Sitting Shiva

Sitting Shiva. Honoring the dead. The crows sit Shiva in the cemetery, not just the requisite seven days, but on and on and on. They sit in the trees and on the gravestones. They are the keepers of those who have gone before.

This weekend is the fourth anniversary of the weekend I moved into my not-so-big-house, not knowing that I would begin the project of my life--restoring the garden and, through it, myself. It was Palm Sunday weekend. Lent, a time of sitting Shiva, in a sense. Sitting in the stillness, waiting. Looking toward the death of Christ. Did he know he would be "reborn"? Or only that he would die? I had sat Shiva for two years following the death of a second relationship I thought would be forever. The purchase of this home was the beginning of new life. Perhaps all things have to die--or at least stop moving--before they can be born into new life.

Since February I have been watching a webcam trained on an eagle aerie, 80 feet up, in the top of a tree, in Decorah, Iowa. (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/decorah-eagles.) The eagle couple take turns sitting on the three eggs. They sit and they sit and they sit. They sit with the patience of sitting Shiva; but they are waiting for birth. (I take the liberty of re-appropriating sitting Shiva to mean patient and still.) Every so often the protector of the eggs stands up and turns them, to make sure they are warming on all sides. She settles herself back over them and wiggles and wiggles her body until she feels comfortable on the eggs. Then she pulls up the covers--tugging at the nest, pulling the bits toward her body to protect the eggs from draft. The first eaglet hatched yesterday. It took several hours for it to peck its way out of the egg, with no help from its parents. Like human babies it needs the journey to be strong enough to survive out of the egg-womb. There is now a dead rabbit in the nest (not all of nature is lovely) that the eagles feed the baby--mouth-to-mouth.

You have to watch the nest for a long time to see anything happening; and yet, like in the garden, much is happening that can't be seen. We sit Shiva through Lent, knowing it is happening, but not yet able to see. Happening in the garden and in our lives. Each time I embark on something new, like the eagles rearranging the eggs, it takes a lot of wiggling to get comfortable again. A lot of pulling the covers back up to keep the draft out of the holes made by what is lost. And I trust the One Who is More will feed me mouth-to-mouth when necessary; and let me struggle on my own for the strength I will need, when that is necessary. But always close by keeping me warm.

Death and rebirth continue to happen at work. Change. Holes. It is a difficult week. I learn that Mercury (the planet) is in retrograde. I will take that as explanation. It happens three or four times a year, when Mercury slows down; and, in a optical illusion, appears to stop and move backward (retrograde). It is a time, astrologically-speaking, when things tend to go haywire; when big decisions should not be made. Mercury retrograde gives us time to catch up with ourselves, and to look back. Something from the past might return in a different form--people, ideas, or buried insights that need to surface for us to move forward. It can be a contemplative time, a chance to go over old ground again, to claim what you missed the first time. Lent.

Life continues in the garden. Yesterday I discover asters! I had forgotten that I planted the bulbs last fall. The first tulip is opening. The new roses continue to grow leaves; and the very old, rescued rose bush is as healthy as it has ever been. I look around and realize that what I began four years ago is maturing. The tiny perennials I planted through the seasons look like they have always occupied their space in the garden. The Japanese maple I rescued from beneath the gardenia, towers above it now. Freed to become its own "person." And I have become my own person. I have dug in the dirt these four years; I have planted; I have watered the new life with my tears; I have pulled out that which was root-bound, no longer able to thrive. I have ripped up that which was choking what wanted to be reborn and made space for something new. I have planted seeds and forgotten about them; only to discover them flowering much later. And some of what I planted was not in the right place. I have found more sun for some and let others go.

My dear friend of more years than any other; sister blogger; co-owner with me of feelings, experiences, and moods, wondered in her blog recently if she continues to run from or toward in her nomadic life. In my humble opinion, we are running toward. We leave one place because something ends (whether it be job, location, relationship, or a sense of contentment), moving us forward, always forward, to the next thing. And in between our movements, we sit Shiva. Waiting, re-examining. But like the garden and the eagles, much is happening while we appear to be waiting. The garden and the egg pips are maturing. We are learning to trust the process--it cannot be rushed. I have watched co-workers leave the safety of the nest for something else, without knowing what the something is. But they start it, they lay the egg or plant the bulb, and then sit Shiva. Sitting in the stillness. Waiting, re-examining. "Her running stopped. Her trusting began. And slowly the doors creaked open.”
(Terri St. Cloud) Trust the process, and exactly what needs to happen will happen.