Belonging Together

We desire this, not that, prefer this over that, and chose a side – but times are such that we must learn to hold BOTH & AND.  Sorrow & joy.  Good & bad. Death and life. Far & close. Loss & gain. 

 

For me, this year was one of loss. Or was it a year of inner transformation? More like BOTH.  My stepdaughter murdered. (click & read)  Mama Oak gone.  Yes, of course, the loss of the big old Live Oak tree in whose protective wide arms I had been sleeping for 15 years, was painful, too. ­ Both brought on the vulnerable and familiar feelings of grief – exposed. Both broke my heart. A doctor diagnosed me with Broken Heart Syndrome. Heart-broken, and at the same time full. Full of gratitude. Both. That’s how I would describe my state, all spring and summer. I had to dig deep and find courage in-midst of my frailty. Allow myself to be soaked in the silent sorrow without drowning. And I am not a stranger to losing close loved ones to death. But murder is another layer on top of loss – the violence. I was shaken. And the taboo: husband murders wife, and then kills himself. A war veteran’s murder-suicide. We don’t speak about those awful things. Even though they happen quite often, here in America. The violence in homes, foreign wars continuing silently, hidden away, despite the loud gun shots, echoing the wars of our whole wide world….  Meanwhile babies are born. And we delight in summer’s apricots, water melons, and figs. We celebrate, like I did with friends before Mama Oak was taken down, to remember her majesty. Her words to me: you can do it. So, I am dancing still, always…. 

 

The current year started with one mass shooting after the other, and the violence kept coming. War in Ukraine. Another mass shooting. War in Yemen and Sudan. Another mass shooting. Another war in the Middle East. Another mass shooting. In between a huge firestorm on Maui, worldwide typhoons, floodings, hurricanes, a massive earthquake in Afghanistan. Each time many many many many dead. Never-ending wild fires in Canada, very high air pollution all over the continent. Record breaking prolonged heat waves. Are we keeping track of these accelerations? Are we aware of the loss of balance? These days we humans are so exposed in our fragility, so fallible with our fears and confusions. Chaos and turmoil, endless lies and cheating, all seem normal. Some can keep their heads buried in the sand. But everything is boiling, even the sand, the parched earth, the dry throat.  

 

And yet, after Spring’s ferocious atmospheric rivers and cyclone bombs, the hummingbirds are back in my garden. And the acrobat squirrels fly and sail again along the albeit diminished branches of oak trees. The Asian pear tree is carrying an overabundance of golden, juicy, crispy fruit. I share with friends, and bring each Thursday a small basket full for Charlie and Sam, two farmer’s market vendors. In return they insist on gifting me mushrooms, rice, and roasted almonds. We talk, joke, laugh. Last week Sam greets me with a hug, the world news is just too awful, we exclaim to each other. Animatedly gesturing, we protest and lament over so much inhumanity. On each side. Yes, we must learn to hold complexity, historical backgrounds, paradoxes, the bigger picture. Holding both: the Sorrow and the Joy. 

 

Having experienced plenty of both in my life, I always feel they belong together. I do not run from either.  Don’t ask me, is this better or that? My students already know, I will answer: yes, both!  Smile, and then explain the complexities. Yang has a drop of Yin in it, Yin a drop of Yang. The promise: one changes into the other. This moves the energy. Brings about flow. Yin exhausted, or overfull, becomes its opposite, then Yang becomes Yin again, smoothly at best, no dead-end. Yin and Yang relating to each other, belonging together, balancing, participating in Cosmic Eternal Change. 

 

The other day, I hear myself humming a soothing lullaby. It is one of the German-style Kabarett songs I wrote in 1988 for my solo theater piece i.e. Deutschland.

Komm, gib mir deine schöne Hand, ich führ dich ins Schlaraffenland wo Schmerz und Freude im engsten Kusse wiegen sich, wo alle Sehnsüchte schlafen liegen… komm, gib mir deine schöne Hand. Come, give me your beautiful hand, I’ll lead you to the land of paradise, where sorrow and joy dance in deep embrace, where all longings are asleep… come, give me your beautiful hand. 

 

Full moon night in Karinaland 

 

For me – increasingly in the last decade ­– there is really no division, but rather a big question for each of us: How can we be human to our best and fullest? The answer to this might set us apart. Can we share and care? As nations and citizens: Are we upholding Human Rights to our best? Are we holding our leaders accountable? These aspirations inextricably belong to us. The future depends on this never-ending work. 

 

Tribes or nations who are oppressing others will not last forever, there will be change eventually, inevitably. The oppressed will rise, rebel violently perhaps – they might rule kindly for a while or not – and they might become oppressors, too, in turn. Rarely do we witness big historical changes of power happening without violence, such as with the “Velvet Revolutions” in Eastern Europe in 1989. The ones that dissolved borders and brought East Germany and West Germany under one government. What seemed completely impossible and not anymore wished for really, happened in weeks and months. Of course, no change is cozy, plenty of resentments are lingering up to this day. There were the free and the oppressed, however one chose to look at it. I grew up in a family divided by a military border at which many died attempting to cross the death strip – den Todesstreifen. On both sides of my parents, we had close relatives in the East (Ostzone). Many a friend here in America knows nothing about this. Germany’s division was the consequence of World War II and the Holocaust, punishment for being a perpetrator nation. This complex history has deeply formed me as a human being. The need for Justice and Human Rights is lodged in my heart.  

 

Since 2022, there is war again in Europe. Unimaginable. History’s ripples seem to spread, speed up, and escalate with inevitable and blind violence. Like the long oppression of Palestinians that the world thought it could get away with by ignoring. In conversations that must be had, I often mention the absolute horror of the huge massacre of Israelis on October 7.  The hostages. This, too, must be held – how can we forget? How can we be blind? How can we resist the desire for vengeance? And where are responsible and wise leaders, like Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela?  Today I wonder, what if the most difficult principle of T’ai Chi Ch’uan would have been applied to this excruciating situation. The great secret and wonder of T’ai Chi is its focus on Yielding. The soft overcomes the hard. Yielding as a practice and strategy to thrive, survive, stay in equilibrium. Yielding takes great internal strength and fearlessness. Instead, Israel’s leaders fell into the trap of vengeance that was set out for them, losing their measure, and with it the good will of the world. Now long-time occupation and apartheid in Gaza and West Bank have become a naked strategy for genocide. I ask: could we imagine a world where the Art of Yielding is practiced and applied? (Another time more on this fascinating T’ai Chi principle.) 

 

The riches and joys of my Asian pear harvest, the eternally changing sand patterns created by waves and winds, the moon’s mysteries, sorrow and grief – we are so small and ignorant. 

 

Only in our dreams and our deepest yearnings of the heart might we know the beauty of

 BOTH & AND  

belonging together

whole

all