The artist Louise Bourgeois famously stated, “You are born alone. You die alone…” And this has been embraced into the lexicon of folk wisdom ever since.
She was wrong. Or rather, I disagree.
First of all, how can we be born alone when we spend our first 9 months inside our mother’s womb, being so closely held and constantly nurtured? We are coming into being surrounded, literally, by another. Upon the literal act of expulsion – what the sculptor was probably thinking of as being “born,” we fall into the waiting arms of the mother and often extended family.
In the process of learning to be independent – a different state altogether from being alone – we find ourselves surrounded by others. We grow and learn to socialize. Periods of isolation and loneliness can be thrust upon us; at other times, we may choose solitude. Most of us, nonetheless remain part of our tribe. But at no time are we truly alone.
How do I know this?
I was sitting by myself in my garden recently. Well, not really by myself; my cat was at my feet. The trees, newly leafed out in the Southeastern spring, swayed above me in a breeze. I amused myself by counting the number of shades of green vibrating around me. A bright male cardinal landed on a branch above my head and sang heartily. I wondered if he was going to poop on my head. I was distracted from this thought when a not-quite monarch butterfly fluttered about my hat and eventually landed right on my hand – really! I have pictures thanks to my convenient cell phone — and this is not the first time this has happened. Water gurgled in my nearby (artificially created) waterfall-slash stream. And shadows danced in the sunlight all around, all around.
Sounds like a Disney film, huh? Am I a Cinderella, about to burst into song with gaily clad mice dancing at my feet and bluebirds strewing ribbons in my hair?
No. Because the sort of absence of being alone I want to talk about is not merely about being aware of all the other species we share our environments with, although that is definitely a big part of it. Rather, I want to raise awareness about all the presences that surround us all the time, no matter where we are, Disney film or dreary office. These ones just might not be in the easily recognizable form that being made up of matter – having a material form – affords one.
Now you may be thinking I am not of Disney, but Looney Tunes. I wouldn’t blame you. Until doing a lot of reading, exploring, and receiving a fair amount of training, that’s what I would have thought of anyone saying what I’m about to say. Specifically: we are not alone, and I am not talking about aliens from outer space. Rather, I am referring to the realm of entities that in the past has been referred to as the “spirit world.” Perhaps some have thought of them as the “faerie folk” or even ghosts. No matter; the point is that there are conscious beings who do not take on flesh, or at least forms that we are able to perceive readily and easily. And they hang out with us. They desire our companionship.
These are the beings that shamans, medicine workers, and healers of every stripe and sort have come to know and work with for millennia. These are those that are at every table, every battle, and every birth and death. They are present and participants in almost every act of creation and destruction, for destruction is simply the re-ordering of the material plane. These ones are the architects of what we humans may name ‘miracle,’ ‘luck,’ or ‘karma.’
No, we are not born alone, nor do we die alone. We may be asleep, but we are never truly alone.
