Life on the Edge

The above “33 hearts mandala” was one of three mandalas gifted to me yesterday by Sally; a day that marked 22,280 days in procession that I have walked this earth—just over two thirds of the way to where I hope to end up having had a life of 33,000 days.

I like the number three.  Open on one side, yet protected on the other, there is a lovely give and take in its asymmetrical symmetry. Linear, yet bulbous, it is the most sensual of all the numbers. 

33 is the atomic number of arsenic, as well as, the ripe old age to which Alexander the Great and Jesus lived. It is also the number of the most professional baseball innings played. 

Being fascinated with this likeable number gave me the commitment to complete the 3 year, 3 month, 3 week, 3 day daily surf that I finished last year.

The two other mandalas from Sally were an oil painting on canvas and an acrylic painting on stone.  In the birthday card accompanying them, she wrote:

In honour of the ups and downs of love…

The Rocky Love Mandala represents the “downs” of love; love on the mundane earthly level. It is the stable force for when the road gets rocky. It signifies that aspect of love that stands through thick and thin. It is solid and grounded and strong.

Winter solstice eve in the southern hemisphere. The sun sets early; too early. Pushes the man, who has been outside sculptling, inside to find the hearth’s warmth. Pushes him inward, into himself, to fathom this longest passage of dark time. By fireside, as a second, tinier “winter sun” heats up both the soup and those great paws of hands that have fondled tree and stone some 60 odd years, the man wonders just how many more of these great turnings of the earth and sun he will witness before becoming too witless to know what it was ever all about.

He thinks of what still needs to be done on the land upon which he dwells. He thinks of his teacher, Wendell Berry, and a line from this farmer’s poem, A Vision: ... a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live here...

On this winter solstice eve, a chilling winter rain is blown through the dark. As the ground moistens and softens up for tree planting, a possibility is nurtured and a calculation is made on how many more trees need still be planted before “an old forest will stand”. Fifteen thousand. On average, he puts in 400 per year. Looks like he’ll be putting in the last trees on his 100th birthday. Looks like he needs to keep his wits about in order to be around to witness forty more winter solstices.

A Vision

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our season welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
along the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windrows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.

Wendell Berry

In last week’s blog, we read that the poet, Kabir, found god in a ceramic vase. In this week’s newspapers, we read that Paris Hilton has found god in jail. The “bearded one” certainly abides in mysterious places.

What about a lump of wood?  Why not? To say that someone is “as thick as two planks of wood” usually connotes a high degree of stupidity. But, if one regards wood as having special characteristics, such as intrinsic value or that God resides within, well, then, just possibly, we could be giving the “two planks” person a fairly high compliment; a compliment usually reserved for the pope or the Dalai Lama.

Take the above close up photo of a piece of split firewood, for instance. With its nice rippling waves and golden color it makes me think of the curly hairs of the goddess, Venus. Definitely sensuous. Lots of places to hide in; certainly better than jail. Moreover, this piece of wood can be inhabited by whomever or whatever I want. This is the artist’s prerogative. Or, the poet’s. Or, the shaman’s.  Or.... the child’s.

As a kid, my understanding of God was defined in the basement Sunday school class beneath the Christian Science church (not to be confused with Scientology). Here, the “Father/Mother” god of founder, Mary Baker Eddy, was gently hammered into our formative brains as being, along with Truth and Love, “Mind”. 

God as mind. Very abstract; very Buddhist.

As a creation story, taking a bit of dust and blowing one’s breath/spirit onto it and creating something that can walk is, to my way of thinking, rather impressive. So, seeing as how kids play with sticks, dolls and anything else and can animate them—i.e., bring them to life in the Biblical sense—it would appear that to be godlike one has to have the mind of a child. Or, at least, the imagination of one; a mind that can easily connect with the greater, sacred whole. Therefore, as adults, since we all have minds, we’re also capable of transforming objects into subjects, nouns into verbs. All it takes is a bit of imagination.

It might be considered child’s play, but to imbue life into the inanimate is certainly the work of a great mind.

Life here at Windgrove gives many opportunities to practice using one’s imagination to see the inner reality of seemingly lifeless objects. Trees do have tongues, stones exude wisdom and teddy bears are compassionate. Grass, clouds, firewood, vases, whatever...... they all hide fantastic personalities within and they all speak from the one Mind. 

And, they can be a great comfort in times of loneliness. 

To carry on from last week’s discussion on the need to unite science and religion, rather than each of them disparaging the other, here are two simple, yet clear poems that address this unification.

Both by Kabir (1440--1518)

1

Between the conscious and the unconscious, the mind has put
up a swing:
all earth creatures, even the supernovas, sway between these
two trees,
and it never winds down.

Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire,
and the secret one slowly growing a body.
Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds, and it made him a servant
for life.

2

Inside this clay jar there are meadows and groves and the One
who made them.

Kabir says: Listen, friend! My beloved Master lives inside.