Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Mystery


I have been preoccupied with tidying and an illness in the home.
As you will no doubt have gathered from the text so far I am not of the female persuasion and as such can have no real grasp of whether the moment of conception is perceivable.
Is there a sense of a little burst of energy when the singularity of life lights up within?
I have the same first hand experience as you of course and hold my own life most dear, and yet I retain no sense of a sudden beginning to it. Even if it is as simple as two things coming together and one beginning, there must be a moment when that happens mustn't there?
This morning I was a hands on witness to the opposite. The implosion of energy as the life went out of our beloved pup. I have experienced my fair share of family bereavements and at those times stuff like pondering the nature of life doesn't happen on a conscious level, you get smashed sideways and as the parts join back together you are able to make sense of things in different ways, but it may take you several years to get there, and there is definitely not much mind available at the time for pondering as the grief takes hold and shakes the foundations.
It was tremendously sad to see the healthy animal decline into something akin to the puppy he started out as, helpless in all ways. But there is not the same hammer blow to the system and the organism of self remained whole and able to hold the grief of parting and ponder the nature of life as the loved one departed.
Having had time to consider events I feel very honored by our Bobby's choice to let go of his most treasured possession while I was holding him and his head was on my foot. There is of course an issue of pride and trust involved, the pooh comes out when the body lets go, I imagine the instinct of the leaper is to walk off and take the leap alone. And yet the pup chose a companion at this time of parting. Such a companion must be a benevolent being like that which surrounds us when we begin, a comfortable presence so familiar that it is there and yet not. |In essence what one might call a family or tribe.
My daughter asked that I might make sure that she is there when I make the leap, I hope I am as generous with my moment of parting as the puppy was with his, like all parents I suppose my greatest dread is the grief I must inevitably cause by my irresponsible leaping. When my own mother departed I felt it as I was drinking tea on the other side of the planet, it is my belief that whether together or apart my offspring and I will find ourselves to be so deeply entangled that propinquity will not be an issue when I fall backwards into weightlessness.
Throughout this day of vigil it has been noticeable that the eye sees and the mind takes liberties.
I utilize this mental frolicking when I make sculpture, my mind sees all kinds of shapes in the material and I follow its suggestions.
Once the puppy had left the material world I wanted him to have his privacy, so after we had washed him we wrapped him in a blanket curled up in his normal sleeping pose. He stayed like that throughout the day and each time I glanced in his direction the blanket gave movement to his form as though he were snuffling in there as he had as a puppy after his bath.
He is missed by us all and I hope that we may never forget the joy of having him share our home. "In sickness and in health until death do us part" was never a spoken vow between us, but as surely as my son calls him "brother", the memory of our Bob is bound into our family beyond even that vow's ending.