Watching and Waiting

Comfort in a time of grief

One of the things I notice about the story of the Agony in the Garden is that it happened at night. For months now, I have been awake a lot in the night. Inflammatory arthritis that has caused lesions on my spine mean that pain is a frequent and persistent visitor. But more than the physical pain, or the darkness of the night hours, it has been the darkness of my own thoughts that have been causing my own agony. I find myself hesitating to write that. I have resisted the way darkness is equated with negativity. I have read and loved Clark Strand’s book ‘Waking up to the Dark’, and have written about how as a society we idolise light, summer and growth but that darkness, letting go and stripping back are a part of the life cycle and that seeds need to be planted into the dark earth , disintegrating and changing shape before the first green tendrils of new life can emerge. But the truth is, I wrote those things after the periods of darkness were over. I was looking back, from a place when the dawn had crept across the sky and brought light to whatever the situation was that had been so scary or full of grief.

This time, I am still in the middle of night. The autoimmune condition that has been in my body for 50 years has accelerated. Decades of medical gaslighting meant that I got no treatment. Now I have a diagnosis, two actually, but there are widespread consequences for what was ignored. All the things that gave my life shape and joy such as art, walking , riding my pony, crafting; all have been stripped away as pain and energy depletion stalk my days. Like that seed in the dark, I feel like I am disintegrating.

I sit staring at the blank screen of the computer, wondering what on earth I can write that is any way authentic. My eyes wander to the view outside my studio door. It is a grey misty day; all the colours are muted and subdued. In the middle of the fishing lake, a heron is perched on a fallen tree. She has been sat there all morning. I keep coming back to the computer, writing something then erasing it. Each time I look up, heron is still there.

Watching.

Waiting.

I find myself wondering….is she praying….for me?

That thought sets off a barrage of mocking, critical voices in my head. “Oh you are nuts. That’s going too far. She is just fishing. For goodness sake, you can’t write that. People will think you are bonkers. “

Another hour passes. Pain has me immobilised. My legs are heavy and throbbing. Fire licks at my spine. The light hurts my eyes.

Still Heron sits.

Watching

Waiting.

I find myself wondering why Jesus went off on his own to pray, even though he had asked his friends to go with him. Was it because he knew they didn’t still didn’t really understand what was happening? He had been as clear as he could be, tried to warn them. Maybe it was just too much for them all. Perhaps as they slept just a stone’s throw away from where he was distressed and agitated, they were dreaming of some kingdom to come, holding on to the belief that he would be a victorious Messiah, overcoming the oppressive Roman regime and setting them all free. Or maybe I am doing them an injustice. After all, Luke wrote about them being exhausted by sorrow. Perhaps locked into their own fears, overwhelmed with the horrors of living under a brutal occupation and so depleted by it all, their grief at what Jesus had been warning them about, was just too much to bear, and so, they slept.

Still Heron sits

Watches.

Waits.

I think of how the scripture describes Jesus’s soul being overwhelmed to the point of death. What does that mean, I wonder to myself? To me, it says that his soul felt so overwhelmed it felt like it would kill him.

I recognise that feeling. That sensation of being so bereft and afraid that you end up on the ground, your face in the dirt, pleading for something to change.

I pause. Something is stirring in me. I look up.

Still Heron sits

Watches

Waits.

But she has changed position. She is looking straight at me. Pay attention she seems to say.

I read in Mark. “He fell with his face to the ground”

In Matthew, “He fell to the ground”

In Luke, “He knelt down”

Heron’s gaze does not waver.

When Jesus was overwhelmed with sorrow, he got close to the earth. He prayed to the Father but he let the Mother hold him.

A movement catches my eye, and I look up just as Heron lifts her huge wings and takes off. With seemingly effortless flight, she glides to the edge of the lake, lands, and folding her wings settles down to feed.

I find myself remembering a time back in the spring. I had been walking my dogs along the edges a field next to the lake ,when the exhaustion became too much and my legs felt weak. I put my hand out to a tree by the path to steady myself and felt an invitation. “Come and lean against me”. The tree was a huge old ash tree. Close to tears I slid down to her base and leant against her rough trunk, closing my eyes and breathing slowly until my heart rate steadied. When I opened my eyes, I just sat and gazed at the field that stretched out to the far tree line.

“I’m just so tired”. The words were not spoken to anyone in particular, just a truth that needed expression.

“ So are we.” I looked more closely at the field. Was this huge expanse of ploughed earth responding to me? This field was one that was in continuous use. Year after year it was ploughed, seeded, harvested. Never allowed to lie fallow. Sprayed with toxic chemicals, force fed fertiliser, floods caused by the changes in our climate washing away its topsoil. “I’m so sorry. What can I do?” I asked, wondering what people would think if I told them that I was having a conversation with a field. “Nothing, thankyou. Just be with us. We find comfort in your presence.”

Comfort in your presence.

Some would think it is mere anthropomorphism to think a field might find comfort in my presence. Over the centuries, humanity has done a good job of stripping the other- than- human world of its soul. I find myself remembering something John O’Donahue wrote in his book ‘Divine Beauty’. Getting up from my chair to find the book I notice that Heron is back on her tree.

Watching

Waiting.

O’Donahue writes, “Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there? Perhaps your place loves having you there. It misses you when you are away and in its secret way rejoices when you return. Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you?”

Now there are tears, wet on my face. I don’t know why. Nothing has changed really. My body is still in pain. The shape of my life is still disintegrating.

And yet somehow, something has shifted.

I have been comforted by the presence of a friend who came and sat a stone’s throw away.

A friend who

Watched

Waited

And prayed.

And that friend was a Heron.

I had no idea when I wrote the above reflection for a group dedicated to the rosary, that just six days later, the structure that gave my life its shape would crumble completely. All my adult life I have been involved with horses and for the last twenty years or so felt like I was a member of a herd, invited into relationship with my four horses as we learned how to work together with troubled children attending my psychotherapy practice. Covid put an end to that work and we entered a new phase. We lost Bouncer the huge benevolent herd leader in 2022 and Wizard Star , the herd matriarch followed in 2023. Bonny Lass and FireFly and I had to learn a new way of being a herd and we did. They settled down together, enjoying racing around the field on a windy day.

Bonny made friends with Lottie my yellow lab who would sit outside her stable when she was in for her feed, sometimes creeping in when the door was open so that she could lie with her.

FireFly and I went for long rides around the hedgerows and fishing lakes. When I had to stop riding in May because of surgery and spine problems, he continued to go out with Harriet, the lass who has helped me care for them as if they were her own for the last nine years. Just a few weeks ago we laughed together at his rodeo antics with her.

But then a skin infection broke out turning his glossy black coat into a mass of weeping sores. In the past we have been able to manage these infections caused by a compromised immune system, but this time his whole body was becoming covered and he was in a constant state of extreme itching. His quality of life became so poor that we decided that the kindest thing to do was put him out of his misery. Bonny Lass who was 33 years old, virtually blind was very attached to FireFly. She had grieved terribly when we lost Bouncer and Wizard Star and as she was struggling to keep weight on, we decided to let her go at the same time.

It was a heartbreaking day. My partner Alix and I, along with Harriet, stayed by their side. The sun shone as we wept. Our vet joined us in our grief, weeping with us, assuring us that it had been the kindest thing for them, if agony for us. The horses had been more than just pets as some people might see them. They had been my friends, my teachers, my spiritual directors, my joy and my solace in difficult times. And now they are gone.

I have thought about what I wrote in the reflection last week and how a heron had come to watch and wait with me. I found myself wondering where that comfort was now in the face of the empty barn and field. It is only as I am writing these words that I have remembered the song I sang as each of them passed that last threshold. The song, written by Carolyn Hillyer, is one I sing over any being that makes that journey, but this was the first time I have sung it at the actual time of passing, rather than waiting until others have left. I wondered then what had prompted me to do so, as I can feel shy about letting others, who may not understand my spirituality, observe any ceremony or ritual.

‘Buzzard call you back to the wild lands, Heron fly you home. Journey to the soul of your own land Where the mothers wait for your return Heron fly you home Heron fly you home.’

Heron fly you home

Singing the words again, I realise that it was Heron who prompted me to sing, assuring me that she was accompanying our beloved Bonny Lass and FireFly on their last journey, flying them home.

We were not alone in our grief.

Heron had stayed.