Prayer

Oh Great Mother, tell me about Death.

What do you want to know, my daughter?

Do I have to die?

Shouldn't you be asking, Do I have to live?

But, Dear Mother, I love Life beyond words and this is why I don't want to die.

You know Death is only part of the Cycle of Life. The earth has given so much to us and we must give ourselves back to the earth.

Yes, I've heard it all before. What if there really is nothing beyond this realm? What if this is it?

Then, there is nothing.

But I'm afraid.

There is nothing to fear. You will simply come home to me.

But I'm having trouble believing in you. Believing you will be there for me.

I am here.

Are you?

Do you not feel me cradling your heart? Do you not see my breath whirling through the cedars? Do you not hear the voices of comfort I surround you with each day?

Yes, Great Mother. But isn't this merely the heart beating, the wind blowing, the birds singing?

I am here because you notice me.

But you haven't finished telling me about Death. I don't think I will ever be ready to die.

When the time comes you will be ready.

Are you sure?

I am sure

. And will you notice me, be ready for me?

I will, my dear daughter.

© 2012

From My Journal: A Culture of Guns and Violence

December 13, 2012: Another Mass Shooting. This time at our own Portland, Oregon Clackamas Town Center. My daughter works at another Portland mall and so this shooting hits home. She shared that her coworkers were extremely fearful and nervous the day after the shooting. The young shooter seems to have led a fairly normal life and yet he walked into a mall with an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle and a high capacity gun clip and started randomly firing. More deaths, more injuries, more sorrow.

I'm sure most of us have been to a mall or to a shopping center parking lot. Other mass shootings have occurred at high schools, college campuses, and movie houses. My daughter was in an Eugene elementary school when the Thurston High School shooting in Springfield, Oregon happened. She attends college at Portland State University and has friends at the University of Oregon. We've all been to movie theaters. Certainly each one of us can think of a friend, a relative, an acquaintance who was near or at a mass shooting here in our supposedly safe and sane United States of America.

So what is it going to take for the public to demand more responsible gun laws? Oregon State Senator Ginny Burdich is reintroducing legislation that never made it to the floor in 2011: Banning high capacity gun clips. Isn't this reasonable? And do we need semiautomatic assault rifles in everyday people's hands? We don't have to be anti-guns, only anti unnecessary innocent carnage.

December 14, 2012: I just learned of another mass shooting: 20 children at a Connecticut elementary school were randomly killed. Are we going to allow this senseless violence to continue? Eighteen beautiful children killed!

© 2012

Child of the Cosmos

A neighbor, whose partner died a few years ago and who recently lost her mother, stated, “Now I am both a widower and an orphan.”

When my own mother died, I first had a similar feeling of aloneness. Then it occurred to me: this neighbor has never been a mother. It is my role as mother that keeps me hooked to the world. The line does not end with me, I remember reflecting. But now, I can see that the line never did begin with me. For I am a daughter of the universe.

In the beginning and at the end I felt close to my mother. In between lay an expansive bridge that neither one of us were able to meet upon. There was love, but not intimacy. So when my mother died, I already knew what it was to be an orphan. I had already sought love in other places.

I am a daughter of the universe.

On a pre-winter morning I stood upon our front deck sipping my coffee and hearing the crows cawing amongst the trees. I started cawing back at them, and then it happened. I watched as two crows and then three more flew from the top of my backyard incense cedar to the top of the front maple tree. Five crows, my magic number, I thought. Five crows. I let the light filtering through the darkening sky bathe me while I breathed in the stark beauty of the leafless trees. With gratitude am I standing here.

I am a daughter of the universe.

My edgy, independent daughter doesn't need her mother. In my twenties wasn't I also similar? I sought to uproot my origins and plant myself anew. I wandered near and far, and to my surprise, my roots grew wherever I stood. I became part of a wider world. And I discovered creatures and kin who needed my compassion and mothering. I gave and I received.

I am a daughter of the universe.

At times I feel alone. At times I get captured by the dark. At times I do feel motherless. Then I hear the cawing. I see the shoots sprouting as the leaves fall. I feel the sun's warmth. And I know I will never be an orphan.

I am a child of the cosmos.

© 2012