Places We Love Hidden in the Deep

Deep Waters of Love - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

"When you go, space closes over like water behind you, 

Do not look back: there is nothing outside you, 

Space is only time visible in a different way, 

Places we love we can never leave."

- from Ivan Lalic's poem, "Places We Love"

Deepening of Love - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

I have just returned from a profound pilgrimage: a joyous farm wedding with extended family, and committing the remains of my beloved to a familiar freshwater lake. The wedding brought tears of gratitude and joy, blessing a young couple entering new waters, unfamiliar depths, surrounded by Nature's embrace. An oasis in Iowa. Great Pyrenees canines, playful alpacas, barn cats, wily goats named Waylon and Willie, a dozen quacky ducks, a luminous bride and groom, and a lake for the herons to play and survey. Home for the Wild.

Then on to the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

"He's Home" - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

The waters of the lake that was home to a Great Light closed over his ashes with a tenderness and reverence that rippled through me in waves of grief, loss, and gratitude. "He's home," I heard in a whisper. Surrounded by our family, by our arbor elders and creature-kin, it was a balm I will never forget. This sacred place was his Soulscape since childhood, a womb that held the family ethos. It was filled with tears of laughter, celebration, heartache, wonder, solitude and reflection. Soaking us with Autumn splendor. Awe.

I remembered his admonition even as I felt the deluge: "There is no death! We are made for Life!"

Love is often hidden in deep places.

Reflecting - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

Now that the mid-terms are upon us and change is in the Autumn air, the opportunities for renewal are opening to us once again. I find myself wading into deep waters of political philosophy, environmental ethics, Nature-inspired living and eco-spiritual practice, music, art, and poetry. I find myself gravitating to the embrace of extended family, and friends, friends, friends.

Can't we find waters of compassion, to cover over what is aching, bleeding, wounded, and dying? On a macro level, it feels like a tsunami is the only thing that can help this geopolitical mess. But a gentle, undulating lake might be better - small ripples, deep resting places for connection and healing. A bathing pool, rather than flash floods.

Kitchen is READY for a Makeover - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

On a micro-scale, the waters of change are taking the form of a water feature for the kitchen wall. Our kitchen and living room are being prepped for an organic modern renovation, meaning the heart of our home is being inspired and transformed by Nature. We can envision it in a way, but we are deepening our appreciation with time and attention to detail.

Kitchen Dreams - Image courtesy of Laura Weber - AI-assisted

It all feels like Love being revealed in a mysterious way, one steeped in creation's colors and nuance and rhythms. What has died, what appears to be ashes, the broken, dried leaves and empty seed husks, is an illusion of space and time. Death is really the outward appearance of composting. We know New Life is nigh. Maybe that's deep faith. Maybe it's just opening our ears, eyes, and hearts to the dynamism of change that is Love. Paying attention to detail. Paying attention to places we love.

However we find ourselves this Autumn, all our falling and failing and dying and good-byes, let there be HOPE resting deeply, waiting to emerge from a Lake filled with Love.

Places We Love - Image courtesy of Laura Weber

Places We Love

by Ivan V. Lalic

Places we love exist only through us, 

Space destroyed is only illusion in the constancy of time,

Places we love we can never leave, 

Places we love together, together, together, 

And is this room really a room, or an embrace, 

And what is beneath the window: a street or years? 

And the window is only the imprint left by 

The first rain we understood, returning endlessly, 

And this wall does not define the room, but perhaps the night 

Your son began to move in your sleeping blood,

A son like a butterfly of flame in your hall of mirrors, 

The night you were frightened by your own light, 

And this door leads into any afternoon 

Which outlives it, forever peopled

With your casual movements, as you stepped, 

Like fire into copper, into my only memory; 

When you go, space closes over like water behind you, 

Do not look back: there is nothing outside you, 

Space is only time visible in a different way, 

Places we love we can never leave.