We Rise From the Ashes

It's not the first time I've reflected on the power of Fire here in the Cape of Good Hope.

On Friday I walked with a couple of young beauties from Joburg. It was hot and still. We gazed at the lush fynbos covered Silvermine Nature Reserve, part of the Table Mountain National Park that lies in the heart of this Mother City. 

"In 2015 this was all burnt to ashes. It was like being on the moon. Just grey sand. I used to cry whenever I looked at it." 

It's something I often mention to those who join me on my Meditation Walks. It seems unbelievable, even to me, who lived it.

Sometimes I also divulge that 2015 was the year I lost many who were dear to me. Starting with my darling friend Rokela, then my brother and eventually our dear student Amani. 

His murder led to uprisings. lynchings, & fires in our neighbouring Masiphumelele. It was a year of burning. Burning with shock and horror. With grief. It was the beginning of a new epoch in my life and the lives of many others. Of our communities.

A year ago COVID turned everything upside down for everyone everywhere. It showed us many hard truths and precipitated a Hard Lockdown here in South Africa. 

The loss of access to our natural sanctuaries gutted me. 

This Indian Summer of 2021 has lent itself to plenty of outdoor time and every single time I set foot on the beach or a mountain trail in this Fairest Cape, I am overcome with gratitude, keenly aware that at any moment it could be snatched away...either by decree or by any number of turns of fate. 

Top: Beloved Henry. Bottom (LtoR): Cape Point with friends, Fynbos Faeries at Silvermine, My family at the summit Du Toits Peak

This Easter Weekend we climbed Du Toits Kop in Franschoek while mourning the passing of three friends. All taken by Cancer. Their suffering and the loved ones left behind weighed heavily on me, even as we hid Easter Eggs for our teens and cycled through the historical vineyards. 

A few days before her passing Sylvie and I were still trying to get together to meditate, albeit remotely since she was hospitalised. She was such a generous friend. My daughter grew up clothed in the finest French hand-me-downs from her daughter and our boys shared a birthday. Those friends you make as a new mom in a new town (for Sylvie a whole new culture) are such a tender part of your story. Her what's app status says it all: "Such a magnificent day!" C'est vrai ma chérie.

Dear Shelley handled her diagnosis with sparkling wit and wisdom. It all happened very quickly and she found the rainbows she was waiting for on Easter Sunday. She had asked me to take her along to Medicine Buddha but in the span of a month between meetings, it was already too late. The lovely sangha at Kagyu Samye Dzong invited me to light a candle for her. 

I felt her light and heard her infectious laugh during our puja. Her words resound in my heart: "Talk about transmuting energy and manifesting my dreams, just not quite how I expected....  I am getting ready to transform my energy and transcend into a new way of being. I have loved having you as a very special, very precious part of my journey, from the time when you pointed out that my MS was fast asleep and not part of my issues at all.... As I climbed into bed the other night I heard the words from Isaiah in the Bible: 'Well done my good and faithful servant.' And I felt at peace.... What a journey. I suspect that our paths will cross again."

Lovely Charl also bowed out. Leaving so many longing for his insight and healing here in the flesh. He was a good friend to my mom and lived for a time at her lovely Yoga Connection. In the same room I once called home, as did our wonderful friend Basho.

Still, we keep walking. 

Quite by chance I met the Fynbos Faeries who are responsible for the displays at the gate to Silvermine Nature Reserve this weekend. I've loved and valued these for so many years and they really do appear as if by magic, keeping us informed as to what is blossoming in our unique biome. What a gracious way to serve the community. 

Then we managed to corral a group of friends from our children's early school days for a great hike at Cape Point, although our kids are all now teens educated in different places, we have so much in common. Those shared early childhood years are such an important part of us. I also fulfilled a long cherished dream of seeing Henry, the car guard at Silvermine, lead his own guided hike, sharing his beautiful wisdom which is something far beyond book learning. 

On Friday a Facebook Memory reminded me of that constant longing in my bones to get out into our mountains, to commune with our ancestors as Henry would put it... also of mosquitoes. Which were suddenly abundant and on making the bed that morning, I found a tiny corpse. I must have zapped her in my sleep. It's not every day I get to contemplate the frail form of probably the least beloved creature. But here, exactly a year apart, I was doing just that.  

Synchronicity is one of my favourite phenomena to notice and contemplate.

On Saturday the children celebrated being young and embodied - skateboarding with our lovely Lilly who is amongst other things a clairvoyant, astrophysicist, artist, and genuine shining heart. She surprised me by coming to me for ancestral healing and then seeing very clearly what I feel -- the room is full! 

She is a tonic and if your grieving heart needs some comfort I can highly recommend her gift.

And then there was dancing, masked & in front of one of many shops (this the flagship Edgars store) that have closed due to these COVID times. 

Tears cropped up as I considered these lovely young dancers, with their grace and energy, struggling to draw breath in this mausoleum to capitalism knocked off its pedestal. Yet how lovely to be together. To witness a live performance for the first time in too long. To feel our shared humanity in real time and space, albeit in somewhat humbled circumstances.

On Saturday afternoon I was overcome with a heaviness despite the beauty of the day and despite being on my wide open Noordhoek Beach, which I have come to realise during half a century's living is not mine alone. I assumed it was the hard news I'd just received about yet another friend fighting Cancer. 

I've learnt that there is nowhere to run from such feelings/premonitions. 

Please listen to this very helpful talk on how to be with WHATEVER arises. It articulates so beautifully my daily practice.

I was inducted into the Volunteer Wildfire Services this week, after having the aspiration of joining them since the horrors of 2015, and a training was scheduled for Sunday morning. The training entails 60 hours of intensive work over 6 months to prepare for fire season. Unfortunately I couldn't make the first orientation as I had a previous commitment to attend a Zen Meditation morning at the Sufi Temple in Newlands, Cape Town. 

It was a hot and still Sunday morning. We chanted. Then meditated in the Zen format: Sit for half an hour, walk for 10minutes, sit for another 30minutes.

During our tea break I celebrated that Cedar was there, one of the many gifts Shelley had given me during her time here as an extraordinary healer was the understanding that Cedar Wood helps me be here now. I know full well that we are elemental beings. That we are not separate from this planet, our home in more than one way. I know that we are inextricably linked to her and always have been and always will be.

I felt the light shift in the second half of our sit/walk/sit and in that timelessness of meditation thought: "Golden Hour." Except it was still morning. During the walking part of our practice, I glanced upwards to check whether any of the beautiful star skylights in the domes of the temple were stained glass since the light had becoming distinctly red. 

As we sat I heard the explosions. 

Then the choppers. 

As we walked I noted the ash falling like snow. And then we sat. Still, serene, paying attention, moment by moment. Patiently allowing for impermanence.

After our morning of practice, one of the kind sangha offered us a delicious lunch and we ate companionably together inside what felt like a braai. That unnaturally rosy hue at noon lending everything a portentous air. A Sunday lunch at the end of the world. Yet all of us composed. No drama. 

Only "don't know." Only "go straight." 

The lovely teacher Ron shared a story of meeting a Zen teacher in Amsterdam on a wet day and opining, "Pity about the weather!" The Master replied: "Yes, for a sunny day this is indeed terrible, but for a rainy day it's fucking amazing!"

As the wind picked up that afternoon we lost the Mostert Mill, South Africa's oldest working mill and a beloved landmark. We lost the Rhodes Memorial tea room, site of many happy memories (those explosions I'd heard), and probably most gutting, UCT's library burned. 

There was speculation that everything had been lost. Everything being a lot. Priceless collections of Africana.

I wept. 

For the loss. 

The many losses. 

But still we breathe. And do what we can. 

In my interview with Ron that morning I voiced the sadness I feel, even though I know my friends are free of suffering and he shared his own grief after losing his partner of many decades. 

Feeling our sorrow together was very kind. 

He related the story of a little girl playing with a spoon, its shadow sometimes a giraffe or a camel, tucked under her arm it morphed into something else entirely. 

Her mom scolded: "Stop playing with that spoon! It's for eating!" 

And in that moment the spoon lost all of its spoon-ness. 

It moved me deeply. We constantly try to pigeon hole ourselves, our feelings, others, everything. 

We think that knowing something is enough. This dividing. Our constant illusion of separation. Maha Bekanzay.

Instead of allowing, allowing, allowing.