PHOEBE-- our shining star

“April is the cruelest month.”

--T. S. Eliot

Phoebe Stewart Washer--

August 23rd 1987 - April 14th, 2008

“ I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this

big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going. I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

It was a Monday, April 14th, 2008.

And it happened like this: Twenty years old and just beginning her dream of living with friends and going to SF State as an art major. A sunny Spring day in April, a windy day, an incredibly windy day, gale force. Phoebe left school early so she and Alex could spend the day out at the Marin Headlands. They climb down a steep wash to a deserted cove just north of Rodeo Beach. They are protected from the torrential winds and spend the day hanging out with the sand, seaweed, water, sun and themselves. They are sitting on separate rocks that protrude into the ocean. It is low tide and Phoebe sees a different way up and signals to Alex that she is ready to leave. She climbs to the top. This small, treacherous promontory has two sides, one being sheer, and the wind, with a precipitated force we will never understand, lifts and takes her away, takes her away.

We are lucky in the sense that we have a large and courageous family of friends and loved ones who all stepped forward and gathered around us and our lost shining star. ( I can’t thank you all enough). Those first few months our world was guided by the different Memorials, Celebrations, Art Shows, Tributes, Art Prints, Phoebe Washer Foundations, Web-sites, Parties, Holidays, Temples, and Events. Artwork was gathered and chronicled. Phoebe’s art had always been sought after. At the different community art shows, her’s would always sell first, or at her own shows the art would always sell out. Red dots on the wall before the doors ever opened. Her artwork speaks for itself.

Friends and patrons brought her art pieces back to us (mostly). It was the first time that all of Phoebe’s art was in one place at the same time. Her body of work is staggering for a girl of just twenty years. Chronicling her titles I came across a strange sensation: The titles of her art were so touching, meaningful. Each a small phrase, a signet from a forgotten poem, a signpost for living life. They gracefully fell into an order as if there were some secret message lurking. I knew it was just a father’s dream of looking for a message. Anything.

The first seven signposts (titles) I decided to tattoo on my arm as a memorial to Phoebe and the legacy of her artwork. I’m not sure why. I did not understand their meanings. It might be cliche to say it like this, but these seven titles called out to me. After that work was done, I couldn’t read the words, I became sick, back spasms. I wore long sleeves. Weeks later I was in a quiet room and the urge to meditate on each phrase came over me. I had not cried in months and felt my grief bottled in me as if I was some boiling cauldron with a lid on tight. Something happened.

There was an epiphany where a door into each phrase opened up and led me down the long stair case to its meaning, its relevance. I felt like these titles chose me, not the other way around. I felt Phoebe nudge me and say you need to take all the courage you can muster and write this. As honest as you can, as deep as you can, as real as you can. I will be by your side as you do this.

So this book is a collaboration of a father and daughter, of the stories and essays inspired by her signposts, artwork, journals, words and sketches.

Phoebe-- our shining star

Signposts

a gift from the titles of Phoebe’s artwork

How well do you remember?

Waters rising Surrender with a sigh By the light in the trees Ancient knowledge Nourished by the mystery As we sprout stems Her flashing eyes and honey hair I love you Killing me more every time What I know Two days ‘til Friday Home sweet In the night Bone guy Egg snatcher Buying the winter The juice of the pomegranate Heal Little by little Weeping Gentle Into the earth The Beekeepers All our little secrets The Offering Letters from home So sorry Untitled, untitled The Offering Love letters Be good Keep calm and carry on

March 26th, 2010 Dear Olivia,

Forgive me for writing such a long letter. I’m writing to you but also for others who have had to inexplicably go through a journey of grief and loss. I’m writing you from the midst of my own personal journey through the grief and loss of Phoebe who fell from the cliffs so very close to where your friend Alicia also so tragically fell. I am sure there can be no greater shock and grief to a parent than the loss of their child, it is something that does more than shakes our foundations, it rearranges the molecules of our lives, reshapes relationships, and creates new outlooks on faith and life.

I have learned so much on this journey and at the same time I have suffered great wounds that may never heal. I’d like to share with you a few of the things I’ve learned, or thought, or felt during this time. I need to add that this is from my own journey through this landscape of loss and sorrow. The world of grief is personal and individual, there is no right way or wrong way, too much or too little, there is no judgment that can be placed, no definition that can be absolute. What I say are things I’d like to share with someone I care about, someone I respect and someone I have great hope for. As some of the Buddhist teachers I’ve learned from say, the things that fit keep and hold close, things that don’t—well just ignore those parts.

I do not believe in coincidence. I believe that my phoebe’s spirit is alive and active in my life. I believe in the dreams where she comes and visits. I believe that her life had premonition of these events and her art and journals were a conduit to a knowledge that none of us can understand or explain. I believe that there is great mystery on our planet that cannot be explained by language and philosophies. I believe that faith in God in not about a word, but is a faith in spirit and the universal web of life where all things are interconnected and evolving, a place where a path through the redwoods, a trail across the ocean cliff, music with friends, words of compassion with a sister and brother are integral and the revelations in the beauty and perfection of bees and plants and sunsets and light through the trees is as much of a church as any structure with a pew or pulpit and that faith begins in this place first.

Sometimes I see myself standing in a body of murky water, think the Bolinas Lagoon. Grief can be so isolating, as there is nothing that can put these pieces on a shelf that has reason or order. Treading water out there hoping for something for our feet to stand on, someone

on the shore to throw us a life line. I had a dream where I saw these people standing on the shore, so many people who loved and cared for me, who could hold space and just be there. Some can not hold grief, some of our closest friends and allies may not be the ones to stand on that shore, but there are those who do and even in that dark murky water I am so often overwhelmed with gratitude at the service and compassion of those who come forward with love, food, comfort and presence. As I became opened with gratitude I also learned what it is to stand on that shore and hold love and compassion for another in grief and shock.

Take a rock and throw it into this ocean we find ourselves in. That rock hits the surface and everything is thrown into motion, waves rise up, water splashes, the world is a force of motion. The first few months after a death of someone we love is this world in waves of confusion-- We are tossed in the tumultuous, paradoxical, complex, confounding waters. We feel disoriented and disbelief. We gasp for air and flail our arms. A Woman Buddhist monk at Spirit Rock once said that we learn to ride these waves-- that suffering is a practice to find grace and balance. I asked my Bolinas shaman and he said that these waves in the beginning are so large and confusing, that we are kept from really understanding the depth of our grief as the large waves, the ceremonies of remembrance, our friends in need, families in chaos, events in planning, so much shaking and moving… We are buffeted around by the shock and as the waves move outward from that cacophonous center, the concentric rings begin become smaller and wider and smaller and wider. The water almost appears calm. But it was here where I felt the most alone. Is this real? How does this make sense? Does anyone understand? Why me why me?

It is that moment when the wave hits the shore. It is no longer a wave but an invisible energy that is moving through the water now. As this force quietly reaches the shore a blade of grass moves-- An infinitesimal shimmer in the afternoon light. It is in this moment where I am alone in the water that for the first time in my life I can see that blade of grass move and understand that the energy that moves it, unseen and intangible, is a force of grace and mystery and love. In the world of grief we become open to these subtle shades of mystery. The movement of a blade of grass on the shore is proof that the world is gracious and beautiful and I am filled with gratitude and become thankful. The world is impermanent and always changing and we recognize that we are a part of that water always moving towards the shore. And a blade of grass moves and we are made better for it.

As the Dalai Lama said: Some People, sweet and attractive, And strong and healthy, Happen to die young.

They are masters in disguise Teaching us about impermanence

And Henry Miller says this: The moment one gives close attention To anything, even a blade of grass, It becomes a mysterious, awesome, Indescribably magnificent world in itself

I did not know Alicia, but it is important to remember her for all that she was. Don’t just glamorize but really remember who she was. All the parts that make her whole. It bothers me when I hear about a young person who dies and people ask, oh were they drinking, was it a drug overdose, were they high, did they commit suicide?

This tragedy is not diminished in anyway by those things.

I feel so strongly about this. We are all falling and we are lucky to have been caught. So many young hearts walk to the edge and peer over into the abyss and come back, often a walk, a climb, or sometimes with a needle or a bottle or a bridge or or or…. but the tragedy is the same as the loss and grief are still incomprehensible.

J.D. Salinger, had Holden Caufield say these words in Catcher in the Rye, Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.

Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around nobody big, I mean - except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day.

I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.

I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.

Suddenly that is who we are now. Like Holden in the field trying to catch them before they fall. I have seen Phoebe’s friends shine bright. I have seen you shine bright. For a parent we heal in slow ways but you and your friends will take this as a part of your journey and you will learn about life that is real and poignant, but is also rich and unimaginable in mystery, beauty and love…. love, Dave

Contents I How Well Do You Remember?

pg 7

II Waters Rising

pg 31

III By The Light In The Trees

pg 47

IV Surrender With A Sigh

pg 69

V Ancient Knowledge

pg 91

This book is inspired by my daughter, Phoebe Washer. She is a shining star, a brilliant artist, an amazing human being. I am lucky to be her dad.

This book is a work of love. In making this book it is hard to believe that she is no longer with us. I kept asking her is this page okay, is this sentence right? She would always be the person who’s advice and opinion I counted on the most. I am not alone in this. There is not a part of this book that she has not touched in some way. It has been my greatest joy to be able to make this book that can bring her art and keep her spirit alive for all of us.

Her Legacy touches us all and we are the better for it....

VI Nourished By The Mystery

pg 121

VII As We Sprout Stems

pg 145

Thank you goes out to so many-- a list too long to mention but never to forget or to take for granted-- to all the friends and family, friends of friends and strangers along this journey who have stepped forward and offered solace, guidance, love and support. Thank you....

More info: phoebewasher.com

David Washer

Untitled, 2004

Be Good, 2004

Untitled, 2004 For Cooper Union

Untitled, 2005

Untitled, 2004 For Cooper Union

Waters Rising, 2006

The Offering, 2007 Awake in the Night

Season’s Pass, 2007

For You, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Untitled, 2004 For Mom

Untitled, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Six Years Old, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Spider Teeth, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Jack Thank You, 2006

Out To Dry, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Love Letters, 2007

The Beekeeper , 2006 The Beekeeper Show

The Parts, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2007 Awake in the Night

Keep Calm & Carry On, 2007

Untitled, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Her Flaming Eyes and Honey Hair, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Geometry Around Us, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

In the Night, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Untitled, 2006

Into Earth, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Untitled, 2005

On Long White Wings, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Just Between Us, The Beekeeper Show 2006

Untitled, 2004

Sea for Me, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Little by Little, 2005 For Mom

Untitled, 2005

All Our Little Secrets, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Lungs, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2004 SF Art Institute

Egg Catcher, 2006 Awake in the Night Show For Dad

Ast. Kokeshies, 2007 - 2008

Strawberry for Henry, 2004 Board Asylum Show

Buying The Winter, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Nourished by the Mystery, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Home Sweet Home, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Bone Man, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

For Steve & Lili, 2004 SF Art Institute

Two Days til Friday, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Because I Miss You, 2007

As We Sprout Stems, 2008

Juice of the Pomegranate, 2004

Untitled, 2004

God Bless Our Home, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Give a Hand, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

It is What it is, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Letters From Home, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Waters Rising, 2007

Untitled Oil, 2008

So Sorry, 2005 The Beekeeper Show

Juice of the Pomegranate, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Be Good, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Weeping, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2006 For Jack

How Well Do Your Remember? 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Orange Perfume, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

By the Light in The Trees, 2006 The Beekeeper Show

Untitled, 2006

Untitled, 2006

From Above, 2007 Awake in the Night Show

Untitled, 2007

Sometimes People Live Forever, 2008 For Melissa & Jennie

Untitled, 2004

Untitled, 2004

Fisherman, 2006 The Beekeeper

Untitled, 2006 Beekeepers Show

Untitled, 2006

Killing me More, 2007 Awake in the Night

With Each Other, 2007 For Bella

Surrender With A Sigh, 2008

What I Know, 2007 Awake in the Night

Heal, 2007 For Jess & Erio

Ancient Knowledge, 2008

HOW WELL DO YOU REMEMBER? part I 7

How Well Do You Remember?

Once upon a time a young man and his family lived in the valley on this side of the Great Forest and on that side of the Unknown Mountains. He loved his children and went into the forest with his bow and arrows and brought home game and food. He provided and he protected.

He was considered a good archer and a great hunter. He kept his family well fed, warm and happy. He’d bring home gifts he’d find along the way and his children laughed and ran away to make their own treasures with them. He offered the food to his wife to prepare and she would give him a kiss and make small feasts or delectable snacks and set a beautiful table and house to go with it. It was a simple and good life and in this way they were happy, prosperous, and respected in the village.

One day a great wind blew down from the Unknown Mountains and the village felt fear and terror. This wind bore from the wings of a large and mythic beast, whose neck was as long as a house, whose wings were as strong as all the villages horses, whose dark scales were as impenetrable as steal and darker than moonless nights, whose flames seared entire villages in a reckless breath, who put the darkest and most tremendous fears into the living. And this wind came down and a dark shadow came with it as this mythic terror from the Unknown Mountains came down in spirals, huge, but in their own way graceful, and swept down upon his daughter. As the village ran for cover she fearlessly climbed up the thin edge of cliff to watch the oceanic circles and familiar concentric waves emit from such powerful wings. Watched in awe and appreciation. The village’s fear of death was insurmountable yet she stood on precipice and watched it.

She smiled in awe and this mythic evil wind came and swept her off her place and in that moment, that instant, she was gone.

9

His family lost their way. His wife lay down and could not rise. The village

He could not see her but ran totended to her tears and they cried towards the spot. He shot his arrows blind- gether. His children sat in corners, conly into the sky. He ran into the darkness fused and lost and helpless and sorry, and like a crazy, headless animal and shot his the village tended to them with empathy arrows toward the impenetrable armor, and consideration. The village came to the unfair balance of power, the unimagi- help; brought him food, made him fires, nable winds of fate. They broke and fell helped mend his arrows, repair his home, useless. Insanity all around him. Nothing sang songs, spoke poetry. The man’s familiar. And then, closing his eyes, he grief was dark and unspeakable and cast saw her in the grasp of the mythic beast over him like a dark spell. He had shed and the light froze and time stalled and painful tears and then they dried upon the winds ceased and he pulled back, his cheeks and he cried no more. Instead aimed, and loosed one true shot. A clear the pain in his chest, the confusion in his twang resounded, sure of eye and sure of mind, the desperation in his breath, filled source and sure of love, the arrow was his body with sorrow that turned to an sent and struck the one spot, the size of acidic liquid and filled the cavity in his an eagle’s eye, between talon and skin. chest, kept filling him like a bottomless The evil winged beast looked back and cauldron until it filled his neck, his chin screamed fire and the sound blew trees up to his eyes, and erased his pupils. His to the ground and the water in the valley eyes faded away and became white and hissed and vanished and there were unex- sightless and cold as snow. “Blind with plainable droughts for years after. sorrow,” the villagers sadly commented as they brought food and candles to their home.

Phoebe took this photograph with my phone on our last day together in Golden Gate Park

I hope you love birds too.

It is economical.

It saves going to heaven.

Emily Dickinson

Later, days, weeks, months, who could tell, in a dream, as if in a dream, perhaps a dream, he saw his daughter and she said to him, “Be Thankful.” Then in that morning light a small bird arrived, a Black Phoebe, the same one she had drawn for him just days before she left this world, appeared with the arrow, still wet and glowing red with ancient blood. The small Phoebe whispered that the arrow had magic attached and would lead him to a place he needed to go. The bird hopped on his shoulder and nibbled on his ear. “It was not an evil wind that day, unfair, unwarranted, unjust. These things are just bigger than us; these are mysteries larger than us, more complex than us, things language cannot contain.

Some day you may trust this small Phoebe and you will remember me and this journey as the beginning of your spiritual awakening…”

13

But in the morning, in a trance, he put on his best clothes, brown suit and bow tie, and with bow and arrow in hand he headed out. Blindly walking towards the farthest, highest peaks of the Unknown Mountains hidden in the clouds. It was a long climb and might have taken, days, weeks, longer, he could not tell, as time did not live on this side of the mountains and on that side of his grief. This spot in the high clouds. A place of near death, of almost heaven.

She had always lived there in the clouds, the wise mother. And as he arrived she saw his broken heart and took him into her old, thin arms and embraced him. He was weary, cold and hungry; she fed him teas and held him strong. She said things would be okay, hearts were built to mend and reminded him to Be Thankful. He pushed her away in anger.

And she did not let him go. He struggled in confusion. And she did not let go.

How dare she patronize him with her glib advice, he yelled. She did not move and stayed still and said she understood his pain inside. He screamed with rage, he bellowed in grief and struggled to free himself. Even in her ancient age she was stronger than he and she did not move, she did not let go.

And then finally he cried. And his sorrow poured out of him and the acid liquid drained out his eyes. All the collected tears of a thousand worlds seem to pour out his soul. Still blind he finally succumbed to the moment and asked:

And what do I do now?

15

For a moment he sank back and tried to remember and it all felt so grey and transparent. A world with no shadows, a world of only shadows. Slowly the curtain rose to reveal her being born, and then her first smile, her laughter, her first words, her first steps. He remembered how she would crawl into his arms, lay across his chest smelling of talc and cotton and fall asleep breathing into his neck and until he too would fall into a that young world of peace and silence.

And she whispered in a simple clear voice:

“How well do you remember? ”

He remembered saying, “You’re quite good but if you can draw a hand you can draw anything,” and he remembered watching her practice for hours, days, weeks, a childhood, drawing hands and faces and whimsical beings, teaching herself an art of proportions and shading and color but also imagination and insight and light. Look, dad, a perfect hand. And it was.

He remembered her writing about her days and memories in her journals.

He remembered her birthday parties; how they planned their extravagant stages and the games they would play.

He remembered watching her enter a room and the room become brighter, the people happier.

He remembered her as the young girl with long hair running carelessly on the sand.

He remembered his pride when walking with her holding her arm and the world would tip towards her and like marbles roll into her lap.

He remembered stories he told her and how she would smile and nudge him and ask for more or the same story again and again.

He remembered her teaching herself to sing, writing her own songs and performing them for the family. Such a voice.

He remembered her drawing little figures on paper, little girls with fairy wings and little boys on top of houses.

He remembered her catching them and making so many people her friends.

He remembered knowing that if he asked her a question her answer would always be careful, worded right, thoughtful, but also brave, spontaneous, and of her opinion, her mind, her truth and she would tell you straight and if she didn’t know she would tell you that also and later would bake cupcakes and draw a card with a sentimental note of appreciations that would make you laugh.

17

He remembered an accident and being lost and confused and asking her which way to go and she still just a small child looked at him thoughtfully and said: “Go forward, dad!” And he did, and of course, it was the right direction to go.

He remembered her not as a child but as the young woman living her dream, in her new home in love and happy, buying her favorite food, making her new world and life full and new.

He remembered these things and more and he told them to the old woman.

As he spoke to her he felt her guidance, her love, her trust, her patience. The spirit of her deep healing overwhelmed him; there was no gratitude that could be worthy of her gifts. His grief, sadness and confusion overwhelmed him and he began to sob, hysterical, from so many emotions and no place to put them. Standing in the clouds, arrow in hand, his pupils began to clear and his tears flowed from his eyes and he saw rivers and oceans of water.

He remembered their last day together, a picnic just the two of them, her choosing her favorite cheeses, breads, and sumptuous treats, a day’s wage but a secret extravagance they both cherished, and they ate in the park and spoke of things and she told him a dream of climbing a cliff and her fear of falling and her father telling her not to be afraid and how she got to the top and there was a wonderful, magical, bazaar of tables full of beautiful things to buy and that had made him so happy and then they walked and he named the plants they saw along the trail and she remembered their And she said again: names and skipped ahead laughing, calling out, Ribes, Salvia, Gunnera.

“How well do you remember?

He remembered her seeing the little There is still more.”

Phoebe bird, saying, “Look, dad, I know that bird,” and she took her pencil and drew it to show her friends.

Phoebe’s first drawing 19

And he remembered waters running so deep and wide, so long and vast, so ancient and infinite. He remembered all the tears of his family, his friends, of her friends and their families.

He remembered tears from those that loved and cared for him and those who also lost and grieved. He remembered the shrines, the altars, the pictures, the candles, the songs, the books that have been built, created, lit, sung, or written for eternities and lifetimes and outside of time and space and this place we call home.

He remembered the warriors, the healers, the elders, the spiritual teachers that would appear on the horizon to stand at attention, waiting to be of service.

And she said again:

“How well do you remember?

There is still more.”

He remembered an ancient place held by grief and loss that holds an infinite list of mothers and fathers and all the tears they’ve shed. He remembered the other sons and daughters who were also swept away so early, so young, small birds with such tender wings, all fleeting stars shining in dreams and reflecting in tears.

He remembered these signposts— how well do we remember, water rising, surrendering with a sigh, by the light of the trees, ancient knowledge, nurtured by the mystery, as we sprout stems.

21

And he remembered not black and white but shades of grey that contained blues and reds and yellows and cool and warm. He remembered not about obscure notions of time and space but of a simple breath and the emptiness in the sound of crickets.

He remembered not truth and beauty but air and water and fire and earth. He remembered the ancient spiral in seashells and his daughter’s smile that lived within it.

And he remembered his daughter again and saw her spirit rise out of the ashes like a phoenix, as an angel, a spirit, an ancient guide, a warrior, a Buddha, a saint, a teacher, a healer, a poet, an artist.

And she said again:

“How well do you remember?

There is still more.”

And he saw her again and remembered her not as this idolized, mythic spiritual truth but as just his daughter crying because she lost a tooth before the tooth fairy could leave a gift, angry because she could not stay out late with her friends or do something she wanted.

He remembered her confused because a boy did not like her enough or liked her too much, anxious because she felt overwhelmed, sleepless because she could not calm herself to lie still, sick and tired because her body would not keep up with the pace she put upon herself.

He remembered how she did not want to come into this world and kept her mom up for two days in labor before she would show the crown of her head.

He remembered her not as perfect but as who she really was, a beautiful, complex, young girl living her life the best, most perfect and imperfect way she knew.

Always trying, always giving, always creating, always loving, always living, always changing…

25

“Yes, it is always changing?”

The old woman looked at him.

For the first time that he could remember his mind felt clear. The clouds had also cleared and he could now see his village far below and she said again, loud this time, and he felt a little frightened, “How well do you remember that it is always changing-this impermanent, transient, unfair, sad and beautiful world?”

At that moment the small Black Phoebe landed on her shoulder and also looked him in the eye. He felt cold and shivers ran down his arms and up his neck. The young man felt something pass through him and he knew his daughter was there with him.

The trance had lifted. He closed his eyes and felt her with him, surround him, nudge him. Although his sorrow still bound him like a winter’s coat, although his bones still ached, his forehead damp and throbbing, he felt comforted by the certainty of her presence.

After a long time he opened his eyes.

The setting sun was shining through the trees. The old woman and the Phoebe were watching him and he realized that he was missing his family, wife and children, very, very much. They needed him and he needed them. Miserably tired--but if he ran down the mountain he could be home before it was dark again.

“How well can you remember to be thankful?” She said.

He repeated the words to himself-- Be thankful.

The old woman whispered something that sounded like a prayer and then it sounded like the wind. He reached to touch her but she was gone except for the late afternoon light shining through the trees with bright rays like long fingers.

And off he went down the hill.

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks.

Also learn from holy books and wise people.

Everything-- even mountains, rivers, plants and trees should be your teacher.

Morihei Ueshiba

30

WATERS RISING part II

31

And the rains came‌

And when they did it was like God had turned on a faucet and then left the room and forgot he left the water running. Torrents. Sheets. Cataracts. It started with a wind but the water blew that out and just pounded down like a great liquid fist. And the waters are rising. She walked outside and watched the downpour and all the while the water slowly rose to her neck. She waited for the boat to arrive. She felt sadness and love. She was alone. Her Waters Rising.

Everyone has their favorite paintings and for reasons I can’t explain Waters Rising is one of mine. I asked Phoebe about it. We are standing outside her back house in Petaluma. It is a sunny day. I am just passing through. It is a quick surprise hello and I ask her about the painting.

As always she just shrugs as if she doesn’t really know or care. And then she says she has been reading about Hurricane Katrina and the poor people that are suffering through it. We say no more. And as always, I kiss her, hug her, say we love each other, and then turn and both return to our different worlds.

Water flows over these hands.

May I use them skillfully to preserve our precious planet.

Thich Nhat Hanh

From the air the rivers look like veins in a large, green, living body. Myriads of interconnecting waterways lacing their way through forests and jungles and riparian woodlands and small homes on the banks. Humans were not meant to live this close but it is part of our collective hubris that brings us close to water--it offers solace, life, food, transportation, poetry. We thirst, we drink. Dreaming: Ice cool clear liquid life force swimming on a summer day. Even when the land is not solid and below sea level or below the flood plane we will think we are smarter and stronger and we will still build our dreams on its shore. Even worse there are those who know that it is a short term life-span before disaster, that wall street shores will crumble, that main streets will collapse, and still they sell these parcels and prey upon the foibles and desires of others and call it the “American Dream.” And when the rain came you could stand at the edge of the water and watch the river rise like it was being chased by a demon, like it was possessed by forces far greater than our imaginations.

Watching the dream transform before your eyes.

The vast network of waterways, small creeks become rivers, rivers become lakes, lakes become oceans--submerging everything below its brown opaque body. It strikes fear and anxiety in the pits of stomachs as you turn and try to run from the dream turned nightmare, feet in quick sand, head just above waters rising.

I did not understand this painting, Waters Rising: the young girl who is standing alone on a small knoll with the village in the background, water to her neck, knock kneed and pigeon toed, knee socks and peasant dress, a concerned, benevolent gaze downward, a young stigmatic with her blood soaking the water from her palms. My eyes closed. Meditating on the words and image and then it took me. It was like Phoebe came next to me and said, “Dad this is me.

See me!” And when I saw her, it shook my core and like the old woman holding the eyeless man-- I became overwhelmed.

My heart split open like a pealed fruit and at long last I cried, tears running down my face like transparent seeds. I saw Phoebe as the young girl in her village, the waters rising to her neck. The stress and anxiety of being young, the joy and the pain: my job, my house, my look, my love, my boy friend, my friends, my family, my clothes, my hair, my shoes, my feet, my art, myself, my exhausted body, my school, my dreams, my messy room, my laundry, my dad and mom are calling me again, my life....

“I hear a thousand voices in my head,” she said.

When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come.�

Leonardo da Vinci

The rains came and then, as they always do, the rains stopped. The sky turned blue. The horizon razor sharp. Sun shiny day. But even in the bluest day the water in its giant brown gauzy inertia continues forward unstoppable. And that water carried in it all those trees whose roots were mired and tangled in the shallow topsoil.

That water carried with it villages, houses, mailboxes, shoes, and dolls and that water carried in it dreams and fear and laughter and tears, and that water carried in it cats and dogs and sheep and cows, it carried murderers and priests, and it carried wars and hunger, it carried newlyweds and old folks holding hands and it carried the smallest atomic particles of life and it contained the most gigantic ruins of civilization, the water carried ancient voices that murmured truths and old spirits that remembered this flood a thousand times over, the water carried life and the water carried death. And slowly even the water subsided and all these things were contained and washed out to a great sea that holds all things.

The ancient people who lived here had seen all this before. They knew of these cycles and had passed them down in stories. There are cycles of the sun and moon, cycles of seasons, there are cycles of years and decades, centuries and millenniums, cycles of life and death, cycles of birth and rebirth, cycles of earth, cycles of drought, cycles of flood, cycles of waters rising, cycles of destruction, cycles of growing, cycles of dreams and cycles of nightmares. In this they trusted to the Great Mother Spirit that flowed through them like a river and whose roots ran deep into the far reaches of the earth. And as the water slowly drew back and the world had vanished the ancients noticed one tree that was able to withstand these torrents. The Bonnoto Sate tree standing alone on a small knoll. And because this tree could stand through these floods, could withstand these cycles of destruction, and live, even flourish, during the pounding waves within these cycles of change, the ancients named this tree one of the 10 great plant teachers of the planet and drew medicine and nourishment from it.

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I am standing upon the seashore. A ship departs the harbor and spreads her sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone.”

Gone! Gone where? Gone from my sight . . . that is all. She is still as large in mast and spar as when she filled my eyes departing her anchorage.

She is just as able to bear her load of heavy freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is only in me, not in her. Just at the minute when the one at my side laments, “There, she’s gone,” there are eager eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes.”

-- Henry Van Dyke 36

Last week Henry and I were driving to school. A 30-minute drive, it is our time to check in, talk about things. Sometimes I get parental, sometimes we get philosophical, and sometimes we sit quiet and listen to music. Driving to school has been a good thing for us. The other day he explained his sense of Phoebe leaving us.

“Dad I see us all on a river”

“A river?” I ask to clarify.

“Like, we’re all flowing towards this ocean, and the river has all these tributaries and things.”

“Yeah I see that, too.”

“It’s like Phoebe is in this part of the river that went off to an early tributary, a different stream that goes to a different ocean. We’re still in the same river but our ocean is further on,” he says while texting someone on his iphone.

“I like that,” I say. “I like that we are all in the same water, that interconnected thing, but still moving in separate channels to our oceans.”

“Connected. I didn’t think of that. All the same water.

And waters are always changing too.”

We drive down the corridor. Henry puts on a song from Grisly Bear.

“Hey, dad, I think I want to go to school on a boat.”

“A boat? All this water stuff got you thinking?”

“Yeah, a large sailboat that goes to all these awesome places while you’re moving on the water the whole time and going to college.”

Hen changes the music to Panda Bear.

“Sounds good to me. Last night Pam and I went to Spirit Rock again,,” I say, remembering a sage anecdote I can pass on, “and there was Jack Kornfield who is very cool and I still want you to hear him talk, but there was a guest, I can’t remember her name, some Buddhist name. She was like the first ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun, lived in a cave for 12 years, made the Dali Lama cry when she explained the plight of women in Tibetan Buddhism, started a nunnery, and when she spoke you could tell she was the real deal--anyway, she was comparing the whole thing to like being on choppy waters. You are constantly moving up and down.

You gotta be like a surfer and ride the waves with grace and balance always changing, riding a moving force.”

“You need a boat for that.”

“Maybe you should just go to school that teaches you how to build boats.”

“Hm, yeah, that’s definitely possible too.”

“Learn to build boats, sand lots of wood, and then become a famous architect.”

Henry is fumbling with his iphone. I don’t think he’s listening anymore.

“She also said spirits like the earth as a great place to reincarnate because it is such a fucking challenge, she didn’t say fucking, but

think of us as rough pieces of wood if you sand yourself with silk not much smoothing, but if you use course sand paper that gets the work done. Then some smoothing happens. Great place to get enlightened ‘cause we suffer so much.”

“This is some pretty rough sandpaper.”

“Yeah, more like surfing a Tsunami. But you’ve been lookin’ a little smoother these days, you need to trim that funky beard though, it’s crooked.”

“It’s my Novembeard! Hey, I justGoogled the Buddhist nun on my iphone. Jetsumna Tenzin Palmo.”

There is a pause in the conversation.

After a while Henry says, “You know, Dad, I’m not really sure how I believe in spirit we talked about at the beach. I’m not sure how I see it or feel it.”

“Yeah?”

“Ya know, for me, I think it’s like we each are carrying a bit of Phoebe’s spirit with us.

Like she is a part in me and you. When we are together as a group I really feel that strongly. It’s like we bring all our pieces together and we can feel her whole.”

Kids are like Cats sometimes. You can never just get a cat to just sit in your lap and be comfortable by forcing it. Patience and some subtle scratching behind the ears and it settles and purrs and there it is. Henry arrives with his views on spirit. The cat is purring.

“Jeez Hen--that says it better than anything I’ve ever heard. Thanks for saying it like that.”

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Her family lived here, and her family’s family lived here. These homes were purchased on quicksilver dreams, built on quick sand, a village surviving below the water line with levees that were weak and neglected, but still this was her community, her friends, her life, her stories.

They warned her, said it’s coming, it’s a hard rain gonna fall, better run for cover, head for the hills. But she knew she would stay. This was her home, her love, and her life. First the wind and they hung on, then the wind and rain and still they hung on, and then one levee broke and then two more and suddenly the water was rising like a beast from a place they had not reckoned and she saw some of her family washed away, some of her friends washed away, houses fold in upon themselves, trees bent over and broke, she watched her dreams drown buried beneath the flotsam and jetsam of disaster. Waters Rising.

Up to her neck. Waiting for a boat to be rescued.

She was scared but a surprising calm came over her and she walked into the water and opened her palms. She said a prayer: “May all living things live and prosper and be happy. May this water teach them and heal them. May the water subside and become clear. May their families love and live long.”

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’, But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’, And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Her feet became anchored on the small knoll, her hands outstretched to keep balance.

She felt the pain, she felt the loss, she felt the love for those who stayed and were fighting for their lives, for those keeping their spirit above the water and helping each other survive.

Her palms began to bleed, her blood was salty and red and in the place that it seeped into the water, the brown muck slowly cleared, the effluent silt slowly transforming into clear liquid, new water. She was alone, her feet rooted deep in their spot like she was a tree holding on. Waiting. Blood Flowing. Blood Cleansing.

“Nothing but blue sky do I see,” she sang. Waiting for a boat to take her to a familiar ocean.

Waters rising and Seasons Pass. The president had forgotten his promise and sent no boat.

And she became a part of all those things caught in the web of the flood. And no one saw her as the water cleared around her body and a boat of swans came to take her away to an ocean. But the transformation had begun and her blood seeped into the pores and into the echo of her prayers that are whispered in the water, their answers only heard in the dreams of those who are left on the shore.

Blue days, all of them gone, Nothin’ but blue skies from now on (Blue skies smilin’ at me, Nothin’ but blue skies do I see) Irving Berlin

Bob Dylan 39

When I think of Phoebe as the girl in the Waters Rising I also think of her as the girl on the hill overlooking the city with her friends. The city on the horizon, her friends playing, picnicking, dancing, jumping. It is the boat to our hill top that in a world of broken dreams, the damaged American dream, the devastated environment, the broken economy, the uncertain jobs, the estranged health care, the insane war, global warming. It’s all in the waters rising.

Her Scarlet Boys

What amazes me is the love and appreciation that her friends have for one another, and especially for their dear friend, Phoebe. Melissa, Caitlin, Jennie, Alex, Richie, Jessie, Drew and so many more have all been there. This is about how friends keep the water from burying us once and for all, how they are not afraid to wade into the water and stand there with their palms open.

Or stand on top of a hill above it all and play and dream and love. Those are the hands in the water clearing the flooded world. They believe in something we haven’t seen yet or maybe forgotten. “Do not live in fear,” they say. Love for the day. I have been lucky to be around these young adults, hanging out in my house or Drew’s house, they have been great allies and resources. For me a dream has been crushed; for them life is always transforming into new dreams. They move on.

The Waters Rising are always in cycle, the seasons change.

Barack Obama was just elected our president. Thank God. We are desperate for change.

Send us a boat. Please. I think I would have gone under for good if the election had gone the other way. I feel so tired. It is like I am dropped out of an airplane each morning. This can’t be right. The day gets going and the momentum of work and life gets me down the road and then it’s head home and shut down. Waters around my neck--typing a few sincere words is so not on the agenda. And it’s not just me. We’re all incredibly tired right now, we’re all just getting by. Four maybe five of my bike friends’ backs are out.

Nick just had a bike accident and had surgery.

Larry had wrist surgery. Dee broke her arm but doesn’t need surgery. I’ve been on antibiotics for two weeks for some unexplainable strange staff infection in my leg. Steve can’t walk straight because he has an ear infection. Joaquin has a mysterious kidney infection. Brother Drew’s back is out. Jordan is so distraught she can barely move.

Henry lost his voice. Drew can barely order a cup of coffee without tears and weak knees. Pam wakes up sobbing and still has the death rattle in her chest. I know three families getting divorced and numerous others thinking about it. Lili calls me and says she feels as if she’s walking in quick sand. My favorite bill collector from my insurance company calls and I tell her it’s been a hard month, the check’s in the mail, and she says yeah, everyone is just trying to keep their head above water.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

--Jiddu Krishnamurti

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And so it has become a part of the story in all cultures and religions. Prophets and Mystics placing their hands into our clouded waters and healing the darkness with the light of their words and spirit. They are not ancient ghosts but a living force within the young girl on the knoll holding the prophetic wisdom with heart and deep roots, as she enters the water and becomes a sacred spirit, love and devotion for the healing force. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, Confucius, Gandhi, Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mary Oliver, Hafez, Rumi, and a young girl rooted atop a hill with her palms in the water. Sailing towards a horizon that we might never see if we don’t get are hands wet.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god–sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.

The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten By the dwellers in cities--ever, however, implacable.

Keeping his seasons, and rages, destroyer, reminder Of what men choose to forget.

Unhonored, unappropriated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

T. S. Eliot, Dry Salvages, The Four Quartets,

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45

Haiku the space between time insight of a new church by light in the trees

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BY THE LIGHT IN THE TREES part III 47

The More you know, the less you need 48

Australian Aboriginal Proverb

When I Am Among the Trees When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness, I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.” ~ Mary Oliver ~ There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies.

My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Dalai Lama 49

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By the light in the trees Our church is rebuilt with stain glass branches, wild flower pews, beehive pulpits, and windy hymns that blow like music through the cycles of seasons, the vivid colored leaves in fall, the stark branches in winter, the opulent buds in spring and the protective vermilion shades of summer.

By the light in the trees GOD is not a word. It has yet to be spoken or spelled with letters or vocabulary that can describe the vastness and complexity of our web. It cannot be described by a faith or religion. It is quietly and meditatively interpreted by a light that shines through the birch and redwoods and oaks and madrones and pines and firs and olive branches.

By the light in the trees We show our children a universe that is unfathomable and beautiful and alive and moving-- which holds us in its immense web that connects us to a family of all things.

By the light in the trees We tell our children stories and play games in glowing shafts of radiance.

By the light in the trees We build cold memorials in ancient olive orchards, celebrations of life in old theatres named after a bird on fire, beach glass altars in old mossy oaks, driftwood shelters with holy bonfires on beaches, burning temples in the vivid desert nights.

By the light in the trees We sit quietly for hours with our small children and look for blue glass on sunny seashore sands and make up exotic stories, how an unexplainable series of magic tides brought them from far away places.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks John Muir

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With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

Dalai Lama

By the light in the trees We show our children how to find fairy circles around small mushroom towns, and how to find wild orchards and make daisy chains to hang like garlands over the secret door, and place that blue glass as a sacred offering for the fairy princess who lives behind the curtain of light.

By the light in the trees We photograph our inspirations, water colors our dreams, illustrate our hopes, sketch our self portraits.

By the light in the trees We sit quietly and tell someone how much we love them.

By the light in the trees We walk sadly and tell someone how much we miss them.

By the light in the trees We help someone, forgive someone, reach out to someone, be true for someone who we have never met and will never see again and then realize that compassion is a silent love and not a place of words on insight or helpful hints on how you might do it better.

By the light in the trees A father stands proudly for his family and holds forth to say life sometimes does not easily move on and yet is filled with mystery we do not understand and dear one, have faith that the earth is still a safe place and my arms are always there to catch you.

By the light in the trees A mother holds dearly a child to her chest and wraps her arms around it with layers of colorful scarves and knitted shawls and ancient love and holds forth to say that even in this cold air your life will be warm and bountiful and I will hold you and nurture you and your children and your children’s children.

By the light in the trees The reflection of light is revealed by teaching our youth how to build beautiful and sacred things.

As We Sprout Stems-- Sculpture by Dave Washer

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By the light in the trees A community of beautiful people with tattoos and piercings and bikes with no brakes and strumming guitars and songs they write and skateboards they ride and cans of paint and journals of notes and sketches of ideas and torn jeans and smiles and hearts who do not believe in a system that has a picture of Sarah Palin posing for a nation that confuses religion and state with dogma and politics--but still feels the glimmer of faith and connection to that mysterious light shining into their life to be quietly, privately dreamed about in the poetry they live.

By the light in the trees We can seek divine intervention as we harvest honey.

By the light in the trees Our children will take their children to the church they build and listen to prayers at bedtime with stories of moonlight shining through their windows.

By the light in the trees We feel the guiding spirit of a daughter who is no longer on this temporal plane, shine down on a moonbeam, looks like an angel sets us down to rest and quiets our mind with a whisper of one small sacred truth in the space between time and dreams, the mystery of light through the branches is real

photos of light in the trees, also by Phoebe

By the light in the trees You can worship in a faith that has yet to be said 55

If these signposts are a meditation… the phrases, How well do you remember? and Waters Rising puts an ache in my chest, reminds me of the sorrow and grief in this world, my world.

When I arrive at Light in the Trees my breath relaxes, my heart pauses, the knot in my stomach unwinds, and for a moment I feel a glimmer of hope. I find solace in this. Writing these chapters is a deep journey for me. There are no clichés in a grief this deep but cliché as it sounds, this is a journey of spiritual discovery. Before I can write any of this I have to discover what it means. It is not only discovering the meaning of By the Light in the Trees or Surrender with a Sigh but discovering how to access a path to a deeper understanding of those things.

When I think of light in the trees my mind immediately pictures the olive orchard where we held our memorial for Phoebe. For me the olive orchard is the perfect photograph of light in the trees. The process of building a church; of expressing our faith and reverence; of showing a devotion to a universe that is huge with mystery: How Phoebe’s girls club stayed up late into the night stringing photographs, tying garlands, even in the sadness laughing and joyfully cutting and collecting; how family and friends arrived in the warm morning and built altars, fire pits, pews, tables for food and drink, how the boys played guitar and jammed on the benches, how families come together, friends reach out and offer you love and food.

Phoebe could have randomly chosen these titles for her artwork, I could have randomly had them inked into my arm--there are always easy, logical explanations about coincidence for why things might be… A journey is about seeing things for the first time. I am learning the difference of the writer who writes what he sees and the writer who writes what he knows. It is making me a better writer, perhaps even a better person, father or husband (but you’d have to ask Pam and the kids that). On a bike ride the other day a woman I see occasionally on the rode pedaled by me and asked how I was doing, if I was okay. I gave her the quick, you know alright, answer as we were breathing hard up a hill. She gave a look of appreciation and concern and said, “Yes, it is definitely about a year of firsts.” A small defining moment, a journey through a year of first it has been.

I remember the day of the ceremony. It had been warm for a month. David Best had told us the orchard is always warm this time of year but that afternoon a frigid, bone chilling wind had settled on our hill like something brought from a far away land-- The same wind that blew out across the Marin headlands the week earlier. The same wind that would blow a year later. My grief and exhaustion not of a world that was meant to be inhabited by us mortals. I walked through the driftwood arch, under the olive canopy with the light casting through the branches and witness this temple we had transformed. I now understand why churches have stained glass windows.

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It is a father’s duty to stand in front of his family and closest friends and to speak of what has happened. My closest friend, Steve, stood beside me, had given me a metal cup to strike. This moment is all so clear in my memory: breath, pause, strike, sound ringing, sound moving out into the orchard...I see my family, Phoebe’s family, Phoebe’s closest friends and allies waiting, huddled together with blankets, rugs, sleeping bags, anything to keep their bones from rattling in a cold that is hard to describe.

The sound of the bell descended and with a whisper vanished. I saw, felt, moved, by the light in the trees. Perhaps in that moment I understood it perfectly, perhaps I put on an awkward pair of my dad’s shiny minister shoes and tried too hard, but the first words I spoke were: “God is in these trees!” In the cold vacuum of that moment I physically felt my voice leave my mouth and the words fall flat at my feet. Eyes staring at me, waiting, wanting, too chilled to move. A voice leaned over and whispered, “If you want to heal in this moment you have to have your words become real. Tell a story. Speak from your heart.”

A funny thing happened, for all the notes I had scribbled, for all the passages I tried to remember, the poetry I had collected, the stories I jotted down—this little Phoebe story I had forgotten until that moment emerged:

It was a rainy dark morning traveling along highway 580 to visit my parents. We left before sunrise and there were howling winds and torrents of rain. The road suddenly became flooded. I lost control of the van and we went spinning down the highway, around and around and around, I see my world flash before my eyes, my babies asleep in the back, until finally careening

into the overpass wall and stopping sideways in the middle of the freeway, our lights shining into a dark void with rain blinded cars and their glaring lights coming down upon us in the dark torrent. We’re invisible. Cars swerving. Our crumpled van dodging. We manage to limp off the freeway. Disoriented, scared, and confused I assess the damage in the gas station fluorescent light. I ask my four-year-old daughter. What do we do? Should we go on? Phoebe looks me straight in the eye. “You should go on, Dad. We need to go on.” And in the first morning light we drove south.

I saw people shift in their chairs, I saw a moment of relief, the cold lifted a few degrees and words started flowing. I remember seeing faces, putting my concentration and words towards Phoebe’s friends who were sitting on a blanket in the front. I remember people smiling at me, nodding their heads to say--it’s okay we’re listening, we’re hearing you. I remember the light in the trees that contained this moment.

I don’t remember what else I said but I clearly remember the difference between those first words about God falling flat from my mouth and the words about love and life and Phoebe flowing from my heart.

The way I’ve raised my family, the way I’ve raised my daughters and sons is to see God hidden in the beauty in the light of the trees. Our language and worlds have changed, our reality is complex and paradoxical and so our instincts are not as tangible as if we were simple forest people with our view of heaven and God as a simple story under a star lit sky. How do we teach our faith to our children? Phoebe is that gift now; she shines that mysterious light so much brighter, she is my light in the trees.

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Forever Young

by Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous May you grow up to be true May you always know the truth And see the lights surrounding you May you always be courageous Stand upright and be strong May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful And may your song always be sung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.

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As a family we do not go to church. Our faith is to walk reverently by the light of the trees; look for blue glass in sea shore, silent reverence as we walk in the woods together. We build that church in the olive orchard by the light of the trees.

We build that church under the graffiti of the Phoenix Theatre.

One month later at the Phoenix Theatre we created another ceremony that could include the entire community. I arrived late after sitting in the olive orchard meditating and looking for courage. I look out from backstage and the theatre is packed. Later, Tom (the proprietor) would say it was the most people he had ever seen on a Sunday afternoon. We do not want a solemn, depressing ceremony; we have named this a Celebration of Life. I have never sung in public in my life, not even karioki. To define the spirit of this evening I have decided to sing Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.

My friend, Adam, plays the guitar. The words are emotional and volatile with spirit. One of those cathartic verses to sing loud at the top of your lungs. It is my time to dare myself to go outside of my comforts and fears. There must be at least 1,000 people listening to these lyrics. I see all these wonderful, loving, giving, caring, compassionate people crying and singing with me. When I finish there is a pause. I sang from my heart and I’m overwhelmed but feel alive with gratitude. And then something spectacular and shocking occurs, everyone in the place stands up and is screaming, clapping, crying.

There is so much love in that moment. It is hard to fathom that in such a time of grief that there could be something as strong and beautiful as this.

We are administering our service to Phoebe together. There is no minister, no priest, no rabbi, no shaman, no spiritual teacher to lead and heal us. Just

songs, poetry, and words from the heart. I see my friends, Phoebe’s and our children’s friends, my family and their families--out of this amazing community there is only a small handful that display their faith by going to a church, that feel comfortable to sit in a pew on a Sunday and have that moment with God. The rest of us--where do we go when we need deep faith and solace? Loosing a daughter, a sister, a close friend, an inspiration-where do we go? You show up, you bring food, your guitar, your poetry, your hug, your tears, your smile, your love, your eyes, your help, your offering, your prayers, and your ability to build, see and create. You honor a spirit and you touch mystery.

You understand the feeling in your gut is real. That is how our faith works.

The other night we’re sitting around the Christmas tree. I don’t remember what we’re talking about, but Max, our 18 year old cynic, declares, “I don’t believe in God.” I can see this ageless question lingers in Jordan’s and Henry’s eyes as well. I get a jolt and feel a moment of patriarchal righteousness and feel an urge to say he should take that back…But instead, say calmly as not to sound parental and get the kids defensive, “You do or you don’t, but you certainly believe in the mystery you feel when you take your long hikes in the hills, play music with your band mates; you believe in a mystery that you share at sunset on the hill with your friends all standing quiet looking out towards the ocean, maybe at that moment you feel Phoebe with you. Maybe you should say something like, “I don’t believe that all this can be explained in the word God. For me it’s a bigger mystery, more complicated and complex that can’t be explained by one word.”

Surprisingly he doesn’t argue and just nods his head and says, “Yeah, maybe.”

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Legacy is about the story we leave behind, about the gifts we have bestowed upon our planet in our short time here. We have borrowed these bodies for a brief episode and then we leave them and this beautiful rock behind. How we imprint this world, how our presence lingers and changes the course of things is Legacy.

Phoebe’s is still unraveling. Her art, her life, her poise, her grace, her love, her beauty are all still flowing in some current, still shining through those limbs. What realms exist after we move on from these forms are part of that unexplainable and mysterious place where words have no bearing. We build and let legacy be our teacher.

My father is eightysix and his legacy may be the church he built as a Methodist Minister, or it may be his infectious smile and healthy attitude about life and his love and respect for his four boys. His legacy may be about building churches and teaching how to enjoy life. Perhaps Phoebe’s is also--through her art she is teaching us how to rebuild our faith and insight into the mysteries, the unexplainable, the sublime, and the spiritual.

I have a lot of memories of climbing around the back stage of my father’s church, of playing in the vast construction of this beautiful, inspiring building as it was being made. I see this now--it is about re-building the churches that are original, real, and made for our families and community. Not big ornate structures with a steeple and open the doors and see all

the people, but of things of sticks and stones and blue glass and abalone shells and flowers and garlands, and trees, and mountain tops, and labyrinths on sea cliffs overlooking oceans, and burning man desert playas with thousands of beautiful people dancing, and it is about sitting together in an olive orchard amidst the sacred ceremonial grounds of the Miwoc Indians.

If I mention to the kids right now asleep in their beds--lets go to the beach and build a house out of driftwood, make a fire, and collect blue glass to put on our altar--they will drop everything to go. (Well, actually, they would look at me like I was crazy but they might still do it) And when we do go, we always see amazing things along the way. There are always stories to tell, images to recall, memories to hold, and the beauty and the sacred to build on.

There is always--the light in the trees.

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FAITH When you have come to the edge of all the light you know And are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown Faith is knowing one of two things will happen There will be something solid to stand on or you will be Taught to fly Unknown 66

Sculpture by Jack Haye

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When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be ~ Lao Tzu

It’s in the imagination with which you perceive this world, and the gestures with which you honor it.

--Mary Oliver

SURRENDER WITH A SIGH part IV 69

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He froze in his tracks.

Walking down from the Unknown Mountains he stopped at a bend in the trail and looked out over the valley. The sun was setting on the hills in the west, the last light glowing over the houses below. Smoke from hearth fires, rooms with lanterns burning inside, families finishing dinner, getting ready for the night’s rest. Late afternoon light casting long shadows like boney fingers pointing a farewell. The path was marked with large worn granite stones. Each stone handhewn and placed as a tread along the circuitous pathway from the Unknown Mountaintop. Each stone weighing far more than three men could lift or move but somehow strategically placed along the pathway. He looked up from where he had come. The mountaintop loomed high above him. He could see the peak where he had been and then in an instant it was covered in cloud and wispy, twirling fog and he wondered if he’d seen it at all.

His home was down there somewhere; his family waiting for him. The young man’s head still swam with the memory of the ancient wisdom that had been bestowed as a gift into his hands, that had touched his heart, had medicated his wounds, and surrounded his grief with light.

The memory of the old woman embracing him, the small Phoebe surrendering secrets--such love, devotion, loyalty, appreciation, patience, trust. He did not know that these things existed like this. His body was still wracked, his heart torn out and lost, his cheeks still stained with tears of appreciation from the visions he had received. He also felt annihilated by the double edge sword, one edge the piercing ache of grieving agony and the other edge the blinding, liberating light and memory of the divine feminine spirit. The cutting stroke cut only deeper with the intense contrast the light and the dark held against each other. Standing there his life felt tenuous, a big, grey ball of emptiness and confusion.

His stomach dropped and chills ran down his spine. How well do you remember your daughter’s smile? How well do you remember that you will not see it again? Even now he was still waiting for her smile, her voice, her image to somehow appear. Waiting. He whispered a name, wishing she could help him get through this tenuous, grey moment. “And what of the unrealized moments in her life, birthdays, Christmas, the wedding, the birth of her first child?”

He sighed loudly. The air was still and silent.

The sun now behind the edge of the western mountains and the last light seeped into the dark web of evening. His breathing became shallow and panting. His body started shaking. A liquid boiled in his stomach, churned, and the heat rose through his body, into his limbs. Numbing. The kettle was boiling. A chemical reaction was occurring that emulsified the grey emptiness into a roiling ball of pain. An iron rage gathered like an assaulting army behind his eyes and the flames of their anger scorched his forehead. He wanted to torch the entire valley with himself in the middle of it. Send down tons of water and wash it all away.

He reached down upon the trail and tore up a large stone like he was pulling up a root from his garden. With some kind of super human strength he lifted it, twice his weight, over his head and with both arms and with a cry tossed it over the edge. The roar of his voice tore apart the silence of the valley like an avalanche of raw, chaotic energy. The granite boulder tumbled down the hill--thrashing through the brush, over knoll and plants, over small insects and burrowing animals, over grass and newly formed flowers. The rock bounced off a young oak tree and a startled fawn ran from its nesting place and sprung into the air like a coiled spring shooting a doll into the air.

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Without thought or meditation, but with some estranged primal instinct that tore through his body, he pulled out his bow and released the arrow into the air with its course determined by the insanity and delusion of the rage that was shattering that moment. Not a true path, the arrow landed in the deer’s shank. The rock was now on its ordained path downward, thrashing through the crumpled brush, and landed in the river below with a cacophonous splash.

And while the white flag waves and slaps hands with the wind everything else is left under thick shadows and heavy steam and its hard to recall the things you hated and the things you once loved living only in flickers this small fawn with bones and hair and teeth rattling its tiny, dark frame and with a sigh I surrender and even still we die From Phoebe’s Journal 2008

The small deer slowly rose upon a knee, gathered its senses and disappeared into the forest with all the speed and strength its small body had left for the survival of its species.

The moment the arrow had left his bow he knew he had made a terrible mistake. Some mistakes have a place in the scheme of your life; some leave a terrible scar that change the course of history itself. If he had another arrow at that moment he felt that he could ram it through his own heart. Instead the grey silence had returned.

But now it carried emptiness, it carried anxiety.

It was deafening and he felt that he was going absolutely crazy. He shook off the feeling like it was a bad smell that he could stuff into his pockets. It was his duty as a hunter to follow his kill, find it, clean it, and prepare it with proper respect to bring it to his family, to feed them in their time of sorrow. Yes, that was his duty. So he followed the track of blood. The sun had set and it had become dark. There was no moon and the only light was that from a few early stars. The blood was luminescent, but the cold and dark deterred his search.

He had become lost from the path he was on. He felt delirious, tripped and fell headlong down the same hideous route his boulder had taken. He gashed his head, twisted his ankle, scraped his arm, broke his ribs, and then like that stone, landed in the water. The bruises he inflicted upon himself were nothing compared to the bruises he had now brandished upon the delicate surface of the hillside.

Desolate and discouraged he walked through town looking at the small homes with their soft lights and soft lives glowing in the background. His body torn, his heart shattered, his pride abused, his frustration vibrating, and his shame trailing him as if it were the dark shadow of the fawn’s blood. All of this he stuffed into his pockets as he walked through his town.

When he arrived home it was close to midnight.

The family was sound asleep. His wife rose from her bed at the sound of his limping footsteps. She also had not slept in days and had laid awake waiting, wondering where he had gone.

Her sadness for her daughter was leaching the blood from her body, the air from her lungs. She had cried so hard that she had scared herself and she cried again. An endless cycle.

She was relieved that he was back but what came from her lips were the words, “Where the hell have you been?” A cascading tirade of emotions were set loose about how they were suffering, and lost and hungry, and confused, and where the hell had he been when they needed him, and look at himself, dirty, wet, bruised, bleeding. “You’re drunk and no good, you’ve always been no good.” Her tears had turned to an assaulting army and they were attacking. She meant not a word of it, her emotions far stronger than her sanity.

What he wanted to say was, “My dearest love, I am so sorry I’ve been gone. I know your pain. I’m lost without you. I was sightless but I had to follow something that was leading me. I was held in the arms of a wise old woman who knew all the answers by asking the important questions. I saw our daughter. I cried. It was all clear but then I had a moment where I lost myself; my anger, my grief, my wounds confused me and I did something against my nature, against nature, and I feel ashamed. I need you to hold me; I need you to love me. I love you. What can I do to help you? We are meant to do this together.”

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But what he said was: “I’m tired. Let’s talk in the morning.” His wife was too distraught to care and her anger collapsed like a deflated balloon. She grumbled something he could not hear and rolled over, her back to him, to once again face her world alone. He sighed, the air of a thousand lifetimes escaping his lungs, got into his bed and went back to his world alone. The soldier limping back from the mythical and epic battle, returning unwanted and alone. And that was the last they spoke of it.

Spring came and went, Summer came and went, Fall came and went, and Winter arrived with its first rains. There was no time that it became easier, but sometimes duller, sometimes, for a moment, forgotten as he trudged in his daily duties. It was a year of firsts. His children went back to their schools, his wife still wore black but slowly moved back into the everyday pace of things. There was a shroud that hung over everything they did. Their daughter was missed beyond words and words for it no longer had meaning. It was just a gaping wound in their lives. By now the village had cooked their meals, had held their vigils, had sung their songs, had said their condolences, and now had gone back to attend their families and their own tribulations and lives.

Did they judge him for her death? Did they judge him for not grieving enough, for too much? Did they judge him for the confusion that he now brought with him wherever he went?

Did people actually walk to the other side of the street when they saw him approach?

He had never spoke to his wife or his family about his mountaintop visit, the old woman, or the small Phoebe. By keeping something so important a secret, by keeping his feelings hidden inside his shell--something shifted and became sour.

The first few weeks he had searched for the injured fawn, had left daily to find a sign of it. By now he imagined that a cougar must have found the injured deer and made an easy evening meal of it but even of this he could find no sign and so he never went back. His ability to hunt had never been so compromised.

These were hard times. Everyone in the village suffered, animals were scarce, crops were thin, weather was unpredictable, and his sense of rhythm and feelings were off. He was left to trap small game, rodents, and birds. Something gnawed inside his stomach, a vague knowledge of self-incrimination haunted his spirit, seeped into his daily life, but he always stuffed those feelings back in his pockets where he kept these emotions hidden. He constantly daydreamed of that hilltop. Held onto his secret with a primal necessity of survival. Although her bones were old, her hair thin and white, her skin wrinkled and transparent, she slowly transformed in his mind and became the idealized feminine dream of love, truth, and beauty. What was really truth and beauty now became a tainted memory of something else. His life began to feel like a dream that someone else was living.

As he made his way with his futile search for the wounded fawn his romanticized memory turned into longing for something he could not reach and he and his wife drifted apart. They found it easier to blame their sadness, their confusion; they found it easier to use the lack of intimacy created from the exhaustion of their grief, their daughter’s death; they found it easy to use the complexities of healing their family and the fear of survival when prosperity seemed so vulnerable for the reasons they were drifting apart.

They slept nightly in their separate worlds. And the dark winter nights and the strange weather continued.

75

On the hillside something else was occurring. The granite trail to the mountaintop was changing. The stone that had been removed opened a space for water to course through. As the water changed direction it found the scar that he and his rolling stone had created. The water dislodged more stones from the path and the scar became deeper. Plants were uprooted, small families of rodents and nests of insects were destroyed, small trees with honeybees were extricated and washed down the slope. Suddenly the delicate balance of the pristine hillside and all its abundance had been tilted from its natural axis and the water rushed into a gorge 10 feet deep one day and then 20 feet wide the next. Rocks rolled into the river along with trees.

Fish were trapped; otters were maimed. A dam of debris blocked the runoff and a lake began to form that smothered more land and animals under its wet blanket of immersion. Down in the village the river flowed as usual but up above the dam was building higher and the contained water was churning and rising. Waters Rising. Enough water rising to wage a war of nature against man where man stood no chance of survival.

His life seemed to be going through the motions of living. His wife also was suffering from the wounds that life had thrown upon them but he had lost his patience with her sorrow and again they moved further apart. She could cry, why couldn’t he? He had seen truth and beauty on that mountaintop and all this was so dismal in comparison. He felt unloved, but more--an undefined anxiety beset from damaging the deer, damaging that moment, holding everything that had been gifted to him as sacred truths, hidden perversely as a secret, made him profoundly scared. Perhaps he was to blame for his daughter’s death. Perhaps that was what everyone was thinking behind his back. His wife and children, did they think that, his friends, the village? He knew it wasn’t true but still the guilt was there.

Did any of this matter? Did his family really need him, love him? Did he deserve it? He slept little and tried not be preoccupied with such painful considerations.

But this night he had a dream that awoke him. He saw himself hurling the rock and the fawn leaping into the air. The fawn and he locked eyes again and this time he felt the tip of the arrow enter his chest. He tried to run for safety but found the trail falling apart under his feet, he stumbled and saw the granite trail now awash as a raging torrent with treacherous waterfalls and jagged rocks. There was blood on his hands and wherever he looked he saw more blood on everything. He saw the huge reservoir of mucky water held together with nothing but twigs the size of toothpicks that seemed logically impossible. Destruction Looming. The world rushing towards him. The eyes of the fawn still upon him he followed it to a clearing, a field that ached in his bones like a memory of ancient places.

And then everything slowed down. As if he were walking onto a magical stage. It was nighttime yet a strange light emitted from the trees. There was a sound coming from somewhere, a low hint of a quietly plucked string instrument with someone humming. He could smell cinnamon and chamomile. There was a red lantern hanging from a leafless tree in winter form. It was dark but there was light and he could see something moving, dancing, skating. It was his daughter. The first time he had seen her in a dream and he watched her ice-skating on thin ice that seemed to hover like a haze over the meadow. She was beautiful and magnificent in just the way she was in his life--tall and present, smiling and radiant, laughing and happy, wise and joyful, dancing and out of control with laughter. She was spinning, turning, small, awkward leaps, graceful and light, but also always on the verge of falling.

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A fatherly concern ran through his body.

She was going to fall. He ran towards her. A shift in the dream and he recognized his family was there also watching her reckless skating. “Bring a chair,” he shouted to his son.

“We were concerned,” was all they said.

“Walk carefully, feel the earth below your shoes. Let your eyes adjust to the light in the trees,” he said. “I know where we are going”

“Daughter sit! You’re going to hurt yourself.” He was holding her leather laced boot with its sharp blade attached to her sole. “This is the problem, we need to take off these contraptions.”

And he tenderly knelt in front of her and held her leg in his lap and slowly removed her shoes. He held the foot in his hand. He looked up to her.

She was smiling at him. Benevolent, not saying a word. Every feature in perfect detail. Her naked foot in his hand and then it came over him in a wave of reality. This has to be a dream--my daughter is gone.

The trail soon became lit by a dim glow.

He walked faster and the light glowed brighter.

They arrived at the field the same as in the dream. The leafless tree there and in it the red lantern. The wounded deer arrived in the meadow and again looked him in the eye and lay down below the tree. The field again washed in a light as if it were stage directed and lit from the heavens. He walked forward. The ancient woman was there, carrying a white flag and kneeling before the little fawn. The fawn bled in her hands. He felt his heart dissolve into the scene like paints on a canvas.

And he awoke sitting up, his arms still in the position of holding something in his hands.

He knew that field. He knew that trail. He knew that river. He knew that deer. He knew that foot.

So he put on his shoes.

“Where are you going? It’s the middle of the night,” his wife asked. Her voice was sleepy and sweet. Even with the strangeness of him leaving at this weird hour she was concerned for him. He stroked her head, feeling an immense love well up in him.

“I have to take care of something. I’ll be back soon,”

“Be careful,” and she closed her eyes.

The night was dark and he had thought to bring a lantern. As he got to the forest the lantern was only making it more difficult to see. He blew it out. The night washed around him like ink in a bottle. Voices were behind him.

“Dad, we can’t see.” He turned, surprised to see his sons, his daughter, and his wife following him and behind them other voices in the night.

When she spoke her words went through him like a wind in the trees, his skin felt pricked, the hair on his arms was electrified, his body shook like a leaf. He watched his family and they also were standing there watching the scene blow through them like a breath from somewhere unfathomable.

“All this comes and moves and grows and falls and settles. It comes in myriad of ways.

Think of the sun crossing the sky, its daily charge across the line above your heads. Think of the moon rising in its forms and how the patterns also move across your sky. You move in a multiplicity of worlds. They move through you. You must listen to this.”

Perhaps it was already happening, or perhaps it was that moment but the darkness of night was beginning to transform with a grey earthy light so that you were able to see the outline of the forest around them. Bees flew around her head.

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Out beyond ideas Of wrong doing and right doing There is a field I’ll meet you there Rumi

She reached down to stroke the bleeding fawn and began to speak to it:

“What I am holding here is not the deer you shot, this is not your daughter in my arms, it is you that I am holding. It is your heart that flickers towards death, it is your wound that is bleeding in my hands. It is you that is dying and living in this moment. Know the pain that is flowing from your heart, the confusion, the agony, the hole in your being. But I see this also, your wound has always been there. It has been there longer than you can remember, even longer than this life.

“We can hold these things for lifetimes.

The grief you feel from your daughter being swept away from that cliff is the deepest cut of all yet it is still another cut from the sword that slices over the open wound in your chest.

It is also the cut that can set you free. Someday you will understand her gift. But first you must surrender to this wound. You must believe that this blood is your life and your death and you must choose it all even though death will always choose you. It all occurs in the blink in the eye.

A moment caught between the spaces between time. But you must choose and you must surrender it away and it must come with the softest of breaths, the calmest sigh from your body as you sit in this field. Surrender with a sigh all that is hindering you. Surrender with a sigh that which slices your heart. Surrender with a sigh that which denies you from your spirit, integrity and spark. Surrender the wound back to the universe and it shall free you” He listened. Head bowed.

“Surrender with a sigh,” he repeated.

“Understand, this is not the surrender of your warrior spirit, this is not the surrender to the foes that march upon your fields or threaten your family. You stand with your feet on the ground like the deep-rooted trees that withstand devastation and floods and you protect, provide, teach, and heal. You give strength and prosperity to your family. This is the law and heart of the land. You will be a force to be reckoned with.

You will see things, invent things, plant things, and create. But first you must stand in this field of truth and you must empty your pockets of their muddled secrets and repair the divine pathway which you altered as you destroyed the sanctity of this pristine habitat. You must rebuild integrity”

He felt her words like a judgment and his heart sank. He suddenly felt threatened and wondered how his family could still love him.

“Surrender with a sigh,” he whispered.

“Judgment is the arrow that enters your heart,” she said as if she were reading his mind.

“It is the same as your arrow that felled this fawn and, as you have seen, they always fly from untrue hands. These arrows contain no truth in their aim, they arrive from scarred fields and decimated histories that always affect the line of their course. Not feeling loved is impossible as this light in the trees is always around you and as it shines through you it shines from you. You are loved; trust me. There is no shame in knowing this, in believing this, in writing this, in singing this, in teaching this to your children. It is shame when you don’t. There is never time to waste in this body living only in flickers.

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82

“Understand that the wound bleeding in your chest is from this arrow dipped in the poison of shame, and anger, and confusion, and doubt, and judgment, and fear. Surrender the wound and return the arrow from your heart.

Close your eyes, plant your feet, breath out.

Release!”

It was icy cold, but her words hypnotized him; he felt numb. A bee landed on his head. He did not move. “Surrender with a sigh,” he said.

“In this cold night air lit by the light in the trees--find your family, see them and look how their hearts are also cut open. See for the first time the wounds that hold them. And behind them, see their friends and your friends and friends of your friends and see how their hearts are scarred and how their wounds have made them. See what suffering we all carry. The world will appear different at this point. The lines between truth and deception will become self evident. This crooked, poisoned arrow must be removed from your heart.

Surrender with a sigh, he said

See the eyes of your family behind you.

See how they love you. See how they need you.

You heal your wound by seeing, understanding, their wounds. They heal their wounds by seeing how you have healed yours. This is not about the words I am saying--it is about the life you are living and how you are living it.

“These wounds are healed and still we die. Death is the moment of truth. It all passes in a flicker of light. There is no choice but to live and love in line with the earth, with your family, with truth and light.”

“The things you once loved, live only in flickers.

This small fawn, with bones and hair and teeth, Rattling its tiny dark frame, With a sigh it surrenders And even still We die.”

The sun for a moment blinded his eye and in the glare he saw his daughter. And like the dream she was spinning in the air. He could hear music. He could see the flicker of white hummingbirds, the buzzing of honeybees, the iridescence of dragonflies around her.

Her voice echoed in the field. The sun hit the tree and shafts of light could be seen like rays from the heavens, like visible fingers waving her flag. The bees circled. Surrender with a sigh.

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The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

--John Muir

Everyone could see her like an angel.

In that moment the small fawn sighed its last breath and death took its body.

In that moment he felt his mind, body, and spirit open. The arrow released.

In that moment he understood the destruction and the necessary repair of the path set in front of him.

In that moment the ground trembled.

In that moment a large omniscient message deafened their ears.

In that moment he saw the great winged beast circle in the horizon.

In that moment bees swarmed and animals took flight and ran.

In that moment the flood and fire were set to roar and rampage.

In that moment the community of villagers were on the high field looking down upon their threatened homes.

In that moment the branches moved and the sound winds came again.

In that moment rays of light exploded onto the stage like bolts of lightening.

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

Emily Dickinson

In that moment he felt his daughter holding his hand and each person who loved her, and she was holding their hands.

In that moment he felt himself lighten and amidst the threatening chaos and oblivion stood still, watched and exhaled the softest breath.... and Surrendered it all with a sigh

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Emily Dickinson 85

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ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE part V

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There was earth and a seed--soil, rain, just the right amount

of light and shade, seasons, exposure, animals, insects, microbes,

and at a certain moment that seed had all the right things to sprout, to root, to grow as a sapling, to reach upward as a living thing.

That tree lived off the sunlight, the earth and the small creatures that lived and burrowed near it--bringing all this glorious energy into its roots and boughs and leaves.

It stored that energy into the fiber of its

heart and the rings of its years--living a life well past our fragile human time schedules--tall and patient. At some point this magnificent breathing

miracle began to weaken, the soil eroded, nutrients diminished, the winds and storms became stronger, or for whatever reasons one

day it just fell in the forest. It made

a sound. A young man in the woods found it and labored to cut it into

pieces. He could use it to warm his house;

build a table, make paper to write on, mulch

his yard--or he could take it to his shop and turn it

and then one afternoon gave it to Phoebe, who then also kept it for years and then slowly worked on transforming it again.

Phoebe brought it with her unfinished to San Francisco,

placed it almost forgotten on her art table, under her desk, on

shelves around her room, finished, unfinished, something she’d

keep, something she’d let go, something she cared about, something she didn’t. She painted and transformed it with her vision--The ancient

woman in the foreground holding a glowing heart (mine/yours/ours) floating in her hand, the ocean, the shore, the

pyramids, the mountains, the dark

stormy horizon holding space in the background. Somehow she titled it

Ancient Knowledge. Somehow be-

coming part of a prayer on my arm.

Somehow becoming a theme in my

life. Somehow becoming an anchor

as this year closes its extreme circle.

That little evolving seed on some hill fi-

nally becoming a piece of painted wood left on

Phoebe’s art table in her room to be discovered post-

on his lathe and make a bowl.

humously by her grieving parents and friends. The painting now

into a hand-made wooden bowl. Over the years it traveled to dif-

our lives. These mysteries, these gifts, these hands, these families,

So that seed which transformed into a tree transformed again sets on my altar watching over my house, once again transforming

ferent families, held nuts and foods, saw hands of different sizes and colors reach into it at all the familiar festive occasions that bring families together. At some

point during this journey the nut bowl landed in Petaluma at Drew’s and Phoebe’s favorite thrift store. Drew bought it and then kept it for years

these lives, these elements, these living and dying things--all in consort with each other--understanding this,

or at least experiencing this, all without words to explain it. Phoebe’s spirit transforming that wayward seed into her Ancient Knowledge.

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Some people, sweet and attractive, and strong and healthy, happen to die young. They are masters in disguise teaching us about impermanence.

--Dalai Lama

April 13th, 2009 (day before one year anniversary)

There is this lake, lagoon, body of water, with someone out there in the middle. They’re treading water, arms moving, feet kicking, water murky, shore line 100 yards, or maybe it’s ten feet, or maybe it’s a mile-- the shoreline is the world and it’s always moving. One day he’s walking down the road, going to work, driving the kids, riding his bike, and then one morning he wakes up here, in the middle of something he doesn’t understand. A Kafka existential drama but this is real. Part animal survival of keeping your head above water and part mythological Sisyphus drama pushing your ball of a body up some hill until the hill just flattens out and becomes this dark, murky water you can’t let yourself sink in. There are a few wise souls on the shore that stand and say silently with their eyes-- we are here, you are not alone. But the rest of the world goes about their business and still even with the kind words, you feel isolated. Alone.

At Glide Memorial in the heart of the San Francisco Tenderloin Pam and I recently have spent some time working with young children, teaching them about photography and serving food to the homeless.

You can see these men (mostly men, a few women) out there in that lake. A murky, alone, isolated place. You can see these men and there is a strength of survival across their shoulders, but there is the loneliness of the outcast that is heart wrenching. They appreciate the food. Seeing Pam in her hair-net serving breakfast with a smile these men are thankful and silent. Seeing this personification of quiet isolation eating slowly at breakfast makes me thankful for what I have-- It makes me understand the thin line between standing and falling. What if I were lost in that lake and no one arrived on the shore to help? It is then you see how close it is between eating this breakfast and helping to serve it.

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Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

-- Williamn Wordsworth

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

FAITH

When you have come to the edge of all the light you know And are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown Faith is knowing one of two things will happen There will be something solid to stand on or you will be Taught to fly

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

--Henry Miller

I was on Ellis street last week and needed a bathroom and I asked a homeless woman where a Starbucks was as they have pretty nice clean bathrooms. She started walking with me, saying it was down this way and began talking to me about her life, how she had a hard life, been abandoned when she was little, auntie slammed her fingers in the screen door when she was bad. I can find my way to the Starbucks I told her trying release myself from her saga but she kept walking with me and continuing with her life story and now she was telling me how she had been hit in the head with a hammer. I felt sorry for her, but I wondered if she was actually walking with me to show me where the Starbucks was or some crazy way to hustle me. Here it is she pointed. Didn’t ask for money, she just wanted to tell me her life story. I told her I knew about a hard life and that I lost my daughter a year ago. I told her my story. Oh honey she said, that is so so sad, I am so sorry. We hugged. bodies in parenthesis with arms around shoulders with a pat on back, but still this moment of recognition. I gave her $5 and went into Starbucks.

Loosing Phoebe has turned my world into this place where I am in that lake, that lonely place, treading water for survival. Are we really getting anywhere? Time is so far out of control, forwards, backwards, inside out.

It is a new, disorienting landscape looked at through mirrors. We are coming up, weeks now, days now, to the year mark of Phoebe and her fall from that horrible cliff. I have been trying to write this part about Ancient Knowledge for months. I have started and abandoned lines and pages so many times. I call it the grey zone. Maybe it is a male characteristic, as Pam and Drew seem so different than me in this. They cry and their emotions are always front page news around the house; I’m out there in that lake and then I get tired and everything feels grey and foreign. The grey zone is murky and fuzzy and timeless and spacey and numbing and lost. You don’t want to be writing about meaningful things when you are in this place. Nothing is meaningful and everything is murky.

Grey is the cloak the men wear at the Glide breakfast.

The paradox I am living is there are times the dulling grey pulls back and reveals a bright light and magical colors that are as tangible as this spring weather and these glowing hillsides.

I am thankful for the resources I have in my life.

I have called and they have gathered around the edge of that lake. Understand this about those who are struggling in the middle of that grey body of water: there are no words of how to get out, how to feel better, how to swim to shore, this stroke, this life preserver, no words of encouragement, you can do it, you’re doing great, don’t forget to breathe, you should try this, or read this, or hear that. It is something about the people on the shore who can stand there, hold the space, loving you, knowing you, seeing you, empathizing with you, praying for you, healing with their presence, patience, and compassion. The shoreline moves in closer. The Grey becomes transparent. For a while I was feeling despondent and was kind of angry at the people standing on the shore (it’s easy to get angry in the middle of this). A little like--Oh, how’s Dave, you look good kid, keep it up, talk to you soon, sorry it took me so long to get back to you, let’s do something, don’t let it get you down, don’t forget to breathe, later bro. The world spins out of control. You can feel very alone. Isolated. The intense upheaval and epic waves of those first months settle down into a placid, dull, disorienting ache. And then things can change.

Even though I’m in that lake I can see myself standing on the shore for others. Being that person who has held that shoreline for me. Humbled and patient. By asking for resources I can also become one. The shore moves closer.

I see a man in Bolinas, part shaman, therapist, elder, healer, friend, and family man. He has worked with me for over 12 years. He has helped my family during this time. He spent valuable time with Phoebe. Called her a “Star” after meeting her for one hour. The shaman teaches from ancient knowledge, looks at the integrity of the individual, anchors his words in the wisdom of his elders and teachers, from the balance of nature, the 97

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting.

-- Buddha

Become the sky Take an axe to the prison wall Escape Walk out like someone suddenly born into color --Rumi

harmony of integrity, and the truth that the self will find balance if it is in tune with these values. He says to me about my grey man in the middle of the water:

“Drop a rock in the middle of that lake and there is the large turbulence, waves moving outward.

The first months with the memorials and Life celebrations, the art shows, birthdays…so many things moving around. The waves are so strong, they’re easy to see, keep you from seeing or feeling what is really there. As the waves move out from the center they get smaller and further apart until they are imperceptible. You can’t even see the water moving.

This is the grey zone. Things begin to settle now.

You can feel alone in it as you are no longer bounced around, distracted. Emotions, grief, run deeper now.

Then if you watch closely--as these imperceptible waves reach the shore you still see nothing until suddenly a blade of grass moves.”

I knew those concentric rings of waves, the turbulent world of grief. I certainly understand the disorienting, calm, grey area--but the blade of grass?

What blade of grass?

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

--Chief Seattle

February 15th, 2009

It is raining on a Sunday morning. A good, heavy rain that we desperately need. There is a fire and Pam’s on the couch, reading the Sunday paper, my coffee is warm in my cup, and life becomes still enough to hear your thoughts breathing. Life has been tough lately, work has completely vanished and I feel like an American statistic of the unemployed--37% of something that’s collectively depressing. As a country we are going through some hard times. There is so much fear about loss--will the economy get worse, will I loose my job, what if I can’t pay my mortgage? We feel threatened, scared.

It is obvious that we are going through some intense, historical times right now; just read the news. Having no work and grieving for the loss of my daughter makes the fear in the headlines seem almost trivial.

My reality can be so isolating and separate from that world.

I am constantly overwhelmed by the mystery and I am constantly thankful for the resources that have been given me that contain Ancient Knowledge. I am the humbled man treading water in the lake. I am not the wise teacher, sage monk, shaman healer, elder, psychic, Zen poet, or profound artist-but I’m lucky enough to have people who embody these gifts in my life. It is not my place to write wise insights about Ancient Knowledge. It is my place to learn and be humbled by this process. Phoebe has given me so many gifts and they are all connected to Ancient Knowledge. It is the profound realization that these gifts are a powerful mystery that is amazingly nourishing (but as I write this last sentence and I know it’s true, I really want to say this knowledge just makes my bones ancient and the mystery makes me feel anemic).

As I write these parts I think of my kids, their friends, and Phoebe’s friends--those kids in their late teens, early twenties, just starting the first steps of their long journeys. We program our kids with this fear to get through high school with good grades, go to college, get an education, get a good job, be responsible so you can pay your rent and bills on time, find a spouse and raise a healthy family. But if we stop all the buzzing chaos we are selling, what they truly are looking for is Ancient Knowledge.

Take a walk with a young person and this becomes very obvious. They are listening for the wisdom that bypasses the anxiety, fear, and stress of this uncertain life we are passing on to them. There is hypocrisy in this dream. Kids have extremely sensitized antennae for hypocrisy. The insights of nature written by John Muir and Chief Seattle hold much more value than some advice on how to write an essay, get a good job, sell a product, and how to successfully buy into the American dream.

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Love every leaf‌. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an abiding universal love.

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”

--John Lubbock

Wise men hear and see as little children do.

--Lao-Tzu

Applying Ancient Knowledge is the anecdote to the poison snakebite. Once you apply Ancient Knowledge to the circumferences of your life then things like preserving old growth forests, sustaining habitats, revering indigenous cultures, respecting other peoples traditions and stories, paying attention to your own dreams, listening carefully to real teachers become obvious and intricate. Walking quietly in the woods has more information than sitting in a classroom. Add these qualities and then bad teachers are insignificant. Add these qualities and you will make good teachers. Add these qualities and life takes on a different meaning. There is ancient wisdom that is inspiring and there is mystery that reaches far beyond our ability to comprehend.

handles it real well.

Yeah so when you get some free time it would be cool if you could give me some suggestions or ideas of where to start. Also any links to stuff you’ve been working on or just thoughts you’ve had. I‘d like to hear it all.

Well. Miss you, Dave, and all the Friends and Family. I’m coming for the Hersey’s Art show next month.

Take it easy and sorry about the oddly long length of the this email

March 4th, 2009 Hey, Dave,

It’s Ari down in Santa Cruz. Wanted to say hello there. How are you doing? Anything new? As for me I have just been enjoying the Santa Cruz scene and feeling really relaxed. Tons and Tons of laughing. I’m trying to gain some insight about Shamanism. I want to learn about it but I don’t know where to start and I thought maybe you would have some good suggestions. Maybe some good books to start with so I don’t dive into the wrong books and get turned off. You know, something to give me a general good overview. I was also talking to Wyatt about this retreat in Big Sur. Where you hike to it and stay there and work for the people and meditate and learn from them. Wyatt said he thought you went there at some point. I don’t know anything about it or even how you get involved but I’m interested in it. Yeah anything you can tell me about this stuff would be awesome.

Well, besides all that, Jordan made me dinner the other night and we hung out in her loft. It was really nice to see her. She is a good chef! We live close but we don’t get to hang out one on one that much so it was really cool. She is a very busy person right now. But she

Hi Ari,

Never apologize for a long email--they are always a gift. I apologize for not writing back sooner... sorry it’s been so long to get back to you. I’ve been in a grey zone lately and haven’t been able to do much of anything. It is great getting a note like this. It’s early and everyone is sleeping. Jordan is up so that’s nice. She adds a lot of energy to the house--makes Pam happy.

Saturday I did a long bike ride/event (100 miles) that for me marks the beginning of this crazy year. Last year after I finished this ride I called Phoebe and she told me a dream she had with her and me. It was about climbing a cliff. She told me she was afraid and asked me for help. I was telling her not to be afraid, she kept climbing and again became afraid and again I told her not to be afraid. In the dream we got to the top and she told me about this beautiful place, a kind of bazaar, outdoor market, lots of colors, vendors, handmade clothes.

I also have a dream that reoccurs and in this dream there is also this colorful outdoor market on top of a plateau-kind of Tibetan like. Three weeks after she told me this dream she fell from the cliff in the headlands and our lives have been forever changed. We are approaching the year date and the circle is tightening.

Love, Ari March 25th, 2009

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Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

-- Albert Einstein

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

--William Wordsworth

Sunday the Nautilus boys--Max, Phil and Wes-joined me for a sunrise ceremony in the headlands. We gathered there at the invitation of my friend, Dana from burning man, aka Moonfire, (who I had corresponded with and talked to but had not yet met in person). Dana had lost his son from the Golden Gate bridge three months before Phoebe’s fall. We share something deep with this. He is part Cherokee and has been embracing the medicine traditions of his ancient roots and was having a fire and ceremony on the Spring Equinox. He has been inviting other families who have lost their boy or girl from their final leap off the bridge from this world into the other world and so other people with deep connections were present.

Two Native American medicine drummers with their families were there. A very windy, frigid, morning but clear and no one seemed cold. A small, protected area behind Battery Wallace overlooking the bay, the bridge, and the city to the south-east. Big Fire and still dark as we arrived. The boys gave up going to Laura’s party so they could get up at 5:30 a.m. to make it. The two medicine men sang 4 songs. They were amazing.

Touched to the heart. Opening song, mourning song, healing song, closing song. While they were singing Dana nudged me with his elbow. Three hawks hovered over the boys--dancing and floating in the wind--their own ritual; they hung around for one song and then as it ended, as if they were dancers on stage, the wind blew them into the east and they were gone. The next song, the sunrise song, and as if cued by the great master of this stage, the sun ignited the clouds on the horizon that hung around the top of the hills, the glowing grew more intense as the song increased, slanted godly fingers of light and then the sun’s blinding edge appeared as if the song and the 10 of us around the blazing fire had some part in this magical moment. It was like the song made the sunrise. Standing there facing the hills and facing the bridge I felt a deep compassion and sorrow for the souls who could not face living on this side of the world and had used that bridge, at this moment surrounded in light, to set their spirits free. I felt my daughter near me.

Nudged. Goose bumps. There is a difference between sadness and reverence and you know that when your heart becomes opened. I feel reverence in these moments.

Around the fire we took turns speaking and introducing ourselves. I spoke about the seven signposts tattooed on my arm and the journey they represent. I spoke each phrase and then gave a small explanation of what it meant to me. It felt like a good prayer. It felt good to use a voice that was announcing something sacred and connecting me to the fire, the songs, and to the events that were unfolding. When I got to the part about Ancient Knowledge--all I said is, “This moment is the blessing that is contained within Ancient Knowledge.

We need this, the earth needs this, I need this.”

The medicine men spoke about who they were, their names, their clan, their songs, their traditions. They turned and spoke directly to me: “We know that some families here are coming to their year anniversary. In our traditions we believe that the spirits of our loved ones can return and visit us for a year after they have passed on to the other side. When we cry in distress and pain they will not come as much as they come to offer us guidance and support. If they feel they are creating sadness and grief they will be careful to not disturb you.

So do not cry. Even after the year has passed they will come and visit you and help you.” I thought I should tell Drew and Pam this part.

After the songs were done we were drinking coffee and snacking on delicious foods people had brought when someone yelled--rainbow! Although the morning had been clear, a slanted rain was suddenly blowing through and a double rainbow occurred over the headland cliffs. I realized that these were the cliffs from where Phoebe fell. It was cold and I was shivering as the wind whipped up everything into a frenzy at that moment. You could see the end of the rainbow moving around the bottom of Rodeo Beach. There is a place when a phenomenon occurs and you witness the divine spirit in action and you feel blessed that you are able to be in that place, at that time, in that space, to see the gifts, feel the gifts and accept the gifts. It does not feel 103

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

-- Buddha

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy.

--William Shakespeare

We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home.

--Australian Aboriginal Proverb

like Moses on the mountain top, or the mighty hand of the Divine Spirit laying his weighty and infinite mystery upon your impoverished soul; it is more like being in the moment and witnessing the unfolding and seeing yourself as a part of that unfolding and a lightness and a deep and slow appreciation surrounds you. You feel very patient and could be happy not moving for a long time. You feel gratitude.

Writing about this days later I am even more amazed by the phenomena and the mystery. I now see the rainbow over the Marin headland bluffs, over Phoebe’s last moments on this earth, as rather spectacular and unexplainable. Events way bigger than us. As I ran to the edge to look at the rainbow I left the area that had offered some protection to the elements and the blast of wind and sideways rain was overwhelming. I looked at the double rainbow. Watched its colored leg move around the lagoon like a big spoon stirring a pot of soup. As the witness to something phenomenological you stand as a part of it. It is not a biblical miracle, just a rainbow, and something powerful in its timing and majesty. It’s in hindsight that this becomes something about which stories are made. The cold made me retreat sooner than I wished. The last time I felt penetrating cold and wind like that would be at Phoebe’s memorial in the Olive Orchard. I think spirit can bring a nasty chill with it…

I found more warm coffee and some stew warming by the fire. I was speaking to Kandy, Dana’s wife, when I heard something from near the fire. The fire and smoke were swirling. The sun out of the East now was up and bright and making things near the fire dramatically silhouetted. The sound of drumming, but not just drumming, but really good drumming, was coming from somewhere. I know Wes had brought one drum but suddenly all the boys had drums and were banging out some amazing rhythms with their hands. Back silhouetted to me, fire roiling, rhythms of music, the boys totally in the moment, expanding and expressing. I started crying. Kandy put her arm on my shoulder and asked me if I needed a moment, thinking that I was missing Phoebe so much that the sorrow was overwhelming me.

I smiled and cried at the same time and had to explain to

her...I was not overcome by the emotion of sorrow but by the emotions of appreciation and thankfulness. Dana later thanked me for bringing the boys as he had asked drummers to attend but they had to decline because of the weather. The boys stepped in--cued to the schedule of his event as if it were planned.

I was very proud of the boys. They offered something that made the morning better, bigger. If they become rich and famous as a band their moment on that hill that morning will not be matched.

I’d like to close with this. I’ve been trying to write about Ancient Knowledge for a few months now.

The grey zone has lingered hard on me. The last two days I took slow walks, one with Catherine and one with Dyll before she left for Europe. Both walks were about listening and looking at small things.

This mystery is continuing and all this magic is unfolding. Sometimes I am lost in a very lonely grey zone and sometimes I am fortunate to walk in a very divine light. The light is a gift and it’s all part of the ancient knowledge.

Shamanism you asked about is a part of that. There are many teachers, elders, traditions and ceremonies. We are lucky to live in a culture that has invited these different teachings to live with us. Often our culture ignores and abolishes these important traditions,; there are a lot of unenlightened people (eight years of hell, maybe now we have a new beginning to stand on) but there are many of us who are (now more than ever) listening closely to the teachings of Ancient Knowledge. The resources that unfold as we move on our journey on this planet is an individual road. The problem with our western culture is that we are full of hubris and think we can read a few books, buy a few drugs, take in a couple of all nighters, and head out on our own sublime path. Listen carefully and slowly. Elders and teachers will find you; you will find them. Phoebe has been a true light for me to follow. Sad as it is--I love her more now than can be explained. The place you asked about is Tasajara zen center and a good book to start with is the Shaman’s Apprentice.

Thanks for checking in Ari, means a lot to me...

Dave 105

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert mind, there are very few.

--Suzuki Roshi

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

--William Blake

March 27th, 2009 Dear Dave,

I have begun my long planned journey in Europe.

I am currently in London.

I spend the days wandering around the streets, rea ding in cafes, writing, playing guitar.

I like to pretend it is the sixties and I am a bohemian beatnik, poet, artist who is cavorting the streets with actors, actresses and fellow artists trying to stir things up.

But really it’s just me cavorting on my own for the most part.

I’m trying to soak everything up.

I have this theory that a person cannot form any sort of real connection to their surrounding environment unless they see it in motion or while walking.

So I walk.

I miss you a lot. I read Ari’s letter and it made me cry a little. I hope you’re doing okay.

Dyll

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

--Anaïs Nin

Dear Dyll,

I’m so glad you are traveling and seeing the world.

You are like my eyes and feet out there. I’m so proud of you for being so brave to go out there solo and follow your dream.

I was thinking of you last night--I went to bed around midnight and couldn’t sleep. Often these sleepless nights just augment that lonely feeling but this night felt different. So many things seem to be unwrapping themselves since that Bike ride, the spring equinox ceremony, and my hikes. It felt like people were visiting me. Like all my friends and family that have said prayers and healing thoughts for me; all the Elders, teachers, and healers who have looked in on me and offered guidance and support; Phoebe’s spirit and also those spirits that are a part of her circle were there. It was that grey lake with me in the middle again, but this time everyone was there, standing room only on the shoreline, floating room only around edges of sky. White light seemed to be glowing in the room. Kind of eerie. If you were going to die this is how you would want the final farewell scene to be. I sat up in bed and meditated. Everyone just kept hanging out. I felt loved, appreciated, held. I felt Phoebe in the room. “I’ve brought everyone, dad. See, you are not alone.”

I have been holding onto that vision ever since. Everything is harder right now as we get closer to that year mark but in another way I have been feeling Phoebe even stronger than ever. I think those medicine men were right. I keep trying to tell everyone in the family. They all look at me like I’m crazy. Phoebe wants us to know it’s okay, she’s happy, we need to be aware that she is around us. I feel like I am being shown secrets and mysteries all the time. Not big things. It’s the little things--hawks, rainbows, trees, bees, blades of grass…

There’s that lake again…all these waves we can’t see and then the blade of grass moves. I can watch the mystery unfold. I get that now.

And then the blade of grass moves--that is the mystery. That is the knowledge that is ancient

Travel safe, look both ways before you cross the street.

Love, Dave

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The birds have dissolved into the sky And the last remaining clouds have faded away We sit together the mountain and me Until only the mountain remains --Li Po

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

--Aldous Huxley

February 2nd, 2009

I have a place I go when all this gets too much. A ten minute drive and a ten minute walk, although lately I have reinvented the walk to be an hour long investigation. Every time I set foot or bike into these hills I am humbled and have to repeat: I am lucky to live where I live, to have spots like this. This particular spot overlooks the lakes, Bon Tempe and Alpine, and then out to the mountain ridge of Mt. Tam’s sleeping lady, Bolinas ridge, Pine mountain, and San Geronimo Ridge.

I have ridden and hiked the different angles of all these habitats and drainages. I spend a lot of time in these hills and have ridden or walked countless miles of trail.

I have sat in this spot with my children and their friends. The Christmas morning walk. The meditation walk. The Phoebe walk. I had sat here with Phoebe on full moons and drank beer and sat quietly and shared stories. My men’s group and I drank whisky and toasted this sorrow and the sacredness in this spot. I sat in this place with young voices who felt confused by shadows but excited by light and we talked about nature and the mystery of finding antlers in the nook of a rock and the rain came and things can change.

It is in this place that I listen quietly to the words that offer solace and prayer.

They come from the wind and the rays of light through the shadow of clouds passing. They come in the stacking of rocks and gifts in an altar hidden within Phoebe’s Madrone. Phoebe found this tree. Laughing and hugging it, she called it the refrigerator tree because the peeling trunk always feels cold. Under this tree I placed the obsidian and abalone we found this year. Sat with friends and family. Early this summer I was invited to do a reading and was practicing reading aloud, How Well Do You Remember? A honeybee landed on my hand and then stayed on the pages for an hour and a half while I practiced. It was then I made the altar at this spot.

The other day a Madrone branch had fallen in front of the altar and I realized that it would be an amazing sculpture if encased in encaustic beeswax. It has become the fabric of my art and has opened a new process for me to explore.

These gifts become a necessary part of our heritage and part of Phoebe’s legacy--Ancient Knowledge is at work in times and places like this.

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.

Mary Kay Ash

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

Emily Dickinson

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Phoebe’s Best Honey

We tend our hives in the Best’s olive orchard Like a sacred flame up on that ancient mountain top, where the Miwok creation story begins and 6 million year old stones end and the light through the olive trees just goes on as the bees arrive with bags full of pollen and nectar.

Everyone of them has some purpose, although when you first see the hive it’s all chaos, buzzing, standing back with caution listen to them hum, talking calmly to the hard working girls this our living alter to the mystery of living things working together, gathering the blessings, honey in her hands.

Around this hive we have gathered, there are wildflowers and grasses, a pond with ducks, herons, egrets, hawks that circle overhead-- even while the monk sits on his pillow and opens his heart to meditation, even while the shaman works to heal the secret wounds, even while the native drummers beat and sing their traditional songs, even while the spiritual mystic brings stories from other realms, even while the artist brings new light to this old one-these animals and insects go about their business without intervention Or fear We tend these bees, that living alter.

I’ve read beekeepers don’t get cancer-a nice thought, but watching that bee stealing a bit of her honey with our fingers I always remember how Phoebe loved bees her beekeeper soul painting and keeping their memory and mystery sacred teaching us a purpose, as if they were an integral part of her very own secret she painted with some ancient knowledge that ceaselessly hovers near these hives, commits us to this healthy work....

Plunge your hand in dripping with honey and nectar while the bees lick your fingers with their tongues and we take some home for our toast.

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NOURISHED

BY THE MYSTERY part VI

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver (One of my favorite poems.... Oh so thankful for Mary Oliver and her writings... have given me so much solace. I had given this poem to Phoebe in High school and told her exactly that. A wonderful parental moment when you can give something you think is touching and then have it touch.)

Grief and Death are such a devastating pair of bookends. A shelf that cannot be arranged in order or sequence. The pages turned are disorienting and unfamiliar. You look for the spirit and the essence of your child in all that you see and do. You go to bed hoping for a dream. You hike praying for a gift that might feel like a subtle nudge. Nourished by the Mystery is Phoebe’s next signpost. I wonder if I would be paying attention like this if she hadn’t put these wheels in motion with her artwork. Now the title is on my arm as a reminder. Nourished by the Mystery is part of the faith that there are things at work that we will never be able to understand.

Things that are bigger than us. The essence makes our life more important and meaningful as the colors of the landscape suddenly become brighter and more luminescent in the new worlds that are revealed.

Nourished by the Mystery

A few days after the year anniversary orchard ceremony, I am driving up to Petaluma with Henry to check on the bees. I look at the green hills around hwy 101 streaming by, the familiar corridor traffic, the familiar drive with Henry, the grass moving in the wind, slight shades of summer gold showing, black cows on edges of hillsides, and it was like I had arrived back

on the old planet-- back into a movie that had been put on pause. I miss Phoebe now in a deeper, harder way than last year, but now it is all supposed to be integrated back into the main stream. That proverbial river they call reality. We had the anniversary week.

Big and beautiful, powerful and overwhelming, reverberating and inspiring, heart-opening and heartbreaking. We all gathered together. Family around the state all held that moment of silence on this tragic date. We’ve marked the passing of the first year. And then the year of firsts was over. Time to get life back in gear. Kids are going away to colleges and towns, work needs to be taken care of, relationships need to be tended

After the olive orchard ceremony, returning to Drew’s, there was a swarm of bees in the palm tree in her driveway. A few days later as I enter my office for the first time in a while there are bees on my computer, on my mouse, A swarm had entered through the heater duct and some had found their way into my space. I tried to persuade the bees to leave the office, but then just settled in with them and did my work. I left the bees to go north and that was when I drove up 101 and had that gauze lifting feeling.

After we check the bees, Henry and I take a hike in the preserve. Those last weeks before the year marking, during my meditation hikes and forays to Phoebe’s alter, I kept my eyes glued to the ground,

looking for signs, interesting bones, rocks, flowers, animals, but the gift I was raking my eyes for was a hidden deer antler--a token. Never found one. So Henry and I are hiking, as I wanted to show Henry this amazing gorge with the 6 million year old rocks and running stream I found the week before with Max.

We are cross-country bush whacking, through poison oak and stones. We arrive over a precipice and stare down to the creek, with those old igneous stones water worn and glowing in the afternoon light. We realize that it is too steep with no way down. Scanning I wonder what to do. I realize we are standing on a deer trail that contours down the hillside. “We can go this way.” Four steps later I pick up a dark brown, 5-point deer antler. The gift was so obvious. You ask for something and it never comes--seemingly, there is no way on, you give into it, the direction emerges and the gift is just lying on the path to pick up. I tell that to Henry as I turn the antler over in my hands. We both laugh. The moment is so obvious you could almost take it for granted.

We both feeling Nourished by the Mystery.

All these mysteries can be explained if you set your mind to coming up with answers. The bees are just bees, the antler is just an antler, a dream is just a dream. There is no way to solve them, to find answers posed to why a coincidence is happening, develop theories to explain random events. I guess

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the human condition has always preferred an answer rather than admitting there is no answer. Ah yes--there must be a black and white explanation with a numerical, scientific approach to solve the universe’s grey uncertainties. This year has made it clear--Within the cataclysmic darkness of grief it is the simple things that are sometimes the most profound. Nothing seems random anymore.

Coincidence and mystery are linked into a web cast much larger than we imagine. It is best to let these questions be what they are--a reminder that the world is always changing, impermanent and unraveling in a way that is miraculous and astounding if you pay attention…To stay Nourished by the Mystery.

Last July at the POV Gallery art show, Susan had written a piece about Phoebe as the artist. She had not set out to write a bio but towards the end she told about Phoebe’s family but accidentally left out some important info about Pam and the kids. We all agreed we’d edit the piece for the Petaluma show. Susan made the changes and gave the file to Jack to edit and print out. Jack simply took her work and changed the font size and leading to get it to fit onto one page. He did not change or edit the text. The day of the art-show opening he printed a copy and gave it Drew to proof. Drew was stopped in her tracks. In the space between two paragraphs were the simple words: i’m here

We passed the copy around to everyone. No one asked for an explanation. Obviously neither Jack nor Susan would play such a strange trick on our grieving family. “i’m here.” Such a blatant answer to the biggest question a grieving parent asks every moment of every day. Where are you, where are you?

A week later I was taking a bike ride with Erio.

Phoebe took care of Erio and Jess’s kids, Stella and Tiger.

There was a very close bond between the children and Phoebe. Stella’s artwork has so much Phoebe in it--that alone is a mystery we hold dearly. I told the i’m here story to Erio and we talked about the unexplainable and he told me this story:

Stella found an injured bee and decided that it was very important to try to nurse it back to health. She made a box and fed it honey and offered it flowers--but the honeybee did not live through the night. Stella took it personally; this was such a hard time for her. Erio explained that it was okay and that bees did not live long lives.

Stella in her way sat down with paper and began to draw a picture of the bee--the way Phoebe would of. A sunny, summer afternoon with father and daughter in the yard.

Erio looked over and watched a white butterfly land on Stella’s artwork. Just land there and hang out, visiting the moment. “Look, Stella, you have a visitor, ” Erio quietly explained.

During Phoebe’s second art show at the Petaluma Community Gallery there was a Day of the Dead event, including a poetry reading which I had been invited to attend. I had just finished writing the first chapter, How well do you remember? I went to my hillside spot and sat under the Madrone and looked out over the lakes and the mountain. I began to read out loud, practicing for the evening event. A bee landed on the paper, hung around the edges. Flittering around my hand. It takes me about 20 minutes to read the story. I read and then peal a tangerine. The bee, taking a great interest in all my activities. I read the piece a few more times and the bee never left my side, the paper, or my fingers. Can a bee hang out like a friend? Was Phoebe playing with me? After that I slowly transformed that spot into an altar hidden in the Madrone Phoebe loved, hugged and kissed. “Refrigerator tree, dad.”

A few weeks later Drew is painting Henry’s old room, working to remake Henry’s room into a place for her office but also a place to hold Phoebe’s artwork, altar, and precious things. The windows were open but there were screens. While she was painting a bumblebee arrived in the room and also just hung out with her while she painted. She said she felt like a friend was helping her.

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A few weeks after that Henry and I were working with the bees. We had gotten in the habit of not wearing protective clothing or screened bee helmets. A bee lands on Henry’s forehead, that place between the eyes. Stings him right there. Third eye sting. He swells up and misses the first four days of school. I later read in a book about the shamanism of bees that to get stung there is a great gift by the bee, an initiation into their nature and magic.

As I was coming up with ways to approach writing this chapter about Nourished by the Mystery I thought an idea might be to ask friends and family to share their own mysteries, stories, and dreams. I had lunch with Alex at Herbavore on Valencia Street. We were both having a bad week and commiserated about how hard it was to find work. I shared some parental advice from things I had heard along the way from my elders. There was some inspiration at the table and Alex seemed to lighten up a bit. I asked him if he had any dreams or stories to tell. He looked perplexed. I tried to explain that I was looking for small stories that could almost be insignificant if you weren’t paying attention. I told him the stories about Stella’s bee and butterfly and some of the bee stories. He apologized that he knew there were things but just couldn’t remember.

I realized that it was not a good idea to put someone on the spot to ask such a personal question and decided that I’d let the stories come a different way. I apologized and told him not to worry about it and then left to go inside to pay the bill. As I returned to the table Alex looked rigid.

“Dave look,” he said.

There was a bee drinking from the edge of his carrot juice cup. I sat down facing him and the bee came over to my cup. We sat quietly and watched the bee circle our table. Dance between the cups, circle and spin. The bee seemed to be watching us. I looked at Alex and there were tears coming down his cheeks. Mine too.

“I guess you have my story now.”

“I guess I do.”

Beginning of last June Jack and I drove down to LA to help organize the LA show. I had not spoken to my mom and dad much since our life took the radical change encountered by the death of Phoebe. So this was a good opportunity to visit them. As we hung out mom took me aside.

“Dave there is something I need to tell you,” she began. “I have something I have to confess.”

I’m not sure I want to hear a confession. I feel awkward.

“When I was a young girl, about 17 or so, I got into psychic things,. I read all the books I could find. One day my favorite uncle came over and I read his palm. I told him that he had a very short lifeline. Two weeks later he died in a car accident. I was so upset. I threw all my books away and vowed never to practice that craft again.”

Mom paused to look at me. I had no idea where she was going with this story. “I have to admit,” she said, “that even though I swore to never do anything like that again, I still had a secret perversion.”

Confessions and now secret perversions. I feel like a little kid trying not to squirm in my seat.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Whenever I meet someone I will secretly look at their palm and look at their life-line.”

I still didn’t know where this was going.

“When Phoebe was a little girl I looked at her palm and saw and I saw her life-line.” My mother was very emotional now. Tears rolling down her cheeks. “It was so small. She was so young. I was so upset.”

Mom was crying now,. I was feeling confused.

“I tried to forget about it. I talked to my girl friends about it and they assured me it was nothing but I have to confess that this has always haunted me.”

I told her it was okay and thanked her for telling me the story. We hugged.

I talked to Jack about it on the way home.

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“She did a very courageous thing to have to hold a secret like that for all those years. To protect you and Drew and the family all these years.”

I had not thought about it like that, and Jack’s words had given me a new appreciation for my mother. It also made me appreciate Jack for his insight. Later thinking about my mother I realized how holding a secret can change a person. My mother was such a free and open person as a mother. Always pushing us boys towards adventure and challenge, lots of rope for us to test ourselves. But as I had kids she became more and more fearful in her way of looking out after the grandkids--always sending notes and e-mails about the new worry for parents to be on the look out for. How things change...

On a Sunday in early April before all this happened I had just finished a 100-mile bike ride. It was a Century that started in Sebastopol and went up the Sonoma coast.

It was a great day. A real fun ride and I rode well and felt good and strong at the finish. I called Phoebe on the phone. She was driving with Jordan on her way from her new house in the City to visit us in San Anselmo.

“Dad, I had a dream about you last night.”

“Really?” The last few weeks had been awkward between Phoebe and me. She had announced to her mother that she was hearing muffled voices when she became stressed. It was an awkward time as parents as we didn’t want to magnify the situation, but we didn’t want to let it go either. They say early twenties is a time a young person can show signs of psychosis--what’s a parent to do?...

Phoebe and I had a standing Monday date and she had been canceling them. I was calling and she would rarely answer. There was a tension. I finally had gotten through and I was a bit parental about canceling without calling, not checking in. She had gotten a little upset and challenged me by saying that she was the only kid that had her parents calling her 24/7.

When Phoebe had just moved into her apartment in the city I felt a refreshed relationship with her. A new

beginning. She was crafting out a new identity, her new life, and it was exciting to see her flourish in her new world and to be there to help--but with this statement I realized that she was asking me to step back. There was something that felt extremely agitated in the air. Part of me wanted to sweep her up and part of me said I have to let her go. Okay, I won’t call so much, no more expectations about our Mondays. No more worry about voices. It’s okay--let go.

But I felt a gap, something awkward and I know Phoebe-she felt the same.

“Yeah, you wanna hear it?”

“Of course, are you kidding?”

“We were taking a hike and we were walking on this grassy path. It turned into a grassy slope and then it turned into a steep cliff. It got so steep that we had to use the grass as hand holds and the grass was pulling out. I got really scared and asked you to help. You told me not to be afraid and that I could do it. I kept climbing and the hill got steeper and the grass disappeared. I told you again I was scared and you told me not to be afraid. I put my hand on a ledge and there was a weird fuzzy animal and it scared me even worse, but you told me not to be afraid, that I was okay and I could do it. Somehow we got to the top of the cliff and there was a wonderful, colorful bazaar, tables of clothes and foods and people walking around looking and buying things. We walked around together.”

“You didn’t dream that…you just made that up to make me feel good.”

“No really, Dad. I really dreamt it!”

“No way, you can’t dream like that.” Her dream made me feel so appreciated as a father. It was so symbolic that I couldn’t believe that her subconscious would let me be such an important guide. I felt so honored as a father that she felt that way about me. By now we were laughing about it.

“Yeah, I really, really did.” Sounding like such a sweet little girl.

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too, Dad.” 129

Trade Show Booth by Phoebe

Door by 8 year old Phoebe

“I’ll see you on Monday?”

“Yeah, I promise this time.”

That Monday I picked her up and we decided to have a picnic. I suggested Strybing Arboretum, she said Buena Vista Gardens.

“Dad, let me take you to my favorite store for good food.”

“Of course.” I remember this so clearly. So often I have picked out foods for the children, so often picking out morsels for a family picnic. And now she is showing me what is good and delicious. Standing there watching, awed with how beautiful she is.

“Dad, you have to try this cheese,. I brought it the other day to Dolores Park for a picnic with Alex, and this sheep cheese is my favorite and of course we have to get Humboldt Fog just for old time sake.”

I’m thinking, “This is an expensive picnic,,” but something feels extraordinarily special about this moment. “Whatever you want.”

“And this poached salmon is amazing and we should eat it with these herb potatoes and this grilled asparagus.”

$50 later she has chosen the perfect array of food for our picnic. It is in this moment where I truly see my daughter as her own spirit. She has arrived in her world and is happy, assertive and creative. And she knows her cheese.

We arrive at Strybing.

“Hey, isn’t this Buena Vista Gardens?”

“No, I don’t think so, I believe its Strybing Arboretum.”

“Well, whatever they call this place, this is where I wanted to come to!”

We eat the delicious food and watch some small babies roll around on the grass. The babies notice us and smile and walk our way, falling and rolling, and then forgetting us and then keep playing. Phoebe and I talk about the cute babies and life and food.

“I want to look at the Native Plant’s Gardens,” I say. I want to show her my newfound joy in plants. As we walk I point out to her my favorite shrubs and flowers.

“They’re like my new watercolors,” I say. Phoebe tries to remember the Latin names and runs ahead on the trail pointing out plants, flowers, shrubs, trees. She is running, laughing, skipping like a little girl. We come to a sign that has a picture of a bird.

“Dad, look, it’s the black Phoebe. Can I use your phone to take a picture of it.” It is a brass plaque explaining the nature and habitat of the little bird. The only picture from that day.

We get the bikes out of the car and ride around the park. There is a moment when I am trying to get tickets for the butterfly show and she is off on her bike somewhere. I try to find her. I see this 10 year old girl flying down a bike trail with her long blonde hair flowing behind her like it’s caught in a great wind. Then I see it is her. I see that 10 year old girl so clearly in this moment. No butterfly tickets, so we head off. Spontaneously, we stop at Rainbow Groceries. She’s never been.

We go down every aisle. Testing foods, looking at funny products. She buys me a back scrubber and I buy her my favorite treat of the week. We kiss and hug at her doorstep and she says that it has been a wonderful day. Glad she cancelled her trip with Alex to Santa Cruz.

Her last words to me. I love you Dad.

My last words to her. I love you Phoebe.

One very windy Monday later she climbs another steep cliff for her last moment. In my mind the olive orchard with our ceremonies, foods, blankets, tables, benches...is that high plateau bazaar we walked on in her dream.

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Months before this group of Mondays, Phoebe and I met at the Tea Room on another rainy grey Monday. Phoebe was moving from Petaluma to San Francisco. Moving from her Childhood to her Life as an adult. Moving from one world surrounded by her parents and familiar things into her new exciting dream, school, best friends, house, work, art…It took us a while to find this moment to sit, but find it we did. She had met with Kenny several times earlier in the winter to talk about this transition. Phoebe took things to mean so much. For her this transition was so important that she had a deep anxiety to have it clean, meaningful, and symbolic. She wanted closure.

I can’t think of too many people who would do it like this. She talked to me about long ago histories, about her memories as a child, her feelings of divorce, growing up in two houses, about my mistakes, her mistakes, her mom’s mistakes. There was no blame, or anger, or shame in her voice. I wasn’t defensive.

She wasn’t accusatory. She just wanted everything out on the Tea Room Table. Her biggest fear was that she was missing a statistics class that she needed to transfer into SF State as a junior and was afraid I was going to be disappointed if she didn’t get in. She had a fear of my disappointment and it was so hard for her to tell me this big secret. We ended laughing at the table. I saw her so clearly at that moment.

When I think of these months before Phoebe died I am amazed, overwhelmed, at my fortune as a parent, my fortune as a person in a deep, intimate relationship with someone they care for and love, to have had these opportunities to see each other, to tell each other how much they care, to clean out old cobwebs, to share their dreams, to speak meaningfully, embrace with laughter and with dignity.

I am still wounded and raw from this aspect of the beauty, the magnitude, and meaning of how

Phoebe turned these final pages of her life. She did this not only with me, but with her mom, Pam, Jack, my parents, Iris. There were unsent letters to friends and family. All her friends say that she had made great efforts to clear the paths between them.

In the early part of last April Pam woke up one day with an idea about teaching high risk young children about photography. She stumbled onto a program about teaching literacy through photography.

She told Phoebe her idea and Phoebe was ecstatic and looked Pam in the eyes and said, no matter what, you have to promise me that you will do this. Pam feels as if Phoebe still is telling her to follow through with this idea and I admit I feel the wheels turning as we have been working with the young kids in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco at Glide Memorial Church.

And Phoebe’s inspiration is so much a part of being with these children. Her love through us goes right to their hearts.

These are the important gifts unwrapped from Phoebe’s legacy-- to follow your inspirations with courage, love, and dignity,; to speak clearly to those you love and care for; to speak honestly and without judgment about what is real and important. This is true love. It is hard to know now as this is all still so close to me, but I can say with certainty, that I can sense in the atoms of my bones that Phoebe’s legacy is a healing gift, an inspirational force, a spiritual awakening that is the greatest mystery for us all.

Two weeks after Phoebe’s death I was awakened by a dream. Phoebe was in a room with a friend of mine, Michael Lynn, who also had died recently.

They were both helping me build shelves, which I guess is something I’ve always done for the kids.

Then they both started to shake me. Grabbed my arms and rocked me back and forth. The rhythm of the words sounded like wake-up, wake-up .

I was sitting straight up in bed as this was happening and the words reverberate in my head: “Be Thankful! Be Thankful! Be Thankful!”

This dream has been amazingly significant during this time. Such a reminder. All my tears are around thankfulness. It is tattooed on my shoulder.

And I share the mystery of this story often, especially with the small children who always ask me about the tattoos.

I finished writing the first draft of this at 1:30 a.m. and go to bed and sleep like a log. Pam wakes me in the morning saying she has dreamed about Phoebe. I can’t remember my dreams but I have the unmistakable feeling like she has been in my dreams also. Pam says Phoebe was in her dream all night.

“She was hanging out with me for so long. I asked her if it was real and Phoebe said, ‘yes, it is definitely real.’ I told her you better go over and hang out with Dave; he’ll be bummed it you spend the whole night with me.”

“I will.” she said.

And I believe she did. Later that morning three good jobs finally confirm, final payment is received, three nice phone calls, a friend calls for lunch, and then Pam and I go into Glide to work with the kids…

i’m here

If it is not a paradox, it is not true unidentified zen monk

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The Olive Orchard

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

We have finished our week that marks the year anniversary of Phoebe’s passing from this earth.

I am utterly exhausted. We have cleaned up the olive orchard and all that is left is me, the red bundles hanging in the orchard, and beehives. Everyone has gone to Drew’s for dinner and a fire. I now head out to David and Maggie’s shack overlooking the town to take a long awaited nap Back at Drew’s Jack is making curry for the evening. Jack is the designated chef and speaks and administers through his cooking. How many meals has he prepared with his tough love spices that will bite your tongue off but always simmered for hours with his heart and affection for Phoebe that fills much more than your stomach?

It is not easy being a step-parent in all of this. The deepest grief is not just for Phoebe’s mom and dad but also the others who have cared for and lived with her. I have gone into this so deeply and obviously so has Drew—but without Jack and Pam to help us while at the same time nurturing and healing their own grief we would be a family lost at sea.

Pam has been the tenacious and beautiful glue that holds our house in Marin together. Jack (and I don’t forget the bodhisattva dog, Artie, he gave Drew) has been the Gorilla glue that holds the Petaluma fort together. (Thank you, Pam and Jack). And then in this world of thankfulness I have to go around the circle: there are my children, Henry, Jordan and Max and the amazing wonderful friends they have brought into our home; then there are Phoebe’s amazing supportive friends that are now part of our family and would be too long to try to list; the Bests, who have offered the support of their family and these ancient trees and sacred mountain top where we sit and gather; our families, the grandparents

and our brothers and sisters; these amazing people in our communities around Petaluma/San Anselmo/Fairfax/Bolinas/San Francicso who have given us so much love and support; the thoughtful/wise/healers/teachers that have gracefully entered our lives and hold our loss with so much empathy, compassion and wisdom—Kenny, Jack Kornfield, Hospice, Drew’s therapist, and so many more.

As I sit on the wooden perch remembering all of this--thinking of all these people--I am overwhelmed,

become teary. I touch my shoulder tattoo: Be Thankful, Be Thankful. During this year I have cried many times but the place the tears come from the most is this place of amazed appreciation; I am overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit and love that people are willing to give.

I have my pillow and pad in my arms, the sun is a few inches from the western hills, the trees are back-lit like a neon sign.

We started this day at a windy, windy beach on the Sonoma Coast. A wind that we all knew was the same wind that blew a year ago today. It was something we all knew but all kept to ourselves. Just too strange to try to make sense of it. But somehow we found a protected cove and we hunkered down and made altars and painted rocks and tied threads around our wrists and ate

food and cuties for dessert. At the olive orchard we have prepared things to make prayer bundles to hang. Each person kneeling on the blanket Phoebe brought us from her trip to Thailand, working reverently on their prayer sacks, but also collectively in groups with laughter, devotion and contagious creativity marking this spot under these giant Olive trees.

At this moment I am walking to the shack. I am alone now, after this long day, this week, since Tuesday (April 14th), this long, long year, I am astounded by the perfection of this moment. Truly being nourished by the mystery of this day, year, life. There are five or so red bundles around the bees, there are some down by the fence, some hanging over where the altars were, some in the Oaks, some hanging by inches of string, some hanging by meters, some you can see and some we will never see, some are just red bundles made the way I explained and some have been transformed into intricate sculptures with bouquets of flowers, stalks of lavender, sticks and feathers tied around them. But I am stopped in my tracks as I head closer to my appointed nap--one bundle catching my eye. It has its red fabric of secret sacred ingredients but the string is a macramé of knots and weaving encasing all my favorite things-- it has the obsidian, a holey (with hole) sea shell, a piece of abalone, moss from the madrone alter, tiny yellow flowers that were growing near the olive tree altars. The knots are tied carefully and patiently. I remember showing some of the girls earlier in the day; “You do it like this, a 4x4 square of this red fabric, drop some of these goodies in it, tie with the string, do it with intention and spirit and then go tie it to a branch or a spot somewhere. I won’t have time today so will you help others and show them how?” They nod and say sure….

I have to stop. I am looking at this one prayer bundle and I am seeing Phoebe complete and perfect in it. Phoebe could always take an idea and transform it into something way outside of any expectations. I can see Phoebe’s hand so intricately a part of this creative scenario. I truly believe in this mo-

ment that Phoebe has made this one. I get tears and shivers on my arms. I don’t feel sadness, not even appreciation, I may be too tired to feel anything on one level, but as I watch this bundle mysteriously move in the silent afternoon, not knowing who really made it, nor does that even matter, but knowing that actually Phoebe has made it. And in this moment as I turn a complete 360 degrees and see all these red orbs like floating space ships on a vast ocean of green vermillion, orange sparks shooting out of the western sky and perfect robin egg blue resting easy in the east, I am feeling Phoebe complete and perfect. She is so here. In my life my greatest joy would be to give Phoebe a project and then see how she made it hers; she had a beautiful fingerprint on things.

Now I can say this with all my heart—she has a beautiful fingerprint on everything.

I am thinking of this smile and Phoebe’s grace as I unroll the pad, take off my shoes and strip down to my boxers. Oh, get comfortable.

You deserve this moment. Yes, I do.

It was an incredible day in the olive orchard. Maybe 75 people, blankets and food, guitars and drums, lots of cute babies and small children. Everyone seemed so comfortable and happy. Saturday, April 18th and this has to be the nicest day so far this year. There has to be one day when the grass is at it’s greenest and the flowers are at their peak.

I am certain that this year we can mark the 18th on the calendar as that day. Even with Phoebe’s smile in my mind, the red floating orbs in the background, the sun setting in the foreground, my body is beginning to be the stronger force. You rest now. Nap. The day was amazing. I was able to speak in front of these wonderful people whom I now love and adore. A year ago I had to stand in front of this group but a bit larger with all the family here. Oh what chaos and agony to think back on that day. I can’t believe I had the strength to do that.

Hardly seems like I was even there. Then there was the Phoenix theatre, standing on stage singing my heart out and talking to a standing room only crowd. They tell me it was the most people ever to be in that theatre on a Sunday afternoon.

Over 800 people they say. But today was different. I was happy standing up there. I was excited to talk. No anxiety or stress. Phoebe leaving this world is the shock of my life. I will ask to the day I die-- why me why me why her why her? Those are questions that can never be answered. This is the paradox of truth-- because what is fundamentally true is to understand living is to understanding dying. I can now use the word dying and I can now use the word living and I can say that I am only beginning to understand what that really means. This is the journey now. I can say with all my heart that the mystery of this journey is a gift because it is totally surrounded by my love for Phoebe and her love for us.

So this time as I am standing in front of this beautiful group of people, my heart just opens and the words that I want to say just pour out. It’s like a basketball player in the zone who can’t miss a basket when the hoop is 3 feet wide. It was like that. I could see the words and ideas unraveling in front of me 15 yards at a roll. I could look each person in the eye as I spoke about the sacred elements of this mountain top, the native American Miwok who lived here long before us and used this spot as their creation stories; could look at one of the toddlers as I told about the olive trees being 120 years old; could look at Jordan and say that Phoebe’s legacy is a gift, could look right at Max and say those rocks in the creek are 9 million years old, could look at Drew and Jack and say that this moment is a gift; could look at Pam and say she is here now; I could look at Henry and say when you feel Goosebumps look down at that blade of grass and see a miracle; I could look at Stella and say there are miracles everywhere; I could look at everyone at once and tell them what Henry said about us all being connected by Phoebe’s spirit. There was no ego of trying to sound smart or funny or saintly or profound. There was something that needed to be said, needed to be felt. Writing these entries have given me a depth of understanding that far exceeds my intellectual, writing or oratory skills….

I sincerely believe that Phoebe has been an integral part of my healing and learning, I believe she is with me when

I write this; is with me when I stand on that hill under those great and now familiar olive trees and tell everyone we are living in a miracle. Those concentric waves of water finally reaching the shore and their invisible force mysteriously moving a blade of grass or that red prayer tie hanging on a string. Goosebumps and then look down.

Sleep is close. I reach into my pocket and pull out a small picture of Phoebe on a heart. It is weathered and the heart is in two pieces, there is a bit of leather thong still attached but the picture is still clear. Drew gave me this last spring and I lost it a few hours later while I was checking on the bees. The leather thong just came untied. Sad I lost it, but eventually forgot all about it. Today, in the late afternoon Lili comes walking up the hill. I am there with a camera and taking a picture of her. She says, “look what I found.” She is holding the amulet in her hand. It is stuck to a rock.

Phoebe smiling.

“Oh my god” I exclaim, “Where’d you find that?”

“On the ground. It was weird because I was recalling what you said today, ‘When you feel a chill look down and see the mystery in a blade of grass.’.

There it was.” She hands it to me.

Drew walks up and says, “How can you still see it? I wore mine in the shower and it was destroyed. How did this make it through the entire winter?”

And with that I fall into a deep sleep wondering what mystery still waits, what dreams, what animal will find me here snoring?

When I finally wake it is almost dark. There is a baby lizard, not more than 3 inches long sitting on my knee, just staring at me. We are both thinking the same thing--What a day. But I’m also thinking--Thank you.

Thank you.

The next day there is a bee swarm in the Palm tree at Drew’s house and the day after that there is one in my office in San Rafael.

Nourished by the Mystery once again.

i’m Here

i’m Here

We are drowning And it’s so obvious Our struggle and our defeat As we sprout leaves and stems, And close our eyes forever, Drifting with the tides, lost within ourselves found in another

AS WE SPROUT STEMS part VII 147

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.

Martin Luther King

Next birthday I’ll be ninety-two. Or maybe it’s ninety-three, I’ve sort of lost track. I’ve outlived most of those who were with me during the rebuilding. Only my grandchildren will remember these stories. It’s time to walk to the mountaintop. The path to the Unknown Mountains. The old woman on long white wings, the small Phoebe bird watching me from the tree limbs.

She was right, my time was not then, but it is close now. These bones are old. The snows are coming. I’ve followed these signpost for so long now. And this final one is close now. As we sprout stems and close our eyes forever was the last painting she left behind. The children love me; I wonder how they’ll remember these last days. They have been my salvation. These kids they are filled with such love. My heart is all theirs. I’ll tell them this last chapter, my eyes are at closed and we begin to sprout stems.

Cleo looks at me and speaks up; she is good at speaking her mind. “C’mon, granddaddy, you promised a story before bed time!”

I’m tired but I have no choice in the matter.

They’ve gathered around me, I’m in no mood but they’re relentless. They know in the corners of their hearts that I won’t be on this earth for much longer.

Their young bodies and old spirits feel these things, are much more sensitive than we give them credit for.

They’ve clamored onto the bed and lay in my arms like I was a tree house, begging for the stories again. So many times. Don’t they ever get tired? These stories have grown; they don’t even feel like mine anymore.

I’ve seen the little ones reenacting them in the streets.

Makes me smile. At the center of all these plays and stories is the loss of my daughter, Phoebe. Gone so long ago but still always the young, intrepid spirit that has led me all these years. Even after all this time there is not a day that I do not think of her, feel her under my skin, see her within the light in the trees, in the lost space that moved my history over like it was children’s blocks swept off a table. The memory and the movement of this thing, the grief, that year of firsts, the story of seeing death in the eye, the time of rebuilding,

has been the force that has shaped these years.

“We are such small visitors on this planet, touching ground for such a short time,” I whisper under my breath. More than four score and ten, a long life, I’ve been here long enough and at the same time it is just a blink of an eye…Is there really such a difference between twenty years on this mound and ninety? I’m not sure anymore except for the old bones and the old stories.

This is the last telling of this story, the last time I will be speaking to these beautiful young faces.

The black oil and grease of my ancient life seep to the surface and my memories can often render me speechless. The young ones are waiting. I can feel Phoebe again in their eyes, they can feel her in mine.

It’s like she’s sitting under a tree, listening with them.

I’ve always felt the connection between her, them, and me like this. Why else would they love such a grizzled old creature like me?

If you could imagine it so silent that the sound of a feather would be too loud--that’s how quiet it was, I begin. Suddenly I heard a small sound, musical and lyrical, a choir of voices hidden in the trees, strings in the branches, flutes in the quiet breeze. The clouds were swirling and I knew it was coming. The earth where I stood became absolutely still and I knew the fiery, winged beast was returning and bringing the wind and storm of change. Those giant wings of death and sorrow and change and transformation emerged through the clouds like a ghost building its phantasmagoric shape from the grey haze.

Flap Flap Flap. These giant wings, the same wings that swept down on that cliff so long ago. We were all in the field listening to the old woman speak and heal our wounds. “Surrender the sorrow and loss, Surrender with a sigh,” she said. But life is more complicated than just a few words whispered as a prayer of hope and salvation.

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Flap flap flap. The wings blocked out the sun.

Fear and grief struck at everyone’s heart.

Flap flap flap. A roar and the sky lit up with red fire. Everyone was running away now. I couldn’t move a muscle. Frozen. Fear moving through my bones like a searing liquid. Flight or fight not a question. My feet were anchored. The large beast flew down the valley and then spiraled over my head coming closer and closer.

Flap flap flap. It circled and landed in front of me--thud. Ground shakes under my feet. This nameless thing, black and huge with its hot, putrid breath pounding down my senses. Those black eyes, the size of a large grey stones, weighing down on me like giant weights. I felt small, defenseless. This was that moment, I thought, that moment where death faces you eye to eye and you decide what it is to live or what it is to die. I could only see what my daughter saw, for some reason I could only think of her.

I began to tremble, a part of me was ready to be taken from that lonely place, but something else whispered, “There is nothing to be afraid of. Your part in this has already been set. If it is your time to die then that is your fortune. If you live through this, well, that becomes your destiny.”

Flap flap flap. And the stench of his putrid breath overwhelmed me. The roar shook the earth. Trees fell.

Call it a miracle, call it sublime, call it the angels, but in that moment something happened that I can never forget...”

I pause again-- An old man’s dilemma between this reality and that reality. The thin membrane of worlds and memories are beginning to join together and it makes it more difficult to speak. I close my eyes. This time the twins, Zack and Judge, speak out. “Hey, grandfather, you in there?” They knocked on my bald forehead like it was an old door. “Hey, anyone home?”

“Ah yes…. Where was I?”

“The dragon-eye, fire and teeth, it was going to eat you!” the children reminded me.

“That eye, oh, yes, that eye, let me tell you about that eye. I don’t want to scare you little ones, maybe you should go in the other room for this part.

No? Okay, but listen careful and don’t be afraid.

“If an eye could kill just by looking at you then I wouldn’t be here today to tell you this story.

If an eye could look through you and read every one of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, then this eye could do that and erase your life like it was written in chalk. That eye was casting a spell on me. The clouds became darker and darker. The sunlight was gone and it was a strange time between day and night. The sound I had heard earlier in the trees that had calmed me, had turned into haunting, cacophonous chords that made everything feel slanted and surreal. Dark clouds of storm streaking the background. The eyes of death staring down on me. If I blinked I would be taken in an instant, devoured by claw, fang, and fire. I was too weak for this. I wanted to close my eyes and just fade away.

“And then I saw something I cannot explain.

At first it was the smallest white glow emanating over the hills. Maybe the moon, maybe a lantern. The white light began glowing and there was a spectrum of colors around it--purple and pink and yellow and blue.

A halo. It began to travel towards me. I could smell her familiar perfume. I felt comforted. My senses became overwhelmed. I kept my eye locked with the magnificent, terrifying black eye facing me, but I felt enchanted by this ethereal lantern floating towards me. Angel, daughter, vision, a trick of light, my senses were smothered by her grace. Life vs death, demon vs angel? I saw both. I saw these winged creatures. I saw on long white wings returning. I realized her spirit was returning to guide and protect me and the fear in my bones diminished, vanished. The dark threatening evil that I was facing began to transform in front of me and suddenly this monster of death became subdued. I was watching the miracle of life returning in the halo of light, and the threat of death panting and staring me down. It was both. Life and Death face to face. It is so much bigger than this bag of bones and for that instant it was clear and there was no fear. Life and death become the two parts of existence I saw them as interchangeable elements of this world. There was nothing to be afraid of. It was all changing. The void was filling in.

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“I couldn’t tell you if that moment lasted a millisecond or if lasted for hours, but I’ll tell you this—it has stayed with me ever since. Our locked gazes. Two great warriors doing final battle.

Something bigger than me, more than me. Powerful.

“I could have stayed like that for years, eternity. I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew in that moment I had won this contest. And so the monster blinked, twisted its head with a sardonic smile that said, “I will be back,” and flew off. The glowing angelic orb began to fade. The white angel and the dark harbinger folding their wings and halos, returning to their other worlds, realms, that are only inhabited within our dreams. The winged beast beat his wings so hard I was thrown into the air. The winds had arrived.”

The kids are staring at me speechless. Not much of a bed time story. I have a tendency to get caught up this thing I’m sleepy. I’ve started the story and now I wonder if I can finish. So tired now. Just rest my eyes for a second.

“Dad!” One of my grown kids speaks. He’s an old man himself now. “Are you alright? Kids it’s off to bed. Grandfather needs his rest.”

And they all obediently leave the room.

“Dad you get some rest.”

“Sure. I’ll just sit here for a while.”

One by one they all go to sleep. I was so tired but now I feel imbued with a sort of strength I haven’t felt in years. It makes me miss my wife and friends. Someone to explain this to. How well do you remember? All these signposts. I’m alone. It’s time for me to walk back to that spot at the unknown mountain. I’m ready and head out into the inky night.

I’ve never needed a lantern. Don’t want one now. My feet remember the way. The story continues in my head.

Flap flap flap. It circled in the sky. And then all hell broke loose.

And the wind ravaged the horizon as if destruction and devastation were a personified fanged fury bursting, blowing, howling as a raging force,

wicked wind, propelling magnificent swirls of blood red veins, concentric knots of gray amorphous rope, tendrils of blue and aubergine muscle, a subterranean web released like an animal from the depths of our nebulous, unexplainable universe, making the cloudy forms of storm become the animated hand of an unfamiliar God’s wrath that our souls were born to question and shake a fist at…Why oh why me, God?

Trees uprooted. Soil eroded. Animals scattered. Plants incinerated. Water crashing down--a small crease in the ground becomes eroded into a giant chasm, a vast abyss, opening like ancient wounds, becoming the fluid drainage for the bowels of the earth emptying itself as the raging brown torrent of destruction.

Ah, the wings of loneliness, despair and grief ransacked all the hearts and minds that watched in awe as the winds and flames and water approached our town, our homes, our families, our lives. I was in the center of that field that day. Certainly we are creatures of community and family but one has to stand alone, isolated and bare, and hold the gaze of the wrath. I existed as the lone survivor in my lone world. I looked at death again and dared it , desired it, begged it, to take me from this inhospitable place. The horizon of devastation. The tendrils and knots and veins. The landscape of grief and uncertainty. Give me the cliff and you wind can take me also!

Yet in all of this chaos I felt her arms circle around me. White, sublime gloves of compassion and care. I heard a voice, her voice, the small phoebe voice, whisper without words in the corners of my mind. A language I cannot repeat nor understand. A sense.

“It is not your time to join me here. It is not time to give-up. It is not a world to ignore and run from. I put my arms around you and heal the grief and sorrow. I will always be here waiting. It is immense and beyond measure; it is perfect and connected to all things; it is your profound courage to trust that we are simultaneously small specs of sand upon this earth and vast containers sustaining and creating life.

You are the center--the web, the hive, the nature. The love in your heart is your strength, the compassion your compass. It is not your time to join me. I miss you also. I know your heart breaks with my early departure. But have conviction. Trust. There are things that are meant to come from this. Be brave and have

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faith. Know that time is not the same on this side.

You will grow old but it is just a blink of an eye in the air we breathe. Your grief and fear will pass. Not completely, but enough that this scar will become your wisdom. We speak the undeniable law that we sprout stems and close our eyes forever.”

And as she said it again--“As we sprout stems and close our eyes forever,”--I was picked up and thrown into the torrent and washed down the river. Flailing for survival, I did not want to die. I was flotsam and jetsam. I was swirled around eddies; I was submerged into undertows; I was tossed over waterfalls, thrashed upon rocks. I floundered and panicked without breath, claustrophobic, drowning as my lungs filled with a mixture of water and air.

I swam the rapids. Keep breathing. As we sprout stems and close our eyes forever. It was not my time to rest.

I could see the shore where our homes and lives had been. Racing within the current. I could see others running in panic. Protecting their children, saving lives, risking their safety to defend the little that was left. Trees falling. Homes burning. People saw this body being washed down the river. They called out and tossed ropes and flotation--always just out of grasp. Survival. I was swept onward into the current.

It seemed endless.

Drowning. Panic. Drowning. Panic.

Drowning. Panic. And then it all slowed down and again the white wings seemed to surround me.

And I felt buoyant and safe. Fear subsided and my claustrophobic lungs breathed, my heart started to beat again. I was washed into a pool. Alone, lost, and tired I struggled towards shore.

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I cannot tell you that I believed in God, rebirth, or resurrection at that moment. Anger, confusion, grief, and despair clung and chilled me as my body shivered in the wetness. I crawled to shore as an alien arthropod creature emerging from the evolutionary miasma. I felt unrecognizable. I felt alien. Alone. Nature stood immovable and plain. The mountains, recognizable in their mass, some tangible blue sky dissolving through the grey, sunshine casting familiar shadows, the sound of a bird, the

movement of a squirrel, trees that survived exhaling air in the shrouded mist. In this familiar stillness I felt like a foreigner, an alienated survivor. How do I explain it? You see what is recognizable yet nothing is the same. Nothing changed, everything different. We are so small and insignificant on this green mound, knowledgeable of this world as ants on a hill, bees on a thistle, blind men on an elephant, but at the same time we see it all and become transcendent poets, saviors and savants because of it. But truth, I say that now but really I only felt the pit of my stomach, feeling nervous like I was about to leap from the highest cliff into a raging river. No arms to catch a falling body.

I stopped for a moment to take this in. Sort it out. In years to follow I would say I saw these things and I had an epiphany that would change the course of my life but in truth that moment was just a simple moment of pausing and taking the first breath of the first step of my return. Rebirth. “As we sprout stems,” she said…And I watched the world move in slow motion. I felt a sublime hand on my head.

There will be time to close my eyes forever.

I watched an acorn float down stream.

Watched it bob and course. Then another floated by. And another. Out of the destruction these seeds of my destiny were following a current that some mysterious hand had stirred. I had emerged from this water wet and shivering, but I watched thousands of acorns begin to gather in the eddy. Our ancient oaks had fallen, burned, destroyed, but already life was beginning to regenerate. These seeds mysteriously gathered as if they were on some mission, a mass of floating corks, a bridge you could walk on. Some squirrel was going to be very happy at this discovery, I thought. At the same time the eddy swirled around some rocks. Caught in these rocks were fallen tree branches with some stems that had miraculously intertwined themselves into a makeshift wheel turning slowly in the flow of water. I watched transfixed as the wheel turned effortlessly, lifting small cascades of water and now and then even an acorn. Patterns, colors, sounds were mesmerizing, nature the great hypnotist. The squirrel crept out onto a limb and carefully picked an acorn off the wheel. He held it in a precarious manner and the bird that had been sounding off in the treetops swept down and tried to steal it. The squawking and screeching had me laughing. In all this I could laugh.

Either I’m insane or I’ve landed on another planet.

The laughter broke the spell and I turned away from the acorns and the water wheel and looked at my surroundings again. Again another shift in the world.

I needed dry clothes. I needed to find my family. I needed to find my village. I needed to access what had happened in the torrent. People had died; People were dying; People were struggling.

Like a prescient vision I could see the smoke and pain amidst dreamy ruins. Sun, mountains, shadows revealing shapes became familiar and my bearings returned, somewhat disoriented but enough to know that I go this way. And I broke into a run back to the familiar areas of my civilization. My bearings seemed true yet I ran and ran and I could not find my way. Lost. Confused. The forest had been destroyed, trees and plants disintegrated, the paths and roads hidden under the muck and mire. It is this way! Circles pulling me back. What dream is this?

My bearings are true, where is my home? Running in circles. Stop. Keep breathing. The sublime hand on head. A blade of grass still survives. The smell of smoke. Eyes closed. Slowly things emerge and all around me the community appears. Tears in ways it is hard to explain. The site of struggle and despair, a lost child, a grieving parent, but also the site of strength and fortitude, rebuilding and lending, giving and generosity.

In truth our village was set upon a shifting sand of uncertainty--The homes had been built without foundations; our children had been raised without teachers; elders passed through but did not linger; prosperity was illusory and temporal, warring, whoring, drunkenness, non-nutritious foods, slovenly health abided its time in our lives. We lost our homes and grief struck us all but humbled upon our knees the world appeared in a different way. We are going to rebuild, resurrect our lives; we are going to have to look at this in a different way. So from the dust and smoke, the mud and squalor, we began to rebuild.

We gathered together and made plans, designs, ideas.

Elders arrived and offered insight, healers arrived and offered medicines, architects arrived and offered lines of design, teachers arrived and taught letters, politicos arrived and offered sovereignty and wisdom, shamans and saints arrived and offered truth, integrity and destiny. It was a long and hard time. Not easy. We lost many. Our family struggled for it. I struggled but I filled the huge emptiness with hard physical work and these stories. Planting, digging, walking, talking

and my children grew to be strong, independent, courageous, ingenious, intuitive participants of the universe. I took my sons and daughters and went back and gathered the acorns. I showed them the water wheel made of stems and told them the secrets of the water’s strength and technology.

I was never the same again. Some judged me on who I had become, some did not. I had suffered and I had lost but I also saw something that would change the course of the world we lived. It transformed my life so my feet were a part of the ground and my heart was a part of the heavens.

There was always a pocketful of acorns ready to be planted. I had seen the waterwheel and had grasped its measure the instant the squirrel plucked the acorn and the water threaded its course with a resolve and strength that could change a thousand courses as well.

An idea is like a seed. I had a pocket full of them. My world was overwhelmed, full, but my heart was tired and the emptiness from the loss left a scar that never really filled back in.

Many would rise and run with these ideas.

My children grew as well and made their marks and prospered from it. The inventions and ideas evolved with many loyal and hardworking people putting themselves into reshaping our landscape. We had irrigation, we had wool and finer fabrics, we had wheat and flour, we had beehives and orchards, we had good wood and strong buildings--all of this seemed to emerge from a few basic strategies and facts. I could see the acorn and revolving stems in all of them. It was a legacy. I stayed loyal to my place as father and husband and provider. I taught my daughters and sons the wisdom that comes from being hypnotized by nature, seeing form where no form exists, ideas where chaos and destruction seem insurmountable. Heroes come in all sorts of guises.

Some judged me a failure and some judged me a great man. Some ways I’m both I guess. I preferred to keep my heroics relative to the road I walked on and there are a lot of people walking on different roads these days.

I was not part of the circle of elders; I was not part of the court of royalty; I was not part of the table of architects and designers. I applied the simple logic of the land and the gift that had been bestowed into my pockets of acorns. One of the mystics told me: “The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the second best time is now.” I planted trees and

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tended gardens. We taught children to prosper and find happiness in these simple pleasures. My children grew to prosper and found their own course and destinies as teachers, musicians, poets, writers, builders, architects, farmers, even healers and ministers. All were as happy with their fingers dirty and shoes muddy as they were with a good wine and a quality meal beside a warm fire. Prosperity comes in many forms and so does the health of a family.

My wife’s dark shadow of grief lingered and she could not come to grips with the loss of our daughter. She set out to speak to the elder woman of the mountains. They met and my wife’s distress was unbearable and she broke down and told the story of the winds and wings and the beauty and artistic spirit of our baby girl that day and the storms that blew through and she begged her to bring her back.

“I can do this,” she said. And the ancient woman looked down upon the broken heart at her feet, begging, pleading. “I can grant you your wish and bring her back,” she said. And my wife looked up and was ecstatic. “But you must do one thing for this to happen,” she said.

“Anything,” my wife said.

“I will bring her back if you can bring me a loaf of bread from someone, just one person, who has not lost someone they love, has not suffered and felt loss and grief.”

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

Martin Luther King

And with that my wife left the mountain top and went around the village asking. Grief is such an isolating dagger but she found so many other parents and children of parents who had lost someone they loved. As she sat with each one they said a prayer and meditated together. For years she asked. It became her pilgrimage and she realized that in the death of our daughter we were not alone, our grief was not an isolated insanity of our own unraveling, but a universal aspect of living and dying. Those she spoke to also found solace and comfort in her unceasing love and dedication. She did not know that she became a healer, a teacher, and a mother to those who had lost and still remained so. In this way our daughter came back to her and was her silent guiding force.

and direction of one’s grief runs deeper or runs more true than another’s. All is revealed in good time, as we have not the tools to discern the shore of life’s final arrivals. My wife’s grief went down a circuitous path that lead to healing and teaching and my path was equally as complex and ran towards planting and walking. We were cut adrift into our separate channels and it was not that we grew apart as husband and wife but became closer as partners who shared the emptiness.

The trees I planted back then have now grown and matured and some have been harvested and have built great monuments and some have created great shade and have offered hours of romance, love, inspiration, and poetry. Ah, they laughed as I planted the seedlings. “Now is always the best time to plant a tree,” I’d say, laughing. Now look--they line the streets, the valleys, hillsides, trails. Black Oak, Live Oak, Tan Oak, Green Oak ,White Oak. They have become huge and magnificent and certainly they are a living signpost to sprouting stems and leaves. The water wheel in my mind will always be this moment between drowning and living, in the face of abject poverty and hopelessness to see humor, nature, and inspiration. Drawings were made and a large wheel was built in the spot where I first tossed that large stone. The water wheel irrigated fields and we had our first crops of wheat. Sheep grazed where the forests had been burned and later the wheel evolved into a mill that ground the wheat and made flour. Our town became famous and prospered. Other villages came for miles to use our service and our town grew and became the center of the region.

The bond that grief creates is one that runs deep and silent; it moves in different rivers and its course runs deep. It is not to ever be said that destiny

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All this time I have been walking in the night. There is a gentle grayness that is lifting the darkness. Soon it will be light. Another morning.

It has been snowing and I didn’t even notice. I have not been back to that place where the elder woman held me in her arms so many years ago. A memory that was lodged deep, not forgotten, just held onto. Faith has a way of arriving when you need it most. There is more to remember. This long walk up the old trail. She is waiting there. These bones ache. As I walk I have remembered everything. My boys, my daughters, my wife, my brothers and sisters, my parents, my friends, even my enemies, my teachers, my saints, even those damn acorns. I wear these wool garments. I have some bread and honey in my bag. There is my daughter’s memory and the way the grass is grown that feeds the sheep, the way the wool is made that makes the fabric, the way the wheat is ground to make the bread, the way one keeps me warm and the other offers sustenance. All a part of her. All these things connected to the origins of her inspiration. My daughter’s legacy has affected all of this, her leaving this earth put these actions into motion. Each step is a movement of grace within the memory of lives.

I am held. I feel God’s hands. The snow is getting heavy on my shoulders now. I love you all so much--I could write that as my final words.

I can see her waiting for me. This life is just a blink of the eye. I’ve been in that river for so long. I should have drowned but the rising waters have made my life something I am proud of. My children and their children and their children, these oaks, that crazy squirrel posted over the water wheel that changed the course of so many lives. Tired now. I’ll just sit under this tree and close my eyes. Sprout some stems.

Then just for a moment, just a blink, I see that bird again.

And the small bird is whispering something.

The old woman’s arms are outstretched like she is trying to catch something. I fall towards her. She has been here waiting for a long time. I can finally see God. She is a bird in the tree. Swooping down to catch an acorn.

And for a moment I open my eyes and I’m home again.