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Tuesday
I recently stumbled across this Laura Gilpin poem and felt compelled to share it today. In many cultures, honoring one’s departed forebears is a bigger deal than it is in the United States. This poem helps us understand the deep wisdom underlying ancestor worship.
Life After Death
By Laura Gilpin
These things I know:
How the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them
so that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it
and in the spring the rabbits find it
and build their nest
inside the dead tree
so that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.
