Sage advice?
Or Sage Koan?
Or just sage?
Yep.
“Dead. How does that honor your Father?”
It’s a zen koan.
I didn’t know it at the time, but back in April I planted a zen koan—a puzzle given to a novice from their master/roshi meant to transcend rational thinking and take the student one step further toward enlightenment. Koans are not puzzles you can think through and rationalize a solution. A famous koan is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Another: “What is your original face before your mother and father were born?” A third: “Who am I?”
The one I planted in April, in ritual ceremony? That I wasn’t aware that I was planting?
“When you plant sage, you plant dying. Death is what grows. How does that honor your father?”
There’s more than one way to read that, right? It’s a koan!
Of course there are a lot of lessons one can learn about death, any death. ANY death. Even the death of an individual sage plant. ESPECIALLY the death of an individual sage plant.
Over the course of this blog since it was started back in June 2022, to chronicle the dying days of my Dad as an Elder (zen master?), THAT was the primary intent—to surface life lessons from the ageing and sageing and dying of a retired farmer from Moxee Washington; the former sage farmer in Toppenish. Some of those lessons might be held in common between us. We do, after all, share a common humanity on this one miraculous planet. But as with all Alchemy, and all Alchemists, final products or lessons learned will also be unique as each of us adds our own life uniqueness to the mix. The uniqueness of experience and relationship each of us cultivates over the course of our lives flavors how we view living and dying; and how we learn from death. Or don’t. (Sigh!)
Back to Summer 2023
A “back in time” remembrance, written in that time:
The little sage seed I planted in a ritualistic memorial for my Dad (blogged here and here) started quite nicely and looked to be thriving. I learned more about my dad as I reflected about the Toppenish days of farming gone by; and as members of my family who were a part of that time talked out loud about their own memories—especially those who had to be “knee deep” in sage harvest and baling memories. And I got to become someone deeper, more human, which happens when you learn more about your ancestral upbringings.
It has surprised me a bit that this little plant, sown from seed when we held Dad’s remembrance ritual, with frozen strawberry oatmilk dessert alternative, is taking so long to grow. I was a little worried early on that it, too, might die and that I was not suited to grow a plant that Dad was so great at growing early in his farming life in Toppenish, and has served as a focal point of many a great story from our young family of the past. Maybe it’s this area’s climate—being less hot and more humid than the arid Yakima valley. But, the sage does continue on. And appears to now be thriving—it’s proving to be “the little plant that could.” But winter is on its way. So, we’ll see.
Because even sage is impermanent. But it does smell great right now...
And then came September
… except when you transplant it, thinking you needed to.
I was so encouraged. The little plant that could, that was planted during a poignant time to represent…well, to represent something, was growing well in the “nondairy, strawberry oatmilk frozen dessert” carton. At the time of planting, back in April, I had intentions for this whole process of “seed to something”—believing at the time that “something” was going to be a mature sage plant that might one day “herb-up” a recipe. And I embedded a set of unspoken, metaphorical aspirations in the soil, right along with the seeds, of: an age gone by (sage farming in Toppenish?); seeds planted from an Elder (Dad’s life and death?); how death leads to new life which leads to more death (“the circle of life?”); to a continuance of an idea, a memory, of my Dad, through the growth of a plant he once grew, from seed (metaphor after metaphor after…yeah, you get it). I didn’t realize at that time I didn’t plant aspirations; I planted zen koans.
I didn’t realize it, until it died.
Damn.
Now
A couple months after planting that sage seed during my memorial ritual, I intended to send a post updating the growth of the seeds wanting to also include an updated picture of a sage plant, no longer a seedling. “Dad’s Sage” it was to be. More than one meaning there!
I wanted it to grow not fully knowing what I’d do with it although I thought it might involve being used in my cooking—even though I don’t cook much at all with sage. I had visions of transplanting this succulent sage plant out in either a large pot next to a pot of rosemary, or in our garden next to the kale, potatoes, and squash I had in ground (Mmm…pan fried organic potatoes and squash with kale and sage anyone?).
And then, of course, and right on time (its time!), it died because of something I did. This is where failure comes in to teach. This is how the koan was seeded.
We are spiritual beings on human journeys. And this, too, was a part of that journey. So, what message is meant for me here, in this koan, since this “failure” is only (as all failures always are), a chance to learn from and grow from and become more fully human?
This wasn’t a failure, because those don’t exist. Failures don’t exist. Failures are human judgments put upon an outcome undesired. Put differently, failure is just a word for “something to learn from.”
An aside:
When I was a principal, I would champion the belief that the most important thing we could teach our kids was for them to learn “how to fail.” In fact, I had a quote posted on the door to my office that expressed this vitally important concept because it is such a natural and inevitable component of learning and life. It is also, and sadly, hardly ever taught, discussed, or understood.
If you have ever witnessed a child throw a major tantrum (okay, said person doesn’t have to be just a child—but humor me here!) after losing a game of whatever, you would have witnessed a little one who is telling you “I need to learn how to fail better!”
There is a way to “fail” that makes the experience invaluable in growing a life of deep meaning and resiliency. Failures, outcomes undesired, are a part of every human life. Imagine how different EVERYTHING would be if we knew how to fail better.
If we knew that failures were simply zen koans.
Dad died in March of 2023, but even amongst the four remaining humans who most intimately go “back in time” in relationship with my Dad (here I count my two brothers AND my Uncle Paul—Dad’s beloved brother), we each take different things with us into our own present moments from our relationships with Dad. Our own learning from his life and from his dying and death. If we bring koans with us from that time of knowing him, they are unique to each of us.
The little sage seedling I ceremoniously planted out of memory and in honor of my Dad, died—about four months after Dad’s death. Now, I know it had to. Its failure was needed more in that particular moment of my life than its on-going growth.
Apparently.
It’s been my koan to work with, metabolize, and learn from.
This cycle of planting, growth, cultivation, watering, death, and replanting is EXACLY the way of a farmer (heck, it’s exactly the way of being human!). This is how agriculture has evolved over time as humans learned how to cultivate better, more abundant crops. Farmers, especially our earliest agriculturally-centered ancestors (among whom, I include, the Native Indigenous ancestors), knew intimately of failure. And they understood its place in the grand scheme and full-catastrophe of life that also includes death. Their response?
They learned. Then replanted. Better.
Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better.
If one needs a life lesson that is truly a koan, but that also, at its core, captures the essence of what it means to be a human who is simply trying to live life a little better today than yesterday, we’d be smart to adopt “Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better.”
The second seed I planted is likely, also, its own yet-to-be realized, koan. After all, it is the winter months, the air is humid and cool, we have the plant on our kitchen counter in front of a west-facing window, and the sun is at low angles as the earth rotates. And the seedling is looking every bit the searcher for warmer and dryer air, and more sun. Dad would have told me you can’t plant sage in the winter. And “You can’t transplant a seedling; you must wait until it’s a hardy, well-established plant.” Thanks Dad. See, he farmed it well when he was younger. I never farmed it. But I thought I was careful.
Every day, as a human just wanting to be better, I wake up knowing there might be failures and disappointments and discouragements should I choose to see things that way. But none of them are problems, none are failures. Each are koans. And koans cannot be resolved by the mind. So each day I get to access the one place inside me where koans go to live; the only place that can alchemize and metabolize even disappointments and discouragements and death:
my heart.
And then I replant anew.
But better.
Always and Ubuntu,
~ k
🙏🏼
BTW: the first seedling? that didn’t make it? that unexpected koan? It’s composting now within the depth of the potted soil and amidst the growing roots of the new seedling. Koans continue to nourish—death begets life.
Always.
PS: Right as I finished drafting this post, I opened my email and saw a message from one of my revered teachers, Margaret Wheatley. In the message, she included the following poem. Though I was not shattered by the death of a sage seedling, or even the death of a Dad I loved dearly, (but I DID understand my circumstances fully; so maybe I was shattered in different ways—oh look, another koan!), I still thought it apropos. And synchronistic. So here you go:
“Transformation must be met with transformation.
“Dignify the shock.”
Sublime.