Spring Beltane Moon
The second rainy chilly day. Perfect. Tomorrow and Tuesday will be outside days again, planting and other things, but now I have my gas stove turned on, the study is warm and I’m going to have another day of writing, reading and watching movies.
A friend’s mother-in-law, 97, lies at home, hospice care. A Chinese national, born in Canton, she has created a long and active life, filled with calligraphy, gardening, cooking, writing, reading and family.
Another friend went out and stayed the night with her yesterday.
Moon’s decline underscores the transition for our men’s group. Death and serious illness has become common, no longer stories of other’s lives. Perhaps Moon, as well as any other, shows a way to live into the Third Phase.
She did not give up the things that made her who she was. She stayed rooted in her tradition, yet took parts of it and made them her own and, in so doing, transformed them from things of yesterday into things of today and tomorrow. Each of the Woolly’s have our names in Chinese courtesy of Moon. She wrote poetry and a book of hers was published a couple of years ago by her family.
Many were the meals at Scott’s house in which Moon added her touches to Yin’s work. She had a quiet way, yet exuded a person who knew who she was, a person complete and whole, a real presence in the world. No one’s cipher.
Now Moon rises in the night sky. She will not be forgotten.
