The reality of impermanence hit me between the eyes 15 years ago with my mother’s diagnosis of cancer and her death a year later. At that same time, it became clear that my husband and I were unable to have children. A year or two after that I was divorced from my husband. A couple of years later, I lost my athletic body to unexpected illness. Shortly thereafter, I lost my 25 year long and strong faith. Impermanence and I fought mightily! We fought for years, almost to my death, before I began to dance with it differently. Today, we have created a beautiful dance, though I still try to take the controlling lead from time to time. And with acceptance comes a certain freedom and peace. While impermanence can lead to grief at times, it can also lead to great joy. Grief comes and goes. Joy comes and goes. I can hold both with an open hand and, in doing so, I suffer less.
The photo above is of a tree that I loved. It was a dead, drift wood tree that lived on a river in the middle of Vermont where I resided for awhile. I would walk down and cross the river daily and see my tree. The rock you see in the photo lived in the knot of the tree. I don’t know if someone placed it there or if the river swept it there, but I thought it was beautiful. I told my partner how much I loved the tree and that I hoped it would be there always. A week later the biggest flood in 30 years hit the little town. I went to bed that night relieved that no one was hurt, though many suffered much damage to their homes and property. The next morning I awoke with a start. My tree! Did my tree survive the flood? I rushed down to the river, but my tree was gone. After standing for awhile in the absence of my tree, I laughed at myself, and I turned to Impermanence and asked it to continue to teach me its dance.
Of course it never was my tree, after all. It was in the claiming of it as my own, in the grasping of it, in the attachment to it, that I experienced a kind of suffering when it was swept away. The flood that swept away my tree was a sort of foreshadowing of what was to come in the next few months. And because of the intimate encounter with the tree and Impermanence, I faced into those changes with more grace than I would have even a few months earlier. And through all of that my dance with Impermanence has grown stronger and more graceful. I am deeply grateful.
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