Oh, what is life? Do we really know life without death? Is not death the giver of life, that from what was, we are able to open and rejoice in what will be?
On this day of balance where light and darkness hold each other equally, I find myself reminiscing of a recent hike through an old forest. The teacher, nature, and me, the student. While I walked my cadence matched time to her song and my eyes beheld her secrets that only in awareness were able to touch deep portions of my tough encased soul. Parts remembered, lessons that seem warm and familiar; she reminds me of what I have forgotten. Her most giving sentient beings, Trees, in their actions lending themselves to images translated in my soul to universal truths that were once written there long ago.
In each of our rebirths we were made from that which has died and is reborn. As a tree fallen in the forest serves as a nest log for rebirth, so too do the organic compounds that made my body through the miracle of gestation, come from death. The foods our mothers ate to create the warmth of a fertile womb and the potential for life are death reborn. From death births life my friends and in it a knowledge of life continued.
I want to stop here and just breathe. Will you breathe with me? To really honor and hold sacred what gave life in dying to nurture each of our lives on this planet. That continues to die so that we might live. Somehow I have forgotten this sacred truth that our lives continue because of death. From the animals and plants we eat to the homes that offer us shelter that were built where forests once thrived, death abounds so that we might live.
I ask myself today, on this day of balance, in my own life have I begun to live out of balance with death? Taking more than I need so that I may live a life of convenience? Could I allow more to live and in return restore balance to this cycle? Could I lend my own convenience to make this beautiful sacrifice? Could I give more to balance my life on this beautiful Earth?
