Rituals of Grief

People are kneeling in the darkness of a cathedral as a candle is processed by a dancer through the middle of the group to the center where a circle of candles is lit. A cello plays a meditative melody. A loaf of bread is broken and passed among the people. A bell rings, and we open ourselves to the mystery of this moment, not knowing what we will discover tonight.

No words have been spoken, but the gathering is filled with symbols. It is ritual, and we feel something rise within us, something we had forgotten was there, something that quickens our pulse and draws us in.

The holidays are filled with rituals. Which ones affected you the most? Which ones were comforting? Which ones disturbed your focus on what you thought was important?

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For this post I gathered two pages of background material on rituals, but I’m not going to use them because they have too many words. In our rituals we find a great symbol, but then we feel the need to explain the symbol in words, diluting the power of the symbol to speak in its own way.

Unexpected

This holiday season, I am not looking at the decorations on the houses in my neighborhood. I am looking beyond them to the trees and woods, to the sky and birds, I need the transcendence of nature.

Maybe it will be a sparkling, crystalline dawn

            with the rays of the rising sun glinting off ice-covered trees.

Maybe a herd of deer will meander down my street at midnight,

            with no one but me seeing them.

Maybe a cardinal will sit stoically on a branch

            as snow drifts down and collects on his back.

These I have seen in past years; they won’t likely be repeated. But I won’t know what the transcendent will be this year until it appears in the corner of my eye and surprises me. I can’t make awe happen. I can only stay alert and wait.

Grace of Community

Perhaps in no other season are people as aware of what is missing in their lives. In December we look for signs of hope, renewal, faith, and affirmation that the struggles we are in are worth the trouble.

In the midst of celebrating, we see people who are suffering, who are poorly dressed for winter, who are hungry, who are alone, and we try to help, because something reminds us that we are members of the same community.

December is also when much of the natural world in the northern hemisphere goes into hibernation. There is grace in this, in the letting go of what is past, in the retreating from active life and preparing for spring, and grace in the slower movements of the season. We think of people we had to let go, and in this holiday season we are reminded again and again of how much we miss them. We think of our own mortality. We think of the sources of energy for our life, what inspires us, and we feel the pull to live what we believe in everything we do.

December Evening

This evening in December is quiet, and the hills and fields are shaded in the sky’s pastel colors. Light has traveled beyond the earth’s edge and shadows will soon darken and lengthen into night. Nature begins to settle down into the blues and grays of winter.

I stand on my deck and listen to the woods — the creaking of the trees in the light wind, the light clack of empty black sunflower shells landing on each other, dropped by wrens and finches at the feeder. My thoughts move among the trees as I halfway watch the squirrels chase each other. Dusk fills the woods with shadows and I open to the mystery of what is here.

Snow Falling Along the Merced River

adapted from Mountains of Light

Snow begins falling while I'm sitting by the river that winds its way through the middle of Yosemite Valley. Birds splashing in the water along its edges don't seem to notice, although some begin to play with a little more excitement. The large flakes quickly change the landscape, covering the rocks and trees, the granite domes and mountains, and unifying everything in a blanket of white. 

My thoughts turn to the Ahwanechee who used to live in this valley. Did Chief Tenaya's people gather inside their shelters during heavy snowstorms to share stories, traditions, and tribal concerns? Or did they go out and play?

Yosemite in Winter

from Mountains of Light

Rising from my sleeping bag, I crawl out of the tent and hike around the frosted meadows. The sun is just peeking over Glacier Point and lights up the bare granite rock of North Dome and the meadow below with a warm yellow glow. In Cook’s Meadow, acorn woodpeckers hop up the trunks of dead trees, picking out acorns they stored there in the fall. By Sentinel Bridge, three young bucks hang out looking for trouble, their breaths coming out in small white puffs. 

The quiet, crystalline beauty of a winter dawn in the mountains fills my eyes, my heart, and my soul with joy.

Invocation of Trees

The trees, now naked of leaves, stand proud in the woods behind my house. They hold their strong bodies against the cold and rise up to the sky, rise up with their arms open in thankfulness to Creation for the year that has been, rise up in reflection and praise.

The birch trees twirl in the breeze with open hands like whirling Sufis, reuniting heaven and earth. The pine and fir trees, heavy with snow, bow their heads and scatter their resinous incense on the air. The oak trees feed acorns to the squirrels who have slept in, and protect nuthatches and wrens with their stout branches. 

Frost

There have been frost warnings the last two days, not that I’ve paid much attention because we did not plant a vegetable garden this year. But the news sank in and I realized this morning, as I looked into the intricate green lace of the woods behind the house, that soon it would all be gone. Half of the leaves have already turned and fallen. One solid freeze and the remaining green would turn yellow overnight. Then, with any kind of wind, all the yellow leaves would drop, leaving the brown and bare trees sticking up on the hill in the sun.

Poet Edward Hirsch spoke of the change of seasons this way:  We suddenly “feel something invisible and weightless. … It is the changing light of fall falling on us.”

Falling Leaves

My neighbor Jackie stopped in and exclaimed how beautiful the yellow leaves were on the maple tree in my backyard. I downplayed it and said that she should have been here a week ago when all the trees were vibrant with fall colors. Then I turned and saw the yellow filling up the entire window and I was stunned. Knowing how much was gone, I no longer saw what was still here.

When leaves drop in autumn, I am sad for the loss of all the life that has buzzed, flown, grown, and trotted through the woods. Colors become muted, trees go bare, and a chill clings to the air. I turn away from the windows thinking that life has ended outside and there is nothing more to see. Yet when the leaves are gone, I will be able see deer moving down by the creek, a barred owl sitting on a branch, feel the contours of the land, and watch the sunset’s rays moving through the bare trees.

Harvest

Driving through the Illinois countryside last week, I realized how happy I was seeing the golden cornfields being harvested, the soybeans turning from green to yellow and rust, the warm sun shining in a deep blue sky with a cool breeze touched with hints of autumn’s crispness. The new crop of apples were being picked at Tanner’s Orchard, and everything looked, smelled, and sounded as if the season, and the year, had reached the fullness of life, what we have been working for since spring.

As I helped Jim and Peggy on their organic farm, shucking and sorting the ancient Oaxacan green corn, I gave thanks for how good it felt to be outdoors and physically active in a world of such variety and beauty. The crop was larger than anticipated because the deer and raccoons hadn’t found it. I rejoiced in getting my hands dirty and celebrated the harvest being brought in, as people have done with corn for thousands of years.

At a Wandering Pace

I remembered a John Muir quote incorrectly. I thought he said that nothing could be seen of nature when we’re moving at 40 miles an hour because everything becomes a bewildering blur. 

When people arrive in Yosemite today, after driving 60-70 miles an hour for four hours across the Central Valley, up through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and into the valley, they do tend to stagger out of their cars dazed. At those speeds, the landscape has been a blur. Trees flash by the windows as we focus on staying on the winding road. We would be able to see much more if we slowed down to 40, but Muir didn’t think this is enough. 

I thought Muir was berating people who arrived in the valley by stagecoach, zipping over the new dirt roads, or taking the train to El Portal at the breakneck speed of 40 miles an hour instead of taking their time by riding horses over trails. Muir himself took things even slower by taking several weeks to walk the 200 miles from Oakland. (Wendell Berry wrote an insightful essay on adjusting to the pace of the nature in “An Entrance to the Woods.”) Yesterday I ran across this quote again. It doesn’t say 40 miles an hour.

Getting Close to Nature

Yosemite Valley is a place of solitude, a place where I come to make sense of the tragedies and horrors going on in the world.

            *

Before dawn I stand by the river to get a feel of its movement through the valley, then head off on a hike through the wild beauty of Creation. After the walking meditation with the mountains, the listening conference at the waterfalls, and the conversations with chipmunks on trails through the forest, I return in the evening to the river. I sit with the day’s experiences and discover the threads that tie them together.

Looking at the river in front of me, seven dark rocks run in a line across the light-colored ridges on the sandy bottom like a sand garden in Kyoto, with flowing water replacing the movement of the air. The ridges and different colors of pebbles on the bottom create patterns that occupy the mind while my spirit is free to wander.

If You Have One Day in Yosemite

Right now, early October, is the best time to hike in Yosemite – day hikes, long hikes, one hour hikes in the morning or afternoon. For the next ten days, temperatures are expected to be in the high 70s during the day and in the mid-50s at night, although both will start sliding a couple of degrees cooler every few days. It will be dry because the rainy season hasn’t yet started, and I’m hoping for a really wet winter because there’s been a long drought. There aren’t many people in the valley now and it’s really quiet.

You could hike for several weeks and not cover all the trails in and around the valley, but if you only have one full day in the valley, and you want to see a lot, this is what I’d recommend. 

Start off before dawn in Leidig Meadow and watch the stars give way to the orange and yellow colors of dawn. You will see deer and probably a few coyotes. Sunrise is at 7 a.m. and sunset at 6:30 p.m. so you have a maximum of 11 ½ hours to hike. As soon as it is light enough to see the trail, maybe 6:30-45 a.m., head for the top of Upper Yosemite Fall, pausing at Columbia Rock halfway up the wall to take in the view, as well as to catch your breath.