WAVING HELLO & GOODBYE AT THE SAME TIME
Not knowing rivets our attention on what is happening right now. And this present moment is the only time we can act, and the only time, after all, to awaken.
Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy was a well-known Buddhist teacher, an antinuclear and environmental activist, and a powerful mentor. She died this past July, at the grand age of ninety-six. On October 3rd, she was honored with a memorial at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Friends and family offered brief memories and reflections, but much of the time was given over to prayer and meditation, poetry and song.
The service included a terrific slide-show, featuring Joanna across the arc of her long life, from a chubby two-month-old baby girl to a wise elder in magically patterned shirt or shawl. Her physical grace, her clear eyes and wide smile, shone out across the decades.
Early in the program, Barbara Ford read her poem, “Because,” and toward the end, Naomi Newman shared Marge Piercy’s “Kaddish.”
“Because” by Barbara Ford
because she died
eleven days ago
because her hands
fluttered like leaves
when she was happy
because joy for her was
coffee ice cream and the cosmos
because she saw the cosmos
in the bowl
because the bowl reminds her
of the mystery
empty bowl which
is full of elegies
and storms and waiting
because she never
shirked from joy
because grief and anger
were her tickets to
the big dance
because bodies can dance
and also become fossils
because fossils reveal the history
of softness, of vulnerability
because the vulnerable are always aware, always alert to
the moment of impact
because impact changes us
because change is windy and pernicious and sometimes
an alchemy of rhizomes
holding fast
because roots
because leaf
because hollow bones of prey
left in the nest above
because bones become branches
and branches bleach to bone
because of the sway of limbs
because that gesture is a way
to dislodge the story
that aims to break us
because a question
a big one
is all there is to know
because she was so good
at the knowing
and the not knowing
she made her hands into leaves
her small bones fluttering
waving hello and goodbye
at the same time
Marge Piercy’s Kaddish
Look around us, search above us, below, behind.
We stand in a great web of being joined together.
Let us praise, let us love the life we are lent
passing through us in the body of Israel
and our own bodies, let’s say amein.
Time flows through us like water.
The past and the dead speak through us.
We breathe our children’s children, blessing.
Blessed is the earth from which we grow,
blessed the life we are lent,
blessed the ones who teach us,
blessed the ones we teach,
blessed is the word that cannot say the glory
that shines through us and remains to shine
flowing past distant suns on the way to forever.
Let’s say amein.
Blessed is the light, blessed is the darkness
but blessed above all else is peace
which bears the fruits of knowledge
on strong branches, let’s say amen.
Peace that bears joy into the world,
peace that enables love, peace over Israel
everywhere, blessed and holy is peace, let’s say amein.
World Enough & Time:
Writing & Meditation, Creativity & Slowing Down
For close to eight years, a small group of us have been meeting via Zoom one evening a week. Each session begins with a brief meditation, followed by a reading and discussion (Ada Limón, Jane Hirshfield, Ocean Vuong…) after which everyone writes for 25-30 minutes. How did that go? For the last fifteen minutes we listen to what each other has to say.
Thursday evenings: 6:15pm to 8:15pm EST via Zoom
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