Eighty Light Years

I’m in awe of how subtle interconnections unfold in our lives. Divine plan and random chance appear almost indistinguishable. Their difference is a mere matter of belief and perspective. 

Just yesterday I compared stories with a friend about beautiful life-changing events. They were dependent upon so many tiny, wildly improbable chains of occurrence that they felt impossible. Yet given their truth, they also felt inevitable. We marveled at the strange grace of existence.

One such story in my life began eighty years ago, sixteen years before I was born. A man came alive then who would profoundly affect my life and countless others. That was opaque yet, of course. It would take decades for our interconnected stories to unfold.

Forty-eight years later, when I was thirty-two years old, I accidentally became a photographer. Viewing the world through a lens proved a beautiful counterpoint to writing. It allowed me to wander and watch in silence; to see different aspects of beauty than what passed through my pen. One form of creativity enhanced the other, which enhanced the deepening of my spirit. All of that deepening soon became an essential healing tool, when I discovered I had cancer at age thirty-three. I would need every source of spirit and medicine to survive. 

When I finally climbed out of cancer’s shadow, my newly bright life started over in a town I’d never even visited. On the day after I arrived, a stranger introduced me to the work of another stranger, weaving images and words into reflections of spirit. Dewitt Jones’s visions clearly illuminated my own purpose, as a witness to the beauty and depth of our world and our souls. My purpose hasn’t wavered in three decades since.

Back then I dreamed of having a column in Outdoor Photographer magazine next to Dewitt’s, which I pursued without result. That dream faded into the mists over the years, though I continued to hone my own craft and vision. My first book appeared ten years later: Wild Grace: Nature as a Spiritual Path found its own path and purpose, and still does now. One copy somehow found its way from Oregon to Maine. An editor and photographer there called to invite me to be a columnist for her nature journal Whisper in the Woods. Gratefully, I accepted. A few years later, I discovered that my column in the new issue was next to one by Dewitt Jones. I laughed out loud. My dream came true long after I let go of pursuing it. Impossible, inevitable, random, divine. 

Eventually I traveled with the love of my life to Molokai, where we connected in person with Dewitt. Oddly, Dewitt and I never took one photo together. Yet our resonance inspired him to invite me to participate in his project, “Celebrate What’s Right with the World.” We’ve celebrated together for a dozen years since. 

Having a regular deadline for celebration has been a great gift. It’s given me a framework for a disciplined practice of gratitude, which has changed my approach to this precious, brief life. It informs the way I rise early every day, through all phases of trouble and healing. Celebration centered my role as my dying mother’s caregiver, and that saved my life as much as hers. It steadied me through chaos and trauma. It has guided the birth of my four books, including and especially Grateful by Nature. It has helped me create eight years of community gatherings in service to the art of gratitude. All of that now coalesces into meditations, workshops, and renewed love. None may have existed without Dewitt’s inspiration.

As we celebrate Dewitt’s 80th birthday this week, I trust that there are thousands of parallel stories across the globe. His vision of celebration has soared on wings of light from a life pursued with singular, brilliant vision. That light now has a life of its own. 

In one sense, a light year is a measure of how far light travels in a year. At 186,000 miles per second, that’s 5.88 trillion miles. Thus the earthlight of Dewitt’s day of birth has now traveled 470.4 trillion miles across the universe, so far. It will still travel when our lives are distant history. 

In another sense, a light year is a year lived without heaviness; and that is what living in celebration does. To approach each morning with gratitude will not end every war or injustice. Celebration alone will not fix a broken climate. But it gives us a vital tool to make an initially imperceptible difference; and that difference can be enough to set off more wildly improbable, inevitable chains of events that deeply affect others’ lives. The cumulative effect of our shared celebration has vast power. It’s a manifestation of swarm intelligence. 

I’m reminded of watching a swarm of sanderlings run the ocean shore, seeking a meal in the rising and receding waves. In their simple pursuit, sanderlings create a shared beauty that transcends their own purpose and knowledge. With celebration, we too create beauty in ways we’ll never fathom, and could never do alone. To do so daily is a birthday gift we can give to Dewitt, in gratitude for his graceful vision. Our celebration then becomes a gift to ourselves and others, as the alchemy of caregiving again creates divine receiving. 

All I can say in the end is thank you.