#38, March 22, 2000
Rain clouds swirl through the bay trees of Robber's Cave
Rock, out on the Westridge Open Space overlooking southwest Petaluma. Above the
storm, the sun is setting, and my daughter and I are celebrating her final few
hours as a teenager.
We quietly step into the bay grove, feeling the presence of
those ancient trees. After a few minutes of cosmic communion, I have an urge to
be playful. Looping my hands around an overhanging branch, I launch into swing,
shouting, "Oh to be young again!"
"Crack!" said the branch, which was considerably older and
rottener than I had perceived. "Crap!" said I, landing on my
backside, fortunately unscathed.
We have a good laugh, appreciating the irony. Here we are, growing up, growing old, trying
to grow wise. We walk together down the hill, arms over each other's shoulder,
plowing through the long wet grass. "This time twenty years ago…" I
say. Twenty years…
How long is a life? A few weeks after Laurel's 20th
birthday, following a late afternoon of planting, I faced the fence line
marking the back of my garden. Ever alert for patterns, I notice I'm standing near
the eighth of thirteen fence posts, counting from left to right, east to west.
If I live to be 80, I muse, then the fence to my left is my life so far, the
fence to my right what lies ahead. On the last post, above the gate, I had
(years ago) mounted the bleached skull of some small critter eaten by the local
predators and scavengers. Behind the skull, an orange sun settles into the
horizon.
A neat measure of my life, a timeline on the wire. My sun
rose up over there, and out there is my death. The fence is reassuring; there
are plenty of fence posts still to pass.
"Hah!" laughs the skull. "Remember, those
lavender shrubs, now gone from where you stand? They should have lived for a
decade or more. But La Nina, with her teen temperatures, froze them in their
little tracks."
Skull's got a point, well worth remembering. So I sink to my
knees, and cradle the earth around one of my new seedlings. "Buena vida,
mi amigo verde!" I burrow into the soil mound with my fingers, revealing
the world of worms and bugs, the tiny heroes who spend their short lives
converting the bodies of the dead into food for the living. Just to my right is
the corpse of another frost-stricken specimen. But… there, down in last
season's decaying remains, are new green shoots reaching for the sun. To
paraphrase the Yogi Berra, "it's born again all over again."
Birth and death come and go, but Life goes on. The cells
that make up my body today were not alive a year ago, and will all be dead in
another. My plants change, but the life-garden that is Bruce Hagen continues,
with each day an opportunity to become new and better. And when my skin-bound
life passes on, I hope to leave behind a richer soil for those who follow.
As we celebrate rebirth in Easter and Equinox, remember and
respect the death that makes rebirth possible. Let Death be your life-garden
advisor: "Stop wasting time watering your selfishness! Don't plant those
seeds of envy! These greed and anger weeds… into the compost pile with
them!"
With that advice in mind, I climb to the top of my pile of
turkey-poo compost, and repeat part of the Native American prayer, Let Me Walk
In Beauty:
"Great life-giving spirit, I face the West, direction
of the sundown.
Let me remember every day that the moment will come when my
sun will go down.
Never let me forget that I must fade into you.
Give me beautiful color.
Give me a great sky for setting.
And when it is time to meet you,
I come with glory.
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Pullquote: …worms and bugs, the tiny heroes who spend their
short lives converting the bodies of the dead into food for the living.