Page 43 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

and hold the requisite Mourning Feast. Though the grave was a shallow one, the exhumation stalled.

They were unable to pull the remains from the ground. A local elder recognized the problem. He cut a

branch from a nearby tree and offered it to the earth in exchange for Raymond’s bones. Speaking to

the earth, he explained that the people understood that after so many years, the earth did not wish to

relinquish her son, but that the people wished to return the body to his human mother and father so

they could bury him properly in the family compound. The elder then offered the branch in exchange

for Raymond’s remains. When the prayers were complete and a libation offered the body came free.

The following day, they arrived at the family compound with Raymond’s bones and shreds of clothing.

A great, deafening cry rose up from the waiting crowd, a chaos of shrieking and shouting and

anguished wailing that lasted far into the night.

Meanwhile, another brother, Nat, plotted to kill the murderer. A few of us from the US happened to be

in Liberia when Nat dreamed that he had found Raymond’s executioner and was on his way to kill him.

In the dream, Bill put his arm on Nat’s shoulder and told him, “Please don’t do it.” Nat vehemently

affirmed his plan. But later that day, he had a change of heart. He joyfully phoned everyone in the

family to tell them the news that he now wished to join Bill in forgiving Raymond’s killer. A few weeks

later, Nat and Bill met with the killer and told him, “You deprived us of our brother and our parents’

son. Therefore you must take his place in the family.” From shared grief compassion is born. Deep

grieving makes room for miracles.

Last night a friend told me a story of a poisonous plant he found growing in a pot, in the corner of a

room, in a home he was renting. The plant had been left behind by previous tenants. (He left it, too,

when he moved out.) One day as he sat meditating, he felt his attention being repeatedly pulled to the

plant. At last he turned to face it, and began to listen. He heard the plant say, “That’s better. Now we

can have a conversation.”

“What would you like to tell me?” asked my friend.

The plant said, “You humans are so very, very sensitive. Your bodies are designed so that you can feel

and hear and sense so many tiny, exquisite things. But your ways of living now have caused your

receptors to become congested. You can no longer feel these things, or hear or sense them. You have

lost this capacity that is your birthright, and so you have lost yourselves.”

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