The song of the ancient moon

On viewing life through the lens of our own mortality

As the harvest supermoon rises in our skies once again, I remember…

The return of a local carnival just reminded me that a year has passed since I was staying in a rented airbnb nearby, working night and day on the manuscript of KOKORO, which will be published in the US on October 1. I bawled my eyes out in the kitchen of that place. I danced in it. I wrote for hours then lay on the floor spent, drained from playing the memories over and over, while energised by all I was learning from looking at them with distance.

This time last year, I greeted the arrival of autumn at dawn, wearing some ankle warmers my mum had knitted as she waited to go into surgery for a procedure that would fail twice and leave her unable to eat. My ankle warmers were the last thing she had the energy to create. That morning I was sitting on a bench by the river with a mug of tea and some ginger cake, as a flock of geese passed overhead in perfect V-formation. The sky was the palest of blues, with the silhouette of a single tree like an ink splash on the hill behind. I thought about all the people I had encountered on my journey through Japan during the writing of KOKORO. I thought of how our paths crossed - often by chance - and how each encounter was a treasure.

So much can happen in a year, in a lifetime, in a day. In ‘KOKORO: Japanese wisdom for a life well lived’ I dive deep into the concept of time – linear time, seasonal time, time as it is explained so radically by thirteenth century Zen Master Eihei Dōgen– and I still marvel at how it is a strange, unfathomable thing. Time expands and shrinks depending on the intensity of our activity, and seems to be suspended completely in moments of devastation and in moments of bliss. But mostly the world keeps turning, the sun and moon keep rising, and life goes on, while our sorrow and joy and hope and memories live on too.

Our grief goes on. The alchemising of our grief and loss goes on. Our unfolding, unbecoming, returning, goes on. I’m not done shedding ash, slowing, listening. This is all kokoro work - the work of the intelligent heart. Part of my life’s work. And tending to it is the ultimate self-care.

The year I lost and learned how to grieve my mother didn’t make me stronger, it just made me realise that I was already stronger than I knew. The taller I stood in my vulnerability, the longer the shadow of strength that fell behind me.

I still feel hikikomogomo, the bittersweetness of joy and sorrow in my heart. I still go to tell my mother news of my children and then remember all over again. I still catch my breath when I see someone holding out a hand which looks just like hers. But there is light.

One of the many terms used for the heartbreak of grief in the Japanese language is shōshin (傷心), which literally translates as ‘the scarred kokoro’. The gaping wound might heal, but the scar remains. My scar is in the shape of six words my mother inscribed on my kokoro each morning she woke at the hospice: We get to have this day.

Looking back with a year’s distance since submitting the manuscript for KOKORO, I can see how the physical and emotional journey I undertook to research and write it, and the exposure to all kinds of wisdom and kindness along the way, changed me in so many ways. I can see now that it is an honour to carry such grief, to have been loved by someone and to love them so much that their loss was unleashed with so much power.

And when we lose someone we love we are reminded of our own mortality. It is a painful, difficult reminder which can also be a kind of daily awakening. Each morning we wake up we have the chance to remind ourselves, ‘I get to have this day.’ We don’t know how many more times we will get to do this. Maybe thousands, maybe just hundreds, maybe only a few more times.

We get to choose how we use our precious time, and I now know what I’m choosing. More love. More laughter. More life lived in the awareness of the wildness and magnificence of all of it, right here, right now.

How about you? I’d love to know what you are choosing more of at this point in your life. Do share in the comments if you’d like to.

Here are some words from KOKORO, for you today, as the harvest supermoon rises in our skies once more tonight:

My old boots have taken me down to the river, drawn there by the spirit of autumn. I have a blanket around my shoulders, hot tea in a flask and Xavier Rudd in my ears. He is singing of an ancient moon and all it has been drawing from him*. The heartbeat of his unborn son pulsates through the song.

His haunting refrain, ‘Please remember me’, calls through the trees like the voices of our ancestors, my grandmother and mother Asand all those we have ever lost. Please remember me. I stand firm on the earth, throw my arms up towards the sky and vow to never forget them.

I am singing too now, filling the sky with his song: Please remember me. I am swaying like the water reeds, tears tumbling down my face and I hear my own voice: Please remember me.

It is in remembering all who have gone before that we remember ourselves. Our original face before we were born. Our place in the woven web of everything, here because of everything and everyone who went before. Connected to everything and everyone who ever will be. We belong right here, right now, in the middle of all of it.

The moon is edging up into the night. It’s a huge harvest supermoon, glowing yellow-orange in the darkening sky. As I stare, a thin cloud moves across it, rendering it blurry at the edges.

It looks just like the golden sphere in the recurring dream I have had since I was forty.

Finally, I understand… (To discover what I finally understood about the true nature of time, you’ll have to read KOKORO 😊)

No one knows for sure what happens what we die, but until that point, we do know this:

For as long as we are alive, we will continue to change.

Let this remind us that we can always begin again.

For as long as we are alive, we have a kokoro to help us sense the darkness and the beauty in the world, and respond with creative expression, empathy and love.

Let the kokoro be our guide.

For as long as we are alive, we have time.

Let’s live it well.

Beth Xx

PS If you get the chance, I highly recommend putting Xavier Rudd’s Jan Juc Moon in your ears and dancing beneath the harvest supermoon tonight. Who knows what wisdom might arrive on the evening breeze?

PPS We are exploring the thought-provoking questions in KOKORO daily throughout September with my FREE thirty-six day deep journalling challenge. Do join in - details here!

💙SPECIAL GIFT WORTH £79/$100 when you order KOKORO in September💙

All the questions in this deep journalling challenge #KOKOROWORK are taken from my new book KOKORO: Japanese wisdom for a life well lived. I am currently offering a FREE place on my beautiful two-week writing class Autumn Light (which starts on October 15) as a gift for anyone who makes a purchase of KOKORO in September. In this seasonal writing sanctuary worth £79/$100 we will dive deep into the theme of impermanence and you will be stunned at what pours out.

→ If you are in the US/Canada this will be a pre-order before KOKORO is published there on October 1. You can find it here on Amazon or here at Barnes & Noble.

→ If you are anywhere else you can get the UK edition here now, as it is already available, and enjoy reading along as we deep journal together.

To claim your free place on Autumn Light please order your copy of Kokoro in any format from any retailer and then pop your receipt details into the short form at bethkempton.com/kokoro. I hope that both the book and course resonate deeply. 💙

References:

• Jan Juc Moon by Xavier Rudd

Photos @hollybobbins_photographer