following the Light

arrowleaf balsamroot II
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Summer is here in the inland Northwest. It arrived with a vengeance, for me at least, after a long-lingering, chilly, rainy spring. On the solstice, a stomach flu had me in its grips. Two days later, I found out a dear friend died that same night, quite unexpectedly.

Grief has a way of bringing you straight home to yourself. Anything you've become complacent about; any ways you've started to be lazy, or procrastinate, or settle; any emotions you've tucked safely away to avoid dealing with them – all of these things rise at once to be faced, as the preciousness of our existence here comes sharply into focus.

I ran the gamut, as I scrambled to deal with a world suddenly out of my control. I took some comfort in my beliefs, my own inner sense of our journeys here, and feel certain that my friend graduated from this Earth with flying colors, at the height of the Light. But still, I feel his loss.

I went for a bike ride that evening, doing my best to outpedal the grief so close behind me. And as I rode, a message trickled in on a ray of Light, as they sometimes do: To fear Death is to fear Life – they are part of the same journey. One makes the other possible. And the story, the beauty, the amazing gift of Life that we are given here for a while, contains the entire spectrum of human experience. I marvel that we can hold joy, and grief, and hope and despair and love, all within us at the same time. And that we are uniquely capable of embracing, engaging, and growing through each one – like a sunflower always looking to the Light.