Death Anniversary

And link to the prayer service March 14 5pm

Photo - Susan Merri Osborn

Here’s the link to the simulcast of the prayer service at Emanuel Episcopal Church Eastsound, WA. Friday, March 14, 5pm:

https://youtube.com/live/uepSsRUuab0?feature=share

Here are the songs I selected for Susan’s one year send off. You can listen and have your own communion:

Her Heart - Susan Osborn (from ‘Hummingbird’ Ralf Illenberger - guitar)

The Promise-Susan Osborn (from ‘You Gotta Believe’ Tim Clay - piano)

You Gotta Believe -Susan Osborn (from ‘You Gotta Believe’ Ed Dunn - bass, Tim Clay - guitar, Kent Newman -percussion)

Death Anniversary

First, we need a better term for this occurrence. Any ideas?

I guess it is somewhat unusual to celebrate the one year anniversary of a death. It is required in Japan. It gives us a time to reflect on the occurrence after time has mellowed the shock.

When we arrived in the ambulance that moved us from the hospital to the hospice Fr. Berto was already in the parking lot waiting. Numerous times during Susan's hospitalizations and recoveries Fr. Berto and Fr. Hugh would show up with their loving presence and their traveling communion kit, which reminds me of my traveling paint box, they are the craftsmen of compassion. Later the same day Dick Staub came with his Russian Othodox prayers holding the door of spirit open in his humorous and inviting way. What mystery brought them both to Bellingham on that our first day? If we didn't already know we were on some divine journey the fact was illuminated by these our local saints.

As Susan's body was leaving the hospice the staff had a ritual of ringing a bell three times. One for the birth, one for the life, one for the death. As we gathered at the door we played "Her Heart". It was a transcendent moment for all of us.

Here, at this anniversary service, Vivienne Hull represents the birth as the one who, with Fritz, brought Susan to the Northwest, encouraged her teaching, and helped marry us.

Dick Staub enriched her life as many afternoons they would laugh together at the lower tavern.

Penny Sharp we knew way back in the East Coast days. She came with us when we first came to Orcas and all the way to hospice.

Mimi Anderson has been our steadfast friend and neighbor for thirty eight years. Along with Steve who helped usher Sue out. And their daughter Aliza our hope for the world... no pressure.

Rev. Susan "Momo" Shanon represents the death. Susan's last great friend and present with me at the end. (And coincidentally Buddhist chaplain on San Quentin death row for ten years).

That's the cast of characters for the anniversary prayer service on this day of the eclipse of the blood moon.

Susan told our dear friend Donna that she wasn't afraid to die but she wasn't ready. She really wanted to finish her substack memoir.

I'm trying, I'm trying.

As we approach the one year mark since Susan's death I am experiencing the tug of wonder between holding on and letting go. When people ask how I am doing I say, in midwest fashion, "OK". Which is true. If there is time for more explication I say I am painting a lot , keeping busy, I have a show coming as a deadline which helps concentrate the mind. All true. I believe it is good to keep the fingers, eyes, and mind engaged but perhaps after a year it is time to write something more about how I am doing...

The waves that would come unbidden, eyes welling, stomach churning, are fewer now. From many a day to once or twice. We are further from where the stone fell into the pond, the shock. The ripples now are broader, more spaced out.

When Susan named her substack memoir "Riding the Big Wave Home" I assumed she was referring to the act of singing. She often used the metaphor of surfing in her classes. But it is, of course, also a metaphor for the journey to and through death.

People would often project on to Susan their idea of a goddess. Fortunately we never took that seriously. Now with the timing of her death I think I will always associate her going into the underworld with the coming of spring. There is something Greek about that...

I avoided telling stories about her death because I didn't want to get locked into a story on some endless loop. On the day of her death I didn't want to stay in the civilized world. I went up to Mount Baker, wandered into the crystalline snow fields and sang without words. I think it is good to meet the waves, which can come packed with dread and regret, guilt and longing, all the emotional stories, with openness and release. To open to the waves as they come in their all their different guises and let them flow through the body not hold on. That is what we learned from singing. That is what I tried to do in the aftermath of her death. To not name the waves that arise but ingest and release the energy. I was sometimes more successful at this than others.

I found light infusing the darkness. Not so much by design as that they happened to happen together. The reality of death glazed by the snow white mountain peaks, the ashes graced by the falling cherry blossoms. The crushing curling wave shooting me out the other end. Collapse opening an acceleration into life.

I would feel these waves as I took frequent walks down the little county road through our wooded property between a hill and a ravine. I set myself the task of cleaning and making paths to several (to me) auspicious sites along the road. My pilgrimage sites. One of these is a big cedar tree where Susan liked to bring visitors and ask "why is this huge tree here while all the others were cut down 100 years ago?" The answer is revealed on the far side where a fire had hollowed the base and left a scar that ran up the side of the tree making it undesirable as lumber but saving its life. The precious wound.

My younger self loved the biography of Milarepa, the 11th century Tibetan saint, (who incidentally wrote a thousand songs). He would meditate in the mountains, his only possession - a bowl, his only meal - nettles. When his bowl accidentally fell and broke he said "even my bowl by breaking becomes my guru, teaching me the impermanence of all things." I would often use this phrase around the house especially as I seemed prone to dropping and breaking things. Susan even put this into one of her last poems when she spilled her matcha. How could I not dwell on that teaching in this time of great impermanence? But what does it mean that everything arises from nothing and returns to nothing? That we are the substance through which waves flow? Spirit tied to matter, or perhaps not so strongly tied as we thought.

I am still surrounded by the other's belongings, everything left in place for when she returns from being on tour. I recognize there is still a layer of denial. Surely the one year mark is the time to let that go? There is some consolation in the fact that this would have been a year of increasing pain and medical and political tortures. She got to skip all that. Still when I want to show her a painting or have her read something or get her take on this and that it is not the sick Susan I think of sitting across from me.

I am aware that there are many out there in the world, known and unknown, whose connection to Susan is real while the connection to her death is less real than mine. The gifts she shared are still working in other lives. I know many of you cherish that part. A song, a touch, a teaching, a kindness, a laugh that lingers. It will be the same for all of us. Susan managed to get around more than most, often invited within the walled gardens. It is a mystery, one I took too much for granted too much of the time.

A 4.5 earthquake rumbles through the house at 5 am as I am writing this. Lifting it and setting it back down. An exclamation point six miles away begins a sentence. I greet it with joy and awe. Not the least bit fear. "For that's the way of time, nothing and no one stays the same". Even what we think most solid is ~ fluid.

This prayer service we are putting on at the Episcopal church is for me. Susan was quite clear that she is out of here. It's also for all the people like me in some degree of denial. I am just now remembering a phrase Susan picked up from her mother. When anyone had a problem or was in distress she'd say "put it in God's pocket and don't peek". I think this is my way of putting Susan in God's pocket. To trust. We will continue to be grateful for, and benefit from, her presence among us all the days of our lives and dwell in the songhouse together.

-dD

That’s the Thing

Susan Osborn

( special thanks to DLD and Milarepa)

that’s the thing about water

it goes everywhere

it wants to go

even when you don’t want it

you need it

just like love

that’s the thing

even when you don’t know

you want it

you need it

it goes everywhere it wants

and cannot be contained forever

even my spilled bowl of morning tea

becomes

my guru

When you have 19 minutes to sink into your easy chair:

Amazing Space - Susan’s first night recording in the Cathedral of St John the Divine, Paul Halley at the Cathedral Organ.

Dedicated to the awakened heart of all beings.