This brings me to the second affirmation: Affirming Life. I’d like to begin with a story from the natural world.
Several years ago I was on a backpacking trip with a friend. We were packing from the Ansel Adams Wilderness into Yosemite National Park. We had gone off trail and dead-reckoned across a ridge and down to a pristine alpine lake. At the far end of the lake there was a small waterfall and an uninterrupted view across successive valleys to Half Dome and beyond. There have been places in the wilderness so sublime that my thoughts have been “it would be perfectly all right to die on this spot and in this moment.” This was one of those places. In the evening light, I wander off to be alone with the last bird song, the trickling water, the rocky prominences reflecting the orange of the setting sun, and the cool, still air. I surrender to the death of the day and in the magic of a single instant I am carried to a place beyond time and space. I gaze upward and my mind’s eye sees a filament floating against the clear, light blue sky. The filament reaches back to all the ancestors who have gone before, spans eons of time to the present and floats into the time yet to come. I am a speck, an atom on this filament. You, too, are a speck, an atom on this filament. My presence and yours are significant for each of us contributes to the wholeness of this filament. The filament may look fragile but each of us gives continuity to this filament. This is our responsibility to that microscopic part of us that is three and half billion years old!
I do not pretend to know how this image and this knowing came to me. It was a transformative moment and I had both the relief and the joy of knowing my connectedness to all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. It helped me to define who I am and why I am here. This is the affirmation of life. Each of us is here to contribute to the whole of life, to strengthen the filament as it transcends time. To honor our connectedness and to honor our place on the filament, each of us must let go of a belief in our nothingness to take our rightful place in the community of all beings. And it reminds us that to live, really live, each of us must be willing to die over and over again as we leave behind the known to enter the unknown. And this perspective reminds us that we are here in this body for a microsecond in cosmic time.
As we age, we grow our wisdom through the crucible of experience. This morning, I chose Frog Song not only for the children but for us, as well, for without Fernando, the question that led to empowerment and improvisation would never have been asked. With the wisdom of his years, Fernando knew something that others had forgotten. Wisdom carries perspective, curiosity, teaching, learning and creativity often lost to those living only in their minds or only in the immediacy of experience. As we age, wisdom is the chalice we offer to our community when we choose to live life every day as a marvelous adventure. So I leave you with these questions when I talk about Affirming Life:
- How willing are you to die over and over again so that you can fully affirm life?
- Over the years we each develop the gifts of our individual being. What are your gifts to the community?
- How do you share your gifts with your community?
- When you share your gifts, what comes back to you?
AFFIRMING LOVE
And so I turn to the last affirmation –Affirming Love. Love is about our connectedness, our capacity to give and receive from the heart. Again I would like to begin with a story.
I am in a workshop in eastern California. For our last experience each of us is instructed to go out into the wilderness to have a conversation with a non-human being and to return with the conversation. Immediately I know where I will go and the time of day I will choose. We are camped near the Bristlecone Pine forest. These are the oldest living trees on earth and I plan to have a sunrise conversation with one of the matriarchs that lives at 12,000 feet.
The next morning I arrive at the trailhead well before dawn. Dressed warmly in this below freezing environment, I hurriedly set out on the trail. I take no time to rest for I want to be there before sunrise. Soon my chosen tree comes into view. As I climb up and off the trail to the east side of the tree, the dawning light unfolds and the sun’s first rays catch the High Sierra peaks to the west. This particular matriarch is three-quarters dead and one-quarter alive. Already she has lived much of her life as have I. Unsure what to do next, I wait. What comes to me is the urge to lie down, to prostrate myself on the rocks at the foot of the tree. Despite being discomfited by this, I do it and am immediately filled with emotion that arises from somewhere deep inside me. Through tears, I begin my conversation.
I offer a prayer of gratitude:
“Ancient One, thank you for your presence, your stamina, your roots, your courage and your witnessing of life.”
The Ancient One responds:
“But these are your qualities, too. You may be a child in the universe but you are an elder in the community of humans.”
I ask:
“What can you tell me about living and dying?”
She responds:
“I have nothing to offer.”
My questions turn to the tree herself:
“I see all these scars upon you. Can you tell me about them?”
The Ancient One answers:
“These scars hold the story of my life. They make me an individual among the other trees. They give me character and, in time, these scars become marks of beauty.”
I tell her:
“Since I first came to visit the Ancient Ones several years ago, I knew this is where my ashes will come when I die. I cannot think of a more honored place to be with the ancestors.”
The Ancient One replies:
“I will welcome your ashes to rest with the Ancients.”
She goes on:
“These parts of me that have already died represent not only my great age but also all the destruction that I have witnessed in the world – the destruction caused by natural upheavals as well as the destruction wrought by humans through the ages. I have witnessed the destruction of the earth and her precious resources and the torture and slaughter of one another. The time is short. Do what you can to bring peace and harmony.”
Deeply moved by both her presence and her message, I respond:
“Thank you for honoring me as an elder. I will do my best to bring my gifts to my community.”
I remain prostrate for a time then gather myself up to leave.
Affirming love is affirming our connectedness to the self, to one another, and to all that is here. In my connectedness to this matriarch, I find a love for myself, an honoring of who I am and my purpose for being here. Each of us is a work of art but the art is not static but dynamic. We can always be evolving if we dare the journey all the way to the end. This is important – loving one’s essence, loving all of one’s shortcomings, and loving all skills and abilities that may fall away with age. Our essence remains to the very end. Each of us must remember and receive this for oneself.
But we must also receive the love of others. In receiving help with those experiences or tasks that we can no longer do or wish to do, we are acknowledging our place in the circle of community. We willingly do this for others thus we must allow others to offer their love in similar fashion. As someone who learned to be independent at a very young age, the act of receiving love has been challenging. And in New Hampshire, a state known for its “Live Free or Die” motto, we have much to learn about receiving love without fearing that dues are attached.
There is a reciprocal quality to love. Receiving the love of others is also a form of giving love for in the receiving I am honoring the other and the space between that connects us. Likewise as I offer my love and it is received with genuineness, the love comes back to me. This is our common ground. So here are some questions to contemplate about Affirming Love:
- How do you make space for honoring and loving who you are?
- How do you share your gifts with your community?
- If you are an elder, in what ways do you allow your community to gift you with their love?
- If you are not an elder, in what ways do you show your love both for the wisdom and the shortcomings of the elders in your community?