Gift

Nature poet Mary Oliver wrote a 2006 poem called "The Uses of Sorrow".

"(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved gave me

a box of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift."

Now this poem was written about someone who died; and that situation is entirely different from the situation with First Love who is still alive and consciously chose to leave me, twice.  Nevertheless I am hoping there is something I can learn.

Last night I realized he was not very nice to his own dog, I had to stop him from hitting his dog once, and possibly might likewise be not very nice to my dog too.  That would make me feel guilty to have put my dog in that situation.  My ex-husband used to pinch my dog.

When I went to the zen sangha, when I asked to meet him one last time but he did not show up, the dogen gave this advice "Keep your heart open".  I don't remember if I asked a question or someone else did but I felt as if that advice was meant deliberately for me.

First Love did introduce me to Mary Oliver and Zen Buddhism which I hoped would become more important to me, if I lived closer to a sangha.  But it can still become more important to me, can't it?  What I learned can still grow inside me.  That's partly why I cherished him so much, he introduced me to so many things that ignited my curiosity about the world.

Perhaps incongruous, or not, to a growing importance of Zen, what I'm trying to do is believe that god has a purpose for everything, a purpose that is the best for me. There is a line in the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs"

Graham Hess:  People break down into two groups.  When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence.  They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them.  Group number two sees it as just pure luck.  Just a  happy turn of chance.  I'm sure the people in group number 2 are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way.  For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty.  Could be bad, could be good.  But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own.  And that fills them with fear.  Yeah, there are those people.  But there's a whole lot of people in group number one.  When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle.  And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them.  And that fills them with hope.  See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you?  Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles?  Or do you believe that people just get lucky?  Or, look at the question this way:  Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

After thinking about it, what I have realized today is:  I have used First Love for many years to justify my sadness.  He's been an excuse for why I am sad.  I don't need to be sad, I choose to be.  I can choose something else.  And the Oprah shows that I mentioned in yesterday's post, plus that enlightment I realized when walking in the woods in autumn about the life of  leaves being the transient experience of god made manifest, living for a season yet part of a larger living organism, the tree, and by extension the earth, water and air too, all of that made me realize that I might not be so small as I think I am. I might just be god experiencing this body for the moment like the life of a leaf.  But that I'm just one expression of something larger than this body, I'm part of god.  I might be god.   I have access to god because god is animating this body, this specific collection of atoms that experience life in Time and Space, in a 4-dimensional way.  But maybe I'm not really so limited, maybe I'm larger than this body and therefore I too, like god, am limitless really.  Maybe.