The Bardo

The Bardo, photograph by Debra J. Hobbs, © QuoinMonkey, August 15th, 2020.

I meant to do better. To take more Polaroids, roll more clay, shut up and write. But 2020 had other ideas. For my birthday in high summer, Liz gave me a new deck of cards — The Wild Unknown – Archetypes by Kim Krans. The art was created from the center of a dark night of the soul. I pull a card a week. Saturday, August 15th landed me in The Bardo. I was already there. What changed is my willingness to straddle the abyss, to sit in uncomfortable places — in this life and what I imagine to be the next.

In this life, a family member is recovering from COVID-19. Two long time friends are in treatment for cancer, maybe the fight of their lives. Two other friends buried their 6-month old kitten, lost to a disease of unknown origin. In this life, babies are born unseen by grandparents, couples are married on Zoom, people die unable to hold a loved one’s hand. In this life, cities explode, humans rumble and rattle, tired of gridlock, tired of the status quo.

In this life, last night we locked ourselves in the bathroom to the howls of tornado sirens and horizontal rain. In this life, we wear masks, cancel our travel plans, stack bookshelves to the top of 9-foot ceilings, rearrange our studio to hold Liz’s work-at-home office next to old Kodachrome slides and boxes of art supplies.

I am digging in. And expanding out. I am rattling old bones. Untangling ancient root systems. Beliefs are not truths. I am learning that denial is a form of grief. It’s not the Thing that is dead, but how I’ve been doing the Thing. Shine your light, luminous or liminal. That is the Leo energy of August 2020 (from Lindsay Mack’s August podcast, Tarot for the Wild Soul).

I meant to do better. Prayer flags wave against an overflow bookshelf above photographs of my great, great grandparents. I research the goddess Eris, sister of Ares, daughter of Night. I listen to old astrology tapes, a choir hymn hummed through face masks, the tingle of ghost chimes.

In the Bardo:

We may receive messages from those who are no longer with us or see visions of lives not yet lived. In the Bardo there is the potential to forgive the unforgivable, to say the unsaid, to see the unseen, to love the unloved, to let go of all the things that cause us pain. The Bardo suspends us in its spaciousness for just long enough to open us to higher wisdom. Its energy does not belong to the Earth as we know it, but rather to the Cosmic network of which we are a single thread.

—The Wild Unknown – Archetypes deck by Kim Krans

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PRACTICE — Joy — 15min

Joy. My heart is full of joy. Even though much of December has been a struggle. Joy is connected to giving. To the Holiday Spirit. I feel joy when I am connected to people who are close; I feel joy when I am alone, writing, doing art, sitting in silence. I live in the times between. Joy is not temporal, not limited by time or possessions or Earthly matters—like human happiness seems to be. Joy rises above the everyday slothing about. When I remember what I am grateful for, I feel joy. When I see the Downy Woodpecker at the suet feeder, I feel joy. I feel joy when I am out shoveling the driveway at 8pm, stop to stand in the snow and stillness, view the December Moon rising in the dark.

I remember a time when I was afraid to feel too much joy, or let it grow too big in my life. I was afraid of what would be left behind when it vanished. I waited for the other shoe to fall. I feel more connected to a Higher Power these days. I believe in what I cannot see. Joy lives in the invisible places. Tears that well up when I watch a sappy movie; the director’s vision, a tugboat of joy. Things no longer bring me joy. They might make me happy for an hour, a few days. But I’m not in the mood to accumulate things to fill the Void.

Driving through the snowstorm this week, I started thinking about the future. A solid Cancer/Taurus combo, I dwell mainly in the Present or the Past. The Future, it’s not here yet. I have to sit down and make myself plan. That’s where a yearly practice comes into play. Scheduling time in the studio, writing retreats, or art events. Goals, deadlines, something I can shoot for in the creative fields. What I was thinking about on my drive along snow packed roads and layers of black ice, is that if I live a full life, I may only have a good 30 years left. Then I started to panic. I have so many books I want to write, so many photographs I want to take, so much love. How will 30 years ever be enough?

The thought process continued over lettuce, ham & cheese, past the Grain Belt sign on the Northeast Gateway, and around the bend where the Mississippi River crosses the Plymouth bridge. Then it came to a screeching halt. There are no guarantees that I will live to the end of the day. I am planning for the future; I don’t know if I will even be alive. I still need to plan. But it’s not where I’m going that matters. It is where I am. The panic subsides. This morning I am too serious. Yet the Joy — she’s still there.

No matter what happens, I feel like I have already lived a full life. During one of my 10-year, single jags after art school, I started a timeline of my life. I drew a long thick line on a yellow parchment scroll, began with the year I was born, and started marking in significant life events. The scroll is rolled up on a shelf in my art studio. I want to take it out and look at where I left off. It’s been at least 7 years, maybe longer, since I added a new cairn. It’s a way that I honor my life, the fact that I have walked on the Earth. I am only a small dot on the planet, loved by a few, invisible to most. It’s easy to get lost. The visual teaches me to pay attention to what has passed; it informs the future.

Joy is a day of making art, writing a story, working on photographs, posting on red Ravine. Joy is not fleeting like happiness. It’s always there, waiting for me to recognize its face. Joy is not what numbs me. Joy is the first strawberry on the vine, the Strawberry Moon, the Winter Solstice, Summer in Minnesota. Joy is a film that moves, a tumble in the hay, a Stripeypants in the hand, a Kiev curled in a ball next to me on the couch. Joy is a loving partner, a new dream, the center of the labyrinth, along the edges, too. Joy is a handful of October leaves, tumbling down a mountain path. Joy is a Giant Moon rising over the Bitterroots, half in Shadow. Joy is Light.

-related to Topic post:  WRITING TOPIC — JOY

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