The Graze V.137: Nothing is Lost

Dear Friends:

I tucked bulbs of crocus, narcissus and tulip around the perimeter of the cemeteries at Mission Farm this week. Planting the fall flower bulbs that I feared I had waited too long to bury in the cold ground. But the snow and freezing temperatures have not really settled into the valley just yet.

“Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed” is attributed to the French chemist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier. These brown bulbs that show no evidence of life, are in reality, energy bundled up - just waiting….just waiting for the conditions that allow for the sweet green stems to unfurl and the blossoms to burst into existence.

There is, on this land, a clear sense of presence of those who have gone before - many who were buried on this land. Their presence is reflected in the constant cycles of life that make up this local ecosystem - the decomposing leaves on the forest floor, the evidence of a hawk finishing her breakfast of mole, the moss growing from the oak stump whose roots create a home for other woodland creatures.

There is not a clear line between life and death. We make this distinction as if there were only these two states of existence. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that there is a flow or spiral of life and death - an energy just waiting to be birthed.

We live in the midst of “the seen and the unseen” (as a familiar creed reminds us). How might we honor the life that is emerging in the darkness - just waiting for the right time to burst forth? How do we accept and grieve and show gratitude to what is dying in order for new life to be birthed?

With grace and joy for the spiral of life that we live in and among,

`Lisa