wisdom in a tiny seed
following with curiosity, feeling disoriented
wisdom blows across the landscape in the form of Dandelion seeds. i want to follow each one. float on Breezes. listen in my bones for echos as they land. these eruptions of flight are Death…& Awe. what is Nature but Life/Death/Rebirth. Grief/Joy/Sorrow/Enchantment.
essays, poetry, songs, gestures, music, art from others, flowing between Life & Death find me an open landscape. these Dandelion seeds will be nourished with Curiosity & Desire, not Fear. okay, sometimes Fear. as the webb telescope is shifting views about the Cosmology of the Universe, my own inner cosmology is shifting. that is disorienting…so i return to my bones and Dandelions. they came from Stars. ancient wisdom. life/death/rebirth. all “glitching,” as Bayo Akomolafe has noted. his words disorient me.
three years ago, hmmmm, yes, three. start of the pandemic when we were all learning to zoom, i took a workshop through Corporeal Writers with Janice Lee called “The Dandelions Are Prophesizing.” stretched out of my body into the world of Dandelions, Mushrooms, other beings. imagining other landscapes. interconnectedness of every every every particle. every being. every story. now Dandelions captivate me. & as i sat & pondered the other day, the idea of each seed being a source of wisdom spreading over landscapes settled into me & so the name of this newsletter. i, for once, am trying not to overthink…
in this newsletter i will follow Dandelion seeds as wisdom sources, see how they echo in my bones. share a quote that i’m sitting with. share a podcast, music, art, link to a poem (maybe share one of my own)…bits of shifting cosmology. sort through community as i’m trying to reimagine it. i write longer blogs on my website…mainly focused on grief literary. these musings…i hope they will be tiny tinctures of a broader nature. dancing in the glitch.
oh Grief. i seem to always spin back around to Grief…so no promises that Grief won’t make frequent appearances.
one of my favorite podcasts is “you’re going to die,” hosted by Ned Buskirk. he recently interviewed Aditi Sethi, a hospice & palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, & musician who shared about her work as founder & executive director of the Center for Conscious Living & Dying. she said “death is not a medical event” & spoke in depth about “community supported end-of-life care.”
“death is not a medical event”
after serving as a hospice chaplain for almost eight years, being with those living while dying was, for me, sacred work. but….or is it &, our “healthcare” system has medicalized death. when i heard this statement, i felt that shiver of recognition. we are so afraid of death, of dying, because so many of us are asked to do it alone. without the support of community & rituals & ceremony. i recommend listening to the podcast. but even if you don’t, consider Death. are you willing to invite Death to be part of your day-to-day living?
i’d like to tell you i wouldn’t be afraid of dying. that i live each day as if it were my last..because it could be. but i continue to grapple with letting go and walking hand-in-hand with Death…acknowledging that as part of my day-to-day living. it’s why i take photos of flowers & leaves & beings that are on the edges of decomposition.
i need to be reminded that Death is a natural part of life. to not rush to “dead head” the flowers.
what would it look like to be in a community that accepted us wherever we were on this journey? to become more comfortable with our discomfort around death. to surround us when we were on our final passage with song & touch & story & comfort & ritual. what are your thoughts?
i’ll leave you with Aditi Sethi singing a beautiful song, Seva, that was written in honor of one she came alongside.
in gratitude,
anne