When I die
I just completed a Wild Heart writing retreat with Mirabai Starr in Bacalar, Mexico. This piece is based on what I wrote in ten minutes in response to the prompt, “When I die…” How would you respond to that prompt?
When I die, I want to die wide. Novelist Erica Jong said that first, and I say it now: I want to die wide.
I want to die being fully alive, to lay it all down and give myself freely to the Mother who made me, no holding back.
But I do not want the Earth to die. Until the day I die, I want, I want, I want. I am the voice of wanting.
I think of the marine sanctuary called Northeast Canyons and Seamount, the first and only marine national monument in the Atlantic. This ocean landscape of underwater mountains and vast deep-sea canyons off the coast of New England is a precious, protected place where endangered whales and sea turtles and corals and fish and all kinds of wildness can thrive. This refuge of rare color and beauty is as precious as my kidney or my liver, a part of the living body of the sea, of the round Earth that is mostly made of water.
I was one of many people who fought to establish that Noah’s ark, that living oasis in the sea. But just days ago, the President tore down its borders of protection and invited commercial fishing to come in – to plunder and seize and extract what they like, news that has hardly made a ripple in the media, a drop in the bucket, nothing to see here, but I feel the attack in my own body. I feel it under my left rib, an assault on my very own body, like invading or cutting away a vital organ, and I cry out, I must cry out, the Mama’s body is being attacked, she is being pierced and desecrated, and I feel it in my body. I want to be her voice, I am her voice, I cry out NO!
How do we live with the grief of a world that is being torn apart?
How does our body relate to the body of the world?
Do we dare to feel what is moving through our bodies and the body of the world and to give it voice?
We are all grief walkers. Can we walk in love with the grief?
A Prayer
Mother of all, we feel your presence in our outrage and grief. Speak to us now, you who loved this world into being. Move through our bodies and give us strength to create a new future for your wounded earth. Amen.
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10 Responses to “When I die”
Pamela Hale
Thank you, Margaret. So true, so beautiful. So heartbreaking.
mbj
Thank you for understanding, Pam. We are appalled (again and again) and so we weep, we groan, we connect with Source, and we get up and do what we can. My motto this year has become very humble: “We do what we can.” We live in hope that together we can make a difference.
David NEvin
Thank you, Margaret, for this beautiful work and all the work you have done in the past and will do in the future. I saw the article about destruction of ocean sanctuaries, not born of necessity but of ignorance and detachment from that which allows us to be living creatures. Our souls and our lives and our actions need to be a reflection of the beauty we were born into on the first day. I am pondering the question you presented, “When I die…” and what rises up brings joy to my heart.
David
mbj
I cherish the joy that is arising in you! There is such freedom in setting an intention to be fully alive until we die! Thank you for writing.
Beatrice Scherer
Grateful greetings from Switzerland, dear Margaret and other readers.
When I immerse myself in nature’s beauty in my surroundings – glistening river, kingfisher shooting across it and leaving me breathless as I take in a world of sensations of sounds, colours, fragrances and lights – perhaps this feels somehow like dying to me, like I am being consumed, merged, lost, found, unifyed… Then, when I awake to the mutilation and sacrilege that is happening, I simply cannot grasp it. It can’t be possible. It is heart wrenching and tear jerking, and I too feel it in my entire being.
Yet I feel a deepening and widening power arising within me: a strong conviction that what I want to do and indeed can do is to love more. I dedicate my life to love. May Love use me to synergise my love with every other love.
mbj
Amen, my friend! So be it!
Nick Warren
So true, Margaret, and so draining to the soul. This miserable, sad husk of a human is eviscerating so much, and with no discernable reason other than profit for friends. And maybe to ‘own the libs’. As you write, we have to keep doing what we can do, small though it may seem.
mbj
Nick, I am with you in spirit as we do what we can! Thanks for your big heart.
Ellyn Owen
You writing is very moving. Thank you for sharing with all of us. I thought of the distress you expressed about the possible destruction of the marine habitat as I attended church for Ash Wednesday services. The church ceiling looks quite a bit like an upturned boat–symbolic of protecting us from any storm. At the same time, it seemed speak to me about joining together to right the boat and set sail to rescue this ocean wonderland from those who would ruin it forever.
mbj
Thank you, Ellyn, for bringing my thoughts into the context of Ash Wednesday. Lord, have mercy! Yes, let’s ride through the storm with a deep intention to be healers and bearers of reconciliation. Thank you for your comment!