Finding peace in places we are taught it can't be found
I knew I wanted to write a newsletter this week, but in all honesty since getting off meditation retreat last weekend, I have found myself filled to the brim with the task of living in our modern, information-soaked world. So I was grateful to open my email and receive some inspiration and deep, mysterious wisdom from Things That Don’t Suck, the newsletter from poet Andrea Gibson, who has been experiencing ovarian cancer. As I continually deepen my own practice of death contemplation and prepare for supporting others in that way, I have been drawn toward witnessing those who have unwittingly found themselves in a dance with death and who process that through their art. I feel humbled and grateful to bear witness to these tender moments.
In their recent newsletter, Andrea discusses their own surprising shift from terror toward peace on their cancer journey. Reflecting on a pivotal moment during a PET scan, they write, “my Grandma Faye was sitting beside me, humming a lullaby in a rocking chair made of moonlight that she’d brought with her from the afterlife. ‘All news is good news,’ she whispered, ‘You’ll understand someday.’” Reading that, I felt wonder, some relief and some sadness, but mostly I felt deeply moved by this esoteric message from Grandma Faye. I can’t explain it, but it makes sense to me and I love that it came from an ancestor. When I think of ancestor mathematics and I contemplate that in the past 200 years or so, it took 125 humans to create me, all but 3 of whom are now dead, it just makes sense that I will die, too. And I know nothing of what happens after death, really, so I can’t take a stand on whether it’s good news or not. But if the last week on retreat offered me anything (and it offered me plenty, to be sure), it was practice accepting things as they are, not from a forceful or resigned place, but from an attentive and open one. Practice showing up with love in every moment.
Later in their newsletter, Andrea divulges a heart wrenching and simultaneously delightful fantasy of seeding daises to spell out “I love you” for their partner in the event that something is amiss with the scan, so that when spring arrives they can still profess their love whether or not they are there to speak it. “Is it dark to write that down?”, they wonder. “What I mean is—is it dark to share this light? The peace I’ve found in places we are taught it can’t be found?” Again, I was awe-struck.
Though I’ve had my own intuitive reckoning with my mortality and have experienced peace and freedom from it beyond what I could’ve imagined, I also know that I am so-called young and healthy and statistically not likely to die very soon. It sometimes occurs to me that my faith in death contemplation can and likely will be tested as I become statistically more likely to die. Though, as I write that, I’m reminded of another meditation retreat, years ago, specifically centered on death contemplation. During a walking period, I wandered along a beautiful hiking path to a little memorial alcove, a collective shrine upon which visitors leave mementos of their loved ones. Among the photos, little statues, knick knacks and other things was a memorial announcement for a young woman who was born the same year I was. She had died a few months prior. She was 28 years old. I don’t know how she died, but that moment really put it into perspective for me: we never know when death will come.
But back to Andrea… Their reflection on finding peace in places we are taught it can’t be found resonated loudly in the chambers of my being. Hearing it put in those words was like a key fitting into a lock. I felt my heart quiver with both gratitude and grief. I shed tears both in reading their words and in writing these. While I advocate for the acceptance of death, making good on that proposition invariably invites deep, raw, aching grief. And I meet this grief with love, as well. In the same way that it makes sense to me that I will die and that all of those I love, cherish and admire will die, it also makes sense that this is an absolutely heartbreaking phenomenon. But that grief can coexist with peace.
I want to weave in one last thread inspired by Andrea’s post. They mention that growing into this sense of peace arose only after they had learned to love the parts of themselves that were fearful, curmudgeonly, resistant. They grow the most, they say, when “offering compassion to the parts of myself that have not yet grown.” So, let’s love the parts of ourselves that are absolutely bat shit terrified and clinging on for dear life. Let’s offer compassion to the parts that have never and may never have enough love, enough recognition, enough impact, all the while knowing that strangely, miraculously, the power of our own love and compassion can transform us.
I’ll leave you with a koan. Last night I pulled a few oracle and tarot cards in honor of the New Moon. From my deck of Byron Katie quotes, this arose:
“Until we understand that death is equal to life, we live in fear.”
Thank you for reading, dear one. May you find peace and happiness unshaken by the winds of change.