We have entered into what many refer to as the “thin” time of year. As we cross into the Fall season, marked by fewer hours of daylight and sometimes cooler temperatures, many witness the dazzling vibrancy of colors in leaves as the trees are signaled to cease their chlorophyll production. This magnificent zone drops down from the North to the South over several weeks and one can wonder how this could be a “thin’ time at all. It is only after the magnificent flashing of fall colors, that the full colors indeed fall to the ground. Fullness opens up to emptiness and reveals an in-between space that is both welcoming and sobering in all its sublimity. Familiarity and strangeness begin a beautiful dance that invites surrounding participation.
Many of us were introduced to Yellow Groove bamboo when our collective work included clearing out the dead bamboo stalks inside a beautiful grove of this bamboo that grows to heights of 30 feet. Our leader in the work, Lawton, explained about the bamboo and its utility and flexibility as well as its propensity for spreading quickly through its ‘running’ underground rhizome system. Inasmuch as the bamboo, when attended with care, can be of great service, a container with barriers or boundaries is also necessary in order for it not to become invasive.
The external task was to clear dead bamboo from the floor of the grove and to identify and cut dead bamboo culms (stems or stalks) to be used for building a teepee like structure in the very heart of this wonder-filled bamboo grove. An opening had been created into the heart of the grove, and a central area of the grove had been cleared. We set to work, conscious of our external task as well as making an effort towards an inner task of being present to our work together in unison with other work that was going on in other areas of the Claymont grounds.
As I was conscious of the outer task and the collective work being done simultaneously, finding and cutting dead bamboo stalks (careful not to cut into or below the line of the growth and life at the bottom), creating four supporting clusters of cut dead bamboo stalks that we then leaned against each other with much concerted effort in order to form the cone shaped skeleton of what would eventually become this teepee structure of dead bamboo – and this all surrounded by the thriving green and yellow bamboo, the cooperation and participation in the living and the dead were vividly observed and experienced.
Moments of inattention and floundering even to work together with each other and then also with the bamboo became subtly directive. Watching saw blades near fingers and looking overhead in case a falling stalk of bamboo may have you as a target was all part of the risk of the task – Its sober importance and its joyful playfulness. Lawton had told us that the bamboo liked for us to be there and indeed welcomed us. And you could feel this the moment you entered the grove.
We felt as if we had become children again in the grove.
This surrounding sense was pervasive, not only the surrounding participation of each other in the work task, but the surrounding of the living bamboo around the dead bamboo, which itself was being formed into a sacred structure of joy and remembrance. The rhizome carpet seemed to even assist in the awareness and presence of our co-workers in other parts of the Claymont grounds who were doing various other needed tasks. Even as we drifted into our own identifications of ourselves, this vital surrounding brought us back to presence.
After leaving Claymont, I returned home to help set up our annual Ofrenda, a temporary sacred offering altar set up to coincide with the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which celebrates, invites and remembers with honor our deceased loved ones. After placing the symbols of the cosmic elements sacramentalizing the cycle of life and death (light, wind, salt, incense, water),while simultaneously inviting with honor the beloved with favorite food and beverage items on the sacred altar, we then place photos of our deceased loved one on the altar so that these images are surrounded by flowers, candlelight, incense and wishes of well-being!
Again, this surrounding was profoundly present. Curiously, even as in the bamboo grove, it was not a clear sense of who was surrounding who. Life surrounding death, or death surrounding life. It was as if there was an exchange between the two, a vibrant dialogue without words that did its own work. We were only asked to do our part – to participate as we can. The welcoming copal incense of the altar and the flickering lights caused from the heat of the candles moving the Papel Picado (cut paper designs draped over the altar) emanated and magnetized the living and the dead, Life and the dying. Joy surrounding tears and tears surrounding joy.
Perhaps this is the “thin” time of which we speak. Ah, but it is a thinness that is a fullness and opens up the possibility for creativity – both familiar and strange!
A welcoming emptiness that invites joy and responsibility – sobriety and play, not bouncing back and forth but dance in a way that honors the space in-between by surrounding it and inhabiting it at the same time.
