Currents of Life, Currents of Death: Reflecting With Heidi
My birthday was two weeks ago, and today I’ve been reflecting on the ways we mark the transition from this year to the next… how marking the transitions tells our story. Whether by rituals of celebration, or by the ways our bodies and faces show the substance of our years, I am thinking it’s like trees how tell stories about the years they grew and thrived, and about the times they simply survived the year.
I have 58 rings. They indicate conditions of my birth and early years, stories of scarcity and abundance, community and isolation, nurturing and neglect; in latter years, stories of stresses from damage and disease, rich soil and toxic soil, windstorms and fresh air, mudslides and fires, and, importantly, of kind, generous years.
I’m grateful for the birthday texts, emails, and phone messages from people who matter a great deal to me. I’m unsure why I’m procrastinating on replies, but my intentions to do so are sidetracked by incessant thoughts about the ways trees take care of each other—of those coming behind. How they receive what’s been left for them by those who went before, and how this is a source of their thriving.
“The things she catches Douglas-firs doing… fill her with joy. When the lateral roots of two Douglas-firs run into each other underground, they fuse. Through these self-grafted knots, the two trees join their cardiovascular systems together and become one. Networked together underground by countless thousands of fungal threads, [the trees] feed and heal each other, keep their young and sick alive, pool their resources…”
— From The Overstory (p. 155), by Richard Powers
This book has a permanent place by my bed and in my travel backpack.
Twenty-plus years ago, I worked at Servants Anonymous, a Calgary nonprofit—more a community than an agency—for women exiting the sex trade and healing from many things, on many levels. A woman dear to me was pregnant at the same time Mike and I were adoptively pregnant with Abby. She’d come into my office every day in shared anticipation—a countdown of the days left until our already-so-loved girls would be born.
She, herself, had never had a birthday party.
I remember when she told me that—shared it as casually as if she’d said what she’d had for breakfast.
My mom had a birthday party game involving me and my friends trying to drop clothespins into a mason jar. Kneeling on the dining room chairs she and Dad bought in Niagara Falls on their honeymoon—their first furniture. The clothespins came from the bag always anchored between the porch railing and the pole where our yard light was mounted. The mason jar would’ve come from our pantry, where row upon row were filled with canned peaches—and apricots and cherries. Gold. Orange. Burgundy. I liked the peaches best.
Abby and my friend’s daughter were born nine days apart, and over the next six years I remember her joy at delivering birthday party invitations. I remember her excitement in handing out loot bags filled with candy and dollar-store treats. I remember the Facebook posts and pictures celebrating her daughter’s 17th birthday coinciding with high school graduation. Every year marked.
Rituals that celebrate who we are—how we are valued by the people in our lives—are so important.
Trees mark the significance of the tree and its year by the ring.
I was here. This year happened.
The 58th ring says so.
To support your personal reflection on authentic, sacramental living:
What birthday parties of your own do you remember most vividly?
Why did they matter?
Who was there? Who was not?
Best games?What birthday party did you attend that you will never forget?
Why?
Who was there? Who was not?
What was in the loot bag—literally or figuratively?If you were to sketch your life as the cross-section of a tree, what stories would the rings tell?
How would you mark the years of abundance, scarcity, and the kindness of community?And a prompt I’ll write on—after pressing send here—is this:
How am I, or am I not, a giving tree? (Silverstein)
Do I even want to be a giving tree?
Who’s taking, and do I give of myself from a place of wise, grounded generosity?
CURRENTS OF LIFE, CURRENTS OF DEATH
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
- Rumi
Calgary Learns, 253 Scenic View Close NW, Calgary, Canada
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