The Song that Plays through Time (pt.2)

I’ve been thinking about ‘the Song’ to which I referred in the last Musing, the Song that plays ever so softly through time not forcing itself upon us but running quietly through our lives.

One of the verses of the Song that I’ve come to recognize in my own journey relates to beauty, not the makeup and material beauty that’s promoted and pushed by advertisers, but the beauty found in nature, in acts of kindness and the beautiful unfoldings in life.

Beauty was in the ethers even before we arrived a month ago at the Grand Canyon’s Backcountry permit office. Due to lagging energy, I had severely delayed officially requesting a permit. Upon submitting an application three weeks prior to our trip, we learned campsites in the canyon are booked a year in advance. We were informed a site might be secured in person due to last minute cancellations.

We showed up with the intention of getting a permit knowing we'd be disappointed and relieved if space wasn't available and excited and scared if space was available. A site was open ten miles down to which we excitedly and apprehensively said 'yes' and quickly paid twenty dollars.

This was beauty to me. I had wanted to hike Bright Angel trail for a year as well as sleep in the canyon during the Autumn equinox and full moon. Not only was there beauty in the process of showing up but we were met by facets of beauty everywhere from the elk bugling as Jerry said, "We need a send off" to the stranger, a kindred spirit, who took our photo and celebrated our adventure as three days later we again reached the top. (I had wished while hiking up, up, up that someone at the top would greet us and revel in our accomplishment.)

In between there were a dozen deep blue dragonflies that landed around me and on me as I cooled off in a stream one afternoon, a deer that grazed at our campsite, a cluster of bugs dancing mid-air thousands of feet above the Colorado river at sunrise and hearts in stone, on the trail and in the rock walls, as well as the walking hearts of fellow hikers who offered encouragement, stories and food along the way.

Often deep beauty involves sadness as happened with my father’s beginning his dying process five years ago this very time of year. I visited my parents regularly as my father after a year of intensive chemotherapy ended his physical life in a hospital bed at home with hospice care. Early on I would sit by his bedside and sing to him all the hymns of my childhood. When I ran out of those, I'd sing songs from my women's drum circle then cycle back through hymns again. (This was new for me. I was not a singer of songs in the presence of others.)

One afternoon as I sang I asked if I could hold his hand. To my surprise he said 'yes.' At some point after a song, he said "That's beautiful" then took my hand and placed it on his chest where I felt the most intense heat I had ever felt between human hands, this heat exchanged between us. I was being allowed into the energy and power of my father's heart, a heart like that of so many men, hidden throughout their lives from those they love and maybe even from themselves. This was a potent experience and gift of beauty.

Beauty was what unfolded regarding the house that found me just over five years ago. I don’t think of myself as materialistic thus I never dreamed I would grieve regarding a house, but I did. Upon crossing its threshold, I viscerally knew I was to live there. I had never felt this way about a place. After long deliberation, we made an offer, an offer that was trumped for another’s cash. We lost the house. I wept and was stunned having been certain this space called to me only to learn of my father’s dying. Over two years after his death and many trips to my mothers, the house found me again. There it sat a ‘for sale’ sign on its little spot of land as if to say, “You should have known I would come back around. It wasn’t time when we first met.”

Beauty was walking the streets of LePuy in Southern France on the eve of my birthday suddenly weeping for an unknown reason yet knowing deep within that my soul had felt much sorrow there. Beauty was one of my traveling companions quietly taking my hand and walking silently side-by-side along the sidewalk with me in LePuy.

Beauty was recently looking out the window wondering if the three bats we’ve dubbed Betty, Buddy and Benji would show up one more time before winter sets in. On cue they arrived, all three of them flitting and dipping about the back yard. Their dance brought tears to my eyes reminding me of the preciousness of life.

Beauty arrived again as we drove into a neighboring town the next day. In the middle of the road lay a dead raccoon. We were silent. On the drive home, I heard myself say aloud, “I have to bury that raccoon” as Jerry said, “That’s what I was thinking too.” We returned shovel in hand to get the dear animal or one of its kin that aggravates us so, raiding our bird feeders and digging up everything we plant. We planted its body next to the spot where we had placed the dead fawn months prior. Beauty was in our hearts but also around us for there was no trace of the fawn. Mother Earth had lovingly taken its body. All that remained were the twigs with which we covered it. Those same twigs and pine needles now cover the raccoon.

My father’s dying, our hopes of hiking, the loosing then finding of a home, even the burying of an animal – all of these in some way involved showing up in my heart while also letting go. This for me is beauty.

You know how I said early on that Beauty is one verse of the Song that runs through my life? Beauty is all the verses. Beauty is the Song of my life. Tears of joy and sorrow polish the singer, the heart, that lives inside.

When we hear it, the Song that plays through life sings us home to our deepest, truest Selves.

Imagine the Shift of discovering each day verses to the Song that plays through your life.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 22 Oct. 2010