Yesterday some men came and stole our mango crop. They penetrated the fence the furthest side from the house into the north orchard where a deer lived a protected life. We don’t know what happened, whether they tried to catch the deer or taunted him, but the deer escaped from our refuge by ramming a hole through the wire mesh fence. The terrible force caused internal injuries. We discovered him in the yard at the gate, in shock, bleeding from the nose, his head and horns battered. Our young dog, Punkin was curled up next to him, clearly empathetic.
This morning the deer was still there, but gone.
My emotions traveled the range of wanting to booby trap the perimeter of the farm to shooting at the feet of the violators, making them dance in terror. I wanted the perpetrators, yesterday, today and tomorrow, to bleed too. But then, in my journeying around hate I came to an impasse.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
I’m too sad and riled to think of peacemakers as defeated martyrs. I don’t want cruelty to make me cruel. I want to be a peace-able, human being to spite cruelty and stupidity. I want to become genuinely free so that in the midst of violation, loss, persecution, whatever – they cannot find me anywhere – where’d she go?! Talk about liberation! Can a slow distillation of these terrors and turmoils of life turn my journey into one of transformation?
The wabi sabi is that there is sense to what looks senseless but you have to look and keep looking. We can see the pattern everywhere and in everything in this material, earthly world and even in ourselves: birth, life, death and then something else. I believe the pattern was incarnated to bring the reality home to us. “I am the resurrection and the life”- it’s the same thing! The catalyst is love, the love remains and the love is the spark of what follows. The pattern will continue to unfold ever wider and deeper until, until, until everything is HOME.
Wally journeyed his grief by digging a generous, commodious hole. He positioned the deer-seed with a view to the ocean and we covered him with dirt. Wally’s words were simple: Go back to the garden…
He circled the place with rocks and a huge wreath of almond leaves, and planted a young huanacaxtle tree at it’s heart.