Recently I recorded the video below of a pitched battle in the window sill of my studio. Do you feel sadness for the fly during its last flailing moments or relief for the spider securing a needed meal? Below is a haiku I wrote based on the video. Please take a moment to share your own haiku.
Fly versus spider:
Don't take death personally.
It's the way of things.
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A
Douglas Fir
in our backyard
has died.
Its picture perfect
posture
drew the eye heavenward
through needles and cones
up its narrowing spine
Toward Infinity.
The grandfather of the homestead
made the blue sky coy as it played peek-a-boo
through thin as angel wing foliage.
Now the tree is dead and gone.
Beetles made a weakened old man their target.
Boring through layers of skin, the invaders left behind
ravenous offspring who feasted on the old man's vascular system
until the fatal stroke occurred. His complexion faded from green to yellow to brown
to ashen gray.
This death does not go down easily, yet is the way of things.
Impermanence.
He had a long life.
He shaded and
inspired. Avian
families nested
in his steadfast
arms. A stump
memorializes
where he lived
and died and
will live again.
For even death
is ultimately
impermanent.
Resurrection
in the form of
compost for
whipper snappers
who barely got to
know him in his final
year. In their roots,
stems, leaves, flowers
and fruit, the old man
will find a new lease on life.
At Muir Woods National Monument I recently watched the endangered Coho salmon prepare to spawn, which is shown in the video below as a male and female make a redd for their offspring. (A redd is a gravel depression salmon create with their tails and into which the eggs are laid and fertilized.) Coho salmon are making a comeback in the Redwood Creek that flows through Muir Woods here in Marin County, California. Each December after the first heavy rain, the sandbar at Muir Beach breaks. The seam allows salmon to leave the ocean and swim upstream to the creek where they hatched about three years before.
The parents undergo dramatic physical changes on this final journey. Their jaws and teeth become hooked. Their skin blushes with hues of red and pink. With immense effort, they make their way upstream. Finding a shallow spot for a redd, they create their nest, lay and fertilize their eggs, all the while maintaining their resistance against the incessant current. Having completed this final phase of the life cycle, they die having given their lives so that life may continue.
The final lines of The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi capture the spirit of the salmon's life cycle:
"It is in giving that we receive...It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
Of course, their behavior is driven by instinct, a genetic imperative that lacks our tendency toward prolonged self-reflection and angst. It simply is the way of things. The salmon just keep working their way through the water.
I, however, am not as zen as the salmon. I want to know why the current is against me, how to control it, and what's the meaning of it all. I gripe about how wrong it is that I must swim upstream when life should be so much easier.
The salmon school me in living. They inspire me to swim with my whole body, heart and soul, whether the current is with me or against me. They invite me to remain open to the inevitable changes that will occur in life. They remind me that, ultimately, this existence is not really all about me. My individual life serves the greater cause of Life itself, of which I am part.
The salmon don't pause to ponder what the meaning of it all is. They embody their purpose. They live who and what they are with every ounce of energetic verve in their being. That's all they do, and it's enough...for them and for us. As Joseph Campbell said:
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about."
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This week my friend and former coworker Susan Alexander passed away. I will always cherish her kindness, wisdom, depth, sweet smile of warm welcome, and her dry, sharp wit. Though often reserved and reflective, at any moment, and usually with a straight face, an unexpected comment would cross her lips sending an entire room into uncontrollable laughter. Susan had many words of spot-on wisdom for me over the years. Perhaps no words, however, spoke as clear and true as those she shared during one of our final conversations. At the end of the call, I asked what my partner Herb and I could do for her. Her reply: "Enjoy Life!" I hold those words as both blessing and encouragement from my dear friend and pray that in this new phase of existence she too is enjoying LIFE as never before.