By NANCY TAMARISK
September 11, 2001, Napa California. We awoke to the shock of catastrophe 3,000 miles away, the Twin Towers collapsing into an abyss of roaring fire and smoke. As the hours passed, the sickening truth emerged: Human beings had done this to other human beings. This hell on earth had been coolly and deliberately ignited by dozens of murderers.
Who could comprehend the magnitude of a hatred that provoked the slaughter of thousands of innocent strangers, and the suicides of the pilots themselves? Each life, like my own, so fragile and so precious -- extinguished in a moment -- with no seeming purpose except the act itself. Death for death's sake.
I sensed that after today all of our lives would change. But how? Action and reaction, the eternal wheel. The terrorists' inferno had seared me again with the knowledge of our species' seemingly infinite capacity for savage violence. As the great religions teach us, this capacity for evil exists within all of us, not just a few criminals. How would we -- the American nation -- respond to this bloodthirsty assault: with panic and rage, or with wisdom? Is wisdom nothing but a sentimental dream in such a world?
The people in New York and Virginia and Pennsylvania did not know that Sept. 11 was their last day on earth. With the possibility of death present in each moment, how can anyone live a life of integrity and meaning? Who can know that their mundane actions reflect what is important and true? From where can we draw strength and inspiration?
I could not stay alone in my house with my turbulent emotions. Yet I was not ready to be with people. With the world whirling in confusion, where could I plant my feet? Finally I knew where to go: to Skyline Park, to the Martha Walker garden. I went looking for wisdom as the Buddha had done, at the foot of a tree. I would reach out my hand as he had done and touch the earth.
Native California in September is mostly dormant. The water has been sucked out of the earth and the grasses have died back. Leaves are yellowing and falling. Ignorant eyes can read a melancholy story of death in these surroundings. But the story is bigger. In the garden, under the old oaks, a quail family scurried between brushy shelters. Tiny yellow finches and iridescent hummingbirds fluttered around the bird feeders. A squirrel leapt from branch to branch in the trees. Their kind have been here for tens of thousands of years and so have the oaks and the maple and the pines. They don't know anything about human tragedy, they just live their lives. Daily they breathe, eat and drink, weaving the tapestry that is this very place. We have chopped down their woodlands, paved over their homes, but some have survived. Later this winter the rains will fall, the seeds will sprout, new generations will be born. My life too, every person's life and death, is a part of this tapestry.
Except for bird calls and rustling breeze, it was silent in the garden. The sky, for the first time in decades, was empty of airplanes. My grief and confusion were quieter now. I knew that, overwhelming as these feelings were, there was also room in me for understanding, calmness and hope. People had devoted themselves to destruction and terror. But people had also created this living sanctuary, the Martha Walker garden.
In this place I caught hold of a thread of truth and the faith other people would also grasp their threads. The future at that moment was bleak and fearsome and mysterious. But I found hope that I would be able to trace my way through fogs of uncertainty to attend to the central meanings of my life: my family, home and community, my healing profession, my hopes for peace and justice for all beings. Somehow I and others would continue to find the wisdom and compassion to take care of this beautiful, suffering world.
On this bleak day, as on many others, touching the earth illuminated
my human path.