Dove Tales, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last Tuesday. You can read it here.

That first winter after my father’s death I became obsessed with doves and finally gave in and decided to buy one. When I went to pick the dove up at the very last minute, I was drawn not to a white dove but to an African collared dove. Lily b came to live with me as a free flying house dove whose intelligence and uncanny ability to read my mind forced me to concede that something was happening that was beyond my understanding. In retrospect Lily b introduced me to interspecies communications  on a concrete level which validated my life experiences with all animals wild and tame. My beloved dogs had been life-time companions, so I already knew we spoke the same language in different ways.

Lily b became a spirit/soul guide and remains one some thirty some years later*. The first sculpture I created at the edge of the sea had the head of a dove. At that time, I still separated spirit from body as most colonized people still do. Now I believe from personal experience that the two are ONE.

Some spiritual experiences seem to be those that take us out of our bodies, others ground us in Mystery on Earth but either way if body is not included danger of not being able to return (to body) becomes a threat, or a disembodied ‘high’ occurs which can easily split us from the whole. It may be more painful (not to mention confusing) to experience spirit soul and body as one, but humans are part of the earth and are attached to all there is on this planet until our deaths. Afterwards some part of us lives on, roaming – coming and going at will apparently or that has been my experience – and perhaps that is the part of the Dove Spirit I have written about in this tale. The soul in my way of thinking is that part of us that keeps returning us to our true selves that so easily get misplaced in a culture gone insane. Does the soul of the dove remain after death?

This brings me to my present dove story. Last summer inexplicably (to me) I brought down the dove pot and placed it outdoors. Just looking at the pot brought tears to my eyes – genuine peace was so far from my life/our lives at this point of ecological collapse and political insanity. I had one pathetic  passionflower cutting and listlessly placed it in the empty pot which hadn’t been filled since my father’s death.

Much to my amazement the leaf turned bright green and soon it was evident that the passionflower would live. Because the hole in the body of the pot was so small I thought the plant couldn’t live long because there was no way of transplanting it without breaking my pot. But by fall the tendrils were spreading so I brought the pot indoors. Every time I walked by the dove, I looked at it I thought about peace and felt even deeper distress. We were so so far from peace.

 During the winter instead of fading the passionflower flourished climbing towards the ceiling creating a circular pattern with ki’s tendrils that embraces some purple grapes that sparkle and shimmer in emerald green and ecclesiastical purple when the sun strikes them each morning. Grapes that vaguely remind me of the Jesus story of being the vine. I may have left Christianity behind, but this religion still lives in me through doves, grapes and passionflowers. Although I may not be happy about this association I have come to accept it as part of my heritage. Jesus was crucified in the spring, and every year I come around on this story with trepidation in my heart. Betrayal is one of my roots. I may not choose it, but I am aware that it is best to acknowledge it with all that entails. I turn to the story that being written by the dove and passionflower who is circling questioning what message this plant might be conveying.

I think the dove may symbolize the kind of love that Carol Christ spoke of: Love as the Ground of All Being.  Not just on earth but everywhere. Love that may be beyond rational comprehension.

 When I spend time with trees and the rest of nature I feel something akin to this idea, but I lose it the moment I leave the forest or am not with my beloved dog and plants. I may not be able to comprehend such a belief on a rational level, but I would like to entertain the thought that the dove returns with an olive branch as one story suggests despite my disbelief during these tumultuous times. Perhaps the dove and ki’s vine are the seeds of hope that still permeate the air.