Kindness

Backblip posted 14th November 2014. The following was written for my Rosen Tribe, but it might as well be for my Blip Tribe. The photo was taken on Bunny's last day before I was on Blip, and the piece written a week or two later.

'There’s always a moment on re-entry from a Rosen retreat when I begin to realize the extent of the changes wrought during the intensive. On previous occasions it has been on the train journey home and when picking up my car from the dealership across the road. This time the moment came when I was waiting in line at the supermarket. Just before I left for the intensive I had had to face the the heart-wrenching decision to have my beloved cat, Bunny (AKA Honey Bunny), put to sleep.

On my return I began to more fully experience her loss, along with gratitude for the blessing of her sweet companionship. So there I am the day after my return standing at the checkout having walked past the pet supplies and chicken counter, feeling the full force of fourteen years’ habit. An elderly man in front of me turned and said, “You look awful wistful” with, I fancied, a slight edge of “Cheer up it may never happen.” I heard myself softly reply, “I had to have my cat put down.”

This man instantly stepped towards me and gave me a great big hug saying, “Aw hen ( a term of endearment in Scotland) - it breaks your heart.” I asked if he had had to do the same and he told me a tragic tale from over sixty years ago. When he was a boy ‘they’ had come to his house and said that his dog had been worrying the sheep. The vet who came to put the dog down said “That’s not a killer’s mouth.” The next week ‘they’ came back to say his dog had been worrying the sheep again. He had never kept an animal since.

Shared heartbreak right there in the supermarket. Shared humanity.

This exchange would not have been possible before the intensive. I could not have allowed it. I’d have been too reactive to the hint of judgement and too defended against the kindness behind his gruff approach. And, yes, it does break your heart. It’s been a summer of love and loss since the previous intensive. A beautiful new treatment room loved and lost within a week. Six ducklings born in a thunderstorm on the 4th of July, loved by the entire neighbourhood; all lost to the gulls in the space of ten days.

Love and loss. Love and loss. Shock. And my beloved Bunny. Gratitude and heartbreak. She always did have impeccable timing.

As I say, her loss hit me more fully on my return - all of our shared rituals and routines. Habits of mind and attention, call and response, a repeating loop of love. When I came back from EarthSpirit I found myself glancing repeatedly at her basket raised in a corner commanding a view of the entire flat, garden and street. Each time I looked towards her corner I felt a surge of love extending from my chest, anticipating her response. The memory, the expectation of her presence evoked this surge of love directed towards that corner of my home. Such a clear and constant habit when the object of my affection was no more physically present - just the empty space where she so often lay.

I began to wonder about the significance of that location. According to the principles of Feng Shui this corner represents - friends, allies, international travel and trade. So Bunny’s corner is becoming a shrine to kindness. I had recently re-arranged my bookshelves, placing my Rosen books and current influences just behind Bunny’s basket.

When my father died I wrote a tribute to him in the local newspaper. The final words echo my experience of Rosen ‘For everyone who has shown us the least kindness - know that the kindness we show and the love we give keep changing the world long after we leave it behind.’ Thank you all. With love and gratitude from a slowly opening heart. Grace'