Monday, February 7, 2022

Life Goes On

Larry Wolf, A Sacred Space at Katey's (2022)

Time with the living... I spent a week at my mom's apartment... two days at either end with my sister ...

Larry Wolf, Mom's Spot in the Kitchen (2021)

... mom spent most of COVID here.. a big swivel chair in the kitchen with a small side table for tea and art materials, a view out the windows into the woods and the many birds gathered at the multiple bird feeders. Katey and her family are feeling the loss profoundly. And struggling to engage in the activities of living... school, their own medical appointments, the people and activities that nurture them. Grief is a powerful thing.

I've been on the road for two weeks.. it time for me to be home... leaving here for there this morning... so many loose ends... so many to be continues... who knows what's next... how to even be fully here in the moment... wherever here is... whatever the moment.

COVID and the whole pandemic sucks.. deaths, illness, inequities, ... and no end in sight.. Was there ever an end in sight for all that needs to be healed in the world? 

Tikkun olam is an ancient practice. The generation after generation after generation of brutal conquest, and, somehow, also, the deep human connections.. the nurturing of life, the honoring of the past, the hope, the yearning for peace justice wholeness...

Another Mother 1966

It's taken me all these years to begin to acknowledge my expectation that it would be all made better in my lifetime... that racism was ended in the 50s and 60s, that antisemitism ended with the liberation of the concentration camps, that homophobia ended with Stonewall, that poverty ended with the Great Society, ... and that I would have a personal roll to play.. the space race of the 50s and 60s.. the revamping of the school curriculum to emphasize science and math... the Camelot of the Kennedy years and the string of assassinations, JFK, MLK Jr, RFK, the Vietnam War, the burning in the cities, Kent State, ... , student protests, Gay Liberation.

Utopia. Dystopia. Daily life. Systemic injustice. Systemic wealth. Personal kindness.

The child of leaves home, abandons responsibility, forsakes comfort, wanders in the wilderness, seeking personal salvation and awakening as a bodhisattva warrior... or as a poet... or a painter... or...  a manifestation of gentle strength, a next cycle of making sense, of making whole, of seeing and feeling and being in the flow of life... teaching... building community... alone... together...

Larry Wolf,
Oatmeal (2022)
Being present. Holding space. Timeless.

Lost and found. Found and lost. Moment to moment. Breath to breath. A pot of oatmeal. The day continues.

"Make good trouble" John Lewis


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