Our Halloween celebrations are complete and yet under the light of the New Trading Moon a votive still flickers in my heart - the candle we light each year for those who died alone or forgotten. At a time in our culture that feels hyper-focused on self-promotion, quiet moments contemplating a fate like Eleanore Rigby's are potent. On Halloween night when we light the anonymous "You Are Not Forgotten Candle" the quiet feels even deeper than the rest of that solemn evening. While our ancestor altar is a chance for us to experience the continuation of spirit through the act of remembering, a heavy question ever looms:What happens if no one remembers you?
The Trading Moon for me has always been a month of transition. Over a month's time we move from the death of the old year at Halloween into the hopes of the new year at Winter Solstice. We spend our shortening days like busy little elves crafting the holiday gifts we will give to loved ones. Traditionally it was a time not just for trading provisions but perhaps even more importantly for trading fear and isolation in for hope and a solid sense community. The principal of reciprocity resounds as cold air and longer nights naturally circle us in together more closely.
Perhaps it was the haunting echo of "never forget" in the Veteran's Day memorials this weekend. Maybe it was hearing from friends who escaped the California wildfires with only the clothes they were wearing. This year I felt more than ever the need for a process to ferry me from a holiday of death and endings to one full of festive celebrations of light returning. I noticed it in the seriousness I felt as I was readying our supplies for World Kindness Day. In the past the energy around the table has been excited and happy as we prepare cards, stickers, cookies, kid-crafts, flowers... anything that we can think of to create maximum surprise and joy for unsuspecting recipients. Last year we printed pictures of the people we love and wrote cards telling them what we adore about them. The kid's were beaming with joy as we dropped a hefty load of finished letters into the mailbox. We all agreed that it felt incredibly good to spend a day dedicated to telling other people why they are amazing.
Something happened after, however, that changed my attitude and energy surrounding World Kindness Day. It was an experience that in part answered the question still haunting me from Halloween; "What happens if no one remembers you?"
Something happened that made me understand that kindness is more than a choice, it is a responsibility. I understand now that practicing kindness is my civic duty. Practicing kindness is how we keep each other safe.
Like trading provisions. Like making a plan to survive the longest, darkest, coldest nights together.
About a month after our mail drop last year I heard from one of our recipients. Her letter had taken awhile to get to her since she had lost her apartment and was for the time being homeless. According to her, like a miracle, our message found its way to her (via her sweet brother) and arrived at the perfect moment. She said that she had never before felt such a depth of despair as in the days before our card's arrival. She said she was afraid because for the first time in her life she felt truly without hope. The picture we had printed was of her giggling with her signature smile - the one that everyone in her life doesn't even realize that they depend upon. The message I had written was that her creativity and playfulness gave me hope in these hard times that love, light, joy and all the goodness in life will prevail. She is a brilliant writer and in her thank you note to us she eloquently intimated that she felt like our card saved her life. When we made her card we had no idea of her situation. The last time we had seen her we were all laughing together at the beach in the sunshine and all was well.
Last year's experience catalyzed a new commitment to kindness for me. It was no longer just a beautiful value to share with my children. It had shown itself to be a benevolent power worthy of assuming the position as pole star to my life's journey. I began to treat it as a practice, strengthening my ability to extend it to others. With the help of Kristin Neff's book, Self-Compassion I've even made progress on the ultimate challenge of extending kindness to myself.
World Kindness Day still fills me with the joy of giving, especially as I watch the children enact that magic. I too am joining in the cardmaking this year. Understanding now that remembering someone can be the most important (even life saving!) act of kindness possible, I am spending World Kindness Day writing letters for the Write for Rights campaign.
We first learned of this human rights campaign through Jacques Goldstyn's beautiful, wordless, picture book Letters to a Prisoner. My children's favorite part (spoiler alert) is that all the letters, like feathers assemble themselves into wings that lift the man back to his life and those that he loves. For us it depicts the enduring truth that, "Hope is the thing with feathers..."
Last year taught us that remembering those who feel forgotten and giving them hope is a life changing act of kindness. This year, as we started our work by reciting familiar affirmations of loving kindness I felt myself naturally expanding upon the phrases:
May all beings everywhere live in safety, be happy, be healthy, live with ease.
Wishing you a Happy and Hopeful World Kindness Day.
Hope is the thing with feathers (254)
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
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| Illustration from: Letters to a Prisoner by Jacques Goldstyn |
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
