the charnel ground

Glow's premiere feature for the Are You There, God? It's Me, Medusa blogolympics comes from Buddhist mama and author Katie Willis Morton. Katie's son Liam was born with profound brain damage. When he died six-and-a-half weeks later, she embarked on a wider search for solace.

Katie is the author of The Blue Poppy and the Mustard Seed: A Mother's Story of Loss and Hope, due out this month from Wisdom Publications and excerpted, in variation, here with permission. She is also a contributor to the anthology Mourning Sickness from Omniarts. She continues to try to play through the days of chaos, working toward wisdom, graced with the good karma of having Liam's brother and sister at her sides. We're deeply honoured to have Katie among us to share her Buddhist perspective—that all our babies are cherished miracles and teachers.

"Chaos is part of our home ground. Instead of looking for something higher or purer, work with it just as it is the chaos in here and the chaos out there is basic energy, the play of wisdom . . . the basis of freedom and the basis of confusion . . . This charnel ground called life is the manifestation of wisdom.” —Pema Chödrön

The Ganges, and the burning ghats on it, is one of the most sacred places on earth for Hindus. Many old people give up all their possessions and go to live the last days of their lives on the banks of the Ganges bathing in her waters and praying. Corpses bound in cloth and draped in marigolds and carnations are carried daily on the shoulders of their families to the burning pyres on the ghats. Their bodies are consumed in the flames stoked with incense and prayer. The ashes are gathered and then scattered in the flowing waters where they mingle with the ashes of millions. We had no ashes to add to the river only tears and wishes.

I was a pyre—a combustible heap, consumed by chaos, and confused.

We planned to go to India to see some of the Buddha’s holy places like Lumbini, where he was born; and Bodhgaya, where he found enlightenment under an acacia tree; and Sarnath, where he gave his first teaching, and turned the Wheel of Dharma for the first time.

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The lowest caste in India is said to be 'untouchable'. Orphans too are said to be untouchable, because of their great misfortune that caused them to lose their parents. I felt untouchable too.

Kids who lose parents have a name. Husbands and wives who lose their spouses have a name. What do you call parents who lose their babies? It’s an unnamed, and mostly unvoiced, situation of despair. We might call ourselves the Blue Poppy parents, the ones who have seen our children flower, for no matter how small amount of time, and die. We are in a despair that often feels ineffable, which closes us into an unseen, unaddressed, sometimes uncomforted, community. The name widow or orphan at least recognizes the beloved person who lived.

I felt an unspeakable conflict when someone asked me after Liam died if I had children. I had to choose between saying no, which seemed to betray Liam’s life, or say yes, but he died—leaving me stuck in an awkward situation because most people don’t know what to say or how to respond to an answer like that. Sometimes people say what a horrible experience that must have been with, of course, every intention of trying to sympathize. And again, if I said yes, I betray the great love and beauty and delight of him that came hand-in-hand with the horror of his diagnosis and passing. If I say no, not horrible I was afraid I’d seem indifferent, or crazy, or cold-hearted.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the morticians gave out blue poppy pins for us to wear instead of empty, ceramic hearts—a small symbol that says what needs to be said in a way that lets us all be at ease? And better, how wonderful if we knew to say something like That must have been a powerful/moving/intense experience for you. All of those descriptions would be more true than horrible.

All people no matter how small, all lives for no matter how short or long they bloom, are powerful, full of power. Blue poppies take root in mountainous scree; there is a place for happiness in the hard conversations of loss.

Now that the rooftop of the world has been explored and exported, some initiates inclined to cultivate rare plants have made blue poppies more prevalent. It’s been rare for us parents to speak of our loss, which was thought also to be rare. Now, with care, the memory of these delicate and powerful lives, our Blue Poppy Babies, can be brought into the light, and we can see we’re not alone. We can talk about them, openly, who they were and what they meant to us. To be able to, to feel allowed to, talk about our Blue Poppy children joyfully is even more rare then talking about losing them. Our kind of loss is more common then most people know. And more complex.

There is a bright center in all that darkness of my loss that speaks to me still. Liam’s existence makes me consider this moment now, consider the blessing of time, and consider the power of wisdom and skillful means.

It still amazes me that such a small person in only forty-eight days could teach me so much and hold me in an awe that inspired me to love, without too much attachment and too much aversion, the world around me.

Liam taught me just by being there. By existing. And despite his limitations and everything against him. On the phone one day my grandma told me she was praying for a miracle. He already is a miracle I told her quietly not knowing how to explain what I meant any more than that. We are all miracles, aren’t we? That we are here at all, maybe that should tell us something. Maybe, we are all small miracles, chaos of matter, capable of birthing light even with our limitations. My heart broke because of that powerful experience of Liam’s short life, but it broke it open too.

It’s not just that I loved my son Liam; when Liam was here, in concert with the crushing dread, I simply loved, unstrained and easily, without reservation, without discernment, without judgment. I was open to almost everyone that I encountered. It was a sacred experience to live in love and to gratefully accept the world with all its awful, unspeakable blessings.

What was solely horrifying was what came after the time with Liam when he revealed to me how to live within a spacious mind. Having to go on living, which is no small matter, and move on, through the chaos in here and out there. And knowing what a struggle it will be since I’m intensely aware that I’m not able in everyday to evoke this understanding he drew out of me and not give in to my horrible nature that comes hand in hand with my loving one.

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We had no services when Liam passed. We waked him the only way we could at the time, instinctively, setting an altar in our front room where anyone would see it upon entering our home, keeping his presence with us the only way possible—symbolically, elliptically, and then, to go on living anyway.

the 'are you there, god? it's me, medusa' blogolympics

Maybe, for you, it’s God with a capital G. Or perhaps it’s the Universe. Or Allah or Buddha or Shakti or Jesus or Gitche Manitou. Or the random spark of nature, of dust and regrowth free of myth. Or nothing.

For many of us, growing a headful of snakes through the experience of babyloss drums up a host of unanswerable questions: Why? Is there really anybody Out There? What’s the point of all this, and where do I go from here?

We thrash and cry and stomp feet and we may leave, answering what feels like abandonment with abandonment. Then we may find quietness, and we may find our way back to faith, or perhaps faith with a modified floorplan. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we are comforted with randomness, subscribing to no particular being who may or may not be responsible for who stays and who doesn't.

For the next while, babylost parents of varied faiths—Christian, Hindu, Atheist, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, Naturalist/Wiccan and more—will keep house here at Glow in the Woods. As guest authors, they’ll share with us how their beliefs have coloured their re-entry into the ordinary world and affected their path towards healing.

We'll be publishing them on the site through the month of October, and at any point we invite you to share your own story on your blog using the same meditations given to our guest authors:

• How has your religion or belief system helped you to contemplate the universal questions that babyloss props up so vividly in front of the heart?
• How did the institutions surrounding your faith (church, synogogue, temple, spiritual mentors) acknowledge your loss—or did they? If your beliefs are more freeform than institutional, what other sources of acknowledgement or comfort did you discover for yourself?
• Have you had episodes of startling clarity, or of being neck-deep in theological mud? Where did those episodes lead you, and for what purpose? How did they affect the kind of spirit-baby mother you are today?
• Trauma and loss can inspire moments of doubt and lapses in faith. What conviction, experience or encounter propelled you through that moment and brought you back into the fold—or helped you be okay with staying lapsed?

We're fascinated to see what comes to the surface for you. Don't feel you must explain why you believe what you believe. Just choose one moment, one idea, one teaching or mantra or sentiment that rang a bell in your heart—or simply tell us where you stand at this moment. The above are simply prompts from which you can explore as you wish.

how to participate

We’d love to see you all join in this conversation. Please share your reflections on your own blog by including your link in the comments of any are you there, god? post—either in response to a story written by an author who shares your spiritual background, or to explore new angles thanks to an author with a different perspective. Or, simply comment as you normally do, adding your voice to this space.

If you’re inspired to participate by posting your own story on your blog, the only rules of this exercise are word count—a maximum of 1000—and a few other points of commonsense.

• Be naked. Your writing need not be a religious hallmark card. The more authentic you are about what you know and what you don’t know, the more provocative and valuable this will be for everyone. Be open to talking about doubt, and uncomfortable lines of questioning, and episodes of therapeutic vice (we kid, but you get the idea).
• Please write in the context of your own experience, and refrain from using your beliefs as a basis to explain the spiritual fate of the loved ones of others.
• You’re all such clever mamas and papas we feel it’s almost unneccesary to qualify this, but we should: no proselytizing, please. Your intent is not to convince anyone of anything, nor to serve as an invitation to your faith. It is only to tell your story in the context of your beliefs.

The same groundrules will apply to all participants, contributors and readers/commenters alike. Please respect the sacred convictions and learning of everyone here by adding to dialogue rather than countering it with theologic generalizations or debate.

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Let’s all subscribe to a Buddhist principle as we share: that of gentle speech. We are here to create a conversation that is non-divisive, encouraging, thoughtful, and reckoned and measured in accordance with solidarity and healing.

We’re curious to prove our hunch—that this gathering will serve to illustrate the oneness of parenthood, of love for children, of a need for light and hope that crosses all boundaries. That no matter what semantics we subscribe to and what shapes our beliefs take, we all share the same unanswerable questions and walk this path together.

The memory of birth and the expectation of death always lurk within the human being, making him separate from his fellows and consequently capable of intercourse with them. Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it! And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.

From E.M. Forster’s Two Cheers for Democracy: What I Believe

revisiting closure

So.

Say you are injured deeply. Cut to the core and then split right through,
so you can see the sky through your middle.

And it really, really hurts, so much so that you're not quite sure you can stand it.

And it keeps on hurting.

Daily.
Hourly.
Every blessed, pained minute.

Sometimes you have to concentrate on breathing just so the seconds can pass.

Some might suggest that you let the wound be stitched up.
Close it up so that you can't even tell it's there

(well, except for the big scar and the dented-in hollow place)

and try to act like it didn't happen.
Patch it, spackle it, and move on, Missy!

But you have a fascination with what's been exposed.
And you don't want to act like it didn't happen
Or that you are the same.

So you tend and clean the wound, and it does heal.
But you don't let it close up.

And if you do that,
do you then have a special window into your innermost center?
A place you can expose to others, if you have a mind to, and say

Look, I was wounded like this, but I can still walk around, and isn't that cool?

A lens through which you can catch glimpses of the eternal?
Can it be a good thing?
Or even a thing of beauty?

Is the opposite of closure

An opening?

Today's lovely words are leant to us by Julie, a dear friend and mama to starborne Ward. She peppers her blog with poetry so familiar it calms and electrifies me all at once, and with thoughts on meditation, visions, gratitude, and staying open to cross-dimensional love.

If you'd like access to Julie's newly private blog (the reason for which is happily explained within), email us here at Glow and we'll pass you along to her.