Snowstorm Musings

 I am trapped in my home by a long snow storm, which has buried my driveway, frozen my water pipes, and impinged on my 58th birthday plans to visit my new little grand daughter. Mother nature reminds me of who is in charge. I have time, and so I write. Practice is the way, practice. That is what we do in yoga as well, we practice. Life in practice, practice is life. Instead of railing to the cosmos that I am trapped, I will let my words out.

Instead of gadding about I have the time to write, a passion of mine since I was about 10.  I am pursuing the concept of Heaven. Heaven as an idea, as a state of mind, as fresh garlic, thyme, and sweet summer tomato sauce over homemade pasta in the total silence of a snowy night, as the face of a newborn child who looks like one’s own son in his babyhood 30 years ago, as a poem which turns the heart, as a moment realized that this is life - all we have. We can’t know what the next moment will bring. How then can we know what will happen after we draw our last breath?

I know a man, a man I am very close to, a man I have known all my life. He will be 89 years old this week, and he has written the entire schedule to his memorial service in detail with the proper headings all laid out exactly in the form it should appear on the program.  With brevity this might be called expedient. If the last party postmortem is to be right in the opinion of the deceased, then composing it all in advance is the path to satisfaction, satisfaction before the fact. The satisfaction of knowing what songs will be sung, who will sing them, who will carry the body from the church, what church it will be - those details.

On his handwritten page, toward the closing of the ceremony, he notes a short eulogy should occur, which he has assigned to me. Already I am composing this eulogy for one who is still very much alive. Why, I ask myself, is this the way he wants to spend his last years? There always remains, for humans, the mystery of what follows death which causes deep emotion. For some it is fear, but that is too simple an explanation. The not knowing becomes an obsession, especially for those who believe that heaven awaits as a solace, an end to this 'vale of tears'. Heaven - this concept in the minds of men which guides the waking hours across the plains of life like a cowboy guides his cattle. We think we are walking and running with free will, but always at the edges is this black hole, death, the final end
.
The idea of a wonderful realm where there is peace, joy, lack of want, rapture, everything good and forever, this idea is sweet. Even the word is lovely - heaven. It slides over the tongue -cielo, nirvana. I am guessing that the concept is a lovely word in every language which has a word for it. The idea, the word, the image, the visuals, the emotion, the desires, the relief - heaven. A place where the water pipes never freeze. We need the idea of heaven, but we need it now while we still live and breath, and that is more easily written than achieved. Words are magic though, they can cause thought which can be almost anything anywhere. Let my words search for heaven even as I still kick about here in the physical world. Even as I compose a eulogy for a dear guy I cannot imagine being away forever.

I am interested in what you think. If you read this, send me a comment. Tell me if I am missing important elements in this existential question. 

Snow and the Little Birdies

The second day of snow falls as the afternoon light lowers into a Friday night with a city closed down.  This morning there was a break, and I went out to sweep in front of my doorway. The little junkos, sparrows and towhees come looking. I scour my cupboards to find something for them, these valiant little beings in a cold world. I throw poppy seeds from summer flowers and soy flower. It takes them a few hours to find the spot, but as the day wears on more and more arrive.

I have firewood, and my warm space inside. I look out the windows at the second blizzard. The air is in white-out form, reminiscent of the white-out on the summit of Mt. Hood  many years ago, when I climbed it with the man I loved.  We scaled the mountain for his 23rd birthday and camped on the summit for 2 nights. He would be 60 this year if he were alive.

The snow piles up, and I make soup. The beans and corn carry me back to summer harvest. The season of warm air, the time of gathering garlic to dry, shucking the beans, picking corn, making tomato sauce. It seems like another world from this white mountain tonight.

There is an acceptance of being stuck here, of having the usual diversions cancelled. Suddenly the time is only now, this moment with the birdies and the the soup simmering over the woodstove.  In only one day I celebrate a birthday, my 58th. I don't remember ever having a snowstorm to mark my birthday. Some years it has even been sunny. Mother nature has her way. This pleases me. It gives everyone the little reminder: our world is not our world, it belongs to the cosmos, and we belong to it.