My Grandmother’s Pearls are Green by Sara Wright

“That move into mystery
is not an abandonment of
perception
into a cloud of unknowing.
It’s a move
into a different form
of knowing.”

Robert Macfarlane

I stepped outside when the sun was just rising over the horizon and low enough in the sky to create a play of shadow and light. This is my favorite time of the day to witness the astonishing beauty of the earth that is spreading her shimmering cloak around my feet… ‘oh, my grandmother’s hair, the words rose unbidden’. Chartreuse, plum, wine, lime, gold leaf and emerald canopies stretched across the brook blurring the leaves between birch, ash, beech and maples. The silvery water glistened, and I imagined myself flowing around those serpentine moss-covered banks listening to an ancient song  that has been sung by water for more than 4 billion years. How I wish I understood what ‘ki’ was saying but I am no longer able to discern the language.

 I do trust that Nature has memory, speaks in a multitude of voices, so the possibility is real that one day I too might once again become part of All S/he Is before dying by living these last years of my life as truthfully as I can. Cultivating honest gratitude, peace and acceptance when possible, acknowledging my anger when I cannot, honor cherished chirps with prayer.

 On Memorial Day, I acknowledge the depth of a grief so deep that it has spread a dark veil over this year’s spring greening. This kind of mourning may be the most annihilating of all. Betrayal creates such ragged holes that can never be filled.  

I am also hospicing a beloved dog whose heaped up heart will soon cease to beat. The fire I once embodied has gone out. I hold Hope in my arms with a fervent prayer to Nature that she will not suffer, that I will be there.  My faith has been replaced by a dreadful anxiety that controls both my mind and aging body with  steel bands and locked doors. I have not yet hit bottom. There is nowhere to turn. Endure.

My mother’s ashes were spread upon the sea in 1993. Re-membering the broken mirror brings on the crushing pain of betrayal that has not only lasted but repeated with deadly precision over a lifetime. I loved her too. I believe I will die fearing the initial abandonment, cut way from roots I never had even when I thought that I did.

As I threaded myself through the tall beings composed of  Creeping Charlie’s minty deep lavender flowers, the spikes of cobalt, lilac and lavender blue ajuga, thousands of amethyst violets, the pale blue forget – me – nots, the profusion of Solomons seal’s arced bells, blue -violet myrtle nested in shimmering deep green leaves, the first rose tipped sprays of columbine reaching to the sky, sweet scented hay ferns, buttery dandelions threaded by a few wild grasses and hundreds of mayapple umbrellas and carpets of budded quaker ladies, I paused under one crabapple whose blossoms were fluttering to the ground like butterflies, pink petaled tears. I said goodbye to the marsh marigold whose lemony petals are falling soon to be replaced by star shaped seed pods.

For a timeless moment I was transported – Oh, the profusion – green and golden tresses –  “My Grandmother’s Hair is the Earth’s Gift to all for each Spring Season”. Twice the words rose unbidden.

I wondered why I never dreamed of my grandmother who loved me as a child. Perhaps not becoming a grandmother myself was a contributing factor. Although I lost her under tragic circumstances in my early twenties, I remembered how she washed my face so gently with warm water, taught me how to sew, grow flowers, watch birds; a thousand memories rise out of the deep. I loved her so.  Unlike my confused and tortured underground relationship with my mother this love seemed so uncomplicated and true. Did my own mother love me? I have no idea.

I imagine winter wren, bay, chestnut, and magnolia warblers song sparrows are singing Grandmother Praises to anchor me in this moment when awareness is All There Is.

Most of the time, I walk on thin air or am confined in a cave without a light.

I rounded the corner hoping to glimpse the phoebe who as if on cue flew from her hidden bower. Much to my relief, my beloved phoebes had built a second nest after the first one was destroyed…

 Maybe Phoebe’s first nest was shattered by Fate just like my own.

My dearest Hope was so restless that I took her outdoors, offered her a little walkabout and sat with her in the sun stroking brown velvet fur. Her clouded eyes fluttered and closed even as the star’s glaring morning light intensified. It was time to take both dogs for the briefest of walks. Even with a failing heart some exercise is important. As we meandered up our road, I took pleasure from Hope’s sniffing and the way her tail shot up and curled behind her. I collect memories of every  pleasurable moment. Perhaps I too am stringing each one into another set of green pearls.  Pearls that I will create a crown of tears to place around my Grandmother’s head even as I honor her for this year’s Greening.