Hello beloveds ~

This morning I posted a little thing about “the disappearance of the ‘with’ ” on my echoes from emptiness blog. The context was that she-who-writes had found herself in a very hard place – hobbled and humbled – and forced to face the immediate intimacy of being present WITH now, and this and here. The WITH eventually went awol. An irreversible turn of events which no sane sentient being would invite.

These things have consequences unimaginable to our wee-me imaginations. Without a ‘with’ there is no separation. Zilch. No bunkers to retreat to. No safe haven. No cave with guaranteed fresh air.

And so it came to pass that I happened to be driving down a country road on a sweet summers’ afternoon when a tsunami of grief and tears overwhelmed me to the point that I had to pull over. There was no mental or physical trigger – it was a bolt from the blue. I simply melted into the sensation and took note of the time: 3.00pm.

You may or may not know that in this little country at the bottom of the world a crisis has been playing itself out. Last Friday there was an explosion in a coal mine on the West Coast of the South Island. 29 miners have been trapped in the mine since then and efforts to search for them have been frustrated by volatile conditions within the mine.

This afternoon at 2.45pm a second explosion occurred. It was devastating; no one could have survived its fury. The 29 miners – if still alive at that point – expired. This body here, the one that at that time was driving along a country road in the North Island, the one that now faces the keyboard and outpours her heart to you, this body knew.

That is what happens when the ‘with’ disappears.

Why do I share this? Because I sense that if we could – even a handful of us – shed the ‘with’ that goes with separation, if we could do that, really feel that, then our hearts would be able to embrace and comfort those who tonight agonize with the pain of loss. We’d be able to touch the wives and parents and siblings and lovers and children, the colleagues and mates of these men at a level unattainable by any other means. I know that they would feel it, as I felt the moment when their dearests expired. Please join me.

Thank you

~ ml