In her teenage years my mother was arrested on the corner of Haight and Ashbery. She was also student body president of her exclusive private school. She was, even then, modeling her capacity to run with both the sheep and the wolves, the coyotes and the rabbits. She was already becoming committed to the idea that there is no us and them, no good and bad, no wrong belief that needs correcting. She was learning how to see every human as truly worthy of her compassion and attention…

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In death’s company, nothing is taken for granted.

The traditional Mayan teachings that inspired the Ballcourt Ceremony have a lot to say about endings. They remind us: this is the way of nature; only through death can life regenerate itself.
Indeed, there are awful endings, but the cycle – birth, death, and rebirth – is ongoing. This cyclical perspective is so ancient and pre-colonized that, for me, it is nearly incomprehensible.
The idea of endless regeneration is pre-verbal, pre-binary, pre-intellectual. It gives me great comfort as well as a sense of gravitas to imagine that while my life will end, something of me – my essence, perhaps – will carry on….

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