LightBears

Today my dear readers I am going to take you on a little journey. Do you recall the very first blog I published, called “Open the Box”? In it, the punchline dealt with opening an unknown package — after much trepidation — to discover the presence of a pupae, a twig on which there was the cocoon of a soon-to-be-born butterfly.

The butterfly is the perfect motif to use when contemplating transience. It is ephemeral — one day it’s a caterpillar, another day it’s a cocoon, and the caterpillar that formed the cocoon has disappeared and metamorphosed into a butterfly — and after a little bit of time soaring on the sunlit air (hopefully a long time from the perspective of the butterfly!) the butterfly has laid its last eggs, flown its last flight, lost its life spark and become a dried up little body that returns to the soil until it is time for caterpillars to emerge from the eggs it laid, once again.

This topic of transience can also be considered from the point of view of the changes of seasons — in spring, everything seems to appear out of nowhere, popping up from the mud of what was once frozen earth and springing forth (no pun) as a beautiful flower, or buds on trees, or new forms of life like the infamous black flies or midges that appear, seemingly from nowhere, as spring warms the air.

Then we come to summer, when the sun is high in the sky and life seems carefree — beach days, the buds on trees opened up into sumptuous green leaves that provide shade from the heat of the sun, and new flowers have taken the place of the delicate spring blooms. Gardens bring forth the bounty of fresh vegetables, people who do not have gardens may be lucky enough to have a friend who will give them a luscious fresh tomato, and all is warm and wonderful.

Then the first nip in the air comes, and autumn is upon us, heralded by the bringing in of the last of the hay, the lawn is mown one final time, flowers have been deadheaded, and such. The trees, once so verdant, begin to sport different colors in their leaves and, finally, drop them to the ground, no longer needed to photosynthesize sunlight into a food source for it.

Finally, we enter winter: cold air, snow in the northern climates, dark nights that seem to last forever — until the turning of the wheel and the return of the light, around Ground Hog’s Day in the States. And spring (the miracle period) returns to the land; and the cycle begins anew.

Transience, according to Sigmund Freud, causes the human mind to value more deeply the various events that a person experiences. Because, after a certain point in our emotional development, we come to realize that the precious moment of joy — such as the first ice cream cone, the first roller coaster (or merry go round) ride, the first kiss — won’t return. Not with the same intensity, the same color value, the same brightness. And so, we learn to cherish our memories.

Some become obsessed with preserving their memories; some write extensive journals, or keep extensive photographs, or hoard belongings… so many of us can relate to this tendency!

The sad truth, however, is that even the clearest of photographs, the most well written description in a journal entry, the most threadbare of teddy bears or old shirts, cannot truly return the person or the moment to your mind’s eye, to your heart’s content.

Always there is a slight diminishment, caused by the passage of time and intervening experiences/new memories.

Grief is a challenge that almost all of us have, at one point or another, struggled with. All the platitudes that we are told, or read, or tell ourselves, are in the end mere place holders in the mind for the person or object that is no longer with us in our physical reality. Mere words. And words cannot take away the chill of absence, or fill the emptiness we feel…

Grief comes in waves, like the tide — ebbing, flowing, returning, sometimes as a tsunami, and sometimes like a gentle lick of the sea touching our bare feet.

The smell of a certain flower, the sight of the sunset striking “just so”, the familiar place that once was so dear… all of these things and more bring the beloved one back to our minds. And in that moment we experience the pang of loss all over again, but from a different vantage point, with less vulnerability, because that loss has now become more familiar with each time we experience it.

If you live long enough, the grief is almost a welcome friend, because in the time that you are feeling it, you are revisited with old loves, losses, treasures from the past. You never forget, you never totally “get over” the loss. This is the truth of the human experience.

Our friend grief will come knocking on our memory door, our heart’s hidden chambers, at odd moments. And, with time we will soften, accept the visit from grief and sigh, saying gently “ah, here you are again my dearest” (or whatever words come to you) to greet its advent.

There is no panacea, no way to soothe and ease the acuteness of grief — but there is the treasure trove of memories, some of which, once lost, actually do creep back into the mind, and fill the empty spots.

The truth it that spring will come again. And winter will come again. And loss will occur again. And new things, new experiences, new life, will come to us. Never to replace, but to add to, the treasures of the past.

Just as the leaf falls to the ground, and its decay enriches the soil around the tree, providing nutrients for new growth and new life, so do our memories become rich and wonderful places in our hearts and minds, even as we open to the new, the unexperienced, the unexpected.

Because this is the way of life. We enter as a conjoined spermatozoa and egg, we exit metaphorically as a fallen leaf off the tree of life, and our spirit lingers on, returning to the original Source from which we came. And it is all, in the final analysis, good and right.

And so my friends, while I cannot leave you with an overflowing sense of riches within, I urge you to contemplate the beauties of living, and knowing, and seeing, tasting, hearing; the farewells, the hello’s, and all that lies between the richly embroidered covers of the book that contains the immense body of your life experiences.

You are a remarkable, irreplaceable, and unique individual in the world in which we live, and I — Asha Bear, another individual in this wide world — celebrate your existence, your life, and all the seemingly minute, unknown ways in which your remarkably valuable presence has enriched us all.

I wish you joy, and I wish you peace! And, always, remember: HOPE is the essence of life!

Continue to be a LightBear, and light the way for others to find their own unique way through life.

Thank you for being here!