Burying the Past

An art piece of mine died not long ago.  That's not technically true.  It was already dead, and that was part of the problem, I guess.  The essence that was the cause of death was still hanging around.

A dear, dear friend from all the way back to college days had traveled in the Middle East.  She knew our interest in the T. E. Lawrence works (Lawrence of Arabia) and had collected bits and pieces of artifacts, stones, mosaics and shells from the many locations of his wild adventures.  These she beautifully mounted, and we later had it framed.  It hung for years at the end of the hall.

But the walls were painted, the frame came down, another picture from the same dear friend set up house in the same place.  This picture was so full of life, it danced and swirled into your imagination.  A perfect replacement.

The dusty pieces from the desert fell from their mounting and were discovered in a recent excavation and very necessary closet cleaning.  What to do with this history?

When I thought about what each of small fragments represented, it was clear that they were filled with pain, fear or sadness.  Whenever something is destroyed, these emotions are part of the mix.  Even the handle from the clay pot.  I thought about the energies that collect when I break a dish in the kitchen.

So, this afternoon in the brilliance of the fall sun, making peace is one of the Things I get to do today.   I'm going to honor the past, the ancient past, the people creating it and the events of long ago, and then I'm going to bury the pieces in the ground, release their pain and put that sadness to rest.