dialectic has been such a helpful construct for understanding how things work. It has led me to the place where the instinct and impetus for pre-emptive destruction for the purpose of renewal is part of the warp and woof of my being. "If the thesis is firmly in place, let's begin to anti-thesize it, and get on with it! There's synthesizing to be done, already. Burn, baby, burn."
Thanks to the hardly fledgling Fledgling Poet for this week's One Single Impression prompt: walls
Follow the link to experience a variety of responses to this prompt.
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"I do not see this heart thing as abstract or esoteric. Getting to, living in, healing from, being guided through the heart is an actual state that can be achieved. But it is not a state of mind. It is not an attitude, or an affirmation. Rather it is a state of being. The mind is the servant of the state of being in the heart, not the master. And for this reason the mind puts of lots of barriers, resistances, and good sounding reasons why living in the heart is a bad idea. But when we arrive at the heart we know that living in that place is not in fact any kind of idea. It is home. It is the greatest pleasure that we can have, because from that place all other pleasure is magnified and dignified."
-- Jonathan Goldman
The end of a freshly cut ancient juniper.
The shining face of my grandson Edan.
My heart sees their alikeness.
I spent the past weekend in a workshop with Jonathan, author of the above quote. His staff and 15 or so of us participants leaned into 'grounded in the earth, centered in the heart, opening to the light' as our mantra for the 3.5 day workshop. Bodywork, breath work, yoga, energy balancing, ritual and deep sharing prepared us for some experiences of wide-open heart. I came away with a deeper wisdom of what that place of truest pleasure is: living from our hearts protects us from harm, guides us onto interesting paths and humbles us to our core.
The feeling of living from our hearts can not be readily described. It can only be experienced. But, to use analogy, it is like standing in the front door to your home, looking out at the courtyard, the garden, whatever pleases you, and knowing that if you walk outside you will be engulfed, entangled in beauty. You can turn around and go back inside your now-too-small house. Or you can step out, protected by the elements, loved by the stars, guided by a feeling of being home. There's no stopping you now, nothing to go back to.
The world longs for us to sing our heart-songs, plant our heart-gardens, laugh our heart-lines, scribe our heart-poems on everything. Doesn't mean it's easy. Just means it's inevitable.
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Here's my collage for today. It comes from a space of feeling the wind of the spirit of change and new directions moving through my life.
Would love to know any reactions, responses you might have.
Technorati Tags: grief, collage
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Just when you were worried about running out of stuff to do this summer... my friend Buffy from Seattle asked me to post this!
It looks like a wonderful event. Anyone who has enjoyed R. Carlos Nakai through recordings, or better yet, live, will enjoy this Festival. Up in the cool La Sal mountains of Utah, it should be an amazing summer mountain festival!
July 25th, Mt. Peale Resort, Mile Mark 14, Hwy 45, Old La Sal, Utah
For those of you who can't drop by the Moab Bakery...well, just show up or maybe catch it on your way to somewhere else!
Just in case you were wondering--here's the directions from my house to La Sal. It's only 15.5 hours or so.
Driving directions to La Sal, Utah
917 mi – about 15 hours 18 mins
Bend, OR
Head southeast on NW Greenwood Ave toward NW Gasoline Alley 1.2 mi
Continue on NE Hwy-20/Central Oregon Hwy/OR-20/US-20
Continue to follow Central Oregon Hwy/US-20 129 mi
Turn left at N Broadway Ave/Central Oregon Hwy/OR-20/US-20/US-395
Continue to follow Central Oregon Hwy/US-20 125 mi
Turn left at Central Oregon Hwy/OR-201
Continue to follow OR-201 2.5 mi
Continue on Yturri Beltline 2.0 mi
Turn right at NW Washington Ave 0.3 mi
Turn left at OR-201/Oregon St/US-30 0.1 mi
Merge onto I-84 E/US-30 E via the ramp to Boise
Continue to follow I-84 E
Entering Idaho 225 mi
Take the exit onto I-84 E toward Ogden
Entering Utah 135 mi
Continue on I-15 S 82.6 mi
Take exit 258 to merge onto US-6 toward US-89/Manti/Price
127 mi
Take the ramp to Green River 1.3 mi
Merge onto I-70 E 23.1 mi
Take exit 182 toward Moab 0.4 mi
Merge onto US-191 53.7 mi
Turn left at UT-46 9.1 mi
You're there! No sweat. Just thought I'd share.
Actually, I've driven this route many, many times, not exactly to La Sal, but to Western Colorado. There's no prettier country around. However, if I was REALLY going to take this trip, I'd not take the interstates and would travel down through Oregon's isolated back country into Nevada and travel some open, lonely roads, wild burros and antelope---and then, only when I have to, would I get on the interstate in Winnemucca, NV. I'm just saying.
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Collage I made in mid May. It is one of a series of 7 that has to do with my friend A's life and death. This is about the crossing of the River Styx, Charon the ferryman, and also, on this side of the river, about her love of canoeing. A masthead of a Viking ship wanted to be on the collage for reasons unknown to me. A's death was conscious, open-hearted, open-eyed.
Where else
but in the dream world
or the river between worlds
would the beloved canoe of many leisurely paddles
and the focused determination of Charon the ferryboat man,
known only for one way trips
collide as in a collage?
The intersection of light water with dark
canoe with ferry
Light and Torah with Authenticity and Truth
were my dream's mirror of her journey.
Thanks to the elusive Haiku Tuna for this week's provocative One Single Impression prompt: intersections
Follow the link to read a variety of amazing responses to this prompt.
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This poem was just published in qarrtsiluni,on online literary journal. It is an experiment in online literary and artistic collaboration. The title comes from an Iñupiaq word that means "sitting together in the darkness, waiting for something to burst."
Yes, that would be my experience of most all of the last 54 years. Getting it on down to the marrow.
Sojourn 3 06 2009
Saint Alphonsus instructed his followers:
“Take only what you need.” Retreating into
the desert, he lived for three weeks eating
volcanic ash, waiting on Uriel’s command.
After twenty days he was flame, his mind,
the arc of sky. He no longer felt his toes
scraping hot sands. He walked unharmed
past rattlesnakes, blended into copper hillsides,
drank from arid sage plants. The ascetic turned
into wind, moving effortlessly over mountains,
branches of tall cypress. Years later, clerics
found his rotted sandals, placed them as a relic
amid hair and purported bones of local saints.
Believers still come to place their hands
on the worn insteps where Alphonsus stood
looking into the archangel’s eyes. Supplicants
touch desert dust to tongues, reverently bow,
attempt to cast off everything but their marrow.
by Gerard Wozek
Download the MP3
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We want to go out and play.
Why does the crabapple get to have all the fun?
Here in the spring, the half-light, the half-heat,
We know we could adjust
Even though sheltered pets
for now.
Invitation to the Poetry Party on Abbey of the Arts. Prompt is Light and Shadow.
Technorati Tags: Abbey of the Arts
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My heartfelt desire is to be a wabibito. Thank you to Mo for sending this excellent piece our way. --Beth
Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience.
WHAT IS WABI-SABI?
-by architect Tadao Ando
The Japanese view of life embraces a simple aesthetic that grows stronger as inessentials are eliminated
and trimmed away.
This is un-American. Or is it? I believe there exists in all of us a longing for something deeper than the whitest teeth, sparkling floors, and eight cylinders. What if we could learn to be content with our lives, exactly as they are today? It's a lofty thought...but one that's certainly worth entertaining.
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time-Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe. For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei-merely "pretty"-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful. (Omoshiroi literally means "white faced," but its meanings range from fascinating to fantastic.) It's the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is "natsukashii furusato," or an old memory of my hometown. (This is a prevalent mind-set in Japan these days, as people born in major urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka wax nostalgic over grandparents' country houses that perhaps never were. They can even "rent" grandparents who live in prototypical country houses and spend the weekend there.)
Daisetz T. Suzuki, who was one of Japan's foremost English-speaking authorities on Zen Buddhism and one of the first scholars to interpret Japanese culture for Westerners, described wabi-sabi as "an active aesthetical appreciation of poverty." He was referring to poverty not as we in the West interpret (and fear) it but in the more romantic sense of removing the huge weight of material concerns from our lives. "Wabi is to be satisfied with a little hut, a room of two or three tatami mats, like the log cabin of Thoreau," he wrote, "and with a dish of vegetables picked in the neighboring fields, and perhaps to be listening to the pattering of a gentle spring rainfall."
In Japan, there is a marked difference between a Thoreau-like wabibito (wabi person), who is free in his heart, and a makoto no hinjin, a more Dickensian character whose poor circumstances make him desperate and pitiful. The ability to make do with less is revered; I heard someone refer to a wabibito as a person who could make something complete out of eight parts when most of us would use ten. For us in the West, this might mean choosing a smaller house or a smaller car, or-just as a means of getting started-refusing to supersize our fries.
The words wabi and sabi were not always linked, although they've been together for such a long time that many people (including D. T. Suzuki) use them interchangeably. One tea teacher I talked with begged me not to use the phrase wabi-sabi because she believes the marriage dilutes their separate identities; a tea master in Kyoto laughed and said they're thrown together because it sounds catchy, kind of like Ping-Pong. In fact, the two words do have distinct meanings, although most people don't fully agree on what they might be.
Wabi stems from the root wa, which refers to harmony, peace, tranquillity, and balance. Generally speaking, wabi had the original meaning of sad, desolate, and lonely, but poetically it has come to mean simple, unmaterialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature. Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi. Sixteenth-century tea master Jo-o described a wabi tea man as someone who feels no dissatisfaction even though he owns no Chinese utensils with which to conduct tea. A common phrase used in conjunction with wabi is "the joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe." A wabi person epitomizes Zen, which is to say, he or she is content with very little; free from greed, indolence, and anger; and understands the wisdom of rocks and grasshoppers.
Until the fourteenth century, when Japanese society came to admire monks and hermits for their spiritual asceticism, wabi was a pejorative term used to describe cheerless, miserable outcasts. Even today, undertones of desolation and abandonment cling to the word, sometimes used to describe the helpless feeling you have when waiting for your lover. It also carries a hint of dissatisfaction in its underhanded criticism of gaud and ostentation-the defining mark of the ruling classes when wabisuki (a taste for all things wabi) exploded in the sixteenth century. In a country ruled by warlords who were expected to be conspicuous consumers, wabi became known as "the aesthetic of the people"-the lifestyle of the everday samurai, who had little in the way of material comforts.
Sabi by itself means "the bloom of time." It connotes natural progression- tarnish, hoariness, rust-the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It's the understanding that beauty is fleeting. The word's meaning has changed over time, from its ancient definition, "to be desolate," to the more neutral "to grow old." By the thirteenth century, sabi's meaning had evolved into taking pleasure in things that were old and faded. A proverb emerged: "Time is kind to things, but unkind to man."
Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace: the chilly mottled surface of an oxidized silver bowl, the yielding gray of weathered wood, the elegant withering of a bereft autumn bough. An old car left in a field to rust, as it transforms from an eyesore into a part of the landscape, could be considered America's contribution to the evolution of sabi. An abandoned barn, as it collapses in on itself, holds this mystique.
There's an aching poetry in things that carry this patina, and it transcends the Japanese. We Americans are ineffably drawn to old European towns with their crooked cobblestone streets and chipping plaster, to places battle scarred with history much deeper than our own. We seek sabi in antiques and even try to manufacture it in distressed furnishings. True sabi cannot be acquired, however. It is a gift of time.
So now we have wabi, which is humble and simple, and sabi, which is rusty and weathered. And we've thrown these terms together into a phrase that rolls off the tongue like Ping-Pong. Does that mean, then, that the wabi-sabi house is full of things that are humble, plain, rusty, and weathered? That's the easy answer. The amalgamation of wabi and sabi in practice, however, takes on much more depth.
In home decor, wabi-sabi inspires a minimalism that celebrates the human rather than the machine. Possessions are pared down, and pared down again, until only those that are necessary for their utility or beauty (and ideally both) are left. What makes the cut? Items that you both admire and love to use, like those hand-crank eggbeaters that still work just fine. Things that resonate with the spirit of their makers' hands and hearts: the chair your grandfather made, your six-year-old's lumpy pottery, an afghan you knitted yourself (out of handspun sheep's wool, perhaps). Pieces of your own history: sepia-toned ancestral photos, baby shoes, the Nancy Drew mysteries you read over and over again as a kid.
Wabi-sabi interiors tend to be muted, dimly lit, and shadowy-giving the rooms an enveloping, womblike feeling. Natural materials that are vulnerable to weathering, warping, shrinking, cracking, and peeling lend an air of perishability. The palette is drawn from browns, blacks, grays, earthy greens, and rusts. This implies a lack of freedom but actually affords an opportunity for innovation and creativity. In Japan, kimonos come in a hundred different shades of gray. You simply have to hone your vision so you can see, and feel, them all.
WABI, NOT SLOBBY
Wabi-sabi can be exploited in all sorts of ways, and one of the most tempting is to use it as an excuse to shrug off an unmade bed, an unswept floor, or a soiled sofa. "Oh, that. Well, that's just wabi-sabi." My nine-year-old son, Stacey, loves this tactic.
How tempting it might be to let the split running down the sofa cushion seam continue on its merry way, calling it wabi-sabi. To spend Saturday afternoon at the movies and let the dust settle into the rugs: wabi sabi. To buy five extra minutes of sleep every morning by not making the bed-as a wabi-sabi statement, of course. And how do you know when you've gone too far-when you' ve crossed over from simple, serene, and rustic to Uber-distress?
A solid yellow line separates tattered and shabby, dust and dirt from something worthy of veneration. Wabi-sabi is never messy or slovenly. Worn things take on their magic only in settings where it's clear they don't harbor bugs or grime. One senses that they've survived to bear the marks of time precisely because they've been so well cared for throughout the years. Even the most rare and expensive of antiques will never play well in a house that's cluttered or dirty.
Cleanliness implies respect. Both ancient and modern tea masters teach that even the poorest wabi tea person should always use fresh green bamboo utensils and new white cloths for wiping the tea bowl. In tea, the host's cleanliness is considered a clear indicator of his state of mind and his devotion to the way of tea. Chanoyu Ichieshu, a tea textbook published in 1956, even goes so far as to advise guests to look into the host's toilet if they wish to understand his spiritual training.
I'm definitely not advocating this extreme. In fact, I'm mortified at the thought of anyone judging me on the state of my own toilets. But the tea masters' point is valid: Spaces that have been thoroughly and lovingly cleaned are ultimately more welcoming. When the bed is neatly made, the romance of a frayed quilt blossoms. The character imparted by a wood floor's knots and crevices shines through when the crumbs are swept away. A scrubbed but faded kilim, thrown over a sofa that's seen one too many stains, transforms it into an irresistible place to rest.
Wabi-sabi's roots lie in Zen Buddhism, which was brought from China to Japan by Eisai, a twelfth-century monk. Zen, with its principles of vast emptiness and nothing holy, stresses austerity, communion with nature, and above all, reverence for everyday life as the real path to enlightenment. To reach enlightenment, Zen monks lived ascetic, often isolated lives and sat for long periods of concentrated meditation.
To help his fellow monks stay awake during these excruciating meditation sessions, Eisai taught them how to process tea leaves into a hot drink. Once Eisai was gone, though, tea took on a very different life of its own. Around the fourteenth century, the upper classes developed elaborate rituals involving tea. Large tearooms were built in an ostentatious style known as shoin, with numerous Chinese hanging scrolls and a formal arrangement of tables for flower vases and incense burners. Tea practitioners proved their wealth and status through their collections of elegant Chinese-style tea utensils during three-day weekenders where up to one hundred cups of tea-as well as food and sake-were served.
Then along came Murata Shuko, an influential tea master who also happened to be a Zen monk. In a radical fashion departure, Shuko began using understated, locally produced utensils during his tea gatherings. Saying "it is good to tie a praised horse to a straw-thatched house," he combined rough, plain wares with famed Chinese utensils, and the striking contrast made both look more interesting. Shuko's successor, Jo-o, was even more critical of men whose zeal for rare or famed utensils was their main motivation for conducting tea. Jo-o began using everyday items such as the mentsu, a wooden pilgrim's eating bowl, as a wastewater container, and a Shigaraki onioke, a stoneware bucket used in silk dyeing, as a water jar. He brought unadorned celadon and Korean peasant wares into the tearoom.
It was Jo-o's disciple Sen no Rikyu, however, who is widely credited with establishing the quiet, simple ceremony that made it possible for everyone-not just the wealthy-to practice tea. In the sixteenth century-the beginning of an age of peace following several long centuries of civil war in Japan-gaudiness was all the rage, and Rikyu's tea became an oasis of quiet, simple taste. He served tea in bowls made by anonymous Korean potters and indigenous Japanese craftsmen, the most famous of which are the Raku family's style. He created tiny tea huts (one and a half tatami mats, as opposed to the four-and-one-half- to eighteen-mat rooms that had been the norm) based on the traditional farmer's hut of rough mud walls, a thatched roof, and organically shaped exposed wood structural elements. The hut included a nijiriguchi, a low entryway that forced guests to bow and experience humility as they entered. Rikyu made some of his own utensils of unlacquered bamboo (as common as crabgrass in Japan, but nowadays a Rikyu original is worth as much as a Leonardo da Vinci painting), and he arranged flowers simply and naturally in bamboo vases (shakuhachi) and baskets. Rikyu 's ceremony became known as wabichado (chado means "the way of tea"), and it endures in Japan to this day.
We Westerners tend to scratch our heads at the thought of four hours spent sitting on our knees, participating in an elaborate ritual during which a charcoal fire is built, a meal of seasonal delicacies is served with sake, one bowl of green tea is made and shared among the guests, and then individual bowls of frothy thin tea are made by whisking hot water and matcha. What most of us don't realize, however, is that tea embodies so much of the beauty that makes up Japanese culture. To truly understand tea, you must also study poetry, art, literature, architecture, legacy, and history. Tea practitioners are accomplished in the arts of flowers, fine cuisine, and-perhaps most important-etiquette (sarei). And the four principles of tea-harmony (wa), respect (kei), purity (sei), and tranquillity (jaku)-could of course be the means to any good life.
Tea, in its current form, was born out of a medieval society rife with terrible warfare, yet the samurai were willing to set aside their rank-and their swords-to become equals within the tearoom. The room's design is deliberately simple and clean; it's meant to be a sanctuary. "In this thatched hut there ought not to be a speck of dust of any kind; both master and visitors are expected to be on terms of absolute sincerity; no ordinary measures of proportion or etiquette or conventionalism are to be followed," declares Nanbo-roku, one of most ancient and important textbooks on tea. "A fire is made, water is boiled, and tea is served; this is all that is needed here, no other worldly considerations are to intrude." As soon as we enter the tearoom, we're asked to shake off our woes and worries and connect with others, "face harmonious, words loving."
"Tea brings people together in a non-threatening place to escape the modern world, then they can go back out and take that with them," Gary Cadwallader, an American-born tea master who teaches at the Urasenke Center in Kyoto, explained to me. It seems to me that we Americans who lack the time-or the desire-to learn tea could take the essence of that statement and apply it to our own lives.
"If a friend visits you, make him tea, wish him welcome warmly with hospitality," Jo-o, one of Japan's earliest tea masters, wrote. "Set some flowers and make him feel comfortable." This is embodied in a common Japanese phrase, "shaza kissa," which translates, "Well, sit down and have some tea." What if we adopted that phrase and learned to say it more often-when the kids get home from school (before the rush to hockey and ballet), when our neighbor stops by, when we feel our annoyance level with our spouse starting to rise? If we just allowed ourselves to stop for a moment, sit down together, and share a cup of tea, what might that moment bring?
In learning tea, we're constantly reminded that every meeting is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to enjoy good company, beautiful art, and a cup of tea. We never know what might happen tomorrow, or even later today. Stopping whatever it is that's so important (dishes, bill paying, work deadlines) to share conversation and a cup of tea with someone you love-or might love-is an easy opportunity to promote peace. It is from this place of peace, harmony, and fellowship that the true wabi-sabi spirit emerges.
Wabi-sabi is not a decorating "style" but rather a mind-set. There's no list of rules; we can't hang crystals or move our beds and wait for peace to befall us. Creating a wabi-sabi home is the direct result of developing our wabigokoro, or wabi mind and heart: living modestly, learning to be satisfied with life as it can be once we strip away the unnecessary, living in the moment. You see? Simple as that.
This is tough in any culture, of course, but darned near impossible in our own. In America we're plied daily with sales pitches that will help us improve ourselves, our circumstances, our homes. We can have the whitest teeth, the cleanest carpets, and the biggest SUV money can buy. All of this flies in the face of wabigokoro, as described in Rikyu's sacred tea text, Nanporoku. "A luxurious house and the taste of delicacies are only pleasures of the mundane world," he wrote. "It is enough if the house does not leak and the food keeps hunger away. This is the teaching of the Buddha-the true meaning of chado."
This is un-American. Or is it? I believe there exists in all of us a longing for something deeper than the whitest teeth, sparkling floors, and eight cylinders. What if we could learn to be content with our lives, exactly as they are today? It's a lofty thought...but one that's certainly worth entertaining.
You can start cultivating this mind-set in small ways, taking a lesson from tea. In learning to conduct tea, we're taught to handle every utensil, from the bamboo water scoop to the tea bowl, as if it were precious, with the same respect and care we would use to handle a rare antique. You can do the same thing with the items you use every day.
You can also read more... by reading the wonderful book this came from: "the wabi-sabi house,the Japanese art of imperfect beauty" www.wabisabihouse.com by Robyn Griggs Lawrence. Robyn's book puts it in perspective, using evocative descriptions of modern designs using salvaged materials and (local?) artisan wares. All in all a unique insight into a true way of life.
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Is there ever any? Do we need it like rain on seeds? Circles of sparring, rapprochement, tension, resolution. Deja vu all over again. Much like dirty dishes.
Don't know where this wonderful photo came from, except from a friend on email.
It fairly whispers 'denouement'.
Thanks to Fabulous Floreta at Solitary Panda for this week's One Single Impression prompt: denouement For those who, like I, need to look it up, here's the fount of all knowledge, wikipedia's definition of the word.
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I can get meta-physical with the best of them. This week's poem could be called 'let's get un-meta-physical and roll around in the dirt'.
Big bow of thanks to Gautami Tripathy of Rooted for this week's One Single Impression prompt, dropped.
I bought a lovely 1944 vintage cottage in 2004 in Bend, and have done one major project each year since. This year's task is to tear up the matty thatched grass in the postage-stamp front yard and plant wildflowers. In addition, I'm putting in a small vegetable garden in the courtyard in the square foot gardening format, although of course nothing's square in my yard and never will be.
My roommate Mo and I have both been collecting wildflower seeds for years. Miniscule but vital parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Washington and other parts of Oregon have been brought to this little piece of yard in Central Oregon to see what kind of stuff they're made of. All seeds were harvested with respect and admiration for their tenacity, joy and willingness to grow in often harsh high desert conditions. The mixing of these seeds (see photo below) was a ceremony all of itself. We also used some bought seed for dryland mix, but very little.
The best therapy I know is dropping seeds in the ground. So while the world turns, and maybe wobbles, I plant.
grass to wild flowers
sore back as fertilizer
dropped grace, dirty feet as joy
Slid all worries and grief into the willing and prepared soil along with those beautiful seeds.
The lovely crabapple that presides over all the shenanigans.
This photo was take May 15, 2009, at the height of her annual glory-fest.
Tearing up the grass in the front yard, stirring up old dirt, piling coarse topsoil from the local landfill. Talking to the land through the entire process. You can see my new strawberry citadel in the background. May 4, 2009
Crabapple petals falling on the newly distributed topsoil, May 10th. Little mound of local chicken manure compost in the foreground.
Mixing our brew of seeds, gathered over years with great anticipation of this unknown date: May 23, 2009
All planted, watered. Shady dryland mix to go under the 2 large blue spruce and sunny dryland northwest mix for the rest of the area. Now we wait--one of the 3 or 4 best parts of this process!
My feet at the end of the day, May 23.
Meanwhile, also in progress, courtyard garden. Took the old brick base and built retaining wall with lava rock.
Accouterment, with pale pink crabapple petals covering everything. May 20, 2009. Soil for the vegetable garden is 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost (steer, mushroom, chicken). You can see a steer skull and femur propped up against the crabapple tree base, waiting for their 'final' resting place in the design.
New courtyard entrance, May 23, 2009. Stay tuned to see the vegetables grow in the planter behind the arch. The new (to me) metal archway has climbing roses, Virginia creeper and Akebia vines planted around it to crawl up and over. We will be placing our substantial collection of old cured animal bones on the arch and round the entryway as well. The new name for our home is 'The House of Bones and Roses'
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The year is 1909. What a difference one 'short' century makes!
These statistics have not been fact-checked, at least by me!
The average life expectancy was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.
The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,
and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at home.
90% of all doctors had no college education.
(Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
were condemned in the press and the government as 'substandard'.)
Sugar cost 4 cents a pound. Eggs were 14 cents a dozen. Coffee was 15 cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death were:
Pneumonia and influenza
Tuberculosis
Diarrhea
Heart disease
Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, iced tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Fathers Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school..
18% of households had at least One full-time servant or domestic help.
Most people in the US believed in God and most of them went walked to church
or went in a horse and buggy.
There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.A.
Wonder what life in the US (if there is such an entity) may be like in another 100 years.
Technorati Tags: 100 years ago
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Anthropomorphizing God and God's kingdom is the best most of us, maybe any of us, can do. Similes, metaphors and other analogies are thus the honest homily.
This post is part of a synchroblog of other bloggers writing on 'the kingdom of God'. Check out the links to their posts at the end of this one as they become available.
The kingdom of God is like...
the intricacies of markings on a butterfly's wings
made of thousands of minute scales
each a kingdom unto itself
the color brown
made of red and yellow, compost and water
each a kingdom unto itself
the welcoming wag of a dog's tail
made up of synapses and sinew, love and hikes
each a kingdom unto itself
a delicious frosted cake
made of the salt of the earth and the leavening of love
each a kingdom unto itself.
The holographic nature of the universe
Speaks to the nature of the kingdom of God
But cannot define or even illuminate it.
But we, both the cake and part of the cake
Can have and eat it, too.
Synchroblog
This post is part of a synchroblog on the theme of The Kingdom of God. You may enjoy other posts on this theme at:
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