I picked up and started reading The Smell of Rain on Dust, by Martin Prechtel, yesterday.
Of all the grief books I have, this is the one I had not even opened yet. And then, something compelled me to do so.
https://www.floweringmountain.com/books/rain-on-dust.html
And as soon as I did, I mean within a few pages of reading, a whole Mystery opened up to me - not *why* I grieve Danny so much or how I should be approaching his death now - but what happened to my Soul in the years of great joy we shared, how it was that those years were just one awful thing after another but what I remember is ....the afternoon light on willows by the stream, the coyotes singing in the darkness with Dan curled against me, the burst of green of every May, the scent of the balsam poplars after a rain. Blue eyed grass in the spring, the phoebe arriving first and leaving last, dandelion pesto and monarda honey. Wild turkeys and white tails in the back field.
Dan's stair kisses, his daily - hourly - outbursts of joy and love.
Every walk every day - 5,162 days - his presence, his happiness, our freedom, our togetherness.
The song of spring always calling us out of slumber and rest into exploration and ...joy.
The tenderness of autumn with the danger of hunters, but the chilly walks through the woods so invigorating, and home to hot tea (me) and warm soup (Dan).
And so, so much hope.
The joy...and the hope, not the trials and tribulations...are what I remember.
My life with Dan was a Song of Praise, and I learned effortlessly, how to do that, how to inhabit that place of full-on sacred living, that when I look back there is no sorrow, just the radiance of life, everyday life, with Dan.
Nothing else, and I have and do love many, many things, has ever given me that Blessing.
How it is that despite losing my cats, losing Lila, Luke, my father, my Aunt Judi, going through menopause, losing my health bit by bit, betrayal by two of the people I loved as family, losing my connection with Robin, with the area itself closing down, despite the herbicide spraying and the road and the house rotting and molding and on and on...I have felt for the past three years that I was ejected from Faerieland, that Dan and I lived in an idyllic isle of beauty and magic, that every day was a Song of Praise, whether exploring the dark forest or roaming the wide windy hills, or sitting on a mossy throne, or making herbal oils and teas in the kitchen, or curling up together under homely blankets with the snow trickling on the kitchen windows...we were bursting with life, joy, hope.
Losing a dog who was everything to you is anguish. When that dog also symbolizes the best years of life, the only years of real joy, it becomes excruciating.
But reading Martin Prechtel opened my heart so powerfully and suddenly. It did not in any way ease the pain I feel, or take any of the grief away, but it framed this suffering in such a way as to help me understand the intensity of it more deeply, and to honour it, as a sacred and necessary aspect of life. And in this way I am strengthened to go on a little longer in life. With the pain right here, and the presence of the past right here always, too.
A photo of him I love so much it is very hard to look at without exploding into tears. He would be about 2 here.
I will continue to work with this book and Martin's teachings, as they came like an arrow through my heart that did not kill, but expanded it. Amidst all the spiritual books and psychological self help sites and trauma-healing music and herbal meditations, this is what hit me so hard and so deep, about Danny's death and my subsequent unmanageable sorrow. It's not like, how can I get this to let up? but rather - how do I take this huge load of grief and turn it into praise? Some of this process I can share, and some not (but anyone working with these teachings will understand) I hope the bits I can share will ease the way a little for others. Or even if not, sharing the process, within limits and for no personal gain, is healing for me.
May you find the way to peace and praise within yourself, in your own way and time.
Art by Annie Hamman
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