Braiding
the braids will dissolve back into earth in winter.
Right now – among the abundant green textures in my small front patio – three dominant and radiant colors are braiding themselves into an ecstatic realm. The fuchsia pink of the rhododendron, the purple pink of the rock rose and the orange red of the gladioli. These glowing, almost clashing colors mingle harmoniously. Their exuberant co-existence is mesmerizing. I take my lunch amidst this wonder. It won’t last long…
Our personal joys – a grandchild’s first step, feet touching sand, winning an award, a friend’s letter, the apple tree’s first blossoms – they arise from us relating to our immediate surroundings. The realms of individual, community and collective – collective meaning: culture, place, history – are fibers that weave us continuously into existence, whether we know it or not. Ever changing. May we be supple and strong.
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In our daily lives, joys are intermingling with sorrows and pain – a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a cat, a sudden death in the family, being fired from a job, the homeless, the wars and violence here, at the border, far away. In all this, another realm is available to us, the feeling of equanimity which is neither about hiding, or numbing, nor about grasping and over-indulging. Call it steadiness, calmness, or serenity, it is the essential “middle” – die Mitte – it creates balance. It needs to be practiced by most of us. All three strands of joy, suffering, and calm interweave – and become the braiding of existence.
Most of my childhood my hair is woven into two braids. Only once am I wearing my hair open: as a seven-year-old child, I am chosen to play the princess in Snow White – Schneewittchen – in a rehearsal at school. Somebody suggests to open my braids. The other kids are amazed at the golden, fine, wavy hair cascading below my waist, and I bask in that admiration. But for this short glorious moment I pay bitterly. At home my mother scolds and slaps me, how dare I wear my hair open. Our family is neither conservative nor religious, and definitely not puritan. Why is being adored for my Snow White’s flowing hair so annoying to Mama? More work to comb through? I did not even get to see my own gloriousness.
When at eleven and half years old, my brain suddenly explodes with the first menses into teenage-hood, I decide I want my hair cut short. The braids come off. I still have them. Everyone around me bemoans this change, but I know I am not a child anymore. A new era is starting, from here on I will increasingly assume my own power. Astonishingly, I still remember the moment of this “explosion.” The tentative, but shocking flow of first blood, the innocence of childhood instantly vanished. I am at my grandma’s. I take a walk, suddenly the sky, fields, road, the whole world looks so different… as if waking from a very long dream or sleep. My mind intuits the incredible adventure of growing, the vastness of life, the transformations to come. Eleven years old, on the cusp, I am flooded with clear, keen awareness, and awe… all is light filled.
What are you braiding?
Wonderful images, wonderful insights.
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