Circle of Life

Fading ranunculus flowers

This morning when I looked in the mirror and saw the skin on my neck I realized that at that moment it looked like “old lady skin.” I was astonished to see this proof of my aging before my eyes. Seeing the

Circle of Life

before my eyes in the aging of my own body took me by surprise.

We don’t talk a lot about aging as if by not acknowledging it we can somehow make it stop. But things keep happening to remind me that though my spirit may be eternal, this body I’m living in, is not.

Contentment and joy and grief all blurred together—and in a way, Eliza had become the color. And the world, the water, so that all the pieces of her blended in unexpected ways as the canvas was turned a little to the left, a little to the right, and the pink dripped down into the blue, down into the yellow, down into the brown, and so on; life and loss and harvest from season to season. A garden’s blooms, continually returning for another encore until the circularity of it all becomes in itself a promise through the winter and the spring and the summer and the fall. Always turning, always returning color to the ground and color to the sky.”
― Ashley Clark, Paint and Nectar

One of the comforting things I find in photographing nature is that I find beauty in all stages of life, from the tender emergence of new life, growing and maturing life, and even in fading life. Seeing how the dissolution of old life feeds the growth of new life brings me comfort. Coming face to face with beauty in every stage of life helps me to see this stage of my life as beautiful as well. And seeing the circle of life played out in nature helps me to accept my own mortality.

We humans are part of an endless circle of birth, growth, maturation, fading, and death. And though many try to hide their age I believe that it is wise to embrace my aging, even as I adjust to my changing body and work to stay strong and healthy for as long as I can.

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

   — Mary Oliver

Constant Change

Jon and I watched a movie last night (Hopscotch, released in 1980) and we both laughed to see the technology depicted in the movie that we found so neat in our young adult lives. Things like good stereo turntables and cassette players, electric typewriters, and push-button telephones. Besides finding Hopscotch to be a clever and intelligent movie with great humor, it was like going back in time to our young adult lives.

I remember when I was a young mother talking with my grandmother about her early life. We laughed as she described all of the changes she had experienced during her life, from farming with horses to using tractors, horse and buggy to automobiles, ice boxes to modern refrigerators, cooking on a wood-fired stove to electric stoves, no indoor plumbing to modern conveniences, the invention of airplanes, NASA’s putting men on the moon. At the time I never imagined that I would see similar amounts of change in my lifetime. But here I am, filled with wonder at all that has transpired during my life.

I cannot imagine the changes that my grandchildren will see in their lifetimes. I can only hope that we humans gain a bit of wisdom and lose a lot of stupidity and selfishness.

May the circle of life teach us how to live more gently on the earth.

May you walk in beauty.