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Eulogy for Jenny
October 30, 2002
Since you left this world
all four seasons have turned again
The full moon chariot
that took you away
came back empty
Since you went away
our country has tried to take over the world
You would have been outraged
You would have tried to stop them
from hurting each other
Since you went away
I have said yes to love at all costs
and married the only father you ever had
in a ceremony of blowing sun and storm cloud
You were everywhere, everywhere that day
Since you went away
your sisters’ lives have been transfigured in your memory
One has carved a castle out of chaos
The other has understood
the architecture of the cosmos
Since you went away
the bright fire
of who you were
has cooled and turned into
something else
Into everything, everything else
Since you went away
I have been exalted
Your death a flaming sword
cutting through the illusion of separation
I have fallen in love with all sentient beings
Since you went away
I have plummeted
to the depths of bitterness
forgetting every sacred teaching I ever thought I knew
Blaming myself for breathing
Since you went away
I have lost you, found you
again and again
in dream, in meditation
at breakfast, at my computer
You have been elusive and all-pervading
Since you went away
I have lost myself, found myself
again and again
the woman who was your mother
who will never be your mother again
who will always be your mother
and someone else I am, someone bigger than that
Since you left this world
its beauty astonishes me
the direct gaze of an infant
a little boy telling a dream
a double rainbow after months of drought
drought itself
Since you left this world
I too have left
retreating to an interior cave
where no one could touch me with their love
I have followed you to the underworld
in my tiny boat
dipping my oars into darkness, into silence
trying to get to where you are
Defeated, I have headed back
Since you left this world
whatever was temporarily wounded between us
heals effortlessly
and what was always whole and beautiful
is blossoming, blossoming
I love you,
my sweet Jenny.
- unpublished
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REMEMBERING JENNY
for Jenny
November 2001
Yes, my sweet Jenny,
At the end of your small huge life
you attained the ananda of divine union
and I bow to you. I do.
Yes, propelled suddenly
by shakti, by full moon and brain chemistry and karma,
by the grace of the God you so fiercely adored,
into the innermost chamber of the Beloved,
you danced there, the crazy dance of ecstatic love,
while helplessly we watched your hands
weaving mudras in the air,
your smile so radiant
it blasted open our hearts
and changed us forever.
Yes, as the child bride of God,
you became the divine mother.
Yes, I believe this to be true and I bow to you.
Your most ardent new disciple, I do bow to you.
And also, my sweet Jenny,
I am a mother
who has lost her child.
In the midst of terrible beautiful unbridled mothering
I am suddenly childless.
I cannot find my way through a world
that does not have my girl
at its center.
I do not understand.
I don©ˆt get why you did not make it through
the hurricane season of adolescence,
why the vessel of our love,
of our ferociously devoted love,
did not carry you safely back to me.
Make space, Oh Life.
Open impossibly like the Red Sea
and make way for
the miracle of this loss.
I cannot accommodate it except by magic.
I am swallowed and swallowed whole.
I am on fire. I am flame.
I am broken and I am broken.
Even as my child has become perfect.
Yes, my sweet Jenny, the ones who see assure me
that you have completed your work on earth
for now and forever
and that you are dwelling in pure bliss.
That you have permanently escaped
the wheel of samsara,
slipped over the garden gate and are free.
That you were called and you answered,
flying straight to your beloved,
and that your chariot could not come back.
I saw your face when your empty body was brought to me.
It was luminous with rapture.
I could see that you did not suffer and I give thanks for this.
Yes, my sweet Jenny, I give thanks, too, for these ten years
I was given the grace to be your mommy.
In a lifetime of spiritual questing
that began when I was exactly your age,
you have been my single greatest teacher.
Badmash. Rascal.
Uncompromisingly direct and tenderly loving teacher.
The most intense relationship of my life.
The human being who has most radically challenged me
and most richly rewarded me.
The single soul I have loved
most passionately, most unconditionally
and at the highest possible cost.
And yes, my sweet Jenny, I melt in the fire
of this terrifying loss.
You were only 14,
filled with the fury and beauty of blossoming,
angry and brilliant,
stubborn and hilarious,
radically independent and intensely determined to be original,
your exquisite woman's body unfolding before our eyes
like a flower mistakenly thought to be extinct,
your child's spirit still vulnerable and soft.
You wanted to be a doctor,
to heal people with your clear intuition
and sharp analytical skillfulness.
You were picking out colleges,
choosing tropical landscapes,
falling in love with boys on beaches,
reading excellent literature,
developing a unique and outrageous style,
cultivating spiritual practice,
expressing yourself with brutal honesty,
bestowing your compassion carefully
and with unutterable tenderness.
Your sense of humor was quirky and bright,
your intellect exceptional.
You were on the verge of becoming
a remarkable woman
with hopes of helping to save
this troubled planet,
a woman I was so much looking forward to knowing.
Yes, my sweet Jenny, I will celebrate you
and I will mourn you
for the rest of my life.
And I will tell your story.
Eulogy written by Jenny's mother, Mirabai Starr
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