December 22, 2009

Dear ones,

This morning I awoke at dawn and stood in the stillness of our misty garden to greet the rising of the sun. Three times I rang our brass bowl that we use for meditation, its sweet sound spilling out over the valley to welcome the return of the light.

After the darkest night of the year, on the solstice the sun stands still, pausing before it starts a new cycle of growing light. We dance with the sun this circle of the seasons, within the circles of the years. As Wendell Berry writes: "Again, again we come and go, changed, changing. Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all."

Celebrating our rich dance together over these past months (and years), I send you my love and gratitude, with wishes that what you seed in this dark night comes to fruit in the months ahead.

Alexandra

 August 28, 2009

A day after the "lion" of the Senate Edward Kennedy died, the "lion" of the Kennedy household died peacefully in my husband’s arms. The house feels so empty this morning without his presence. It's the first time since 1969 that we have been without a cat in our lives. Last night we slept out under the stars, a beautiful clear night with the Pleides right over head in the early morning hours--I could feel Zack in that vastness. He is home.

Zack was loved by us all-- he was a unique cat, gazing into our eyes, reaching out with his paw, greeting us at the door, waiting patiently in the dining room for dinner to be served and a handout of barbecued chicken to perhaps come his way (barbecued chicken was his favorite food),
always eager to play (he thought pencils were great toys). He gravitated to men but I was always the one he sought out at his 3:30 dinner time (he had a very accurate inner clock). In his last months he especially loved Thursday night meditations--he would settle on the couch next to one of his favorite meditators (a man) and drop into a deep meditation, so deep that his head would be resting on the pillow by the end of the meditation. Perhaps his meditations were preparation for his journey back to his source-- certainly they seemed to give him the energy to live a quality life for six more weeks after his kidneys failed.

Finally, I want to share with you a song by Thich Nhat Hanh that friends sent me---they sang it for him as Zack was dying.

No coming, no going
No after, no before
I hold you close to me
I release you to be so free
Because I am in you
And you are in me
Because I am in you
And you are in me

Zack, we love you. Rest in peace.

 March 27, 2009

In a gray-blue expanse of sea on the Big Sur coast I am watching whales spouting as they head north. My heart heaves with excitement with each plume. And then it is gone, leaving a vast shimmering sea.

As I approach the first anniversary of my mother’s death, I’m reflecting on how my mother burst forth like one of these whale plumes— for 94 years she expressed her own creative flair for life and then last March dissolved back into the vastness. There wasn’t any sense of her anywhere— nothing to hold on to, not even unresolved issues, just a vast emptiness expanding in all directions.

This year has been an intense one—grieving the loss of my mother’s physical presence in my life and yet feeling remarkably peaceful with her passing, cleaning out her home of 40 years, dealing with all the myriad of details of settling the estate. The responsibility has weighed heavily on me at times, particularly when I resisted it. At times it’s hit hard that I’m an orphan now-- being an only child with both parents dead I feel exposed and vulnerable in this world. Knowing how impermanent this life is, I treasure each precious moment shared with loved ones and embrace the meetings, celebrations, losses, and changes as part of this exquisite flow of life through me.

Another whale plume rises magically from the sea spread out before me-- and as it dissolves I breathe a deep sigh of gratitude, along with a prayer to my beloved mother: You lived on the sweetness of gratitude. May you rest peacefully at your Source.