A Wind of Changes
Sometimes you want to sail south, but the winds are blowing you towards north. We had planned for two weeks of holidays on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. In the afternoon of the first day on the campsite, a note reached us saying that my father just had a stroke in the public swimming pool, fell into koma and my sister was asking if we would come. It was like a veering of the wind, changing the whole situation.
Next morning, when we were ready to set off, the mobile rang and my sister told us that my father just had died. Through the hot summer day there came a breeze of good-bye, of breaking away of old grounds. Inner and outer scenes flew along during the three days of driving: first at low speed along the serpentine roads through rugged Corsican mountains, then a night on the ferryboat with a beautiful sunrise meditation, the Italian highways and the crossing of the Alps via the pass of the Great St. Bernhard to our home near Berne, where we stayed overnight and reloaded.
Dawn on board of the Corsica Ferry
Next morning further north through Germany, until in the evening we stood in front of the dead body of my father in the mortuary.
There was the apprehension of a matter of fact: His soul had released itself from the body and moved on. The corpse, that wasn’t my father, it was just the case, the cover, not the content. The soul’s continuum of existence became so evident. Death is an illusion, as Eastern wisdom tells us, there is only a change of form, of spheres, not of essence.
Buddha Statue in the family garden
Next day the impact of all the changes of my father’s passing made itself felt. Things became clearer to the feeling which had been clear to the mind. On one inner level, there was the mourning, on another the experience of the fundament of existence on which life was now arranging new patterns. While sitting in the beautiful garden of my family of origin I said good-bye not only to the home where I had grown up, but to a period of my life. Of course there was the feeling of sadness stirred by the passing of my father, but it was about myself, and the present situation was just creating the field of experience.
Seagull
