The Ocean Remains

On Loss and Love

Three days I go I said good-bye to one of the great loves of my life, my thirteen year old chihuahua named Brody.

I had no idea how much presence could be packed into one tiny, four pound body, until he was gone. He wasn’t loud, unless defending his people, and yet now the house is eerily silent. He wasn’t big, and yet the space in my home has become immense.

He and I lived many journeys, celebrating many joys and healing much pain. Relentless in his affection, nothing ever kept him from loving. Love was the truth of his being.

His passing has brought me expansion, led me into trust, and at the same time filled my days with a profound and bittersweet grief.

I asked my pen to speak, to bring me guidance, to lead me in allowing him to travel, this time onward, and for now, without me.

THE OCEAN REMAINS

The grief of loss
is inextricably bound
with the idea of error
Either the unfairness
of a god
who takes away love
even as it was once given
Or that we ourselves
have somehow
pushed love away
and loss becomes
a deserved punishment
to the one who is not worthy
the one who is dark
and unholy
too weak to hold love close
or too dangerous
to give it room to grow

Hence
the inevitability
of the death
of love
has become the birth of doubt
of existential mistrust
for how does one live
in a world
which teaches through beauty
yet punishes
through the ache
of such inexpressible pain

Where does faith go
when love fades
beyond our grasp
when the days grow dark
and the nights darker still
for grief is necessarily
so very
very lonely

What hopeful truth
could we be asked to believe
when it seems that
the truth is plain 
before us
Love leaves
joy dissolves
we are never again
to feel the kiss
to know the touch
which once taught us
that love inhabited
the world within
one’s own 
all too human
heart

And so we ask
if love has left
where has it gone?
And there can be no other answer
except that Love is
where it has always been
where it will always be
in the fields of perfection
so vast
that our material bounds
are but a whisper of memory
which live
at Love's periphery
an inversion of the All
like the impressions of waves
upon the sands
at the edge 
of a great forgotten ocean

The waters may seem
to ebb and flow
but the ocean remains
farther than the eye
larger than imagination
deeper
oh so much deeper
than those who still walk the land
may ever know

Yet our time will come
One day
we too will slip into
her waters
and laugh at the thought
that once
we fell under the spell
of those shifting sands

And so when the gentle wind 
of a familiar faith
comes calling
returning
one breath at a time
When we take pause
and consider to raise up
the pieces of our broken heart
we decide
not to look back
but turn our gaze beyond
not to simply remember
what seems lost
but rather to join in
the journey of expansion
to understand
that love is never still
but always flowing
and in the choice to float
with love
wherever she goes
into the abyss
and beyond
we may drop our tears
into that immense sea of acceptance
for Love has not gone anywhere
that we are not free to travel 
as the beloved leads us
their kisses marking the path
each one a closer surrender
to a Home more vast
than all our dreams could tell

And so 
to the dear one
who has led me 
to this shore
I thank you
I prepare myself
to travel with you
once more

These steps
you so softly
and graciously took
those last breaths
you so gently offered
a gift
to our separation
now guide me
for though my flesh
my body
still breathes this air
I know it is but a moment
till oceans of love
will swallow me whole
and the confusions
of the blindness of grief
will fall away
and I will find you again
beyond form
beyond pain
beyond the fear
that love could be lost
for I will know you
by your kiss
now the universal touch
as I meet you
in your freedom
our eternity
for this is love
this is Love

This 
is Love

much love, 
Adi