Life Unfolding
One of Many + Reflections and Mantras
Blessed Tuesday!
Welcome back to the Chapel of Honey! We meet you as you are, where you are, no judgement. This reflection written on a Monday afternoon, hope it brings some nourishment to your day whenever it meets you.
Apple-cinnamon wax is melting just to the left of my computer, deep red and fragrant in a familiar way. The ceramic dish with a tealight on the bottom and small bowl shape above was a gift from my mother one of the times I moved, or maybe one of the times she was moving. It has that sort of whimsy-goth-pier-one-imports vibe that was foundational to my early years, and though it has seen the inside of probably 8 different home there is something unmistakably stable about it. I’m reminded that everything I have ever loved and all that I have ever been isn’t lost as it’s seemed at times, but is alive and kicking right in my heart and bones.
I had lunch with my Dad the other day, and for a split second I saw his whole family in his face by turn and then all at once. Similarly I see my mom’s face in mine, and our body shapes echoing probably a line of women centuries back. My husband looks like the joy of his parents and the humor of his mother and sometimes the frustration of his father, and I marvel at all the ways we are simultaneously our own and also the living continuation of everyone we have ever blossomed as. The single flower dies but the roots live, the vines resurface and wrap around everything from last year’s poke stalks to the fence remnants on an abandoned property.
I think about the salt mines the city rests upon, and the cemetery that used to exist on/around Eastern Market, and all the ghosts at Palmer Park or in the colonial house recreations at the DIA. We stand on top of one another, cities have breath that swells and falls and swells again with streets built on top of another, old ruins and modern one side by side. I’ve been dreaming of eating Ghanian goat soup and ancestors dancing, and I wonder if, when I visit one day, my bones will recognize the streets of Accra, if the streets will find something familiar in my bones. The only separation is perception: my valentine’s bouquet, split into many other arrangements, still has some alstroemeria blossoming pink beside little bloomed out purple flowers. If you can show me the solid veil there I will consider it, but I present the idea that there is no veil. Life and death side by side, stems in the same water, glasses sharing one shelf here in the front room. I sprinkle rose water on my hands and the top of my head and my lineage sighs in relief, rejoicing.
What a perfect wonder! To be alive. I sat with my Grandmother’s Bible - my Bible now I suppose - this morning and meandered my way through Nehemiah and Esther until I came to Job. Man plans, and God laughs. To exist at all is such a strange and delicious thing, alive on the whim of the Universe’s itch to experience itself. Why does anything happen at all? To happen is the cause. To be and feel and weep and grow. Even in the midst of despair I have gratitude for life. I laugh and I weep, all of it in gratitude for life. I was in one of my usual struggles for sleep last week and began to chant mantras. There was a split second where, when asking for the relief of suffering for all beings and assistance for those who are suffering, I realized (without any clear thought on my part, it was like lighting shot to me) that I was suffering. That I am counted among those in need. And in that moment everything paused in a timeless way and I was in awe and wonder, until the realization passed and I continued to chant, and I never did get to real sleep that night. Life unfolds, we move with it, and even the work of alleviation for others does not guarantee alleviation for oneself.
I’m not sure there is any real beginning or end to this love letter, just as I’m unsure of any beginning or end to life at all. I am in the cosmic ocean, I am walking on the sidewalk along Gratiot, I am sitting in my rocking chair at a small unsteady tv table. My computer is from my mom, the table is from my dad, my heart and hands are from both of them and myself and God and all the friends I ever made. Nothing belongs only to me, everything I am will one day become fertilizer and memory.
Reflection
What are your Roots, as far back as you can imagine them? Not solely the blood lineage but the pieces of Spirit that fly to your mind?
What kind of essence are you cultivating yourself as? When you pass one day, what do you want to become?
How do things live in you? What in your lineage do you hope ends with you?
Practice
Write your own meandering reflection without judgement or too much consideration. Let it roll from your fingertips or lips, whether shared or not, visible to others or not. I know the direction initially says to write, but really just to express is the idea and key.
Mantras
Om tare tuttare ture soha (Green Tara)
Om mani padme hum ( associated with Avalokiteshvara, Wiki here)
Love always,
Honey
Sometimes the only fitting word is “wow!”