Earth Spirit Day

My skeleton has been sitting in the solarium for the past two months, having a cup of tea. I just wasn't ready to bury her in the basement.

The earth spirits go to ground on Halloween. They bottom out in Hades at solstice. Now, at Groundhog Day (Candlemas), they're due to pop up and take a look around.

Well, maybe not on this snowy day.

The skeleton reminds us of our future. Meanwhile, she sits still, very still, and smiles.

Skeleton in the Living Room

The forecast calls for snow tomorrow, so today my sweetie and i are running around--putting away lawn chairs, storing away any remaining flower pots, and building the solstice bonfire. What shall i do with my Halloween skeleton that has been sitting on the front step?

The lawn chairs are spending their winter vacation in the basement. I turned the flower pots upside down next to the potting shed. The skeleton is sitting in the living room at the moment, till i figure out a better place to put her. Maybe in the solarium?

One retreat center i went to had a real skeleton meditating in the conservatory, surrounded by big-leaf begonias and philodendrons and looking almost jungle-y in the winter.

The Buddha recommends 5 daily reflections: 

• I am of the nature to grow old. Aging is inevitable.
• I am of the nature to become ill--whether i want to or not.
• I am of the nature to die. Death is unavoidable.
• Everything i cherish will change and vanish.
• Karma is the only thing i own. (Think of your good and bad habits. That's it. That's what you own.)

Today, fall is aging into winter. It's 14 degrees outdoors. Tomorrow, fall dies to winter with 6 inches of snow.

Having a skeleton in my living room reminds me: every living room will also die.

Skeleton in Bardo

That skeleton i bought at the hardware store for Halloween is still sitting on my front step. She's halfway between holidays, wearing a red scarf and surrounded by fall gourds.

The weather has not yet turned wintry. We are halfway between seasons--no longer fall, but not quite winter.

In Tibetan, the between place is called bardo. We can practice dying by being aware of the stages of falling asleep--that bardo of not awake but not quite asleep either.

The skeleton is in the bardo of between lives. The former fleshly life is gone. Who knows what happens next?

Turkey Carcass

My Halloween skeleton is still sitting on my front step waving at everyone who walks by. 

Yesterday, we took a turkey apart piece by piece, bone by bone. Today, we have an opportunity to look closely at the turkey skeleton if we are making turkey soup out of the carcass. Look at that turkey leg. It's reminiscent of our own leg bones. Look at that turkey wing. There's a single bone, and then, bent back, is the less meaty two-bone section. The neck bones, the back ribs.

The Buddha recommends a charnel ground meditation. Although we don't have charnel grounds any more, we can take a close look at the turkey carcass, see the resemblance to our own carcass, and contemplate skin, flesh, and bones.

The skeleton on my front step thinks that's funny.

Skeleton

 

When i saw a skeleton at the hardware store, i bought it. It now stands at the corner of my driveway and the road, greeting visitors.

The Buddha recommended 5 daily recollections, one of which is "I am of the nature to die. Death is unavoidable."

These Days of the Dead, preceded by All Hallow's Evening (Hallow E'en), are an excellent time to bring this remembrance to mind. Perhaps several times today and tomorrow.

All around us, people are sick and dying from COVID. Just like them, i am of the nature to become sick and die.

Our challenge is to have compassion for the suffering of others and for ourself. This is not a time to say, "Well, they were old anyway, so it doesn't really matter if they die." Put yourself in their shoes; put yourself in their bare feet. Walking on cold ground. Walking toward a grave. Put yourself in their bones. Put yourself in their skeleton.

Practice compassion.

Calavera Norteamericana

Mexico has its Calavera Catrina--dancing skeletons celebrating Dia de Muertos. Once in a while, i find a New England version of La Catrina. This one has long white hair, a long skirt, and many scarves. She sort of looks like someone i know.

Actually, we all look like this skeleton. But we are so busy looking at the packaging--the body shape, the skin, the clothes--that we fail to notice what's inside the package. Bones. Bones that will remain much longer than the lifespan of our flesh-and-blood bodies.

One meditation practice is to walk down the street, and simply notice the skeletons all around you. What a great practice to celebrate these next few days of Dia de Muertos.

For one of these days, we all will be muertos.

Day of the Dead

Photo credit: Eneas de Troya via Flickr

It's the Day of the Dead, a Mexican celebration, which is slowly becoming more popular in the rest of North America.

So much dead vegetation surrounds us in this season. Annual flowers are brown and gone. Summer vegetables have bought the farm. Leaves have fallen, are falling from trees, which themselves look like timber skeletons reaching toward the sky. The compost pile is full of garden detritus and resting in repose.

Spend this day considering death--of the garden, of friends, of you yourself.

You might consider downloading the WeCroak app on your smart device to receive 5 daily reminders of death.

Find happiness by contemplating your mortality.

The Hip Bone's Connected to the Leg Bone

My sweetie is wearing his los muertos shirt every evening that we go out to dinner in the ghost town of Terlingua, Texas. I like to point out the skeleton playing the (upright) piano on his shirt, since my sweetie is a concert pianist. His shirt also features a skeleton mariachi band, a male skeleton drinking beer, and a lady skeleton dancing.

"Seeing" the skeleton in yourself as well as in everyone else is one of the meditations on the body recommended by the Buddha. An easy form of the "32 Parts of the Body" meditation is to simply become aware of 3 of the parts--skin, flesh, and bones. Try it during your next meditation. Become aware of skin. Then imagine the flesh, muscle, tendons, ligaments, and fascia--perhaps rather quickly. Finally, become aware of the bones underneath the flesh. I do a quick scan from cranium down the neck bones to the shoulder bones all the way down to the toe bones.

When you stop to think about it, our skeleton might last a heck of a lot longer than our fleshly bodies. Let's stop taking it for granted, and simply notice that we are all walking-talking skeletons.

All Lives are Impermanent

Well, spring arrived a week ago, so to celebrate the season, i defrocked the Christmas wreath on the front door and sent the wreath itself to the compost pile. I'll find its "skeleton" in a couple of years--the thin steel metal ring with a slinky spiral of green wire wrapped around and around and around and....

The wreath still looked mostly fir-green, though the yew sprigs were more yellow than green, and the spruce sprigs were turning brown. This is how old age looks on us--a bit paler and frailer than we used to be. Not quite as "much" of us as there used to be.

Friday evening, i attended a Living Memorial service for a friend who is dying. She was the mother of our local Interfaith Initiative, and a representative from each of her favorite traditions spoke, chanted, or danced. A Sufi whirling dervish, the Jewish cantor with a spectacular voice, a pan-eurhythmy dance celebrating sunset, and i offered a Buddhist chant.

All things are impermanent.

They arise, and they pass away.

To live in harmony with this truth

brings great happiness.

The season of my interfaith friend's life is passing away.
And so is mine.