Full disclosure:
🌖
I struggled this week to write a post that would be relevant to either something in my life at this moment, or to our collective times in these moments. The two, btw, are not mutually exclusive. I have 30 drafts of blog posts to cull through, rewrite, polish, publish, or trash. None of those were right to write now. So I’ve sat at a blank screen with a blank mind for over two weeks—the post last week was written the week prior, I’ve had over two weeks, now, to come up with, apparently, nothing. Winter happens like this for me sometimes.
Usually, winters are intellectually creative times for me—times when I can capture dozens of poems from the ether of mind and heart; create fun and engaging staff workshops for Learning Improvement Days (when I principaled, that is), or write entire blog posts in one sitting. Right now, things aren’t usual. And despite the true facts that my hospice volunteer service is incredibly meaningful, my marriage and family life are thriving, and I am grateful for SO many blessings, my melancholy is surfacing in a dark way. You see…
I write this the morning after the mass shooting at the Super Bowl celebratory parade in Kansas City in which half of those shot were under the age of 16–they are our kids, y’all!
(May the souls impacted by this heinous, yet now all-too-common-in-America act of terror, be consoled. Note: we are all impacted; so may WE be consoled…yet again. God Bless America! And may Lisa Lopez-Galvan’s name never be forgotten—nor any of the others, there grievously injured, should they, too, die. Second Note: the next mass shooting is right around the corner, here, in America. It’s our American guarantee! God Bless America, all we patriots! I just pray it doesn’t involve you—even though I’m certain Lisa Lopez-Galvan and her family prayed this prayer too.)
I write this while the ugliness in Gaza and Ukraine gets only uglier every day. I write this as the majority party in our ineffective and chaotic House of Representatives last week killed a bipartisan immigration bill, then just now went on a self-granted two week hiatus after not taking up a bipartisan Senate aid package to Israel and Ukraine because it didn’t include immigration funding (you can’t make this sh*t up!). I write this days after a former popular Fox noNews personality/“entertainer” cum useful idiot bent a knee and lapped at the feet of the Russian despot to glorify his leadership and legitimize, with the MAGA base, his immoral corruption as “strength” and “righteousness.” I write this as a leading candidate for president sits in a courtroom facing charges for paying off a porn star to illegally influence the 2016 election while he also egged on the previously mentioned despot to attack NATO in order to “do whatever the hell he wants.” To say nothing of the other 91 charges spread over three other indictments (or if you’re Marjorie Taylor-Green, “in-dicked-ments.” Have I said “God Bless America” yet?), or the fact he considers me a leftist vermin, or the fact he’s been found financially liable for sexual abuse and slander to the tune of $83+ millions of dollars. Or…or… or…. All while “his” base continues their applause and blind-allegiance. I want to write more about “that guy,” that leading candidate, at some point in the future. I’m just searching for the right words.
I write this on a darkly cold Thursday morning, the day before I usually post, thinking about humanity, kinship, relationship, trauma, our world, our planet, our times, and our future. Thinking about us and thinking about our kids. Oh, and our collective Soul. I think a lot about our collective Soul. If I’m not mindful, it ALL could be too much, too overwhelming for a guy already prone to depressive moods. So, I try to be mindful, and very careful. Ultimately, I know it’s all Alchemy—as a practicing Alchemist, I’m simply trying to figure out how it all cooks together to form a better me.
🌗
No, none of the 30 drafts were right, but the one below came close. So, I’ll go with it. I’m tired. I’m no longer sure when I began the words for the post below, but the poem I’ve included, the wonderful poem by Teddy Macker, written as a letter to his daughter Ellie, surfaced the concept of “endarkment.”
We’re in a time of endarkment.
Endarkment has the feeling tone of being womb-like, so it should not be assumed places or periods of time “of endarkment” are scary in and of themselves. Endarkment places and periods and processes are entities of growth, evolution, warmth, and creativity. They are places, these wombs each, of gestation, from where miraculous emergence can happen. And where life can begin anew. For certain, they are always dark—and they are their darkest before birth, or rebirth, as one would have it.
Endarkment.
Perfect.
Perfect for me right now; perfect, I think, for our times right now. So…here we go. The post drafted at some point last year. I guess it’s ready now.
🌘
In life, especially if you live a spiritual (not religious, mind you) life, everything becomes an ingredient in the making of you. Everything. And just like in the finest of cuisine, every ingredient is vital to the whole—one not necessarily of any greater importance than another. Leave out a seasoning in the base of sauce and the final taste will seem off, even if you have poured the sauce over the finest of vegan Eggs Benedict! YUM!
I have found through my own personal experience that when I remember this, that all the things that happen to me, no matter how seemingly large or insignificantly small, no matter if they are judged “good” or “bad,” it all, every one, goes into the making of me.
Which if you buy into that, and perhaps you should, means there is no such thing as “insignificant.” Right? Or even no such things as “good” or “bad,” right?
What one thing do you want to exclude, even among the bad things, that might in the end have proven to be THE critical factor in your growth? The fact is, you never know. You can NEVER know until after the facts of the experience. That whole phrase, that I’ve adopted as one of my main mantras, “the things in life don’t happen to me, they happen for me,” only makes sense upon reflection—in retrospection—when time has crept or lept between the “now” you and the “then” you such that you can “look back” to see just how deeply impacted you may have been by some “thing.” It is only from a distance of time that one might begin the road to wisdom by discerning how important any event actually was to your growth and learning. Spiritually adept people cultivate the skill and ability of timely discernment—they see the lessons relatively quickly; spiritual masters, it is said, discern immediately—they can see “in the moment itself” how an experience leads to transcendence, no matter how dark or light the moment.
There are things to be learned from everything.
Every thing.
THAT’s our spiritual path. That’s Alchemy.
🌑
This is true if I’ve under-baked a sourdough loaf, or over-baked my skin by staying out in the sun too long. This is true if I’ve put together a 1000 piece puzzle only to find the box it came in had missing pieces, or put together an instructional lesson plan, when I taught, that totally sucked (fortunately, this didn’t happen too often!).
This is true if I’ve lost my car keys or my dad.
And this is true from this distance from Ukraine and from that disastrous 2017-2021 presidency; from the continuing fallout of an insurrection and on-going perpetuation of “the BIG lie;” and from the degradation of what once was an unspoken, solemn understanding and agreement among ALL Americans, no matter their political persuasion, about what it meant to have moral clarity in how we define democracy—aka our collective Soul.
Okay, lest you judge me too harshly, or judge me at all, I said one ingredient isn’t “necessarily” any more or less important than another. Of course some things, some events, are more momentous than losing car keys (unless you had to rush your wife to the hospital because she was in labor but you can’t find the damn keys! Third Note, btw: I always had my keys with me when our time came!). But the essence of the intention remains intact—even though the death of a parent is one of life’s momentous events, it is also a part of the Alchemy of your journey. It’s ALL a part of the Alchemy of your journey.
Well, at least the Alchemy of MY journey. I’m learning I can both cook and become cooked. I’m learning, as a vital part of my spiritual growth, that victimhood is a choice—and I don’t have to be a victim. Ever. I’m learning to Alchemize EVERYTHING in order to become the best version of myself that I can be—in every moment. Even the dark ones. Especially the dark ones.
I’m learning “Endarkment” is vital to my enlightenment. And it may be the darkest times that prove to be the most fertile.
Um…forget the “may be” part.
🌒
A Poem For My Daughter
~ Teddy Macker
It seems we have made pain
some kind of mistake,
like having it
is somehow wrong.
Don’t let them fool you—
pain is a part of things.
But remember, dear Ellie,
the compost down in the field:
if the rank and dank and dark
are handled well, not merely discarded,
but turned and known and honored,
they one day come to beds of rich earth
home even to the most delicate rose.
❖
God comes to you disguised as your life.
Blessings often arrive as trouble.
In French, the word blesser means to wound
and relates to the Old English bletsian—
to sprinkle with blood.
And in Sanskrit there is a phrase,
a phrase to carry with you
wherever you go:
sarvam annam:
everything is food.
Every last thing.
❖
The Navajo people,
it is said,
intentionally wove
(intentionally!)
obvious flaws into their sacred quilts …
Why?
It is there, they say,
in the “mistake,”
in the imperfection,
through which the Great Spirit moves.
❖
Life is easy, yes.
And life is hard.
Life is simple, yes.
And life is complex.
We are tough, yes. But we are also fragile.
Everything’s eternally perfect
but help out if you can.
❖
Work on becoming a native of mind, a native of heart.
No thought, no feeling, could ever be “bad.”
It’s just another creature
in the bestiary of Buddha,
the bestiary of Christ.
Knowing this,
knowing this down to the marrow,
could save you, dear one,
much needless strife.
Remember that wild and strange animals
paused to drink at the pond
of the Buddha’s mind
even after he saw
the morning star.
❖
No matter what you do, no matter what happens,
it is impossible to leave the path.
Let me say that one more time:
No matter what you do, no matter what happens,
it is impossible to leave the path.
❖
Believe it or not, dear Ellie,
some folks carefully imagine
hideous gods tearing at flesh,
clawing at faces,
eating human hearts,
and drinking cups of blood …
Why?
To shake hands with the Whole Catastrophe,
to cultivate the Noble Idiot Yes.
According to their tradition,
there are 84,000 “skillful means,"
84,000 tactics of wakefulness,
84,000 ways to become spaciously alive,
84,000 ways to be at home in your life and in this world.
And many of those skillful means are like this one:
enlightenment through endarkment.
❖
Life appears to be fundamentally ambiguous.
Wily, everycolored, unpindownable.
For evidence of this, spend time with trees.
Over and over they say,
There is no final word.
And big decisions—
decisions concerning
relationships, concerning children,
concerning death—
are rarely made cleanly.
In general, be wary—
even if just a little—
of talk of purity,
of goodness,
of light.
❖
To love everything, not just parts …
To love all of yourself, not just certain traits …
To rest in not knowing …
To carry the cross
and to lay your burden down …
To savor the medicine blue of moon,
the fierce sugar of tangerine …
To be a Christ unto others,
a Christ unto one’s self …
To laugh …
To be shameless, wild, and silly …
To know—fully, headlong,
without compunction—the ordinary magic
of our beautiful human bodies …
these seem worthwhile pursuits, life-long tasks.
❖
By way of valediction, dear Ellie,
I pass along some words
from our many gracious teachers:
Eden is.
The imperfect is our paradise.
All is grace- - - - - - -
🌓
*** This last part, the ending, was written yesterday—I ended the above draft with the poem, not yet drafting how I would end that piece.
Turns out, it was waiting for today.
The Alchemy of Journey is exactly this: our Eden. Perfection in place, time, and circumstance; through all the imperfection and the dark. It really is a path we cannot not take; “it is impossible to leave this path”—because it is how life happens; it is how life, continuously and heart-breakingly, approaches us. To deny that means tilting at windmills; means we bring on our suffering only through the numbing action and inactions of our own mindless and careless selves. The great thing is “I” get to choose how I approach life—I get to choose if I build bridges or destroy them; I get to choose if I make beautiful or ugly; I get to choose if I serve others or the god of narcissism; I get to choose if I speak out or remain silent, learn or stay ignorant, run toward or away. I get to choose joy, happiness, understanding, kindness, inclusion, and compassion OR sad, meanness, hatred, close-mindedness, greed, bigotry, and anger. I get to choose Love or fear. Period.
If you join me in this way of being, then WE, together, turn the “I” pronoun into the collective “we.” Please make it “we.” Join me, will you, in approaching each moment with reverence before we lose what we’ve always taken for granted: every thing. And then may we choose, may we ALWAYS choose, wisely and skillfully—for the Seventh Generation to come.
Please.
Imagine, then, how light our shared future path might become as we journey on through the endarkment—like with most things, we’ll discover it’s better when we hold hands, stick together, and honor the better angels of our nature.
“All is grace. All is grace.”
— Sarvam annam —
🌔
~ k
Always and Ubuntu.
🙏🏼
🌕
A very heartfelt post, one in which I feel I've gotten to know you better, Kert. Your own words as well as those in the poem you share put me in mind of Thich Nhat Hanh's expression, "Without mud, there would be no lotus flower," or put even more simply, "No garbage, no flower."