Life and Death and Orange Jewels

My husband's 94 year old mother died last week, a sad and difficult woman in life and in death. I am weary and so this morning I needed the woodland's embrace and there I found the refreshment and the solace I knew were waiting for me. I went looking for life, life in all its fullness, life of the forest floor - creatures, plants, fungi...all of it. 

On the short bank beside the woodland road, I came across a colony of tiny, bright orange mushrooms, themselves feeding on decaying matter...matter that is no longer alive, but giving life to these jewels of the forest. 

And in the distance, stood what first appeared to be a lone white mushroom... 

... standing like a single sentry guarding its place in the leaf litter. 

However, upon closer inspection, I realized that I had almost stepped on its nearly invisible companion of a different species, a couple of feet away. 

Two different species of fungi, quietly going about the work they were given to do, decomposing fallen leaves and branches, returning nutrients to the soil. Perhaps their mychorriza mysteriously co-mingle beneath the duff as they coil around tree roots, providing the giants greater access to needed water and minerals and a means of communication, tree to tree.

I have been thinking about death during these last few weeks and about its effect on those who are left behind, for death is never a solitary event. If we give ourselves to its effect, even in our agitation and deep sense of loss, over time we will be deepened and made acutely aware of and sensitive to that which is still alive...still alive in us, in those we care about, in the order of the natural world. I find the encouragement of God in the life of the fungi, strange as that might seem at first glance. They demonstrate that there is far more to each individual than what might be visibly recognized. Though their above-ground fruiting bodies wither away in due time, their life continues on in mystery, hidden away in where they can no longer be seen. And, because of fungi's role, though individual plants and creatures die, their life is never completely ended, for it is always recycled for the well being of another.  

In this season of coming face to face, again, with the reality of death I am reminded, again, of the abundance of life and my grateful participation in it. 

In the Time of Goldfinches and Hummingbirds

"Where do you want to be?" she asked. The veterinarian, who has become my friend, was here to release my old, beloved, little dog from her pain and the discomfort of a large, inoperable, abdominal tumor. My mind slowly numbing, I clutched at the reality that would allow me to bear the next few minutes well, and we went to the front porch. How many times, in how many seasons, have Mollie and I sat on that porch, soaking in the life around us?

These last few days, the tinkling begging calls of goldfinch young and the combative whizzing of hummingbirds have been the audible indicators that summer is waning. Through the open windows, I hear the reminders from early morning until after sunset, so eager are they to take in the nourishment they need to forge ahead into the next stages of their lives. Though Mollie could no longer hear, she watched their comings and goings so closely that I half-feared for the fate of any hummingbirds who swooped down too fearlessly, in their quest to figure out what she was.

As the three of us sat quietly together, I was filled with gratitude for life itself.  For the life of Mollie, for the life of my friend, for the life of the wild ones that surrounded and comforted us, for my own life, and for the life of the Spirit who was so near and present with us. The ancient Christian Celts believed that when God created the world, He did not create it out of nothing, but created it out of Himself and, as a result, they, and I, believe that He has mysteriously left bits of Himself, in all that is. Bits of Himself that connected Mollie and I to each other, during those last moments. Bits that connect me to the wild creatures and to the sources of nourishment that support them. 

Though deeply saddened at Mollie's passing, I know that in loving her, and in caring for and delighting in so many lives in this world...those of people, of wild and domestic animals, of birds and insects, of trees and forbs, I have grown and I have been deepened, through no effort of my own, other than the loving. May it be so for you.