Beyond Fat Tuesday

In my family this is a sacred time of the year, and not directly because of Jesus, Christianity or Ash Wednesday.

But kind of.

It’s because of Mardi Gras.

Both of my parents grew up in New Orleans (well, my mom in Metairie) and both sides of the family pretty heavily celebrate Fat Tuesday. As well as having particular significance to my family, as two of our family’s ancestral deities, my Aunt Judy Porter Beier and her father, my Papa P. Papa Preston Porter, passed away in the wee hours of Mardi Gras night/Ash Wednesday morning, many years apart, both at age 64…the day itself is a holiday for the whole city and outlying areas (I think). There are parades and balls for weeks leading up to this major main event. Which turns out isn’t really the main event, but the precursor.

For Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday in French, is the day before Ash Wednesday, or the first day of Lent, as recognized in Catholicism and some of the other Christian religions. Lent symbolizes the 40 days Jesus wandered the desert before he was crucified and resurrected on Easter Sunday, as the story goes.

During Lent the faithful were to ceremonially fast, as Jesus did when in the desert. Sometimes this was done by literal fasting of certain foods and sometimes, as is more common today, by renouncing something meaningful or a particular vice, to symbolize and facilitate an experience of sacrifice as Jesus experienced on his journey towards his upcoming transformation. As the story goes.

The day before Lent is also called Shrove Tuesday, after the Christian practice of “shriving,” or confessing their sins and receiving absolution from a priest before entering the sacred time of sacrifice in lent. The Fat Tuesday part seems to have come in as people would try to eat all the foods that could go bad during Lent, making pancakes with all the eggs, milk and fat that was on hand.

Yet another reason for Mardi Gras Carnival time is that people wanted to engage in all of the vices, all of the “fat” that is, that they would be giving up for the 40 plus days, depending on the tradition. In my life and in my family this enjoyment of the “fat” part is the aspect we have celebrated.

To be very clear, our Mardi Gras was not the lewd spectacle you may have seen on Bourbon Street. Our Mardi Gras was Granny making red beans and rice in Papa’s conversion van parked under the movie sign at Lakeside Shopping Center in Jefferson Parish. It was like a citywide Halloween in springtime where magical floats passed by as we sat in these ladders my Papa built and yelled “Throw me something Mister”… and they did. Colorful beads, shiny doubloons, plastic cups printed with the names of the Krewes of each parade and other random trinkets.

It was pretty disheartening when I went to Mardi Gras as an adult. I’m not into the degrading aspects and alcohol fueled excitement is no longer my cup of tea so…but the childhood memories are sweet and what Mardi Gras always was for me.

Yet this year is a bit different. There are no parades for one thing. For me personally it is a bit different too, as I am a different person than I was last year pre-Covid. Mardi Gras 2020 was one of the last mass gatherings and superspreader events before lockdown.

At this point so many of my/our hopes and dreams and naivety have been, well, crushed, and so many of us have to totally reinvent our lives. I don’t hope for or imagine the same things are possible that I did a year ago. I haven’t figured out how to go forward yet. I’m still dealing with the loss.

Perhaps I am out in the desert, or maybe we are between the crucifixion and the resurrection, symbolically. Regardless, this year I’m less focused on eating all the “fat”. I’m more interested in the renunciation, and the imminent transformation.

The shriving on Shrove Tuesday. Looking into what I want to atone for to help me move forward into what is becoming. Owning responsibility for my part. Offering up my self-will as sacrifice to open myself to possibilities beyond what my past experience and limited mind can conceive of, yet.

Receiving absolution to release me from guilt and shame so I can meet the future fresh, unburdened by my past. Oh, please hear me lord. Help me see what it is that is blocking me, what will free me if I can let it go.

For this is the potential of renunciation.

I share this with you as I find it interesting, and maybe you do too. Yet also to inspire you. To notice in this time that we have been forced to renounce all kinds of things without our consent, what has been beneficial to let go of? What has grown in the space? What will we embrace back with greater appreciation when and if we can? And what will we leave behind?

What do I consciously want to release in order to free me from my own expectations and the limits of my own self? What of these things can I do right now? How can I adapt to life as it is currently presenting and be ready to keep adapting as things continue to change? What do I have to contribute?

In this time I ceremonially let go of the “fat” I’ve been holding onto and step forward consciously into the transformation.

So be it. So be it. So be it.

So mote it be.

~

By the way I do not subscribe to any religion or worldview, although I do appreciate intentional ceremony, ritual and parable from all traditions.

Peace

Imprint

Simonne* translated this poem today. I breathe these poems in and they reveal themselves to me like the resonance of a dream I am sharing with the poet. They encapsulate a moment in time or an emotion like a memory held in a raindrop that seeps inside me as Simonne reads me her translation and I transcribe the words into into the computer. We are painting in mental imagery together, the poets, Simonne and I. Once it is in the computer, we read at least one other translation to inspire us, line by line comparing it to her own, sometimes adapting her version minimally to make sure her very direct translation expresses in English grammar what we feel the poet was articulating in French, sometimes adopting a more precise word if we happen upon one. We then read this almost final version together, she reading a line in French and then I in English, back and forth, to make sure we like the final image it presents. 

This is a very sad and beautiful poem by Jacques Prevert, a French poet and playwright of the twentieth century. He was one of the original members of the surrealist movement, who eventually rejected both the movement and its founder Andre Breton. Perhaps more on this as I research further, I am fascinated by the sudden intimacy I feel with these deep, sensitive and passionate writers. 

This particular poem published in 1945 reflects, to me, the imprint of a sense memory of an amorous moment, of an experience of beauty that touches us deeply and allows a sense of connection that stays with us even if the encounter is brief, even if the encounter is only witnessed rather than directly shared. And perhaps if and when remembered is a tether to that beauty, to that connection, that can transcend erasure, even from the shadow of war, from the pouring rain that rots and washes everything away until nothing remains, nothing but maybe the resonance of memory.  

Barbara
de Jacques Prevert
translated by Simonne Guillerm Allen

Remember Barbara
It was raining on Brest that day, constantly,
And you went walking, smiling
Radiant, delighted, dripping under the rain
Remember Barbara
It was raining continuously on Brest
And I crossed you on Siam Street
You were smiling
And as for me, I was smiling also
Did you remember Barbara
You whom I did not know
You who did not know me
Do you remember
Do you remember at least that day
Don’t forget
A man was sheltered under a porch
He shouted your name
Barbara
And you ran towards him under the rain
Dripping, delighted, radiant
And you threw yourself in his arms
Do you remember that, Barbara?
And no hard feelings if I use the familiar “tu” with you
I say “tu” to all that I love
Even if I’ve seen them only once
I say “tu” to all that love each other
Even if I do not know them
Remember Barbara
Don’t forget
This rain wise and happy
On your happy face,
On this happy town
This rain on the sea
On the arsenal
On the boat from Ouessant
Oh, Barbara
What stupidity the war is
What has become of you?
Under this rain of iron,
Of fire, of bloody steel
And the one who holds you tight in his arms
Amorously
Is he dead, vanished, or still alive?
Oh, Barbara
It is raining constantly
Like it was raining before
But it is not quite the same and
Everything is damaged
It’s the rain of terrible and desolate mourning
Its no longer a storm
Of iron blood
But quite simply clouds,
Which die like dogs
Dogs which disappear
In the course of the water towards Brest
And go to rot far off
Far off, very far off from Brest
Of which nothing remains.

Prevert often collaborated with musician Joseph Kosma to turn his poetry into music, this version is performed by one of Simonne’s favorites, Yves Montand.

*For more on SImonne and the work we are doing together reference ~
https://deniseporterkemp.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/translation/

Translation

I was initially introduced to Simonne Guillerm Allen in order to teach her pranayama, or yogic breathing techniques. This was recommended by her doctors in France as a way to develop core strength and support her deteriorating back.

Simonne is an 87 year old French woman who grew up in Vietnam and spent her adult life between France and the United States, making her career as a university French language teacher. She moved from Brittany, France to New Hampshire to live with her son about a year ago.

At first we met once a week.  Over time, the breathing exercises evolved into a meditation practice. Then we started integrating yoga and movement adapted to her physical condition, accompanied by some of her favorite French music from the internet. We discussed the transition into both her new living situation and the changes in her body and independent mobility. We contemplated Yogic and Buddhist psychology and philosophy to help her adapt and find a way to access her best quality of life with things exactly as they were. It was during these meetings that she began sharing tales from her life story. I became fascinated and she became more comfortable. Her seated posture, range of motion, mood and energy level improved significantly as we continued to meet. I currently see her four to five times a week, and there is always more to do than we have time.

The first spark that led to our current project came as we were dancing to Charles Trenet videos on YouTube. We had begun dancing together, she holding my arms for balance, in order to make range of movement exercises more interesting and invigorating. While scrolling through the videos, I happened upon Trenet’s version of the poem Chanson d’automne by Paul Verlaine put to music. Simonne freestyle translated the words as we listened to the song so I could understand what what he was singing. We were both inspired by this, so we started looking through French poetry on the internet.

Simonne mentioned that she had memorized some poetry throughout her life, which gave me an idea. Although her recall of past events is often extremely precise, her ability to imprint new memory is waning. I recalled hearing that some people find “passage meditation” in the tradition of Eknath Eswaren improves memory. Passage mediation utilizes a memorized passage silently recited internally as a focus point for the mind, the way we often use the breath as a point of concentration in meditation. Although this style of meditation typically employs spiritual writings from a wide range of traditions, I knew it would be difficult for Simonne to memorize a new passage. I asked if she remembered any poetry enough to try it. She said yes, and immediately recited aloud Harmonie du Soir by Charles Baudelaire. In full, en francais.

We each brought our head, neck and spine into alignment so that our posture felt somewhat weightless and stable, and sat for awhile. She in her chair and I on the floor, she internally reciting the poem and I the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra – a Shaivite predecessor of sorts in meaning to the Serenity Prayer. It went well. I asked her to translate the poem so I could understand, and so she did, aloud, as I typed it into the computer. Our excitement was palpable. I left her with a copy of the translation to edit, and another poem to translate while I was gone.

She has been at it ever since. She direct translates first and then plays with it to make it sound clear in English, while staying as close to the original text as possible. We look at other English translations sometimes for inspiration and as a dictionary of sorts, and yet her versions are often unique and I typically prefer them to what we find in books and online.

And the poetry is beautiful; Baudelaire, Verlaine and Victor Hugo are our favorites so far. She recently translated a Verlaine, En Sourdine, which I discovered was the inspiration for a song composed by Debussy – one of my favorite composers, who we had been listening to while doing slow range of movement yoga in her chair. Looking further, I realized that poetry was often a muse for Debussy, which has led us into an interesting inquiry into the social history of the time period in which these artists were creating, gleaned from their personal histories and the medium of their art. Clair de lune, one of Debussy’s most famous compositions, is also a musical interpretation of a Verlaine poem. This translation is less distinct than many of her other efforts, as the original French is more straightforward than some of the other poems she has worked with, most notably Mallarmé, another muse of Debussy. Yet it is one of our favorites.

Enjoy! We sure do.

Moonlight
translated by Simonne Guillerm Allen

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masqueraders and jesters go
Playing the lute, and dancing, and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises

All sing in a minor key
of victorious love and the opportune life
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight

With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.

Clair de lune
de Paul Verlaine

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,
Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra महामृत्युंजय मंत्र

ॐ त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् ।
उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनान् मृत्योर्मुक्षीय मामृतात् ।।

Aum tryambakam yajāmahe sugandhim puṣṭi-vardhanam ǀ
urvārukam-iva bandhanān mṛtyormukṣīya māmṛtāt ǁ

I relate to this as a prayer of protection and surrender, to remind us when we are trying to hold onto something that is passing…
It means to me…may we be released from our attachments, when we are ready, like the cucumber is released from the vine, without scar, when it is ripe.
The protection – may we be held by what nourishes us until it is our time to be let go.
The surrender – once we are let go there is no reattaching. When it is our time, may we have the grace and courage to let go.
One thing transforms into the next.

Samhain

It’s Samhain, summers end, balanced between the Autumnal Equinox and Winter Solstice. Harvest completes and we and the natural world turn in towards the dark time of the year. Barren skeletons of trees dance against the backdrop of grey stormy skies, their fallen leaves rotting into the ground below them as fodder for summers yet to come.

The veil between the worlds is thin, a time for remembrance of all those who have come before and those who have already passed. For we are but a moment in the collective evolution of all of us, the seed from whence future generations of our lineage still grows.

What will we pass on?

we are all part of the whole and whole in ourselves…

om purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudacyate
purnasya purnamadaya purnameva vashisyate

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते
पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥

That, macrocosm, is whole. This, microcosm, is whole. If you take away a part of the whole, this from that, microcosm from macrocosm, the whole, macrocosm, is still whole and complete, and the part, microcosm, is still whole and complete. Never separate. We are all a part of the whole and whole in ourselves.

Wisdom that came to me while holding my Aunt Judy’s ashes as I lie upon the shores of White Lake, N.C.

1. There is no one right way to do things.
2. If something is uncomfortable, keep making tiny movements.  Letting the fire ant bite me so I can stay perfectly still is not being present to the experience, moving away from the ants is.  I’m not stuck with anything.
3. I talk to myself inside my head so much it’s hard for me to listen, so I’ll just have to start listening more to myself because that is how the wisdom is going to have to speak to me.
4. See the beautifulness in people, and recognize everything else about them too.  Perspective.
5. I can be both strong and sensual.  And I don’t have to cow to anyone.
6. Love is not rational.  It blooms wherever you are planted.  And you are not stuck there either.
7. Believe in the signs.  They are teaching us things beyond what we can figure out.
8. Appreciate.

And she always said, “It really is that simple”.  And I know from  my own experiences that simple does not mean easy.  Or painless.  Just that life is not as complicated as we tend to make it.  And I think she knew this from her own experiences too.  And yet she always reverted back into her “happy place”, the notion inside herself where she manifested that everything was going to be alright.  Which in some way it always is, even if it’s not what we want, or even what seems is best for us personally.  It’s all much bigger than that.

Thanks Great Judy,  I’m glad I can still feel you with me.

yoga, breath and meditation for going though traumatic or painful experiences

(I just want to put in a little caveat here – these are just my distillations of what I have been taught through time and what I have been practicing myself.  I don’t claim to be an expert on trauma, to know the exact right answers or the definitive way for working with painful issues.  These are techniques that are working for me right now, as clearly as I can currently explain them.  In sharing them with others my intention is for us to all experiment with the possibilities for healing and come up with ways that work uniquely for each of us.  I keep rereading it and updating it to try and make it clearer.

 

Working with painful experiences and especially trauma of any kind can be overwhelming, and I find these practices can help with the overwhelm so I don’t have to block the experiences and can move through them, and yet each of us is different and needs a different amount of support to handle the intensity of our own experience.  Seek help as you need it, I don’t mean for this to be a stand alone self help course.  I am here to correspond to the best of my ability, if that is of use.)

 

Deep steady breath, done anytime and especially in simple yoga postures, can help calm the body’s physiological response to stress and trauma and help us steady ourselves so that we can go through what we need to go through to allow the experience to integrate.  Instead of blocking or numbing our experience in order to feel ok, we can potentially allow ourselves to feel the rush of intensity when it comes through us, and release it so that it doesn’t get stuck inside of us, without getting too swept away by the overwhelm of our emotion.  If you can, practice with a friend you feel comfortable with, so you can support each other when the emotion is strong.  You may need to cry, you may need to talk, you may need to scream, let it out – we need to release the intensity of our response to traumatic experiences so the response can move through and the experience can integrate.  Then come back to the breath, especially when you start to feel yourself getting lost in self pity or the overwhelm.  The point is not to re-traumatize ourselves but to help ourselves go through it.  You always have the choice to let yourself bump up against what is uncomfortable, or to move back away from it until you are more ready.  Having compassion for the pain, and incrementally, the strength to go through it.  These practices can be helpful for re-integrating old, unresolved traumas, as well as for getting through rough times in the moment.

It can help to start with a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, with or without sound, to release tension in the belly and remind ourselves to breathe.  Then moving into the ujjai (ooj-aye) breath, a yogic breathing exercise that when done calmly and subtly, can slow down your heart rate and nervous system, relaxing the physiological response to stress and trauma so that you are able to go through the experience as calm and aware as possible.  Take equal length and depth of inhale and exhale, expanding and contracting in the area of the lungs and heart, with a slight resonance or hum at the back of the throat at the whisper muscles.  Strict ujjai breath is mostly chest breathing, although I find it useful to also let your belly expand on the inhale, releasing tension in the belly and breathing into the fullness of the lungs.  If done aggressively for an extended period of time, the ujjai breath sometimes accentuates intensity or even anxiety.  Although if done very subtly, like a soft breeze at the back of the throat, the gentle vibration of the ujjai breath, along with the rhythmic movement of the diaphragm, gently stimulates the vagus nerve, which starts at the top of the spinal cord and connects your brain to your heart and lungs and organs of the torso.  This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms and balances your nervous system’s response to stress.  The hum also helps focus, and therefore calms, the spiraling out of the mind.

You can do this breath at any time without anyone noticing, which makes it a very useful technique for steadying yourself in the moment.  And it can be done in simple yoga postures to help release the intensity around stress and trauma so that we can feel what is coming through us, and be able to weather the overwhelm.  Instead of trying to stop our experience, we can allow the rush of intensity around the trauma to rise and release without getting swept away in our emotion.

The following postures are some possibilities to experiment with this.  The forward bending ones will especially help soothe the mind, the back-bending ones will help release tension in the chest and heart and help you get moving when you are stuck in depression.  The back-bending one on the floor can be done more gently, by just resting with a pillow or two under the hips.

          

Nadi Shodhana is another breathing technique for calming and balancing the body’s response to stress.  A simplified version of this is to bring your pointer and middle finger in towards your palm so that you have the thumb and the ring finger available.  Covering the opening of right nostril with the thumb, being careful not to squash it shut, inhale through the left nostril.  Then cover the left nostril with the ring finger and exhale through the right.  Do this at least 5 times.  After the final exhale through the right nostril, inhale through the right nostril and then exhale through the left.  Do this the same amount of times from right to left as you did on left to right.  If you aren’t sure of the exact amount, just do your best and approximate.  Potentially doing more or longer inhales through the left nostril will calm you, more or longer inhales through the right will wake you up.  When you are done, sit for a few moments if you can and just let the breath breathe you automatically.

 

Belly breathing can be done anytime too, although laying on your back with your knees up and feet apart, knees resting against each other, one hand on the belly and one on the heart, can be particularly helpful in times of overwhelm.  This can be done with the pillow or two under the hips as well.  As you breathe in, let your belly expand first and then your upper chest and lungs.  As you exhale, let your upper chest and lungs soften and condense first and then your belly.  If this feels complicated in your body, don’t try too hard, just let the belly expand on the inhale and the belly condense back into your body on the exhale.

After awhile you can let go of all the trying and just let the breath breathe you automatically, expanding and contracting in the area of your heart.  You have set up the conditions to calm your body and your mind and now get out of the way as much as you can and let the breath breathe you.  All this is metaphor too.

When your mind wanders, instead of following it or fighting the thought, bring your mind back to the breath and the sensations of the body as anchors to keep yourself present to the experience.  So the experience can integrate.  So you can get through it.  And when the emotion, the sensation, the thoughts, the intensity arises, breathe in the sensation to fully experience whatever comes up, with as little judgement as possible.  Noticing.  Experiencing.  Allowing.  Breathe out calm support to yourself, and to the rest of us, to be able to go through what is painful.  As much as you can now, it takes time to be able to really touch the things that are difficult.  When you find yourself spinning out, come back to the breath- automatic, belly or ujjai – and help calm yourself to go through it.

Love.

(With gratitude to the teachings of Sue Jones of yogaHope, Bo Forbes of The Center for Integrative Yoga Therapeutics, Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati, Pema Chodron and her teaching of tong lin, Matt Howe and his teachings of vipassana meditation, and all the other teachings and practices that have informed my own practice and teachings, and Thomas Devaney for the photos)

…any comments or information to make this more useful or accurate always appreciated…

Rebirth

…all I know is something like a bird within her sang…

The morning Miss Judy died, the cacophony of birdsong rang out across the bayou along the Tchefuncte River in Mandeville Louisiana, where I lie, not sleeping, in a hammock on the deck of the condo my Aunt Judy Porter Beier had lived in for many years.  In one of our last email exchanges I had asked Judy what Tchefuncte meant she said she didn’t know, it was just a name.  To her, it meant beautiful.

I had slept here all night, at this house that now is the residence of Judy’s daughter and baby grandson.  I came here late the night before from the house Judy had last been living in with her husband, just down river, in a one story cottage overlooking the river that could accommodate her condition as the disease of ALS progressed.  Maybe 8 years ago or so Judy and I had explored the river in her pirogues, flat bottomed bayou boats, quietly skimming up through the nooks and crannies of the bayou where the slow flowing water of the river intermingles with the twisted roots of the cypress trees, blending together into spiny marshland.  She made sounds of birds and sat quiet and listened.  She told me stories of her own mothering and womanhood and listened to my own trials and confusions.  The longer we floated the more I felt I was going to be alright.

…all I know she sang a little while and then flew on…

The morning Miss Judy died, the birdsong rang out way before the sun had risen.  As far as I could see it was still night, even though the transformation was well on its way before I could even see it coming.  But the birds, they knew, and they celebrated.  It was like a jungle spontaneously unfolding from the miles of twisted trees teaming with life just across the river from where I lay cocooned in her hammock.  My eyes open, looking into the dark of the night, filled with millions of stars.  Ever since my grandfather, Judy’s father, had died on March 7, 1984, early Ash Wednesday morning, in East Jefferson hospital in the suburbs of New Orleans, the very same hospital in which I took my very first breath, we have said the smile of the crescent moon is Papa looking over us.  And the rising star Venus our Granny, his wife, who died 23 years and 5 months later on October 8, 2007 at 3:30 in the morning, the same exact time in the early morning we three granddaughters had all been waking up suddenly for months before her passing.  Would Judy be the stars, or the birds?

…tell me all that you know, I’ll show you, snow and rain…

On Mardi Gras Day, the day before, soon after I had arrived to see her, Judy requested, in one of her last legible communications, that I read aloud the story she had written, when her hand was more stable, about the Presidio.  I was her voice, since her voice was gone.  The story told of when Judy had traveled to San Francisco with friends and gone to see the Presidio, the former battery-now-park that hugs the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge.  As far as she knew, she had never been there before.  And yet she kept having powerful déjà vu memories of the place, knowing what she would find around each corner before she got there.  At one point she told her friends exactly what would be carved in stone on the arch above the door before they got to it, and when they arrived, it said exactly what she had foretold.  Even she was stunned.

…if you hear that same sweet song again will you know why???

Later, in a restaurant, she was talking animatedly in her beautiful Judy fashion, when a man came up to her and said, “I know you, I know your voice and your mannerisms, although you are much too young to be who I know you are.”  He had been stationed at the presidio and was sure she had been his nurse, many years ago.  He would never forget the sound of her voice, I read aloud, hearing inside myself the sound of her voice, that I too will never forget the sound of.

Later they saw each other, randomly, in a French Quarter Hotel during Mardi Gras, the improbability of running into anyone amidst the teeming life of Mardi Gras Day cementing their experience of the cyclical nature of interconnection.  And as she read this to me through my own voice on Mardi Gras Day, my sister was wise enough to note that Judy wanted us to know to look for her, even after this Judy body had passed.  That she wasn’t going to leave us.  We just have to recognize when she appears to us again.

…anyone who sings a song so sweet is passing by…

I lie there, completely open.  The light from the sun began to filter through the sky, illuminating the thin clouds stretched like cotton balls across the Louisiana sky early on Ash Wednesday morning, 2012, 28 years after our papa had died.  Birds flew overhead making tracers across the brightening sky.  A mama bird flew back and forth to the pretty little birdhouse hanging just outside the room where Judy used to sleep, where now Judy’s daughter lie sleeping with her own new baby son.  The bayou exalted.

…laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night…

I remembered how in many eastern forms of spirituality and religion they believe that if you think or say the name of god in the moment of death you will avoid being reborn into samsara – the cycle of death and rebirth that continues until we have learned the lessons we need to learn from this earthly life – and instead be reabsorbed into god.  Maybe I should have told Judy.

In that moment I heard and felt as clear as anything I have ever known, a joyous epiphany that unwound lifetimes of trying to understand – Aha!  She wants to come back. She wants to be with us.  And us not just her family and friends who love her, but US.  The birds and the stars.  Everything.

The whole world opened up around me, alive and vibrant, breathing right through me.  The striated clouds streaked lemon and chartreuse against the dissipating violet of the dawning horizon. The birds crisscrossing across the wakening sky above me.  The slight breeze from their wings as they hummed by.  And I was unbelievably happy.  Like a welling up from deep inside that crested, and sustained, and fulfilled me.  Maybe being reabsorbed into god is not something different from being reabsorbed into us, all of us, everything.  She would never leave us, she is us.  We just have to recognize.  I lie there for awhile, eyes open to the sky, in a very deep peace.

Her daughter opened the sliding glass doors from the kitchen and stepped out onto the porch.

“Neis, I need you to drive me over.  They just called.  She’s gone.”  I will never forget the sound of her voice either.  I looked up and our eyes met.  And held for a moment.

I got right up out of my cocoon and left the chrysalis right there on the hammock.  And played with her baby boy Preston, named after our grandfather, while she prepared to go to see the body that had been her mother, one last time.

…don’t cry now, don’t you cry, don’t you cry anymore…

As children, whenever we would leave Granny’s house, our mama’s mama would stand on her porch and wave goodbye until we could no longer see each other.  We carry on that tradition whenever we leave each other, even now, until we meet again.  As the Suburban/hearse drove away from the Tchefuncte River with the body that had been Miss Judy Porter Beier, my little sister and I stood and waved until we couldn’t see her anymore.  Then we went and sat by the slow flowing river.

…sleep in the stars, don’t you cry, dry your eyes on the wind…      

May we carry on from here.

…la da de da, daaaa….

Queen of the Mardi Gras

2/21/2012

It’s dawn on Mardi Gras Day and I am on a plane headed to New Orleans.  But I’m not going to see the parades, I am headed straight to see the Queen herself.  She lives, for now, on the banks of the Tchefunkte River overlooking the Cyprus knees and Spanish moss of the bayou in Mandeville, Louisiana, named for the beautiful trellising flowers that spring like weeds from the muck of the Mississippi Delta.

She lives, for now, in the beautiful body we have called Great Judy ever since I birthed my son 11 years ago, and she didn’t want to age herself by being a great aunt.  Why not be just great?  It stuck, and Great Judy she is.  As she sits, unable to move her once vibrant body, now ravaged with the final stages of ALS, a mysterious disease that slowly robs her body of its ability to function.

Only a week ago she was still riding around full tilt on her scooter, feeding the birds and squirrels and doves and ducks, scattering piles of bird seed around her lawn, inadvertently sprouting baby sunflowers in her path.   At this point she can mostly only type short texts on her phone and ipad.  There are these great programs where you can record your voice before you lose the ability to talk, and then as you type it speaks your message in your voice.  But Judy didn’t do this, she waited too long, unwilling to accept that no “witch doctor” might be able to cure her and restore her back to herself.  It was only a month or so ago that she was still only seeing an acupuncturist and a chiropractor and refusing to accept the diagnosis of ALS.  Maybe just as well, our allopathic priests don’t have any special magic to fix this one either.  At least she learned a lot about her dantien, in Traditional Chinese Medicine the seat of the chi, the life force, three finger-widths below the navel.  And maintained as comfortable a state as she could living inside her body that was slowly dying.

So instead, a computerized man’s voice speaks for her while she types.  She didn’t want to use the female voice, because it made her sound too “bitchy”.  My mother offered to lend her voice to the task, to which Judy kindly refused.  Judy’s voice is now gone, that unique accent that was a little bit southern drawl and a little bit New Orleans and a little bit little girl and a little bit gravely – yet not really any of those things – just 100% Judy Porter Beier.  I can still hear it in my head, and I hope I always can, saying Neissy, and “I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck”.  Always with a little bit of a benevolently cackling laugh.  Which is beautiful.  That we have to remember her sound in our minds, the resonance of how she touched us all still reverberating in us, even as her form is passing.  How her laugh, her smile, her presence, in our memories, will always be a part of who we are.  Those of us lucky enough to get be part of her coven.

For Judy is a bit of a white witch, in only the best sense of the term.  She has the uncanny ability to know all kinds of things she could not know other than receiving some kind of divine guidance.  In her case the wisdom comes from Jim, her guardian angel, who gives her advice and keeps her and her family safe from harm.  You can think what you like, and Judy knows what she knows.  How else can you explain how she knew to warn her son to not get abducted in Las Vegas, which he nearly did?  I don’t care if it can be explained or not.  I’m listening to Judy.

One of my cousins wrote on Judy’s Facebook page on Judy’s 64^th birthday, just 5 days ago – I always wanted to be you when I grew up.  There are a lot of us who feel that way.  Judy embodies a grace that is as authentic as it is unique.  She holds onto her beauty naturally, and by any means necessary.  Her whole existence is her work of art.  Whether you agree with her, are in awe of her, are envious of her, or not – her methods and mannerisms are honest.  As a little girl I thought she was the prettiest, funniest, most exciting person I had ever dreamed of.  What great good fortune I was born the niece of Judy Porter Beier!  I have always counted this as one of my strengths.

We have come to help her die.  To hold her hand as she lets go of trying to hold onto something that is passing.  My mom flew down the day after Judy’s birthday when we got the call that Judy had turned for the worse.  My sister drove 12 hours yesterday, by herself, without stopping except 3 times to use the bathroom and get some gas.  Judy’s daughter spent most of the night throwing up with her baby son, not because she was in a Mardi Gras parade yesterday or even because they have a stomach flu, we don’t think, we think it is because of nerves.

For our grandfather, Judy and my mother’s father Preston Servos Porter, died in the wee hours of the morning the day after Mardi Gras Day, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  He was 64.  And he could have been arguably the king of the Mardi Gras, at least to us.  We grew up going to the parades on Veterans Highway in Metairie, sitting in little wooden box seats my papa built atop ladders so we could see the floats above the crowds.   Our mamas could stand behind us and smile at the men to throw us beads.  And we had the prettiest mamas around, so we got lots of beads.

I knew nothing of the other side of Mardi Gras until I got older, and must say, was pretty disillusioned.  My childhood Mardi Gras was all family and fun and love.  My granny was purple, my mama was green, Judy was gold.  Papa P. Papa Porter, our grandfather, would bring his conversion van to the Lakeside Shopping Center and park it under the big movie sign so we would know where to find it.  My granny would cook red beans and rice and we would stay all day.  And as this Mardi Gras sun rises and Judy is 64 and dying, we all feel the writing is on the wall.  We have all come to help her die, to hold her hand as she leaves this Judy Porter Beier body that has stopped working.  And yet we will always remember her exactly as she always was.  Alive.

I feel ready for this as I sit here writing on an airplane and yet I am comforted by playing with words, trying to hold this in my hand like I can control it, the reality of it still in the future.  She is still here for me to muse about.  Yet at this point she has surrendered, her body has gone to a place where she knows now it isn’t coming back.  No amount of money, or doctor, or love is going to change that.  She jokes about this in her playful way of attuning to the humor in everything, illuminating the comedy in this tragedy in what my mom, her older sister, would call typical Judy fashion.  “Have we figured out how we’re going to kill me?”

Why not laugh?  Why not be great?  It’s happening anyway and we may as well go through it with joy.  Because this is our life and as far as we are able to know it may be our only one.  Even if it’s not, why waste this precious moment?  No rehearsal, this is it.

We are not going to have a funeral, we are going to do it here and now while Judy is alive. Honor her now while she can be present, taking the jazz funeral ideal to another level.  Instead of lamenting her stay of only 64 years we will give praise for all she has done in that time.  And she has made a good go of it.  We have been concerned that she has been in denial about her illness for the past few years, that she is not embracing death.  And yet she lived with hope the whole time and never gave up in fear.  With a disease like this there was nothing that could have been done anyway, it has always been a matter of time.

This whole time Judy has been embracing life.  Up until there is no choice but to embrace death too.  My little sister has recently moved to the south herself and has taken up singing a country song that urges us to “Live like you were dying”.  She sings it to me when I get stuck in my own personal dramas and fears, to put things in perspective.  And when I look at Judy I am reminded, even in the face of death, to live like you were living.  And what great good fortune it is to born the niece of Judy Porter Beier.  May I carry on from here.