A Tender Balance

Today I engaged in three things to soothe a sore heart. I went to the woods. I went to the mountains. And I contemplated what to plant in the garden this year.

I have three — yes, three — friends with life-threatening illnesses. I am deeply honored to help care and pray for them. Yet so much in the world feels like it is dying. Grief is the cost of love, whether it be the death of a friend or the soul of a nation. Or as was the case this past week, the passing of my friend’s dog, Preacher. We are all destined to a place beyond.

Today, my old horse’s ears pointed forward, his neck arched as we took to the forest near our farm. The dogs gleefully chased rabbits. There is a particular grove of aspen trees on this trail which feels like a gathering of grandmothers. In winter, their branches wave brittle and bare. In summer, they flutter in a lushness of quaking leaves. Whatever the season, I always sense a tremendous nurturing here. We stop and I look up. Stirring in my chest are the grandmothers’ words which shimmer like those of Julian of Norwich. “All shall be well,” they whisper.

Later, on the snowy flanks of the mountains near my house, I gaze at the wind-scoured peaks and remember how long they have stood in their magnificence and grandeur. I am laughably tiny amid rocky spires of schist and granite. Unlike the grandmother trees, they seem regally indifferent, which is its own kind of comfort. They give the world’s troubles and my heart’s ache some perspective.

And the garden … ah, herein lives creative reciprocity. In spring, I will plant a seed and offer water. In return, the sun and seed will offer the miracle of life unfolding. Over and over, season after season, one raindrop and sun particle at a time, tiny buds emerge from the soil, reaching for the light. The cycle continues with or without me, yet to plant a seed is to have hope in a future; to look forward to the riches of harvest. Although the ground will be frozen for some months to come, I crave the feel of soil in my hands.

In the companionship of mountains, trees, a horse, and two dogs, the balance between permanence and impermanence felt momentarily restored. Today I hold this balance tenderly, like the tiny nuthatch I once held in my palm, its warmth radiant and trembling.