Terri Windling recently wrote a blog post which included Parker J. Palmer's
thoughts on 'the admonition to 'keep death before one's eyes daily''. I
started to write a comment but it became too much and so I returned,
the prodigal blogger, to share with you my thoughts on death and
enlightenment, through the medium of hens. (Did you miss me?)
There
was a time when death was 'before my eyes daily'; I couldn't escape it.
Perhaps it is a lack of courage in me, but when I lived with a
moment-to-moment consciousness of my mortality and that of all the
people I love; looking to the future became impossible. I literally
couldn't plan, even a daytrip, even a meal. Life was difficult. And
terrifying.
I
think of that time when people talk of 'being in the moment': I just
couldn't make it work in my actual practical life. I was like the chooks
I cared for when I lived in a commune. One would suddenly flutter over
the gate. She'd peck about for a bit, then notice how far she was from
the others. Bocking in alarm, she'd hotfoot it to the gate and flap and
fluster there indefinitely, living quite perfectly in the moment, having
forgotten that with just a short run-up she could easily fly back over
the gate, and not possessing the imagination to plan that in her future.
Eventually I would walk pass and scoop her up, mutter some insulting
words of endearment and chuck her back over. By the time she'd landed
she'd have forgotten there even was a gate.
There
is a real wisdom in letting go of the constant planning and organising
and controlling the minutiae of our lives. I get that. And a lot of the
past is best forgotten just to free up a bit of brain space for poetry
and PINumbers.
But
the years I spent at the gate, so close to death I saw it every time I
blinked, they remind me to keep life, too, 'before my eyes daily'. I
like to plan good meals for my girls, and it is a blessed relief to be
able to imagine them older than they are now so we can plan many happy
days together.
