Chapter 51. Breathe

Nica volcano roadside

“Something inside of me has reached to the place where the world is breathing.”

– Kabir, 15^th century mystic poet from India

A sprinkling of experiences between 2008 and 2011:

-          In the last year of my spiritual direction training, I start a wellness blog (http://deesdirt.blogspot.com/)  and send monthly 1^st Wednesday wellness missives (that continued until 2016)

Noah, born June 22, 2009

-          Gregg and I relish being grandparents! Noah is born in June 2009, Gabe in September 2011 (following on, Addie came to us in January 2012, Benjamin in March 2014, Claire in January 2015, and Elijah in August 2016)

-          We visit Rebekah in Nicaragua in fall of 2009 and get to experience her love of Central America first hand and learn much more about the injustices done to so many in that part of the world

Dan, St. Olaf graduate 2010

-          We help launch our youngest, Dan, into the workforce after he graduates from St. Olaf College in 2010

-          I am privileged to offer spiritual companionship to a couple of incredible women, and interact with some remarkable people who are in the spiritual direction training peer group that I facilitate. One of the dear and especially-wise-for-her-years women gifts me with a saying on a small sign that reads, 

“Don’t just do something, sit there!” 

That fits for this time of life – I am needing to be reflective, to not be doing so much, to more often simply breathe.

Rebekah goes with me to the St. Olaf Christmas concert in early December 2011. Attending the concert is a Christmas ritual for me – Gregg and I attended together in the early Northfield years, but cramped leg space and less-than-a-love for the Christmasfest style of music urged him to allow others to attend with me rather than him.

Becky and I listen to Edward Elgar’s “Adagio Nimrod” (Enigma Variations) and Becky comments, 

"It’s like the music is breathing.” 

We are moved to tears by the beauty of the music.

I write to Rebekah the day after the concert:

"Elgar wrote this piece for his friend Augustus Jaeger, who encouraged him to continue when Elgar was about to give up composing in a fit of depression...

so I looked up more (in wikipedia) about the composer and Enigma Variations:

"Edward Elgar was born in 1898–1899… It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the enigmas behind it. Elgar dedicated the piece to "my friends pictured within," each variation being an affectionate portrayal of one of his circle of close acquaintances.”

Sandino statue, in Nica

about the Nimrod section:

Augustus J. Jaeger was employed as music editor by the London publisher Novello & Co. For a long time he was a close friend of Elgar, giving him useful advice, but also severe criticism, something Elgar greatly appreciated. Remarkably, Elgar later related on several occasions how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks. The name of the variation refers to Nimrod, an Old Testament patriarch described as "a mighty hunter before the Lord" - the name Jäger being German for hunter.

In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny (“Dorabella”) that this variation is not really a portrait, but “the story of something that happened”.^[6] Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. “And that is what you must do,” Jaeger said and he sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 ' Pathétique '. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of "Nimrod" were made to suggest that theme. “Can’t you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation.”"

And you, dear daughter, have things that you must do too. Your passion and heart that beats and breathes for the world is admirable and a gift to the rest of us.

My prayers that you (and I) might keep breathing and loving and listening and enjoying. I love you so."

On the Pacific Ocean coast of Nicaragua

I feel enormously grateful 

for music, 

for beauty, 

for new life, 

for insights gleaned from my wise kids and many others around me, 

for people to love, 

for encouragement to live our passion, 

for breath.