"Heart is like the moon. Don't keep sorrows in it. Cast them off in waters deep." Rumi
After spending a few days alone in my childhood home one month to the day after my Dad passed (7/7/11), I could feel his presence as I left. Unexpectedly, the motion detector lights at the far end of the house turned on mysteriously as I was packing up my car. I was reminded of the ritual Dad and I had of him standing at the door, waiting and waving as I backed out of the long driveway after visiting with him.
Missing him, tears began to flow and I felt inspired to dance my grief, so I threw on a sweater and hat that belonged to him, and just as I set up the camera, a thundercloud overhead began to send rain to the earth - the hugest drops I have seen in a awhile, feeling like they were my tears, washing my spirit's grief...
Driving home, I was inspired to pull off the highway onto a deserted country road to take a photo of the moon, which suddenly appeared through a crack in the clouds. As I pulled to the side of the road, a white barn owl flew across the moon's light and onto a nearby barn roof. Once again I felt insipred to dance, feeling my Dad's presence in the infinite night sky, reminded of the connection I felt with the moon and his passing...
Right after Dad passed in the hospice a visitor in the lobby began to play Debussy's 'Clair de Lune,' a song that I remembered hearing waft through our home as a child. Hearing the song so soon after he passed, felt like Dad was being serenaded into the spirit realm with the sounds of the moonlight...
Connecting to my Dad, the moon, the owl, the cosmos and the mystery...
Thank you for viewing my blog posts of grieving. I hope they may inspire in some way to embrace and embody your own grief, when the time arises, in a way that is nourishing for your being -- body, mind and spirit.
...dancing with MomoButoh Dance Company 11 /11 /10
Photo: Susan Elizabeth Cowperthwaite
'stream of consciousness' installation
Momo and I... 11/11/10
Spontaneous dance exploration of connecting to the infinite cosmos / consciousness in the finite - in urban North Vancouver with Katherine Kerr's stream / bridge / installation... feeling connection to the life cycles of the salmon... and nostalgia and excitement for Momobutoh's upcoming 11/11/11 dance dedicated to the wellness of the salmon at Oyster Creek... and throughout the Pacific Rim....
Momo and I... 11/11/10 Oyster Creek
Momobutoh Company at Oyster Creek 11/11/10
i dream of salmon coho crisis sockeye collapse bear scat food web tear i marvel again rest its time now nowhere deep...
Thank you for viewing this dance blog of exploring inner and outer environments of my soul... I hope you may feel inspired in some way to dance your own dance, to express from the soul in whatever way may resonate with your being...
During the weeks of my Dad's passing there were so many images of metamorphosis that kept appearing, including the card that was placed on his door by the hospice staff right after he passed - two butterflies in flight.
So many times I reflected on how in life we have to surrender to the natural cycles of life, no matter how desperately we may may want things to be a certain way... life, and death, unfolds in a way that ultimately, we have no control over.
Since then, I have been wanting to honor his passing with a dance of metamorphosis... of honoring his transition from this realm into the realm of spirit... and the courage required to enter through the doorway into the greatest mystery of all...
After creating this dance, I found this poem from Mary Oliver, and once again, as she often does, felt so moved by her sentiments... providing such inspiration for my imagination and nourishment for my soul...
One or Two Things ~ Mary Oliver
1
Don’t bother me.
I’ve just
been born.
2
The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless, and sometimes
for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.
3
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice, now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever,
4
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.
5
One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightening—some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.
6
But to lift the hoof!
For that you need
an idea.
7
For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then
the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
“Don’t love your life
too much,” it said,
and vanished
into the world.
Mary Oliver
Feeling grateful for this practice of dance / embodiment as taught by my mentor, Momo. Thank you for viewing my blog. I hope this dance of metamorphosis may inspire you in some way...
last night's sliver moon was held in the mauve twilight sky above the silhouetted north shore mountains... has time stopped? days have become hours... hours have become minutes... just this... holding my father's hand, stroking his forehead, face to face with impermanence... the challenge of surrendering to the unknown with trust, boundless love, forgiveness, and gratitude.. breathing in, breathing out... just this.
- from notes I took during the weeks of my dad's passing.
Being with my sister, my brother and his son while my Dad passed was such a sacred gift. Because the process was one that extended for 3 weeks, it enabled us to be with him in such profound ways and to be by his side as he took his last breath.
During the weeks prior to his passing we all felt like we were in another plane of reality where time literally stopped, as we were so present with him breath by breath, moment to moment... listening, being, and speaking only that which felt important to say - expressions of forgiveness, gratitude and love.
When we felt like we had opened our hearts fully to one another, and the days continued to pass, we children just kept saying to each other, "Okay, lets go deeper, what else needs to be said to Dad? Let's peel back more layers..." Although Dad's words were very few at the end, he continued to respond with big smiles, sparkly eyes and by squeezing our hands.
In the last five days of his life he was in the hospice where we were able to camp out with him in his room day and night. The last three nights were quite sleepless as it felt like we were getting so close to his last breaths. We sang songs from our childhood camping days for him - so many old campfire songs, accompanied by my brother playing my Dad's old harmonica.
Dad from the 1940s
One of our favorite songs that we sang with our Dad playing harmonica was 'Swing Low' which we sang several times to him in his final hours and at the time of his passing.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan,
And WHAT did I see,
Comin' for to carry me home,
A band of angels comin' after me,
Comin' for to carry me home.
If you get there before I do,
Comin' for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm comin' too,
Comin' for to carry me home.
My brother took this film of my dance in Vancouver close to the airport after dropping my sister off there a few days after my dad's passing. I am wearing Dad’s hat from when he was a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
When he was in the hospital suffering with pain, he told us at one point after he was given morphine that he was ‘flying’ and that he saw heaven and that it was beautiful... Years ago he had shared that he used to have dreams of flying, too... that it was a place where he felt free.
Inspired to dance this dance of grief at the loss of my Dad and to embody the experience of his passing - the acceptance of his transition into the great mystery, the realm of spirit... out of his body and his suffering and into the realm of light... to embrace the feeling that he has transcended into a higher plane that exists beyond the physical realm, but that connects us all to the great unknown and the cosmos.
This dance also embodied for me the challenge of witnessing his struggle - his relentless holding on... literally, too - to the bed rail, the catheter tube, to the blanket, when we were not present, and to our hands when we were. His grip was so strong...
Dad as a pilot with his RCAF hat.
Goodbye Dad... I love you.
Mom and Dad... 1940s
Dad pointing the way to their future... Touches me deeply to see this photo now... pointing the way into the heavens and the great mystery...
Thank you for viewing this most personal blog post. I hope it may inspire you in some way.
With gratitude,
Lee
I was thrilled to find this version of Joan Baez's 'Swing Low' as our family had met her in the late 1960's while we were hiking in Garibaldi Meadows - she was camping in the same meadow - high in the alpine beauty of wide open skies and flowers...
During the time of Dad's passing the symbology of metamorphosis was very predominant... transitioning into a new 'being'... after the above dance I loved seeing these kites flying high into the cosmos... with the image of a butterflies upon each one...
A couple of days after my father passed, my brother, sister and I went for a walk to Rice Lake to spend time in contemplation - with my Dad's old harmonica, camping hat, and a camera in hand.
We had a collective memory of times with our family sitting around campfires listening and singing to my Dad's harmonica playing, and we thought Rice Lake would be a perfect place to let the sound of the harmonica resonate out into the cosmos across the still lake, in honor of our Dad.
I told my brother how my medicine ways teacher shared that native peoples created songs from the landscape in which they lived and we all loved seeing the waves of song / sound waves in the silhouette across the lake. And so the spontaneous dance began to my brother's harmonica improv, with my sister filming.
In my mind I had anticipated some somber funeral dirge that my brother would likely play. I was so surprised as I stood on the trail, wearing my father's camping hat, that the improv my brother created from the landscape was a joyful-kind-of-jig song ;~)
And so the spontaneous dance below resulted...
And yet, the lilt of the song seemed perfect in retrospect - a way of letting our Dad know we are alright and we will all be fine - all will be well...
For a Father
The longer we live,
The more of your presence
We find, laid down
Weave upon weave
Within our lives.
John O'Donohue
Thank you for viewing my blog - it means a lot to me. I love receiving comments and would love to hear from you if you feel inspired.
A few months ago I found it difficult to read three news articles while in Vancouver at my childhood home.
The first was the news about the starving bears and eagles in the early spring in B.C. - both starving due to the lack of pink and chum salmon returning to their spawning grounds last fall. Young starving bear cubs ended up in wildlife rehab centers and hundreds of eagles at a time were scrounging for food from a garbage landfill site near Vancouver, B.C.
I was also saddened and maddened by the second news I read of the proposed tanker route off the westcoast of B.C. that would transport oil from the Alberta tar sands. The tar sands and projected pipelines are enough in themselves to be environmentally disastrous for our planet, however, the projected route would take the tankers into the head of Douglas Bay - a pristine land and habitat to abundant wildlife including the black bear and the rare kermode or white spirit bears where a potential oil spill would be catastrophic.
An oil spill in this region could wipe out wildlife in the area both directly and indirectly - directly by destroying salmon runs, and indirectly by starving the ecosystems that rely on salmon for food - including bears, eagles, wolves, sea lions, orca and humpback whales... An online petition is available to sign: here.
I highly recommend the following film, describing the plans to try and save this unique ecosystem:
To top it off, the third news I read was about bear trophy hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest, located along Canada's Pacific coast, spanning 21 million acres of some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes. As one of the largest temperate rainforests on Earth, it's stunning mountains, forests, fjords, and waterways are home to thousands of species of birds, plants and animals – including grizzlies, black bears and also the white spirit bear. Although the spirit bears are protected, they are born from black bear mothers - it is a particular recessive gene that makes them white. Reducing the population of black bears in general could potentially wipe out the population of white spirit bears whose total number is less than 200. A petition is available to sign here: stop trophy bear hunting in British Columbia.
I have loved bears for as long as I can remember and feel a deep spiritual connection to them. When I lived in Whistler B.C. many years ago I had many close encounters with them while hiking in the wilds. Unfortunately, many bears began to rely more and more on garbage from the landfill site as their habitat was being developed into an all season resort. As a result, the bears were also coming more frequently into neighborhoods for 'garbage-food' where they were inevitably destroyed.
The more recent news of the bears and their habitat being threatened broke my heart. When it feels like I am carrying a lot of grief for the suffering of our world's wild habitats due to our actions, I feel like there is a mini time-bomb inside that is ready to explode... and it is what often is my inspiration to dance - to dance my grief, my prayers, my hopes, and my optimism...
When I met wonderful and talented Rex for a photo / dance session (see one of his sessions with Momo here: 'Tough Love in the Gravel'), he had no idea I had a dance of grief in mind, nor that I was prepared with a bag full of costumes and props! I was grateful for his willingness to capture this dance of connection to the suffering of the bears in film and to be my witness.
Spring
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her -
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
Mary Oliver
Thank you for viewing my blog... I hope you may find some inspiration within it - to dance your own dance of grief, eco-activism, protest, connection, optimism...
Heart-full thank you, Rex, for taking the photos and for your open mind and heart!
Grateful for this dance practice as taught by my butoh mentor, Momo and the other members of Momobutoh who inspire so lusciously. See our collaborative blog here: Momobutoh Company.
(The above photos of bears are from the internet and I am sorry there were no credits to the photographers that I can share here).
