Attachment. I know that clawed cling to stuff of flesh and it’s full-throated “grrrrrooowwlll” that goes along with it. Attachment. I know it well.
I can now say I literally saw it: attachment. I saw it in the witness of death. The life-force griping to the flesh. I saw those two -they are stuck on each other like a pursuent passion. An awesome and ultimate marriage – it is like this all of your life.
Until –
its time to fly! That is, you die.
Oh dear sister, it is time for you to fly.
And I, I am attached to your living.
I am motored by that grrrowwwlllll as I stomp army-like through this airport hoping to meet you now for your passing out of life.
On a plane, flying in that so mundane heavy-metal way, my spirit is solely with you. I am, to you now, midwife. I am devoted to be present, I am forever –friend.
As we land, I could leap across this city to you. To sing to you, comfort you,
to support your soul to go- go- go— right to the light!
Yet,
before I can stand to grab my things, my phone rings. Your brother is in sobs. I already know what the message must be – he says: you are dead.
What do I do now? I have come all this way to usher you, to sing to you. Deflating into pooling up tears, I am, for moments, lost. I think – you are gone.
then –
Clarity clicks-in as swift and bright as the blade of a master sword-wielder.
The mythical wisdom-staff pops into my hand.
I gather what is stored over my head and stand. From the planes door I push to trek before all the others. I see no one but you, truly. And, my purpose is pulling me with newly birthing clarity, showing me what until now I had never known.
her soul is birthing. still hovering…don’t move the body. it’s not over. go be with her. fast – the process is in process. there is work to do, still. go!
I tell greg, go back to the hospital. Ask them to not take her body away. Not yet. Call back the friends.
I am walking wobbly in an airport streaming with people in all their thickness; I feel really thin. Breaking. Darting through piles of people in their ordinary, I see: how we all meander about, in typical days, beneath strained breath naming life as just that next problem or burden to attend. While my life, now ignited, knows no detail, no good or bad, no hard or simple – I am walking knowing only an arrow-piercing love. Love insistent, I have no burden, despite the heavy bags and the breaking heart.
I am walking – without last night’s sleep, and with no idea. The ideas are flying in and I receive them. As enlightened as this mission is becoming, I also feel the weighted sand-sack of knowing: your smile I will never behold in this world -where I live -ever again.
In the room. Sage and feather. Delicate drum and rattle. Five loved ones. And you.
I see your body- it is most obviously not you. All of your skin is just some clothes someone piled on the bed. Or, perhaps – a plasticine statue in your resemblance. While you, You are a translucent painting of your pervasive smile now going onward forever. You are a mirage stretched like canvas across this concrete phenomenal reality, while so real I could hardly begin to miss you. We make this ceremony wholly enjoined with you. You are humming and swaying with our songs. Evaporated into the ethereal and ecstatic.
We surround the body, gently touch it, adorn it, honorably. I see the soul is winding out, in it’s own time. Nothing rushes, everything – every move in washing the body, every tone in singing the songs, are all present in current, outside of time’s binding. This clan’s slow, intentional breathing takes us to space wide enough to contact where you really are.
Where are you really?
I think you are hovering. But right now I know nothing but the moves that move my mind and limbs and tones. I think you are pouring out from this flesh-body like steam off a hotspring. I vision you are unfurling into a golden-hued sphere, like a bubble blown by the breath of a tot, like endless expansion.
I suppose you are becoming a light-form. You are seeping out from flesh retired, like scintillating sap. We sing and rattle to encourage you along. We don’t want to say yes, but we do. We are instructed to.
The deed of death is in fact done. We affirm the happening, saying: “go, go…be free beloved friend.”
In spontaneous prayers and praise, we friends remind you that you have left nothing here undone. You have forgiven and been forgiven. You were always exceptional at that art. And dear, – know you have loved. You have fully loved, you completed many wondrous tasks. You have honored. You have blessed.
I sing you wings, so you can let no threads of left-over thoughts hold you down. Take all of you and un-hinge. Release any outdated ideas- you are free to go right to the light, sister.
And we will sing here, wild flowers rested on your midriff, until it is done…until your soul has had it’s full birth.