At the mercy of the mystery
Dear All,
I share these words with you in love, in the hope that they may serve as a loving and gentle reminder to remember what is truly important in life, in your life.
There is a powerful symbol known in Hindu mythology called “Nataraja” or “the dance of Shiva”. Shiva is one of the most prominent deities in the Hindu tradition and together with Brahma and Vishnu forms the Hindu triumvirate (Trimurti). In this tradition it is said that Brahma is the creator of the universe, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva’s role is to destroy the universe in order to recreate it. This is beautifully symbolised in a powerful mythological image where Shiva is depicted dancing in a large ring of fire. This dance, called ‘Tandava’, symbolises the preservation of the Universe, how birth and death, creation and destruction must alternate and how Shiva as lord of the dance orchestrates the balance. It is a beautiful image with (as always in mythology) a profound and applicable meaning to our own lives, of which a simple interpretation could be that (among other things) birth and death alternate in an eternal dance, in fact, that they must alternate to maintain the careful balance in which everything can exist. The alternation between what comes and goes, what is born and dies again, I call “the winged dance” after the insight that once came to me that birth and death are as it were the wingbeat of a bird, up and down, both necessary to maintain the movement of life. As beautiful as this image is, as clear as it may sound when you try to understand it rationally, I have never come so close as last year. It is one thing to read about it or to conceptually understand how everything in life is involved in a cosmic dance and how subject we are to it, but to live it, to experience it yourself is absolutely another thing.
At the time of writing we are at the beginning of the parental journey, although we have been on our way for a few months now it definitely feels like this large-scale pilgrimage has only just begun. Last year we had the pleasure of welcoming our beautiful son Elaia to continue the human journey together. After a beautiful birth, towards the end of Spring, there he was, our precious son, here to hold in our arms, here to experience together what it means to be human. As every parent can undoubtedly confirm, it is not only one of the most intense and surreal experiences, but also an opportunity to (re)experience how unprecedentedly great the mystery of life is. The greatness that comes with experiences such as pregnancy, childbirth and budding parenthood is one that I can't seem to find words for yet, no matter how hard I try and how committed I feel to sharing the word, I fully realise that language is barely able to accurately describe this.
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
While we were still in the warm afterglow of the joyful and early days of our newly-formed family, something sad happened, something we could not possibly have foreseen would happen to us but nevertheless, it did. Namely, that one of our precious animals, our dog Benny, with whom we had the pleasure of sharing a few years, passed away quite suddenly. The birth of our son as well as the death of our dog literally unfolded in three weeks. And while it can be said that the greatness of life can be felt in the blossoming of life, so too does anyone who has lost a loved one know that the greatness of life inevitably reveals itself to us therein. So it happened, in the middle of the night, while we were changing our son, my wife went outside with our dog Benny, he had not been feeling well that week so he wanted to go outside regularly, while they were outside he became unwell, he collapsed and gave his last breath there in the middle of this rather dark night. It was a moment that you hope you never have to experience, a sickening death cry was the last thing we heard from him and preceded the moment that my wife came in crying while Benny was shaking in her arms, struggling with despair. There we sat, my left hand resting on our son who was lying half dressed on the changing mat and my other hand on our dog while we tried to get a grip on what was manifesting itself here in a far too overwhelming event. With all your might you try to find a way to save him, I jumped outside, ran to my brother who was staying nearby in his camper and before I knew it, we were in the car, speeding down the highway, on our way to the nearest overnight vet clinic. The absolute silence of the night added to the surrealism of the moment, while you become internally aware of so much emotional movement, countless thoughts and questions, you race at a breakneck speed on the highway while the whole world still seems unmoved in its nightly sleep. Before I knew it we were watching our little friend being resuscitated by three veterinarians while slowly the realisation began to sink in that we would have to continue our lives without the joyful expression of this furry friend.
Although I know, or to be more cautious, I have the deep and convincing suspicion that life and death go together, that what is born can only die to the form, that life is exactly like that beautiful mythological dance of Shiva, like the beating of the wings of the birds, that everything that comes must also go but that nothing, absolutely nothing can ever die in the true sense of the word. Although I may know all this deep in my heart, I have never been so close as the moment in which I was literally caring for our newborn son with one hand and guiding my dear dog out of life with the other. A moment in which the joy of new life, the blossoming mystery that you have been allowed to welcome, revealed itself simultaneously with the horror of suddenly having to say goodbye to a dear being, that the same vulnerability in which you hold your child suddenly seems even more porous after you have been reminded how vulnerable our life is. That same One life, that unspeakably great mystery that had managed to express itself in myself, in our son and in that beautiful, expressive and perky dog, that same One life that was once simultaneously observable, left one of its forms there and then. It is moments like these when the greatness of life overwhelms you in such a way that with your limited understanding, your limited human abilities you cannot possibly reach it. There you are, you think you know it all so well, you have done your homework, read the books and have the answers ready to tell everyone how it is, until the embodied sensations of having to live through what all that knowledge really means suddenly present themselves and you simply have to endure the pulsating flood of emotions without any hope of understanding.
“The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life but as an aspect of life.”
All this reminded me of a moment in the Hospice, where I worked as a volunteer. There was once a woman who came to visit her dying son, this man had been in a coma for a long time and was no longer responsive. Before she went into the room, she asked me if I would come and check on her every now and then because she found it so hard to be alone. After fifteen minutes I went to check on her and asked if I could sit with her. I crouched down next to her and gently held her hand. She began to tell me what this process did to her and how incredibly unfair it felt that she was the one who had to survive the death of her own son. While we were sitting there and were allowed to share this moment, I realised once again the unprecedented value of being allowed to live through a human life. There I was, next to a mother who was saying goodbye to her own son. There I was, at the time a father in the making who was a few months away from the arrival of his own child. There we sat, together, as people, each one undergoing the walk of life in his own completely unique way, but both subject to the same inevitable fate, that we too, just like our children and all children yet to come, will ultimately leave the human form through physical death. Without too many words we were able to assist each other, I helping her say goodbye to her son and she unconsciously offering me an even greater realisation of how precarious life is. Witnessing both birth and death takes us out of the mundane, waking state and invites us to welcome the mystery into our experience, where we can remember how incredibly special the gift of life is. In those moments something is touched in us where we may enter more deeply into the essence of life, our life becomes fuller precisely through the realisation of how incredibly fragile and transient it is.
As I write this I can see how time has been kind to me as it is now possible to look back and see that it is also the raw silk that ensures that the woven tapestry of life retains its shine. It is without a doubt a painful beauty, just as the icy husks of the Winter plants also have their beauty, just as a pristine water surface also has its beauty when the slightest movement interrupts the stillness. A beauty that still evokes a sense of loss, but one of which I now dare to claim that there were telling moments in which a space opened up to enter deeper into encounter with what is essential, an opportunity to allow the mystery to approach more closely and to remind myself once again of the unprecedented splendour of this life.
“Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love… Life always says Yes and No simultaneously. ”
And, it is to this life, in its fullness, in the face of all that I cannot possibly understand but which I feel touches me, moves me and brings me into encounter with what is true, that I go down on my knees. In a bow to the song of the birds, the sparkle on the water or the patina in the rocks but also a literal bow to bury our little dog at our favourite tree, where we laid him to rest together with the placenta that had provided nourishment for our son. Even then, or rather precisely then, I joined my earth-strewn hands to give thanks for this life, for the recognition that all of this belongs to it, even everything that I cannot or do not want to understand. In moments like these, when I felt like I was dancing hand in hand with Shiva, when the ring of fire scorched the tears on my cheek, when I swayed back and forth on that aforementioned wingbeat of birth and death, I try to realise that it is the presence of apparent opposites that gives life its fullness. It is both, the flowers that grow from the grave and the pitch-black, dug-up mud from which they sprout. The joy of welcoming new life and at the same time having to accept the inevitable. But it is these moments that offer the opportunity to learn to understand our own temporary experience more deeply in order to welcome this life in its fullness, every day again, even if that means that life is also characterised by everything that can torment us so incredibly, but which can remind us in a very essential way of how valuable this life is. Although I try to dance the dance very consciously, it helps to remind myself that I am fundamentally not the one who determines where the dance path leads or how it may proceed, but that I am simply at the mercy of the mystery and only have the opportunity to make myself aware that the dance is going on.
Welcome to life, dear friends, welcome to this mythological dance, the dance of Shiva, where we are in the midst of the wingbeat...
In love and reverence, sven
In loving memory of our dear friend Benny
