Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning?
Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder? ―Milarepa
Remember always that you are just a visitor here, a traveler passing through. Your stay is but short and the moment of your departure unknown. ―from the Dhammavadaka Sutra
I’m back home in the holler now following a trip to Maryland to celebrate the life of my brother-in-law, David Close, who wrapped up his most recent Earth journey on January 8th, 2010.
It’s been my experience that the death of someone I know creates a hole, a gap, a space that wants filling. I was aware of such a gap after my sister called to tell me that Dave had died.
When I recognize such a space, I try not to rush to fill it. Filling gaps too quickly often attracts second-hand fill―old thoughts, old beliefs, old feelings―and the creative potential in new space is too often buried instead. What began to be born in my Dave-space was a reminder of the certainty of uncertainty, and the notion that the death of a loved one offers this as a gift to us all.
Why is it a gift? Humankind expends a great deal of energy to smother, reject or deny uncertainty’s existence, but these come at huge cost. I believe I can make the case that our collective reluctance to make friends with uncertainty is seriously inhibiting the liberation of peaceful, loving, cooperative and coordinated efforts required to resolve problems that otherwise threaten us all. Uncertainty begets fear. Fear restricts our vision of what’s possible, and too often recreates the very situations we fear most. If we can live wholeheartedly with uncertainty, we liberate our true Self to do wondrous things.
Before I left for Maryland I had considered whether or not I would want to say something about the gift of uncertainty at Dave’s memorial service. No urge strong enough to move thought into words ever came. It seemed right not to speak.
I returned home to a different holler than the one I had left. Energetically, I felt myself to be in the creative potential of my Dave-space. Having heard the testimony of my sister, my nieces and nephews, and all the friends and co-workers who came together to celebrate Dave’s life, I had a better sense of what this one-of-a-kind being had brought to Earth, how Earth was different without him, and what might be possible for all of us who remain.
“Is a flower essential to the Universe? Some folks’ll tell you, ‘Oh, no It’s just a flower! It lives and dies in a day or two. What does Creation need that silly little flower for?’ ”
“Well, I tell you, that little tiny flower…you see it there by my toe…that little white one, no bigger than an earring… That flower is essential—that’s right, I’m telling you, essential—to the whole wide Universe, same as you and me and everybody else. We’re ALL essential, each and every one of us!
“Why, without that tiny little flower there it’d be a different Universe, a different Creation, not this one we have. D’you understand? So THAT’s a mighty power, don’t you think? One little flower can change the entire World! Just like one person can!”-- Grandma Edna Gordon, Hawk Clan Elder of the Seneca Nation, Six Nations Iroquois
Please also see my next post: The Life Cycle of a Chair Moth, in celebration of the life of Brother Dave.
