The Day After Easter

When the feast is over, what do we do with the leftovers? It seems strange, but I find a fierce eternal Easter in the compost. Be not offended. The spoilage of the stinking past becomes a new rose, springing from the ceaseless regeneration of Christ's loam body. In the Risen Lord of the Compost Pile, our own bones will surely participate.

Wonder is the way down, the way into the color brown, where we get an audience with Grandfather Earthworm, a darshan for moles. Don't let your spiritual teacher turn it into a practice - The Wonder Technique. "Do this for 15 minutes, morning and evening," the teacher says. "Wonder will take you higher."

But a virtual-satsang Zoom-meditation only shows the flickering upper half of this body, bright mirrors of ambition called "the higher chakras." So listen to the pixelated guru if you like, who has no more concrete reality than an emoji on your iPad, but please unplug for awhile. Go out in your backyard. Walk barefoot in a muddy field. Hear the songs of clover, tree frogs, cocoons. Listen to the Ground. Let Grandfather Earthworm speak to your belly.

"The way up is the way down. Why do you feel the need to get higher? Gravity is prayer. Feel the pull of things that fall, the seeds, the creatures that perish and decompose into dark energy. Black is the color of silence, the food of eternal light."

Grandfather Earthworm says, "Wonder is not a morning and evening practice. Wonder can't be done. You must descend into Sheol, where morning IS evening, and shadows are wings."

Grandfather Earthworm says, "The miracle bubbles out of itself, fermented by fungal opposites. Gratitude is not a guided meditation, but a belch."

Grandfather Earthworm says, "Time doesn't count underground. 15 minutes is a thousand years, one thousand years a burst of 10 million puffball spores. Mix them with spider’s web and baneberry root, to make a soothing poultice for the wound of your impermanence.”

Grandfather Earthworm says, "Get down. Compost your heart. Eat yesterday salad, leaf mold, mulled wine of resurrection lettuce. With a tummy full of wonder, you're too dumb to count 15. You only count to one."

Image from a CNN feature on compost art.