Kari Margrethe Sabro
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Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails are bursting
and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now. Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails are bursting
and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now. Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver
My body will be transformed into 2 liters of soil when I die.
When a living thing dies and decomposes, the energy is renewed and new life is created. In nature, everything is process, there is no static being, only becoming and change. As human beings, we are connected to this cycle, whether we like it or not. We live in a society that perceives death mostly as a medical defeat. Perhaps because we have lost the awareness of how we are deeply connected to the processes in nature, and because we have a tendency to cling to constancy. If we invite death into our lives again, as a part of the renewing circle of life, maybe we don’t have to fear death as much.
When a living thing dies and decomposes, the energy is renewed and new life is created. In nature, everything is process, there is no static being, only becoming and change. As human beings, we are connected to this cycle, whether we like it or not. We live in a society that perceives death mostly as a medical defeat. Perhaps because we have lost the awareness of how we are deeply connected to the processes in nature, and because we have a tendency to cling to constancy. If we invite death into our lives again, as a part of the renewing circle of life, maybe we don’t have to fear death as much.