an offering

In the waning hours of this new moon in Libra on September twenty-seventh in the year two-thousand-and-eleven, it is just the right time to give a small offering       to my mother      
in hopes that she may have an easy transition to whatever sphere lies out there for her
                         
                             ....in my dreams she has settled in a bit into the notion of navigating this new realm         her hair has come back and her presence is lighter, easier, ghostly but peaceful          she's even begun to hang a few of my paintings around her space-

 

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I perform this offering in part because I am just learning that it is tradition in Hindu culture on this very day to offer up something in honor of ancestors-past in hopes, neigh belief, that this offering will ease these ancestors' transitions to heaven from the Pitru-loka, the realm between heaven and earth                                          The Pitru Paksha  (fortnight of the ancestors), as this period is called, is an important 16-day lunar period when Hindus pay homage to their ancestors with [food] offerings (for in this in-between realm, they need nourishment too). The final day, today,....Sarvapitri amavasya ("all ancestors' new moon day") is intended for all ancestors, irrespective of the lunar day they died. It is oft considered the most important day of the Pitru Paksha.
So, tonight as I retire I would like to make an offering to my mother      twofold-               the completed last collaborative painting, titled and conceptualized by her experience, materialized by my hand

'deconstruction' ( April)

and a poem that makes me think of her, for her love of swans             and bids her an easy fall into the water, current, to where she will go                       

the Swan by Rilke

This laboring through what is still undone,

as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way

is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And dying- to let go, no longer feel 

the solid ground we stand on every day-

is like her anxious letting herself fall

into the water, which receives her gently

and which, as though with reverence and joy,

draws back past her in streams on either side;

while infinitely silent and aware,

 in her full majesty and ever more

indifferent, she condescends to glide.

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