The Water in the Wood
“loving what every second goes away”
She goes on an Instagram detox. In the absence, she turns to Sublime and Substack to assuage the urge to consume something, anything. While reading longish-form articles for the first time in a long time, she finds herself in a constellation of apocalypse and end-of-the-world themed musings. Interesting. She got off Instagram because she was sensing mental illness oozing from that place. And here she was, in the throes of apocalyptic matters on these other platforms. The end of the world used to be quite seductive to her, until she considered that the obsession with the apocalypse is actually a longing that those who are dissatisfied with the world have for something different. She reads this article. And then this: “Nature Manifesto Björk & Aleph it is an emergency the apocalypse has already happened and how we will act now is essential” [I'm not sharing the rest of the manifesto because it gets into propaganda about some new Paris Climate Accords that I don't really trust…but I digress.] The idea that the apocalypse already happened, this struck. Imagine that the earth we are experiencing now is like a star. Many of the stars we see have already died. What we experience as that guiding bright beauty, is the residue of something time and the eye has not caught up with. If the apocalypse already happened, then the talk of the end of the world is a distraction from the world that already ended. The world we think we know, died long ago.
The article about being unprepared for said end of the world shares about how we are underprepared for what's to come not because we don't have enough canned foods and what not, but because we need the resources that bring us closer to our humanity and spirituality. He finishes by saying that the resource we most need, is the ability to grieve. “I do not believe you will be under-resourced when it comes to grief. I believe you will have an abundance of it.” In Chinese medicine, grief is said to be stored in the lungs. And the lungs are ruled by Autumn. The exhale is the Autumn of the breath cycle, and it allows us to process and shed grief at the tail-end of the year when we most need that support in letting go. Autumn gives way to winter. Lungs are to Autumn are to grief, as kidneys are to Winter are to fear. The grief that is addressed in Autumn, gets alchemized into hope, which gives us courage to process the fear that comes with the dark of winter.
As we crawled into the depths of this season, our family left the eternal Summer of Miami for Asheville, North Carolina. The last time we were here was this Summer. Between then and now, a powerful hurricane blew through, and it is felt. Based on how the hurricane of the media portrayed it, I thought we would never return. We did, but it's different. And that's a bit how the end of the world works. It ends as in, it still stands, but not in the same way. The fragile structures that once covered up the pain and disharmony that was present, blown over. We walk through these forests and full grown, hundred-year-old trees lay horizontal, roots exposed, the underbelly in broad daylight. Corpses of these mighty beings all over the place, and that's the least of it.
So, what is grief? When I think about grief I think about the poem Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, and the ending about an apocalyptic dream: “Soon it will be over, which is precisely what the child in my dream said, holding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky hurtling our way like so many buffalo, who said it’s much worse than we think, and sooner; to whom I said no duh child in my dreams, what do you think this singing and shuddering is, what this screaming and reaching and dancing and crying is, other than loving what every second goes away? Goodbye, I mean to say. And thank you. Every day.” What is grief? Grief is loving what every second goes away. “Oh, you know, you realize that grief is perhaps the last and final translation of love. And I think, you know, this is the last act of loving someone. And you realize that it will never end. You get to do this to translate this last act of love for the rest of your life.” —Poet, Ocean Vuong, in an interview with Tonya Mosley, on losing his mother. Part of why we struggle with grief is the societal rejection of death. Our inevitable deaths are often portrayed as an imminent failure and tragedy, and something to be delayed, avoided, and covered up. When we don't know how to die, we don't know how to grieve, and when we don't grieve, an entire facet and deeply important aspect of life is out of place. “I grieve different.” —Kendrick Lamar, United in Grief And that's the thing about grief, it shows us how to be ourselves, because no one can tell you how to do it… …kind of like being in love. I like this video—a clear explanation of how authenticity is the highest frequency, and that the truest way to access authenticity is through grief.
As I started writing this piece in North Carolina, a coffee table book at the house we were staying at peered back at me: “Wise Trees” indeed. Did we drive thirteen hours to meet these trees? Vulnerable as can be, no dress of leaves, all systems exposed. Bare branches reaching like dancers, arms towards heaven, revealing the same systems that ground their workings below. The winter tree teaches humans how to be: be naked, be still, be wood full of water.
Asheville swallowed my notebook. It had been ages since I lost a notebook. And as any writer knows, a lost notebook is indeed something worth grieving. In the absence of the notebook, I became keenly aware of how much I wanted to write. In the grief of what was lost, desire was clearly marked. No notebook? Gotta type. Lost notebook giving way to this piece you now read. Loss giving way to more life.
On a distant star called Xenon or Zenith or Xzenquist, the star beings aboard are drinking libations and celebrating the closing of another day. On this star, days pass like years, there is no sunset or sunrise, so when the glittery inhabitants of this burst of brightness feel like it, they celebrate. If an earthling went to visit, they would quickly realize that they experience this urge and manifestation of celebration every day. The star beings watch the watery, woody planet from afar. This blue beam of light. They hear explosions, the end of their world? they wonder. On Earth, the humans are launching fireworks, marking the turn of another year. On the other side of that same planet, bombs and gunshots have ravaged the lands all year, fireworks are no way to celebrate. Tucked in a mossy mountainside on yet another corner of that very same planet, two creatures drink gunpowder green tea and quietly thank the powers that be— they have no idea what day it is. On a desk in yet another crevice of this very same planet, a lost notebook is scoured by a curious intruder. Intimate musings and secrets, anonymously exposed, a foreign tear falls on a found page, another story is shared. The star beings watch this marvelous planet that seems so empty and full at the very same. The star beings who glitter all the time cannot feel the way the earthlings feel, for if they knew the horror and beauty the earthlings breathe in every given moment, their glitter would surely fade. The star beings, died 1000 years ago. They see the earth from afar, and wonder what it means to be alive in their way.
On Earth the sun is setting, fireworks are exploding across a lake. The mushroom people in a young brain wonder if it is the end of the world. At midnight, something will change. The stars shine brighter in this darker place, a mystery weaves its way around their insides, the silent trees reveal their alien-like qualities— the ones still standing bore witness to the terrible thing. Tell us then, dear trees, channelers between the future and the ancestral, show us. Their silence and stillness stand the test of time, the sisters lean their aching chests against their trunks. The night turns them into nature, and the medicine is served. All this, all this, that is going away, is also still standing. All this, that is going away, shares the same roots as you, and the same future, too. All this, the stars and the branches, are yours, are you. All this that is going away, has already gone. The fear is a humbug—a mosquito in the ear of this most magnificent moment, this perfect world that has already ended. While the unprepared panic away, the ones who are listening, the ones who watch the stars, and thump around the trees, and ask each other silly, scary, sacred things, have full reign now, to play their way. Rest on the inside, whispers the water in the wood. All is all right.
From now until *infinity*, each of these written pieces will come with magic on the other side (see below).
Sneak peak to what is below this particular line:
𓆉 A bedtime story read to you by yours truly.
𓆉 Behind the scenes photos and fun of the making of this piece.
𓆉 A playlist to go along with the grieving glory of it all.
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We get what we give!
We give what we get!
I love you so much!
See you below the line!!!