We Cannot Know

Now comes Schuman down the scale.

What a river of pleasure!

Where is his riven heart_

His ruined mind_

Lying in wait….

The Rhine turges along,

While the Rhine sparkles in the dark,

Lying in wait.

Do you ever wonder what lies in wait for you in the coming day?  Will it be upbeat, or down beat?  Will your fortunes leave you living more upscale, or down scale?  Wanting to know what will happen can take away our pleasure and experience of the moment, unless perhaps we just give in to reality.  There will be suffering, death, loss; there will be no suffering, death, loss; there will always be  beauty.

Last night I awaited on a dock on a  lake for the full moon to rise.  This was to be the biggest moon in decades because the orbit of the moon was at its closest point to us.  We got there around 6:55 p.m. with a clear view of the horizon.  I thought we were a little early for an expected moon  7:15 p.m. or so. This time came and passed, and then more time, and more.  Perhaps some with me were a bit antsy because there was another activity we all were missing.  I was as well.  But then we settled into it, this not knowing when it would happen, only that a beautiful moon would rise and make our hearts glad.

What lies in wait for you that you know is coming? That you don't know is coming?

Empty Branch in the Orchard

To have loved is everything. I loved, once

A hummingbird who came every afternoon-the freedom loving male-

Who flew by himself to sample the sweets of the garden

To sit on a high, leafless branch with his red throat gleaming.

And then, he came no more. And I’m still waiting for him, ten years later,

To come back, and he will, or he will not.

There is a certain commitment

That each of us is given, that has to do with another world

If there is one.  I remember you, hummingbird. I think of you every day

Even as I am still here, soaked in color, waiting, year after honey-rich year.

What is this other world of which Mary speaks?  Is it heaven? The beloved community?  A science fiction adventure where we discover new planets and species?

I wonder if it this other place isn’t already here, within and without us.  Perhaps it is a commitment to love and hence be bathed in all the colors of the rainbow. We promise to do this even knowing that one day the light will fade from our eyes and we will no longer see the sign of life’s covenant with us. 

After death we either will come back to life, or we will not.

But what if we came back to life this day with the sun’s rising?

What or who will you love today?

Logan International

In the city called Wait,
also known as the airport,
you might think about your life --
there is not much else to do.
For one thing,
there is too much luggage,
and you're truly lugging it --
you and, it seems, everyone.

What is it, that you need so badly?
Think about this.

Earlier, in another city,
you're on the tarmac, a lost hour.
You're going to miss your connection, and you know it,
and you do.
You're headed for five hours of nothing.
And how long can you think about your own life?

What I did, to save myself,
was to look for children, the very young ones
who couldn't even know where they were going, or why.
Some of them were fussing, of course.
Many of them were beautifully Hispanic.

The storm was still busy outside, and snow falling
anywhere, any time, is a wonder.
But even more wonderful, and maybe the only thing
to put your own life in proportion,
were the babies, the little ones, hot and tired,
but still
gurgling, chuckling, as they looked --
wherever they were going, or not yet going,
in their weary parents' arms (no!
their lucky parents' arms) --
upon this broken world.

Mary asks what is it that we need so badly. I desire that children would not be looking upon a broken world. Yet, if the world is such a bad place how is that that gurgling, wondrous babies came into being? Airports are such places where we look at the baggage of our lives, open it up, and perhaps leave some of it behind. Or take home more to ponder at some later date.

A few years ago I was in a busy airport when I saw a bat flying at people level on the walkway between gates. People were ducking and darting. I set down my baggage, took of my jacket to use as a net, and set off to catch the bat. I was not having much success when one man took a swipe at the bat to harm it. I told him that I would catch the bat and let it go outside. I almost had the bat when the same man took off his shoe, threw it, and the bat fell to the floor. I just stared at the man. Why would he kill an innocent being when he knew that I would take care of her? I scooped up the bat, still alive, and went to the airline attendant at the gate and asked if she could let me outside so I could let the bat die in peace, or perhaps recover. She just started at me and asked, "What are you, a veterinarian?" She did let me out side and I placed the bat on the connector walkway on the tarmac.

Returning inside, many eyes were on me. I wanted to shout, "What are we, humans?" In that moment the world indeed seemed so very broken.

When have you experienced "brokenness" and what reminded you of wholeness?

The Owl Who Comes

The owl who comes

through the dark

to sit

in the black boughs of the apple tree

and stare down

the hook of his beak,

dead silent,

and his eyes,

like two moons

in the distance,

soft and shining

under their heavy lashes-

like the most beautiful life-

is thinking

of nothing

as he watches

and waits to see

what might appear,

briskly,

out of the seamless,

deep winter-

out of the teeming

world below-

and if I wish the owl luck,

and I do,

what am I wishing for that other

soft life,

climbing through the snow?

What we must do,

I suppose

is to hope the world

keeps its balance:

what we are to do, however,

with our hearts

waiting and watching-truly

I do not know.

Indeed, what are we do with our hearts. We could close them off and not see the tragic, but then we would lose the chance to experience those grace filled days of belonging where everything is just as it should be, because that is the way it is. With such radical acceptance we would love the child molester, the dictator, and the cancer cells. We just aren't taught how to handle that pain. Though I engage in a number of spiritual practices to grow my awareness and acceptance, I find that I turn from the sorrow in all kinds of subtle ways. Sometimes though my subconscious lets me know that I have work to do. In dreams, in moments of anger, in depression or withdrawal, and in the times when despair surprises me, I get a hint of how I don't know how to witness the tragic and the beauty as an interweaving whole.

For instance, having seen so much suffering in wild birds kept inadequately in captivity, I chose to leave avian veterinary medicine for a while. It is only after much work that I can engage with people who care of pet birds so that together we can find ways to decrease the harm we do as humans to these birds. I still see the tragic consequences of the pet bird market, but at least now I can interact with people and parrots without suppressing my authenticity, love, and care. I believe I can only do this by growing my heart so that it can hold the pain as well as the love.

What do you do to hold the painful and tragic?

The Rabbit - February 4, 2010

....my hands like fire

to lift him to a last burrow...

...And the day after I've shoveled

the earth over, in a field nearby

I find a small bird's nest lined pale

and silvery and the chicks-

are you listening, death?-warm in the rabbit's fur.

This poem brings to mind a dead rabbit whose warm fur I held against my breast the moment after it died (see below the entry in my other blog: http://liberatingwings.typepad.com/liberating_wings/2009/02/index.html)

I feel the joy that Mary speaks of in this poem when I imagine that death has a reason - it brings life to the chicks here. Death brings life. It is my brother and we are one on this earth. But what of the billion animals dead because of humans keeping cats as pets? What of the devastated earth, parts of it dead? What of Iraq? Is my heart big enough to see that senseless death at the hands of my own fearful, ego centric species brings life? How do we live that open to all that is?

Do you know of a time when a death brought life, perhaps an opening of new ways that enriched this planet? Do you wrestle with a story of death that does not bring meaning or understanding to your existence?

Blog:

In Buddhism a bodhisattva is an enlightened one who stays behind to help others along the path. A few weeks ago a bodhisattva came to me in the form of a dead bunny.

My spouse and I were driving home one night along the dirt road leading up to our house when our headlights caught our neighbor’s cat stalking a cottontail rabbit. The cat started running in full pursuit, the rabbit took of bounding, and the cat was closing the distance. I was torn between getting out of the car and running so as to startle the cat or to tear it from the bunny should he catch him, or getting my spouse to drive the car fast so as to catch up quicker to the chase. I started to yell “gun it, gun it” when I saw the cat catch the bunny and both flip in the air, and my spouse did just that. When the bunny hit the ground, now free from the cat, he came running back towards us right into the wheel of our accelerating car. The bunny died instantly. With my spouse’s head in his hands I gathered up the still, soft bunny and immediately walked back with him cradled in my arms to show our neighbors what their cat had precipitated. Perhaps not the most usual way to meet your neighbors with a dead bunny in you arms, but I had wanted to speak with them for months about their cats hunting birds and mammals on our property.

My neighbor said that these were feral cats that they fed and didn’t allow inside their homes. They had them neutered and vaccinated and were attached to them. I asked her if there was no way they could take them in so they wouldn’t hunt and hurt the other species around, and in our backyard sanctuary. She could not think of any solution.

I cannot think of any solution either. We tried as hard as we could to save the bunny, and it ended up dying because of our choice of gunning the car. If I am to trap the feral cat so it no longer hunts birds and bunnies on our property, what damage might it cause in human relationships and the bond between the neighbors and their feral cats. I have trapped feral cats before, and do not do so lightly, because to do so almost surely means their death as the animal shelters cannot find homes for all these semi-wild felines. So who gets to live? Who gets to die? And who gets to decide? And will our decisions actually do less harm than our lack of decision?

I am greatly humbled with this incident. Even when I think I know the right thing to do, I don’t have all the answers. Life is complex, the answers unfathomable. But the path seems somehow simpler now. The bunny tells me to live the life of compassion, of authenticity, and of heart breaking love that cares for my neighbors, their cats, the birds and bunnies that flourish and fail at our hands, and myself. Somewhere in that engagement a light came to me so that I could more clearly see that though there is suffering all around me, there is also beauty. Out of that clearing of the extraneous, the grace of that bunny’s life and death as I held its soft rabbit feet against my wet cheeks taught me to trust in love and that somehow we’ll find a way to build the beloved community of mixed species. What this means in actual concrete actions I do not know – maybe trapping, maybe more conversations with the neighbors, and most certainly, a watering of the life around me with tears so that love may grow.