Initiation

I keep thinking that in addition to the pervasive smoke and haze, we are all in the thick of a collective sense of grief. A friend of mine sent me this powerful essay by Joan Sutherland, and it is well worth reading and contemplating, for it explores the idea of grief on both a personal and global level. We are in the midst of devastating loss, filled with fear and uncertainty about a future that seems foreboding and bleak. But Sutherland reminds us that in its Latin roots, “grieving” is related to pregnancy. Grief, she writes, “is the transformation of love through loss, and how we are initiated into a new world.”

"You’re meant to find out what it is to be part of a season of your heart–mind, a season in the world, that has been stained and dyed by grief, made holy by grief," writes Sutherland.

We must look straight into it, allowing the pain to enter and the weeping to dissolve our calcified selves, and be transformed. We must find ways to express our love–purified and fueled by our sadness, not diminished. A tall order, perhaps, but a necessary mission.

For me, a simple walk to the sacred places brings a kind of renewal, or conversation with a friend, or even writing postcards to voters, sent out like messages in bottles, with a hope they will reach the right hearts.

In the course of this week, I visited my 87-year-old friend Aristotle, who told me the story of the hand-carved walking stick from his father’s Greek village, and I visited my seven-year-old friend Virginia, who presented me with a signed copy of a book she has written and informed me with delight that her mind is opening up–oh, it is so open! I can hardly wait to see what this means.

Speaking of Virginia, we were walking at dusk yesterday with her mom and sister on a trail from the beach to the bluff, when she shouted, “Snake!” and sure enough, just where I was about to step, a large rattlesnake was stretched out on the ground, trying to absorb the last warmth of day as darkness fell. It curled, lifted its head, and let us know with hiss and rattle-sounds that it was not feeling pleased or friendly. We made an accommodating detour, and I felt, not for the first time, that an exuberant little girl with bare feet and sea-salty hair had come to my rescue.

At sundown tonight Rosh Hashanah begins. It seems more a time of reflection than celebration, and of course I am thinking a lot about my Jewish mother, to whom the significance of these high holy days grew brighter, even when so much else blurred. As for me, I’m not sure anymore what my own religion is, other than some fusion on the theme of love, translated into story and deed, and steeped in hope.

But if this is the start of a new year, let us resolve to learn, connect to other souls, help each other along, and marvel at the wonder, even through the tears of grief.