The Erotic Death of a Loquat
Drawing by Carla J http://carlasswanktank.blogspot.com/2012/01/ive-read-every-book-on-living-room.html
“Don’t apologize if you cry for the burning of the Amazon or the Appalachian mountains stripped open of coal. The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel are a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal.”
- Joanna Macy, Eco-philosopher & spiritual activist
The sound of rain slammed against window panes and winds whipped the sky, engulfing my home, not letting me forget Hurricane Delta’s presence. I surrendered, laid out on my living room floor both in anguish and ecstasy. Storm anxiety was alive and well in my body, as was a massive migraine, likely brought on by the drop in barometric pressure. The intensity of the storm outside and inside my body begged for relief, I began to touch myself with the hurricane’s rhythm, my body climaxing in pleasure at the image of a large tree branch falling on my bare body.
The next morning I went out to inspect my New Orleans backyard jungle. A massive loquat tree had been downed, sprawling across the long keyhole lot. Her branches reached high as they simultaneously dug into the soil below; a new relationship to Our Mother. There she lay, dying and so alive all at once.
I never knew a storm to be so erotic, so fully alive and all encompassing that death was part of the equation. Perhaps that is why, in French, orgasm is nicknamed la petite mort: the little death.
In the post-storm quiet, all of the stages of grief surfaced loudly: What could I have done to save her? Bargaining. Did my orgasm cause this? Guilt. Is this real or am I imagining this? Denial. I could only just stare out my window wondering how I would continue on. Depression. I noticed all of the sunlight that now poured through my kitchen window, could this be alright? Acceptance.
Her nickname is “Misbelief”.
But nothing about her is false. This beautiful being, quietly receiving the sun, rain, and moon all the while not complaining of the vines crawling all over her, her fruit falling, or being eaten away by critters. Graciously, she accepted the love I could give, and gave and gave still, more, again, and again. She gave her shade, her precious yellow fruit, a home to my hammock and oyster shell chimes. She gave generously to the soil beneath her, a home for millions of creatures.
In the days, weeks, and months to come I would continue to grieve my dear Misbelief Tree.
I would go on to meditate under the cave-like structure her sideways branches created, climbing and dancing through her horizontal passageways and praying with her upended roots. I often just cried, staring out the window at the gaping absence of her. When she was finally chopped up, it still took me weeks to go near this new version of her. This is what it means to grieve life, I would remind myself. This is what it means to be human and be alive.
But as grief teaches us, all is not lost: her death has since birthed dozens of baby trees. The ground she once shaded is now alive with her offspring and fertile for new plants that require more sunlight. Her trunk has become seating for gatherings around a fire where her limbs will become ash and char, fertile minerals for the soil beneath.
As we live in a time of great loss and face the potential collapse of our species, tending to our grief becomes necessary for our resilience. Actively grieving becomes a way to alchemize our loss and devastation. The dominant culture has lost its collective grief circles, traditions and capacity to hold such big feelings. Capitalism, racism, and patriarchy strip us from the ability to feel our feelings authentically.
It is precisely these big feelings our Mother Earth is embodying herself, showing us the way towards healing. She shows us her rage in tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes; her aliveness, waking us from our comfort zones and forcing us to contend with our own mortality. This may be her way of throwing tantrums, crying, screaming, to show us she needs our loving attention. Perhaps she, too, is grieving. And if she is grieving, how do we show up to support her? How do we support ourselves and each other? And lastly, how do we connect to our unique aliveness, our eroticism, to more fully embrace death?