What Grieves

Everywhere I turn in my mind’s eye today is twinged with death, a thick wood whose trees have lost all their leaves, save the few shrunken brown holdovers which cling, mostly out of habit, almost as if to remind of us what was once here. “Do not forget us,” they seem to whisper, as if it were possible, the bright green and resplendent fullness of summer’s end still gleaming in memory.

But I know—having surrendered to this cycle so many times before—I know that eventually I will forget. The few crinkled leaves that stand sentinel on otherwise barren branches in the dead of winter will grow quiet and the gash of grief which marks my heart today will show signs of healing—sutures the likes of which only time can provide. This inevitable forgetting is the condition in which the delight of spring can fully blossom, for it is in the darkest corner of the self that the light serves its greatest purpose. 

But, today, Autumn still newly descended, I have not yet forgotten, not yet got into the cave of winter’s solace. Today, I am still shedding, still mourning the passing of an old self, still sitting with the sensation of unraveling a garment that has grown too tight. My heart still pulses with that raw, edge-of-my seat fervor, the ever-present freewill which claims all attachments in the descent, even if only in their passing.

Today I am million silken threads breaking away from their tethers one by one. Today I am a ballast emptying, each tear one iota less weight I’ll need to carry forward in the ship of my being as I cross the night-sea of winter. Today I am the wax which the candle flame licks up in its glow, silently, mysteriously, decreasing even as the light of life remains constant and warm. Today I am a toot system tunneling down, away from the surface of the earth as it hardens in the November chill, reaching forever more into the dark soil that contains still the warmth of the earth’s molten ore. I am a begging bowl, empty and ready for any offering which might join my singularity to yours. 

I welcome this grief, this drawn out descent, for I have seen the glory of the luminous darkness that exists at its nadir. Thus, to this grief I give myself and by this grief I am taken away. 

Is there anything more beautiful than this? Than the look of dappled silver stone, slick with rainfall and grown over with moss? Than the way the surface of a pond, a moment ago solid as the bowl of the blue sky, erupts in small silver concentric circles when a rain, so light it barely registers on the surface of your skin, begins to fall? Anything more beautiful than the blue heron, perched impossibly on a tree branch, who stares out with you at the same pond, undoubtedly perceiving so many invisible-to-you things there happening? Is there anything more beautiful than the feeling of gentle roughness of tree bark as your hand roves over its surface, or the way breath fills the newly opened caverns behind your heart after you’ve cried all your tears? I see the Japanese Maple, jarringly red in Autumn, its translucent way of showing off, as if to say, “don’t you see? - We’re all lit from within,” and I think, is there anything more beautiful? 

Is there anything more beautiful than the way the water birds dive and emerge unwet? The way drops of water gather on their backs, on barren tree branches, on blades of grass, on eyelashes? Or the way berries burst into song in your mouth when you bite into them at peak summer? Can it really ever be said that there is something more beautiful than this? Than the archway carved in an overhanging cliff by the mindless wind which, despite having no will of its own, manages to stir and shape wonder everywhere it goes?

Please tell me, if you can, what is more beautiful than a body, any body, and the willy wisdom it seems to house? The ceaseless contest between sunlight and dark shadow? The depth of the gaze of one who has been momentarily swept away by the Beloved? Or the bewilderment of seeing, through steam or smoke or another dance of heat and air, something which is simply not there? 

Is there anything more beautiful than the way the words of a poem penned in passion leap off the page, soaring impossibly past the confines of the life of the writer who smithed them? Or red cabbage, halved, revealing its inner workings, uncannily mirrored in our own grey matter, the inner workings of being ourself, Being Itself? The way all things in life reflect a truth about all other things?

Is there anything more beautiful than feeling ready, able, after so many years of resistance, to submit sweetly to life’s pulsing, incessant heartache without letting it break you? Without stooping or bending the knee to any sovereign but yourself? Anything more beautiful than softening to the storm, but never slouching for fear of the sky?

Please tell me, is there anything more beautiful than the way grief trails love, the hoof prints of some majestic beast, and in so doing bores mine shafts in your being through which you can unearth all that is precious, ancient, rare? Is there anything more beautiful than the ruthless perfection of it all, the brutality of a balance scale that dolls out love and loss in equal measure, even while reminding you that it was only ever always love?

Please tell me, is there anything at all more beautiful than this?