Dear Beloved,
Whilst chanting nembutsu this morning, I thought of you.
I wondered how much we have in common - you and me.
We are both human.
How do our bodies compare? Do you have a squishy layer of fat around your bones like I do? Do cats find your lap bountiful? Or are your beautiful bones more visible? Are you taller or shorter? Is your skin freckled or wrinkled or blessed by melanin?
How do our histories compare? Were your parents good enough, or did they excel, or did they leave you with deep pockets of sharp hurt? Maybe all three, like mine? How much privilege were you born into and do you share any of mine? How have systems of power crushed you?
What blessings do you carry? Good work, friends, access to trees, enough to eat, animals that love you? What burdens? Ill health, weighty caring responsibilities, mental unrest, financial wobbliness, despair about the state of the world?
Whilst chanting nembutsu, I thought: the only thing I can be sure of is that you were born and you will die.
Me too.
Right now, the thought of death doesn’t unnerve me. It feels far away.
Sometimes - when I’m shocked at how much a celebrity has aged, when our dog Aiko is sick, when I do a count of the number of years I might have left - it sidles closer.
Death serves me best when it accompanies me as a child might, gleefully running ahead of me as we walk by the sea. I can see her smiling back at me. I know I will catch her up one day, or she’ll come to me. For now, she helps me to enjoy the twinkling of the waves, the crude cries of seagulls, the prospect of ice-cream. She puts my problems into perspective. She lights the way ahead.
We all have this in common - however extreme our differences. Whatever our beliefs, our obsessions, our foibles. Even those with the most cruel and violent self-protective mechanisms know that they will die. It places vulnerability at the very heart of them.
It seems strange that this girl I am imagining would offer me love, even as she guarantees my finitude. And yet I can see that she does. She is telling me that love runs through everything, even if it is hidden for a long time. She is showing me how it streams through her own body: pulses of light and good dark. She is telling me that I shouldn’t be afraid, that I shouldn’t be afraid.
She wants me to pass on a message to you.
What unites us is death, but around and underneath and all through that is love.
Love, Satya <3
A question to carry: How might death light your day today?
‘Dear Beloved’ are letters that will nudge you towards love. They are written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.
This is so beautiful Satya. I am trying to find my way back to my Substack and you have inspired me.