Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Last Frost Moon<\/p>\n
There are times and this is one of them, when death seems behind every door.\u00a0 My friend Bill has learned that his wife’s cancer is stage 4.\u00a0 A grave diagnosis with a grave prognosis.\u00a0\u00a0 American’s exult in the streets over the death of Osama Bin Laden.\u00a0 A friend sent out a quote from Martin Luther King* that expressed my feelings.\u00a0 Today Vega, one of our younger dogs, tested positive for Lyme’s disease.\u00a0 Not a big deal, treatable, unless the kidney is involved.\u00a0 Hers may be.\u00a0 If it is?\u00a0 Difficult to impossible to treat.<\/p>\n
Since I started today already in somewhat of a funk, all this darkness hovering around has reinforced it, made the day two or three shades grayer.<\/p>\n
Death does not surprise us.\u00a0 It lurks beside us all our born days until the last one.\u00a0 Its reality, its starkness, its finality, especially that last one, passing from the quick to the dead, still strike heavy hammer blows to the heart.<\/p>\n
Death’s most severe wounds come from the source of our greatest joy, love.\u00a0 Without love death counts only as an incident, something happening to someone else, an event of little consequence.\u00a0 We know this each day we read the obituary pages.\u00a0 Even the death of someone we have known, but not loved, does not shake us at our foundations.\u00a0 When, however, death comes to call for one close and important in our lives, the very bound of love lacerates the heart, accelerates our fear, amplifies our sense of loss.<\/p>\n
Having lost my mother at age 17 I know too well the darkness of grief, the inconsolable world which death can fling around us.\u00a0 Each dog, no matter how expected their death, has wounded me.\u00a0 No, I agree with King, I, too, will not rejoice at the death of even an enemy.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because each man’s death is the death of every man; each woman’s death the death of every woman.\u00a0 Though we do not feel loss with a death does not mean it happens without causing loss and grief for others.<\/p>\n
Each death is an apocalypse, a world ends, never to be reborn.<\/p>\n
This is the point where an observation about spring and the germination of plants, animals jumping and running, brooks cut free from the chill stop of ice, skies filled with warm sunshine might be inserted.\u00a0 Not this time.<\/p>\n
There was a moment for me though, on my trip to the vet’s to pick up Vega, when I saw two young girls on roller blades, laughing and eating ice cream cones.\u00a0 They reminded me that life conquers death, not in an individual instance, never then, but in the whole life has found a way to prevent the ultimate finality. How?\u00a0 That tomorrow, and today is such a tomorrow for me, for example, after my mother’s death, that tomorrow a young boy will hit a baseball and slide into first base, a couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, puppies will be born, music of a certain jaunty air will fill the car and that true resurrection, the ongoingness of life and its manifold expressions will occur as it has and as it shall.<\/p>\n
That’s enough.\u00a0 For me.<\/p>\n
*” I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives,
\nbut I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.
\nReturning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
\nDarkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
\nHate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ”
\n– M.L. King Jr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Last Frost Moon There are times and this is one of them, when death seems behind every door.\u00a0 My friend Bill has learned that his wife’s cancer is stage 4.\u00a0 A grave diagnosis with a grave prognosis.\u00a0\u00a0 American’s exult in the streets over the death of Osama Bin Laden.\u00a0 A friend sent out … Continue reading Knocking on the Door<\/span>