At Death; at 49 Days Later
There’s a meaningful phrase for the moment of death: when breath becomes air. I watched this moment for both of my parents – there is a breath and then there is no more. But there is also a lingering, something like the glowing embers in a dying beach fire. They are bright orange, then red, then a dark red, and then dark but still warm, and then finally, as cool as the night air. I’ve been thinking about Beth Potter, sparked by a video of a Grammy award-winning cellist playing the piece James Blachly began writing the morning we learned of Beth’s death. We were talking together that morning about the ear-training that James does daily. I also talked about my shock in hearing the news of Beth and asked him at the end of our call, “Please let me know if you hear anything.” Within 24 hours, a pdf file arrived showing a rough sketch of a musical theme that James indeed heard. Within several weeks, that had been fleshed out into the piece that you can hear Andrew Yee performing:
It is uncanny for me to listen to this. I’m not listening to something “for” Beth, or “about” Beth, or “in memory” of Beth. I am listening to the moment of her death. Immediate, raw, full of every emotion there is, full of every bodily sensation there is. When breath becomes air. But then there is the lingering. Many of you heard the 49 th day service we conducted online for Beth. Before the okyo, I spoke of my sensations as the service began. Here’s a rough transcript:
Those who know our style of Zen know that we are not very ceremonial. We don’t have much to say about rituals; we don’t have many symbols. But what we do have is a deep respect for the visceral feelings of things. When we do something, we want to feel our way into it, letting our senses and our intuition guide our actions. So it is with this 49th day memorial service. Such a ceremony is certainly a common event for most any Japanese who dies. But Beth is not Japanese; we are not Japanese, our form of Zen isn’t even Japanese, though Japan is our cultural and spiritual root. Thus, I feel an obligation to explain what I want to accomplish in conducting this service for Beth. The best way I can do that is with a story, describing something I watched happen in the summer of 1973.
I was traveling south from the Japanese island of Kyushu, using small ferries to hop between the many islands that lie between Kyushu and Okinawa. These were not fancy boats – more chickens on deck than passengers. Freight for delivery to an island. Heavy smell of fish and diesel fuel. While my ferry was working its way south, there was a second ferry working its way north. It was at one of my stops when this story took place. I’m stepping over the rail onto a dock that has the north-bound ferry tied up on the other side, engine running, getting ready to depart. Walking down the dock toward that boat are two men. The older one is dressed as a fisherman – the usual rubber boots, square-shaped ball cap, dark trousers, long-sleeved shirt. The younger one – early twenties? – is dressed for travel – sneakers, polo shirt. He is carrying a suitcase. In appearance, in manner, they seem like father and son. As the son steps over the rail of the north-bound ferry, his father passes him the end from a thin roll of colored paper. The son takes the end carefully as he boards, sets down his suitcase by the rail, and turns to face his father. Quiet emotions at play in their faces, suggesting that the son is moving away from his island. Without ceremony, the boat starts to move, and as it does the father starts to unroll that strip of paper. They each still hold on to an end but there is more and more of the streamer now tying the boat to the dock. It looks like the roll of paper is no more than fifty feet long, so now the father is walking at boat speed to the end of the dock. And there is a moment – no more dock, no more paper to unroll, both holding on as long as they can. Please don’t go. Don’t go…As if the longing and a thin strip of paper hold could back the many tons of the ferry. The streamer breaks. But still, between the father and the son there is something as the boat continues to gain speed. It is that “something” that I most remember these forty seven years later. And it is that “something” that I am feeling for Beth tonight. Cultures much older than our own long ago figured out that something shifts in the world forty-five to fifty days following a person’s death. For many weeks, there had been a lingering, a presence, a thin strip of colored paper between Beth and those left behind. But in the end something breaks and that is what is happening tonight as I hold this ceremony for her. The boat has sped up and now she has left on a trip north.
See the video performance of Meditation for Beth
Played by Andrew Yee, cello
Composed by James Blachly
For Beth Potter
