Breath to air, flesh to soil

How a minor event brought home lessons on death

In a recent discussion at the Stoic Salon, our small group debated the use of Stoicism as a rational pursuit along emotions processing through somatic experiencing.

• How do these two very different modes of processing events sit along each other?

• Does the one happen before the other? If yes, which one? And does this order vary across people?

In the safety of the group, I confessed that I am very new to somatic experiencing: at the beginning of therapy three years ago, my counsellor said “you are too much in your head, and not at all in your body.” I wrote down her comment in the session notes, but I had no idea what she meant. What other way was there of experiencing the world, except through the mind?

The day after the Stoic Salon discussion an experience helped me see that it’s neither ‘this’ or ‘that’ but that each has its place.

On a Sunday morning, Hossein, my husband, and I were having breakfast. As always, he faced the patio door and garden, I faced the interior of the room. Introvert and introspect, literally and metaphorically.

“Do you remember the day you got your UK visa?” I asked him.

“Was it today? Is that what the archive says?” he asked jokingly.

“Also the day Aqa jun, your father, died.”

Pause.

“And do you remember…”

A dull thud was heard from the patio door, like a tennis ball hitting the windowpane.

“What was that?”

A little thrush had flown into the glass and knocked itself out. It lay on the flagstones motionless. My first thought was that it was dead, but on closer inspection, it was breathing: it must have been in shock. I didn’t know what to do; Hossein thought – and I agreed – that if we tried to move it, it might become more shocked. We just left it there.

Why it did not cross my mind to google what to do? This is still a mystery to me; all the same, I couldn’t relax and kept checking up on it. Was it feeling cold? Hossein picked it up in an old T-shirt scrap and put it on the garden table. It was windy, so I drew up the garden chair and sat next to it to make sure the fabrics weren’t blown off by the wind, taking the bird with them.

I sat next to it. Its eyes seemed half-closed, but when I moved nearer and looked at its eyes, they lit up. It looked at me. I gazed into its eyes and it gazed back. I loved it and I wanted to help. I still didn’t think of looking anything up, for example, the RSPB charity. I just sat on the garden chair, gazing at the bird’s eyes, keeping a death vigil, crying.

When my daughter Athena woke up, she looked up some information: a bird in shock should be kept warm, indoors in a dark carton box, and left alone to recover; we only got the ‘left alone’ part right.

After lunch, father and daughter went off to a food drive volunteering, and I went to the room of my own to tidy up books. After some time I heard chirping noises from the direction of the living room, but dismissed them as coming from the unkempt bush that separates our garden from the neighbours’ home. It took me some time to recognize that this particular chirping noise was insistent. Was the birdie’s mother looking for it?

I went over. The loud chirping noises came from inside the box. The birdie had been quiet since its accident, but was now making a lot of noise, and thrashed about, trying to stretch its wings and legs, and making spasmodic movements. It lay sideways and couldn’t get up, so I lifted the fabric under it to help it up. It couldn’t stand, and fell on its other side, but continued to call out quite loudly for such a little creature.

I panicked. I rang Athena; she didn’t pick up. Hossein was on his way home on foot. Athena, riding on bike, got home before him. She suggested I look up the local RSPB. I found their WhatsApp number and explained what had happened. Athena, more courageous than me, picked up the birdie and took it out to the garden. It continued to chirp and thrash about, as if it was trying to fly off. She held it in her hands – it couldn’t hold its head up, and one of its wings didn’t look right. It fluttered and tried to fly off but immediately fell on the ground.

In the meantime, I had exchanged messages with the RSPB.

The birdie stopped thrashing about after Athena picked it up. She thought it was probably exhausted from the effort, put it back in the box and covered it. The RSPB volunteer asked me to share a photo of the bird. I lifted the cover. Its eyes were half open, its toes clawed inwardly. Was it dead? Is this what a dead bird looks like? But then again, I thought it was dead this morning, didn’t I? And then it revived.

The volunteer answered, “A volunteer will call you soon, but it seems that the little bird has already passed away?”

Athena touched it. It was already becoming hard.

I cried so much, I was surprised myself; but I allowed myself to feel the waves of grief rise, crest and break, without trying to work out why so much grief bubbled up, or to resist it as I might have done previously. I kept crying, and more grief arose throughout the day. Multiple memories of the 21 May, came up, some pleasant, some not so, and layers of grief, only tangentially connected. I tried to feel it in my body: a catching somewhere around my heart and the solar plexus. I acknowledged the sensation, accepted it was there, and let it be.

Afterwards I felt better. To get back to the questions in the Stoic Salon discussion, after the weeping came the rational process, which is where Stoicism comes in. The bird’s death happened halfway through the 28-Day Joyful Death Meditation at the Stoic Salon (was it an omen? The ancient Greeks believed so.) The prompt for that day had been this quote, an antidote to sadness for untimely death:

Many lumps of incense [burn] on the same altar. One crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference.

(Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, 4:15, tr. Gregory Hays)

I leafed through the notebook where I’ve been writing the Joyful Death Contemplation quotes. Two of them offered some perspective after the grief had taken its course.

If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It’s a natural thing, and nothing natural is evil.

(Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, 2:17, tr. Gregory Hays)

And:

I walk through what is natural, until the time comes to sink down and rest. To entrust my last breath to the source of my daily breathing, fall on the source of my father’s seed, my mother’s blood, my nurse’s milk. Of my daily food and drink through all these years. What sustains my footsteps, and the use I make of it - the many uses.

(Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, 5.4, tr. Gregory Hays)

I took some comfort from burying the little bird in the garden by the miniature rose, where a broken shard of paving stone marks its grave. Its cells will nourish the plant and will turn into flowers. Its breath went back to the air, its consciousness re-merged with the universal consciousness, and may re-form as another entity again.

(This is what the miniature rose looked like exactly one year ago.)

Throughout my life, I’d been unsuccessfully trying to process emotions through reasoning. My nearest and dearest ones have also tried to ‘help’ me by doing the same, which did not help. The death of the little bird showed that feeling the emotion and allowing it to be, and later applying rational thought are helpful in their own time. I am gradually learning to read the cues that my body gives.

Have you had any similar experiences? I’d love to read your comments and stories!

The rest of the strands…

The Stoic Salon

The supportive community at the Stoic Salon completed a 28-Day Joyful Death Contemplation with Stoic texts under Kathryn Koromilas’ wise, caring guidance. But more life-enriching events are in the pipeline, so do check out the space. Will you join us? New friends are always welcome.

Memoir and Life Writing

The Memoir and Life Writing group at The London Writers Salon, continues to meet up on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month, to get to know each other, talk about our work and share experiences and resources.

The next community meeting of the Memoir and Life Writing group is on Thursday 15 June, 5-6 pm BST, when we will catch up and check-in with successes and gripes.

If you would like join hundreds of other writers writing in community, join the free Writers’ Hour; one of the four daily sessions and one Saturday session is bound to fit in with your daily schedule. We can’t wait to welcome you and to write together!

Over three years ago on the first day of the UK lockdown, The London Writers Salon started the daily Writer’s Hour as a ten-day experiment, and it’s been going strong and growing ever since. This week they are about to make history once again by hosting their first ever face-to-face Writers’ Hour in Kindred, Hammersmith, west London on Tuesday 13 June, 10-11 am. Do join us if you can!

The heart meets the (left) hand in an embrace of imperfection

“What of it, then? You embarked, you set sail, you made port. Go ashore now.”

(Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, 3.3 tr. Martin Hammond)