Meeting with darkness

On the first spring day returning to my sophmore year of college I recieved a call from Eric that the body of our friend, Avriel, was found at the base of a bridge back in Philly. Eric and Av were the tightest of buddies. Really, really close. Eric had been digging literal holes in the earth that night before reaching out to tell me the news. Eerily, I had composed a poem on the car ride back to Kenyon that previous day, and the words from that page echoed into song:

"Father, dead, is green and sideways

Our gaze is over him

Bottom lips unhinge, unhinge

Air is dense like wood~

Splitting between faces

His cold hand is a trap door for

miles and miles of mourning

Hot, on floor boards"

The Hebrew meaning for the name Av, is father. I still remember the melody and will sing it for you if you ask me.

Here's the thing: Scaling the framework of a bridge was something that I'd seen adolescent boys do, (and attempted myself), more times than I can fit onto one hand. My highshool companions and I hot-boxed bathrooms together. We laughed through feelings and made questionable choices. This was a major theme of our collective friendship and something of an agreement among us.

So, the crescent chance that Av sent his own bones down to shatter was a moon for someone else's sky, not my own! No matter. My sky was filled with bright orange butterflies that spring in Ohio. You know the kind: recently abundant, yet waning now toward extinction. Life is fleeting. We are incredibly resilient and yet vulnerable creatures.

After I recieved the news about Av, I closed my eyes to ask where I could find him?? This was something like a prayer. In the darkness of my mind what I witnessed was a butterfly; orange, black, and on flight. When I'd met with his mom for a walk a decade later, she had shared about a similar experience. Janet saw a giant peaceful monarch floating in her yard on the day after Av's passing. This feeling stayed with her, compelling her to travel to the Oyamel forest in Mexico where the extended Monarch family gathers each winter. Who knows? Maybe this place is home to them.

The experience of this friend's passing has impacted me in far reaching ways. I'm now cultivating a business around planning plantings with nectar rich flowers: food for insects, butterflies, and birds on wing. This work is not a gesture toward other. It is very much about remembering, restoring, and recreating a home for my spirit to reside in for this lifetime and the next..

Av, your flight-path is a beautiful journey and a blessing to this world.