the color of change
Last month, a few days after I tested positive for Covid, my kiddo turned up positive too. One morning she woke up well before dawn, cranky, with a stuffy nose, and I (also cranky and stuffy) went in to cuddle and feed her in the rocking chair.
At some point I looked up to see the sun rising through the window. She felt me shift and lifted her hot head.
Look! I told her, picking her up so she could sit inside the deep window sill.
Sunrise… I pointed to the sky, teaching her the name of the thing.
Wow, she said. Orange! Pink!
She climbed down into my arms and we sat back in our chair. More cuddles, a book, some minutes passed. The sky caught my eye again.
Look! I said, bringing her back to the window sill. The orange and pink clouds had mellowed into buttercup yellow and pale lavender. She looked for a long time.
Healing, she said.
I laughed, remembering her first really bad skinned knee of the summer. Healing, we encouraged her to notice, as it turned from red to purple to yellow to pink, and eventually to caramel brown. It’s as healed as it's going to be, but the place where the wound was is still not exactly the same as the skin around it.
What color are the clouds now? I asked, pointing to the sky.
Better, she said. I squeezed her again.
We are both feeling better now. But even before Covid, September was rough on my body. I had a neck injury that put me in bed for several days, and an epic migraine that sent me into a dark room for a couple more.
I called my brilliant astrologer/ceramicist friend Wilder when after all that I wound up getting Covid, to lament how this Mercury retrograde season was totally messing with my health.
I hate to break it to you, she said, but this Mercury retrograde has nothing to do with your health. It’s not moving through those areas of your chart. If you’re sick – honey, you’re sick.
So, I was sick. And with no planet to blame, I was faced with the perhaps obvious and yet humbling fact that I am not 100% in control of my body. That my health is an impermanent state, subject to change. I know some people live with truth all their life, and that as a fairly able bodied person, it's a truth I can mostly avoid – until I can’t.
In the Theravada Buddhist tradition there’s a Pali chant that goes like this:
Anicca vata sankhara
Upadavaya dhammino
Uppajjitva nirujjhanti
Tesang vupasamo sukho
And it translates to (roughly):
All things are impermanent,
They arise and they pass away.
To be in harmony with this truth,
Brings great happiness.
Note: the chant does not say impermanence brings great happiness. It says to be in harmony with impermanence brings great happiness.
To drop the struggle. To release rigidity, to soften any shame that we have failed to prevent inevitable from occurring. To move towards impermanence rather than away from it, even when it feels unpleasant. Embrace it even. Hello there, change. You again, me again. Here we are. Let’s dance.
When we are in harmony with the truth of change, it makes letting go a little easier and a lot more graceful. It’s like sailing with the wind at your back. And of course, liberation through letting go is how freedom happens on the Buddhist path.
Over here in Covid-landia, letting go has been more of a process than a one time event. I’m still moving slowly, but as I’m able to get out and about, nature has been a huge teacher on being in harmony with the truth of change. I mean, look at the trees, friend! Preparing to let go of their leaves, yet again, in a flourish of brilliant color. Unbothered, and in great style. QUEENS, I tell you. If only I could let go of my plans so beautifully and unapologetically. I learn so much from them, every year.
I learned that chant, and the emphasis on the harmony part, from Anna Douglas, a now-elder teacher who I sat with for the first time in 2011. Anna pioneered affinity sanghas at Spirit Rock with the first ever Women's Retreat. (What do you women all do together up there, anyway? she recalled a senior male teacher asking once in the teachers dining room, waving his hand in the direction of the retreat center up the hill. She gestured for him to lean in, as if she was going to let him in on a secret. We… MEDITATE!, she responded in a loud whisper, eyes twinkling.) Anna, like the trees, such a Queen. She’s been teaching on aging and death for many years now, and will likely be transitioning herself some time soon. I’m going to miss her so, so much.
So yes, these moments of recognizing and getting into right relationship with impermanence is a way of preparing for death.
They are also preparation for a liberated life.
There is a freedom to be had here, and if we are open to what everyday transitions have to teach us. We need look no further than the shift of seasons, the shortening of days, or the healing of a bruised knee if we want to learn.
I wonder what it would be like to call it healing whenever we witness such a shift – whether or not it’s a movement towards “wellness” as we’d typically think of it.
Because experiences of impermanence – like illness, like aging – are always an initiation into the process of letting go of the false sense of self. You know, the one that low key thinks it's in charge – of our bodies, of time, of other people… The one that thinks that if we do, eat, and avoid all the right things we can somehow sidestep the human experience and the laws of nature. (Isn’t it cute?)
This letting go is healing, and it’s also a huge relief, in that beautifully spiritually paradoxical kind of way. A body’s gonna do what a body’s gonna do. We can each do our part to help it stay healthy and strong, but we do not get to call all the shots.
One thing this Mercury retrograde will likely afford us, Wilder said, is the opportunity to learn whatever lessons this last month had for us again, if we didn’t get them the first time around.
And that, I think, is something to celebrate.
Happy October, then! Take good care my friends.
Wishing you harmony with the changes inside you and around you.
Kate
So much to love…
A friend in Puerto Rico suggested bypassing government entities and donating directly to local relief efforts like La Brigada Solidaria del Oeste – distributing food and other necessities to communities impacted by Hurricane Fiona. Donate via Paypal: brigidasolidariaoeste@gmail.com
Why yes, we will be doing practices to get in harmony with change during Sacred Evening Sangha. This is a month-long daily(ish) meditation immersion I’m teaching this month, emphasizing gentle restorative practice at the end of the day to support letting go with grace. We have a few more spaces available, and I pushed back the start date because – Covid. Registration closes Thursday October 6, we start Saturday October 8!
The Pandemic is a Portal by Arundhati Roy – written so early in the pandemic, so wildly clear about what the pandemic had to teach us on a global level. Recently reread it – it’s clear we’re still learning and coming to our senses, and… the portal is still open.
My brilliant astrologer/ceramicist friend who inspired this whole “if it’s not Mercury than what IS it” exploration can be found over here at 5th House Pottery doing readings and making beautiful things
In the spirit of caring for the body – I found this podcast episode of Herbal Highway on plant medicines for Covid recovery super helpful (they also have episodes on plants for prevention and during acute illness).
