The Current Underneath

When I moved away from home to go to college, it would often happen that I would call my mom, and she would answer by saying, "I was just picking up the phone to call you" or vice versa. The same thing has happened many times with my closest friend when two weeks or so have passed without a call, we discover that we were trying to call one another at the exact same moment.

There are other moments I remember that something, some force, was very alive and awake and connected to another person from afar. After I left Africa, I had an overwhelming urge to contact my friend, Bhekiwe, so much so that I forgot the time difference until she picked up the phone, groggy, and I realized it was 3am in Swaziland. I felt so awful that I hung up. As it turned out, she called me the next morning (not knowing I was the hang up night caller) to tell me that she had experienced a major loss the previous day. We talked and sat in silence over the line, continents apart, yet connected by this current underneath us that guided our instincts toward one another in an important moment.

I think these intuitive connections are especially potent and heightened in times of new life and in times of death, like a nerve of the spirit, reacting within us. These are the times when our connections to those we love are most needed and most tangible. These are the times when we are granted perspective that causes us to equally hold and release, stand in awe and draw nearer.

The image above was taken in South Africa after our group had learned that a child we worked with had been killed. Africa taught me about the thin line between worlds, which was scary to me, being someone who for the most part was insulated from the harsh reality of death. I was socialized in a culture that tries to avoid and deny death and dying. In Africa, I held people grieving and I saw people at that thin line. I saw people cross that thin line. So what did I do? I went and got educated about how to help traumatized and grieving children. I tried to stuff death into a jar of tools that help those on the living side. In the meantime, I got familiar with the ground underneath and my own fears related to death and dying. And now, I have a Master's in Social Work and a camera. And I am learning to trust the Life/Death/Life cycles. I am also learning to listen closely to that impulse of connection.

Today, I celebrate a new life. While little Elena Sage was being born, I was buying a bundle of white sage on Telegraph Avenue and burning it into the night. I didn't know she would be named Sage, so I felt this current at work at this crossing over as well. Sending love to Mark, Erin, and Elena Sage.