Intermission

Magic carpets, Riflebirds and Death poems

The Jewel Bug Nebula

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Hello. This post is about Death & Birds (and Birds, and Death).

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We are each born with an inhalation, and die with an exhalation. We each get two days in our lives that are less than 24 hours long—and if you’re reading this, you’ve already had one of them.

I love the phrase “taking a breath”. I love how it sounds as though we are actively claiming one of our finite number of breaths; grabbing it from the air and pulling it to ourselves.

While I take a breath, I would love to share some things that touch on Death & Birds, and which I believe to be worthy of your gaze.

Normal programming will resume shortly.

🪶

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Magic Carpet

by David Field

This is a short reading of a segment from a longer piece which David wrote about love, within the context of our fragile existence (listening is advised).

You can access many of the images taken by the Hubble space telescope on the NASA website. There’s one of the Jewel Bug Nebula, it’s fabric billowing outward in wave and circle forms. It is said that these luminescent threads, in part, are the materials from which we, and all things, are woven.

Last night, a gentle man I once knew jumped to his death from a building in California. At approximately the same time, as I lay awake in the dawn hours here in England, a bird flew into an upstairs windowpane with a loud thump, falling dead to the ground below.

May they ride together on a carpet of colour, inhabiting the place where inner and outer space are indistinguishable.

Of late, my daily meditations have taken the form of a mantra:

My existence is fragile, my fragility sits within an infinite mystery.

My existence is fragile, my fragility sits within an infinite mystery.

My existence is fragile, my fragility sits within an infinite mystery.

During the first weeks of practice, when I let the truth of it sink in, it triggered a considerable amount of anxiety, followed by a spell of existential impotence and then, eventually, a sense of spaciousness.

Accepting the full scale of human fragility means that the inevitability of loss, in the natural order of things, is held in plain sight, so we are not blindsided by it when it comes.

From there, joyously, nothing can ever be taken for granted again, least of all those closest to us with whom we share a path, a blessing that will be all too short-lived due to divergence, or death.

Where there is potential for acceptance and mutual healing in relationship, the ground of that union becomes sacred, a foundation for a wordless prayer that is expressed in every action and every breath—I hope this message comes through clear, my dear.

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The Dance of the Riflebird

Thanks to Lev Parikian and his wonderful Six Things for pointing me towards this fervent display of romantic intention. Sound on, full screen—prepare to be bewitched:

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Japanese Death Poems

An ancient practice where the dying would write short, reflective poems from their Death beds. Below, two of my favourites:

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going —
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

— Zen monk, Kozan Ichikyo (1360)

Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
Arrows, let flown each to each
Meet midway and slice
The void in aimless flight

Thus, I return to the source.

–Gesshu Soko, Zen teacher (1696)

Yours in aimless flight…

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