I ordered four yards of compost for my garden last week. I had been debating my spring ritual for a few days: money is tighter, the fall dressing still looked pretty good. Still, the lure of laying out the rich, pungent material to awaken the season, knowing how my garden would look with some pleasurable effort, was too strong. I gladly succumbed and called Saw Dust Supply. Looking at the delivered mound with anticipation I pumped air into my wheelbarrow’s tire and got my favorite shovel out of the garage. I put on my Airpods, turned on my “What Moves Me” playlist and began shoveling, hauling and spreading. Antje Duvekot, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Jackson Brown and Bonnie Raitt sang to me. I joined Bonnie and sang Streetlights so loud my neighbors walking their dogs turned and looked. We laughed, all happy to take a break from this current news cycle.
Van Morrison’s Burning Ground had just begun when I realized my wheelbarrow’s wheel was not holding air. I didn’t feel like messing with it, so I began to fill five-gallon buckets, toting them two by two through my garden gate and into my landscape I have worked so hard on for the past six years. Still singing I gleefully realized I would be getting all the exercise I needed today. When I needed a break from the carrying, I got down on my hands and knees and spread the loom with my hands, old-school. I thought about getting the hard rake, and how much easier and quicker that would be, but opted for dirty nails, a small act of defiance in our collective era of “20 seconds and don’t forget your thumbs” relentless hand washing. I shoveled, hauled and spread until sundown and my Airpods stopped in the middle of Krishna Das.
The Full Moon in Virgo rose over my landscape a couple days later. I could see my work reflected by its bright, naked magnificence and felt satisfied as I turned in to bed. The cloudless sky kept the moon shining through my windows as it travelled all night from east to west. I wandered through sleeping and waking. I thought about China and was sad I wouldn’t be going this year to train with my teacher and friends. Fragments of dreams were interrupted by my cat walking around the bed, himself a bit restless. Dawn finally came. The open night sky had dropped a light frost on the garden. Laughing Buddhas, Kuan Yins, Flying Pigs sat in the compost frozen in a timeless, still crust. I drank my tea and looked on while I listened to the news.
I scanned my body. I looked for any signs of illness. I checked on my stress level. I wondered if I have been getting enough sleep and water. I dried my hair and put on make-up while reports of more outbreaks, and stomach-churning stock market descents droned on. I thought how odd it is that I, an extremely robust 62 year old, am considered in a risk group. I took my supplements and ate two eggs, hoping I was getting enough nourishment in these days of no appetite. I got my computer ready and checked the online class links, so grateful for what I do and all the conscious, loving people I know. I got into my car and drove to work where almost full classes would practice and laugh and learn. I know some how we’ll all get through it, though we don’t know what it will all look like when we do.
Our world does need to change. This is not the first wake-up call we have gotten, we just have not been listening well enough. We hear the ring but we wait for someone else to answer. The calls are becoming more frequent are they not? They herald the calls of Fires, Famines, Tsunamis and Viruses. Their rings are louder and louder. We ignore them only to finally learn we are, in fact, not immune. Do they have our attention now? I asked a friend of mine who lives in Columbia how they were doing. She said, “we have outbreaks all the time from mosquito borne illnesses. Our brothers die all the time from violence. This is nothing.” I consider myself a person who “gets it,” but her comment made me realize perhaps not enough. The playing field is becoming more and more level now. And our cracks are showing.
Our cracks are showing in our preparedness, our empathy and especially in our vision of global interconnectedness. Our cracks are showing in how we perceive life and also death. Our collective fear of death is cowering us at the feet of the Grim Reaper. We feel his scythe looming large and we hoard hand sanitizer, bleach, toilet paper. We irrationally feel these things will protect us from the inevitable. It is inevitable. We will die. It may be quick and painless, but probably not. The body does not give up that easily. It took my mother 2 years and 6 weeks to die from lung cancer. I saw the Herculean effort of a dying body grasping for air. And here we are. We are terrified.
What can we do before the inevitable happens? Breathe in breathe out. Move. Rest. Eat. Sleep. Keep our bodies healthy and our minds calm. Wash our hands yes, but don’t forget to get them dirty too. Keep smart distance, but don’t isolate our compassion. And for goodness sake, we can stop hoarding and start expanding our thinking to our bigger world. To our entire world. This can be an amazing opportunity to answer the call as this phone loudly rings. This can be the chance of our lifetime to compost our fear and lay out our hearts. Everything changes and this will too but let us not forget the lessons we are learning.
“Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine”