Dear Queen of Light, Soldier for this Season,
When I created a ceremony for you back in 2019 I called you the Queen of Light, you, who have been exiled from Iran for an art piece you made, make work with light, drawings with shadows and glass. This morning when we spoke I heard in your words a thousand ceremonies.
You talked about the prison in your mind, that you built around the idea of ever being able to be back in your home land and now, as the revolution rages on, the prison door might be opening. The meaning you made to survive is being subject to hope and with it, all is up for changing. You said you are living the life of a soldier here, millions of miles from a battlefield but alongside thousands of others. Our collective freedom is linked, your words always turning toward something bigger than you, your body, your personal story to a history and a present that belongs to all of us.
You are still the Queen of Light, your words are poetry and the way you speak about freedom is a ritual and a spell at the same time.
Can we create a ceremonial space for you to honor this season you have suddenly entered? The potent portal of the call. I am honored to witness your heart now, as it resides in the wild sea of grief, hope, rage and revolution.
Dear Forgiveness, dear Revolution, dear Grief,
My friend Millie has been reading a book this past month and quoting it often. She explained the Jewish High Holidays, which ended this month, are a time for self reflection, forgiveness and renewal.
Jennie, Millie and I were walking down Central Ave when we were stopped by a number of young men. They asked if any of us were Jewish and if we would like to recite the Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer. They blew the Shofar made from a ram’s horn, explaining that the sound symbolizes the direct and earnest call to God. Jennie recited the prayer with their support. We kept walking down the street but our day was changed by our moment with the boys/men and the way Jennie called to God, which felt different from the other moments of our walk and also inextricably linked to them.
Earlier this month I did a memorial. As the process leading up to it unfolded I discovered something profound, which is that one can come to know a person through those who knew them. I had never met Barbara who died of cancer in September but I worked closely with her daughter and three closest friends to create the ceremony. In listening to their grief, their memories and their hopes for how she might be honored I came to understand that Barbara was residing in each of them. By the time I got to the gathering space to facilitate the ceremony I felt I knew Barbara. The altar, with river-stones, seashells and fabric, looked like her to me although I had never seen her. How beautiful it is that we live within one another. We exist in relationship to those who know us and care for us. This past month I came to know a new person but only through the voices of those who loved her. What a profound way to be introduced to a human.
As this month comes to an end I feel particularly aware of the distance between myself and the people, places and movements that affect me. I feel so intimately close to those I love and the concerns and desires that move them and also so far away from other parts of reality which are ungraspable but reside in my heart just the same.
How do we connect with something far away?
A revolution in a country we are not in?
A God in the unreachable heavens?
A person who has died and we never met?
Maybe we use our hearts, our imaginations and our collective power as people, each holding within us our own gods,
loved ones who have died
and our specific unflinching commitments to our ideals,
perhaps to freedom or the highest good for all.
