
This morning I decided to take a retreat day after a rich
immersion in Zoom meetings yesterday.
It
all began with a time of Mindfulness Meditation at 7:30 AM, continued with a
1PM virtual Torah study group, enjoyed with friends from Cambridge and Israel
in attendance and then on to a 5PM second night seder celebrating Pesach
virtually with our Jewish community from all over the world, winding down with
a
7:30PM Tenebrae service with our
church community as we entered the contemplative vigil of Good Friday.
It was an exhausting abundance of good
things.

So today is a
quiet
day.
I spent some time ordering my
desk and my “plague” workspace where so much communication and connecting is
taking place via phone and computer.
Gave a bit of attention to cleaning up the kitchen.
I set the compost bucket near the back door
before taking it out to the bin.
As
I turned away from it, the sun burst through
the clouds, illuminating it in an almost ethereal way.
Decaying melon rinds and orange peels, the
remains of a teabag,
some withered salad
greens - and suddenly I was contemplating a holy process in action.
There has been so much time and energy and concern and fear
and frustration and anger in the airways drawing my attention to the COVID 19
phenomenon that it is extremely easy to forget that there are other natural
processes at work, restoring order and healing just outside my conscious
awareness.

I emptied the compost into the bin and, thanks to the recent
film documentary, Fantastic Fungi,
took
time to peer into the process going on there.
An orange peel semi-wrapped in a furry blue and white jacket; some
shriveling branches of forsythia that had brought their sunny beauty indoors a
week or so ago;
something else green and
slimy -no longer recognizable, all more visible thanks to that film
that calls attention to the work of the
mycelium that are continually in action, breaking down matter, renewing the
soil, healing the earth - - how they are networked and interconnected and
working silently in our behalf all the time.

On my way back from the compost bin,
the wind drew my attention - a soft roar in
the pine branches overhead and I became aware of the trees surrounding me as
witnesses - strong, flexible, undeterred in their silent way,
as they reassure me that
storms can be weathered if I can maintain a
bit of my own flexibility.
Their
resilience in the wind inspires a bit more confidence as I continue on the path
to my back door.
Even the stump of a
long deceased tree stands as a mute witness to the continual process of change
and decay and transformation that is going on all the time all around me.
So I draw on the traditions that nourish me. I feed on the sacred texts, Jewish, Christian
and Buddhist, that connect me with
history, with hope and with the reminder of the impermanence of all
things. I am a very small part of the
massive ongoing process of creation - - and creation continues!
I have also drawn some perspective from these all too
contemporary thoughts attributed to Kathleen O’Meara, writing post famine in
Ireland in 1869, that are now circulating in the ethers:
“and the people
stayed home
and read books and
listened
and rested and
exercised
and made art and
played
and learned new ways
of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their
shadow
and people began to
think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of
people who lived in ignorant ways,
dangerous,
meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to
heal
and when the danger
ended
and people found each
other
grieved for dead
people
and they made new
choices
and dreamed of new
visions
and created new ways
of life
and healed the earth
completely
they were healed themselves.
May we each find the reminders we need to keep us resilient. May we notice the hidden mercies that abound
in creation. May we be healed. May we be the wounded
healers the world needs to heal herself.
Vicky Hanjian
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