What she said is not what I heard. I heard writing the wind. As part of my brain processed what it heard and the possibilities of what it actually should have heard, another part of my brain asked with a great deal of curiosity, “How do you write the wind?”
Reading and playing
Dune
It’s my birthday month and I just finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I’m only one year older than Dune, yet I had never read it until now. Now that I have finished reading it, I am eager to play Dune Imperium, the board game, again. The game, of course, includes characters and resources from the book, which I can now understand more clearly. I enjoyed the game without having read the book, but I am looking forward to seeing how having read the book changes my enjoyment of the game. Besides offering me an opportunity to better appreciate the board game’s creation, the book gives me a couple other things to think about on a deeper level.
Seeing and sensing
Psychic Muscles
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. (Herbert, p. 129)
First, how much truth do you see in that quotation above? It truly resonates with me. My life has changed astronomically for me since my mother died in 2021. My psychic gates opened more fully during 2021 even before Mom’s death. I started to acknowledge openly to myself the intuition and voices I had subconsciously been following for, probably, my whole life.
Before 2021, I would explain seemingly inexplicable decisions with a “I know it doesn’t make sense, but this is what I want to do.” By sense, I meant logic, which I had been raised to follow. However, those decisions did make actual sense when I look back and see that they were based on the sense of intuition, which is based on another whole level of senses that I was not knowingly in tune with.
These “psychic muscles” did not come up to my conscious level until I faced multiple struggles that could be considered “difficult times and oppression.” I would not have thought to articulate all of this in these terms, so I’m quoting Herbert’s Dune. I’m fairly certain I would not be writing the wind of my thoughts for you now or be operating Angela Jane’s New Mourning Photography without exercising my “psychic muscles.”
Dying and grieving
Dignity
The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture – it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead. (Herbert, p. 250)
The second thing Dune offers me a chance to consider is my society’s response to death, and, more importantly, dying. The above quotation niggled that part of my brain yet again. As a culture that has long worshipped youth, we have done everything in our power to deny death even though we have never won.
We “fight” disease, we undergo operations to make our faces and bodies look youthful, and we don’t comfortably talk about dying or comfortably talk with people who are grieving losses of loved ones. We carelessly and easily dismiss dying and grief without thought to its inevitability and duration.
I am forever grateful that my mom, who had been a hospice volunteer, was willing to talk about these taboo topics with me. I can see that, while this society might treat its dead with dignity, it has, as a whole, a long way to go to treat the dying and grieving with dignity. We all belong to the category of dying – from our very first breath – yet not many of us are fortunate enough to live like we know and feel the truth of that.
Living and reflecting
Wind and Death
As a personal reminder, I often ask myself, “Is today a good day to die?” This question brings me to this moment and allows me to consider if I am living the life I was born to live. With love and curiosity, I ask myself these follow-up questions: How have I used the limited amount of energy I have been allotted? Have I been kind, generous, and compassionate? Have I told people that I love them? Have I lived with wonder and playfulness? Have I been effervescent?
While I actually read the yellow-paged, second edition from 1968, Dune’s first edition was copyrighted in 1965. That makes it 60 years old this year; until a couple weeks from now, it is the same age I am as I discover the practice of writing the wind. In this, my birthday month, I have another opportunity to reflect upon my 60 years of dying – what parts of it have been lived with dignity? during what parts of it have I offered others dignity in their dying? Is life like the wind – can you feel its caress on your bare cheek? can you see its leaves moving? can you hear it howling?
We cannot really see that which we call wind. We also cannot really see that which we call death. Yet, we can see their effects. What kind of society we are can be determined by how we respond to death and how we treat the dying and those who grieve.
Riding and writing
Invisibility
What she had actually said was “riding the wind.”
I think riding the wind is fun, but I have just discovered that I also enjoy writing the wind.
So, I write the wind as I face death with curiosity, with faith, with love, and with compassion. I use today's writing to “right” the world that has challenged me every day to show up with effervescence and to play in the playground called life – where wind and death cannot be seen but can be written and can be embraced.
Writing and embracing the wind and death,
Angela Jane