The Renwick Gallery in Washington DC is currently hosting an exhibit about the Burning Man Festival. Although I’ve heard of Burning Man for years, I never really understood it. It’s a great exhibit that teaches and explains, but, more importantly, gives viewers the chance to see examples of the creative collaborations that result from the short-lived community erected every year in the deep, dry, Nevada desert. Beautiful sculptures, moveable machines, edgy technology, and whimsical one-offs are clearly one essential aspect of Burning Man. I was amazed, engaged, and inspired as I made my way through the exhibit.
One room is a temple devoted to grief and letting go. It’s a huge room with carved wood screens rising nearly to the top of the tall ceiling. It reminded me of elaborate Islamic mosques like the Alhambra in Granada featuring designs, patterns, repeating carvings in a pale white wood that could almost be stone.
It’s devoted to grief, but also, in a somewhat paradoxical way, to gratitude for what has been lost. Not that it’s been lost, but for what it brought by being. Viewers can add to the exhibit, which goes with the overall theme of “No Spectators.” Small thin pieces of wood are provided for you to write your own addition to the installation. The cracks and crevices of the walls abounded with memorials to family, pets, and friends, as well as thanks for gifts, mostly of the spirit, received from others.
Grief is a persistent theme in life, whether we acknowledge it or not. Without being morose or cynical, I know that all of us walk around with our share of sorrow. I am in a period of my life when there is a lot of it, even as there is great joy, connection, and love. I grieve for losses of many kinds, including people close to me, the integrity of my country, and my own innocence. I do not expect this to be my permanent condition, but I recognize that grief is a constant if sometimes invisible companion.
And this song recognizes that it erupts at times, sacred times, that we can share with others when they, or we, let down our guard.
Willie Nelson sings that “It’s not something you get over, it’s just something you get through.” Other understandings say that grief doesn’t get dispelled, but rather woven into the deep fabric of who we are. and this, too.
I believe we have to give grief its due time and process. I have a line that’s a prelude to this song. “I will kneel at the shrine of sorrow, but I will not sacrifice myself on its altar.”
Tears
He was crying in the corner of the airport lounge
Head hanging down, no one around.
I couldn’t help but notice and he caught my eye.
Took a deep breath and straightened his tie.
I wondered what I could say.
I just asked, “ Are you okay?”
He said, “Sometimes life is just too much.
It’s more than enough, I can’t find the touch
The joy and beauty and the gain and the loss
Like a canyon I can’t reach across.
I wondered what I could say.
I just asked, “ Are you okay?”
Maybe the only way to be here
To be all the way here
To not disappear
Is tears.
He said, “Tears to clear the way ahead
Into my heart, Out of my head.
Nothing to learn, nothing to find
Just diving deep right out of my mind.”
I wondered what I could say.
I just asked, “ Are you okay?”
Maybe the only way to be here
To be all the way here
To not disappear
Is tears.
© Stuart Stotts 2018
I would also recommend Hannah Gadsby’s show on Netflix. She’s a comedienne, but the last twenty minutes of the show explode with anger and power and resilience. She says that it is our resilience that makes us human, and her performance continues to resonate in me.