Mary Oliver – earth inhabitant, particular and real, ever curious, left so quietly . . .

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~~~~~~~  Mary Oliver

The Great Way runs
to left, to right,
the ten thousand things
depending on it,
living on it,
accepted by it.

Doing its work,
it goes unnamed.
Clothing and feeding
the ten thousand things,
it lays no claim on them
and asks nothing of them.
Call it a small matter.
The ten thousand things
return to it,
though it lays no claim on them.
Call it great.

So the wise soul
without great doings.
achieves greatness.

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

A few weeks ago Tim and I went to visit our friends Chris and Cathy’s home and school at Wild Gardens.  You can take a digital visit through their SoulArtSystem website.   It’s a place where they nurture family, friends, plants, animals and earth.  Magical green things seemed to sprawl in every direction.  I couldn’t take it in fast enough – in fact my mind was moving too fast that day – with jittery agitation and busyness.  I could feel a sense of avaricious, grabby energy around “taking in” something new.

Cathy offered us a breath centered yoga class in the sunlit studio overlooking a verdant tree-scape and unruly garden plots.  I found myself trusting her guidance and then coming home to the place underlies surface turbulence.  She suggested we simply say yes to our experience – even if it was yes to saying no – which made me smile. I started feeling my body’s yes to the areas of spine and pelvis Cathy traveled with words.  Relaxing, breathing, trusting.

When we emerged from the studio, I could savor my friends, the sights, sounds and smells more slowly.  Cathy gave us a tour of the land, art and living spaces.  She generously invited us into her family’s special way of living.  Together they grow grasses, herbs, trees, vegetables, raise farm animals, craft foods, drinks, willow reed baskets, build, paint and mosaic.  Expressions of their creativity surrounded us.

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A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

~ William Stafford

I read this beautiful poem in the wondrous book, Second Suns: Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives, by David Oliver Relin.  The book is about the work of Nepali doctor, Sanduk Ruit, and his American partner Dr. Geoffrey Tabin.  Their organization, The Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP), performs low-impact cataract operations in the developing world, installing artificial lenses to allow blind people to see again, usually overnight.

The author describes his adventures following these two remarkable surgeons as they perform amazing feats of healing in some of the poorest regions of the world.  He tells Dr. Ruit’s story of growing up in a remote Nepali village and how he came to be a world renown eye surgeon.  He describes Dr. Tabin’s amazing adventures as a world class mountain climber – including his summit of Mt. Everest.

It broke my heart to learn of the author’s 2013 suicide.  He was so passionate about investigating and reporting on how these two doctors brought their amazing healing vision to life.   He accompanied them through very difficult conditions in Nepal and Ethiopia.  I am grateful to Relin for writing such an amazing account of how HCP doctors performed some 266,000 successful operations in remote parts of the planet.

Truly a light in the world’s darkness.