After the joys of yesterday we witness the sadness of today as this day is Paul's funeral. I am working on my own personal dedication to Paul which I will publish on the day of his memorial later in the year. Below tells you something of how I am coping with this day. My thanks to David Newell and Helen Sell for providing me with the photographs and Dianne Cosgrove for leading me to the poem. xx
A Soulful
Spirit
I have
not always been a Buddhist. In fact that
has been a fairly recent development in my life but I have always been
spiritual. I have always felt something. I have always felt connected.
This connection is most profound and vital when I am working with the land and I have a deep and rewarding connection with the seasons. Recent events have prompted slightly deeper thinking about spirituality and in particular the soul versus the spirit. I have always seen these two things as being different but I have rarely thought much more than that. I was in the midst of researching some North American Indian customs and rituals when I heard of Paul's illness and then his untimely and tragic death. My first response was one of drowning as the tragedy of it all came to rest. But slowly and very quietly my recent research began to poke at my drowning mind like a stick from the river bank and I grasped it and hung on. The river continued to rush by but I clung onto the readings and the understandings of cultural practices far removed from mine.
It is
fair to say that Buddhism is good with death but it is also fair to say I am
less so. When I lost my father 16 years
ago I drowned then and there was no stick from the riverbank so I got lost in
the depths of the muddy river for a very long time. Since my fathers death I have begun to follow
the buddhist path and I felt a sense of knowing that I wish I had had back in
the day. It would be logical to expect
me to reach to my faith when my drowning for Paul began and, in part, I
did. Buddhism teaches us about the soul
and it persuades us to keep calm around the time of death to allow the soul to
depart and move on. I did that to the
best of my ability but I was still drowning.
Then came the stick from the most unlikely of sources but it was, for
me, a good solid stick capable of holding my weight.
Although
at a fairly early stage the understandings of the North American Indians seem
to make sense to me. I found myself
persuaded by the belief that the soul lives on beyond death of the earthly body
and that it moves onto its next stage in the journey. The rituals that the tribes engage in are to
assist the soul on its way and I found them illuminating and comforting at the
same time. Although differences exists
between the tribes there is a generally held belief that, at death, the soul
and the spirit separate to follow different paths. For me, the soul is what made Paul Paul and
that has a timeless, ageless life but the spirit is something different. The spirit is what connected him to the earth
and that is, perhaps, less tangible. But
I am happy with that and I am happy to let the spirit float and drift as it needs
to until it finds a new place to rest.
My spiritual connection is clear to me and I feel it in all my work with
the land and after I am gone I sense it will stay and find another soul to
connect with the land.
Grief is
a natural part of death and the North American Indians do not shy away from
it. They embrace it with ritual and
tears and this shows respect for the departed soul while soothing their own
souls. I am a simple girl so my ritual
is simple too. Today on the day of
Paul's funeral I have lit a candle and it will stay lit all day. I will spend some time sitting quietly with
the candle and think of how blessed I am to have known Paul.
Bed is
too small for my tiredness.
Give me a
hilltop of trees.
Tuck a
cloud up under my chin.
Lord,
blow the moon out, please.
Rock me
to sleep in a cradle of dreams,
Sing me a
lullaby of leaves.
Tuck a
cloud up under my chin,
Lord,
blow the moon out, please.
Until tomorrow. xx
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