Life, Death, and Life! A Dancing Rabbit Update

The stars, these stars, our stars, have seen many lives. Many births and many deaths have filled this land long before our time, and long after were gone, many more will come and go. People have fallen in love and heartbreak has broken; the land has been dry and weak and rich and bountiful. Generations have prospered and peoples have been plundered; they and others have been trying to make do in this world that is always growing, always dying, and always changing.

My life is also always changing—Stephen here—and I struggle to strive and bend and break and go with the flow, roll with it as the stars rise and fall and disappear into the moon, the sun, the rain, and the thunder.

Our second visitor session just ended here, and another crop of people came and went. They brought with them lives from as far away places as that one to where they say all roads go—Rome—a mysterious land where language sounds like bird songs and romantic might not mean what it seems to. There, too, was once an empire. How it arose and why it fell, I do not know, but in it’s stead, alongside our internet and Coca Cola, lay some of their stones and bones.

We are a long cry from our ancient times, but they are still inside of us. In far corners of the world, people, just like me, striving through our daily lives, may open computers and see a website of a place and be inspired. Hope that a better way is possible. Here I write, hoping the same.

This past week has been kind of a vacation for me. I have put off almost all the work I have committed to, and I have taken time to just be…here. And it has been great. And, as I lay in the hammock or walk in circles, I have noticed others pulling heavy carts and continuing to work at all hours of the day, striving to make their life a better one. And I wonder how it is that we all came to this place in this moment, born blind and naked, and then, still with eyes closed, were clothed in many kinds of different cloth. Is it fair, these different clothes? How is it that I can lie the day away in a hammock and not have a second worry, while others may plan and plan to open up for an afternoon nap? Some may say we have made different choices: I to go to school and write (summer break!), and others have chosen to do X, Y, and Z (and G and R and W…and Z again). We have different dispositions, different inclinations, but I can’t help but think that it all to some extent comes back to that cloth. And why? And I wonder what to do about it. The Roman Empire rose and rose, then and was taken down from its insides and by invading tribes. Our society is rising: how do we face it?

This week, also, my brother came into town and saw, for the first time, this place that I have chosen as my home. And it seems quite natural to have him here. He is not of this place, for he likes the city and to shower every day, but he seems to fit right in while he is here. And I’m grateful to have him here.

In a book that I can’t recommend enough, Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes: “The Life/Death/Life nature is a cycle of animation, development, decline, and death that is always followed by re-animation. This cycle affects all physical life and all facets of psychological life. Everything—the sun, novas, and the moon, as well as the affairs of humans and those of the tiniest creatures, cells and atoms alike—have this fluttering, then faltering, then fluttering again.” (Women Who Run With the Wolves, chapter 5, page 1).

My life, too, has been a cycle of deaths and rebirths. It has been hard sometimes, and when each death comes I must remind myself that it is just a part of the cycle: rebirth is on its way. When spring and summer are thriving, as they are now, I must also remember that winter is coming, always. And when ‘all roads lead to Rome’, I would do well to realize that the Empire fell and many years later a ‘poisonous’ plant came, a shade of night from the New World, that we avoided out of fear, and only later came to realize the bounty of such a treasure.

I write this article early because I can’t sleep, and this weekend I go off to a music festival. For me this feels like a rebirth, a going back in time to when I was younger and my life was even more unknown. But here I am, standing at a precipice of another unknown, wondering what it would look like if I jumped. I try not to fear, but I’m also scared. I have fallen before and that hurt. On this cliff, I see the birds, flying and floating and having no way to understand the idea of falling. To birds, falling might just be another way to fly—and perhaps I have already jumped.