2 pieces

I haven't blogged in a while. I honestly think I was waiting for this to happen, the death of my grandmother. My mom's mom, my last grandparent, the soft sweeping of a door closing, the symbolic closing of so many different chapters in so many different lives in this big beautiful heartsick family. I would like to be more poetic about all this but I don't think i have it in my right now and besides there are 2 pieces from much more articulate souls running on a loop in my head. Here they are; the first by Ranier Maria Rilke I'm not even sure he's writing about death but that's the beauty of poetry it's open for interpretation. And the second is by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet which is my spiritual touchstone.

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I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

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You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

-Kahlil Gibran

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So where's the yoga in all this? the "off the mat, into life" fortune cookie nugget? I don't know. I do know that death is part of life, it is not to be feared and that death is really only one more step on our spiritual journey. I know this all in my head but I don't feel it yet and that is my journey. So for now I will keep breathing, I will comfort my mother, I will receive comfort from loved ones and I will keep on this path and surrender to the fact that I may never understand the whole life and death thing and that is ok too.