Swaha

A tribute to those affected by the Marshall Fire that occurred in Boulder County, Colorado in December.

When she first told us, she listed out the things most dear:

Two decades of soul collage.

Handmade mosaics in every window.

Process painting.

Gardening.

Children’s art and birth books.

Grandparent’s legacy.

Dad’s meditation shawl.

Her wedding ring.

Her son’s clay turtle.

Rainbow weaving and sunflower and self portrait.

Her other son’s family newsletters and battle scenes and mazes.

Decades of pictures saved on a laptop.

Hammock.

Trampoline.

The porch her son built.

Their cars.

Climbing, camping, skiing, and biking equipment.

All of this that made up not merely a home, but a self-proclaimed sacred space. A part of her, like bones.

Then she said:

Swaha. All is gone.

I have been holding this word – swaha – ever since.

Swaha.

So be it, by the fierce power of agni, the fire.

Swaha.

OK. I surrender. I surrender now. And now. And now.

Swaha.

It is easy to curl into a ball and let the inertia of grief envelop you. It is the greatest courage to let the inertia be alchemized into the gratitude that gets you up and open to all that is being revealed to you.

Swaha.

I am connected now to all of the griefs of the world, for all those who have lost everything.

Swaha.

I am not my possessions. I am something else entirely.

Swaha.

When all has dropped away, the steady gaze and comfort of compassion remains. It lives in our blood, behind our eyes. It helps us to remember the power of the invisible.

Swaha. 

To raise your hands to the sky and say thank you, thank you for all that remains, for all that is not lost, that has not gone.

—Liz Tucker-Rogers