enduring grace

and the truth of our belonging

The Garden of Death by Hugo Simberg, 1896

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Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.

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I woke up today, as I often do at this time of year, to the sound of the Crows cawing for David. They are extraordinary timekeepers, and I could hear the tips of their wings tapping impatiently on the faces of their wristwatches as David’s footsteps disturbed the leaves under the big oak tree. The symbiosis that exists between my love and these Birds is a form of poetry; layered, nuanced, speaking to much while saying very little. I don’t fully understand it, but I delight it in, nonetheless.

My niece turned five last weekend. To celebrate, she had a party where she and lots of her four and five year old friends collectively screamed for two and a half hours. Naturally, while there, my thoughts drifted to Death. Initially, a cursory wondering as to whether a perforated ear drum could be fatal, before heading towards loftier subjects of past, future and the passage of time. I’ve no idea how life will play out, for either of us, but God I hope that one day in the distant future her face is one of the last I ever see. To say that I adore my niece is like saying that the Sun is bright; it does nothing to capture the burning ferocity of it. I so want her to only ever know kindness and joy and beauty. And, I so want her to grow into a whole, resilient, compassionate adult. And I’m not sure that those two wants are compatible.

Recently, I had reason to recall a day in my childhood when my primary school class had, as part of an afternoon outing, visited the local churchyard. I was maybe eight at the time, and the churchyard is where my mother is buried. Initially, I had looked forward to the idea of ‘introducing’ my friends to her, to tracing my fingers over the inscription of her name while sharing the story of the rose which grows from her grave—but, in reality the experience was deeply uncomfortable. I’d felt embarrassed, somehow. As though she or I, or we both, had failed at something.

In hindsight, it appalls me that such a young body was made to house a shame around something so natural, so integral to life. For a child to sense Death as a failing speaks to a pathology which our culture accepts with alarming indifference. Even the youngest of psyches are damaged by our collective disconnect from the ways of nature. The distance we are made to feel from our dead goes far deeper than six feet.

As is often the case with burdens, the one that I was fated to carry held within it a gift; one which was always there, but could only reveal itself over time. Knowing that the physical remains of my mother were held within the body of the Earth, just as I was once held within her own body, offered a visceral sense of belonging to the land. A knowing that Earth is home and family, not resource and commodity.

In the bizarre positioning of ourselves as separate from, and superior to, nature our species fuels a system with little respect for seasons, cycles, natural limits or the inherent sacrality of all life. Death, in turn, becomes yet another thing to be either feared, controlled or subdued. Death, of course, is the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to human exceptionalism—it awaits both Bird and billionaire.

The current order of things relies on the denial of Death to function. If we truly come to know Death, to feel intimately that our Death is already written into history, our vision clears and we see that the ordinary is naturally imbued with the sublime—but the status quo is upheld by dissatisfaction. It thrives on disquiet and is averse to personal, and global, peace.

When we are misled into believing that our worth exists in relation to our productivity or our youthfulness, we are not only dehumanised, we are debeing-ed. Our worth is as inherent as the worth of a tree, or a cloud, or a poem. When we enter into relationship with Death, not as thief or ghoul or cosmic affront, but as sage and guide and cosmic embrace, we revolt against the monolith. We begin to re-wild ourselves and, grounded in the truth of our belonging, we cannot be controlled by subtle threats of exile.

Sometimes, when I lie in bed at night, I’ll open my mouth and let out an exhale which I’ll imagine to be my very last. The final breath. It is a profound thing. Profound to imagine. Profound to witness. Profound, no doubt, to experience. When I picture that conclusive breath rolling through my lungs and out beyond my lips, I can see my beloveds name written on it.

Death is not the enemy, it is the enduring grace of nature. The enemy, if there is such a thing, is whatever prevents us from seeing that the appropriate response to existence is love.

And only ever more love.

Friends, as an act of love and quiet subversion you will find below a link to a ‘death meditation’, written by the wonderful Stephan Levine and recorded by me. If the idea interests you, I hope you’ll give it listen.

Yours in aimless flight…

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