Yesterday, nearly 300,000 views. Today, now at 11:50 A.M., about half that.
At this rate, it looks like the post is about to hit a plateau; it will again go above yesterday, but not exponentially. I can breathe a sigh of relief as I continue to scroll through and “approve” the heartbreakingly authentic comments this post continues to inspire.
Yesterday, blogger friend Laura Bruno wondered what our probe into this materialistic culture’s often awkward, even violent convergence with the essentially sacred dying process has to do with the new Baby Picture Project. She feels the two are connected. So do I. But how, exactly? Or perhaps not “exactly,” but . . . what is the resonance between them?
Two quotes from the onrushing commentary call to me in this context:
We have become too busy with our lives that we don’t cherish the life where we came from. I was raised in an Italian family where you were brought up to know your family history and you cherished it. Now all of that is gone and I can never get that back. We need to all slow down and takecare of our elderly family members. — Tony
My future goal . . . is to work with palliative clinics. I am a mental health practitioner/ psychoterapist and I think it is time to help this populacion that is suffering in silence and has not voice and vulnerable like children are. I have worked with children long enough. It is time…. — Carolina
Both the Baby Picture Project and conscious work with the dying plunge us into our original, inherent vulnerability and innocence. What lies beneath the surface masks our culture wrestles our squirmy selves into. That well of deep deep feeling that powers our full-hearted selves.
I spoke again today with the person who may join me in nourishing this well of common feeling that we have tapped into. He will visit Saturday with a friend. We agreed to wait until then before making any kind of joint decision.
Meanwhile, on Thursday I’m to meet with two people — one of them a former hospice nurse — who are about to initiate a retreat center for those who want to die in their own way. Only one hour away! We will have lunch and then tour their just purchased facility.
LOVE IS.
