We went to Blue Star Equiculture farm today to see Pamela Moshimer Rickenbach and see the young and older people who keep the spirit of the farm so faithfully, and who call us to a new understanding of animals. I also wanted to go to the tree where my friend Paul Moshimer hung himself last summer, I wanted to say hello and catch up.

There are few days over the past year that I, like others, have not wondered what brought Paul to take his life in that way, in that tree, at that time. I have asked myself how he could break Pamela’s heart in that way, knowing how much he loved her. I accept that I may never really know the answer, but I have also had this feeling that he has been trying to tell me in his way. I do not know that I am deep enough to recognize his message or hear him.

I ought to say I went in search of the divine spark, said to exist within all of mankind, imprisoned within the body of all of us. I have read about the divine spark for years, and when I think of Paul, I often think of it. It was very much on my mind today.  In the mystical theologies – Sufism, the Kabbalah – the purpose of life is to enable the divine spark  to be released from captivity in matter and re-establish it’s connection with God or the spirits of the earth, and with  the divine light that shines in every soul.

In Christianity, Jesus Christ is seen as a prophet and Avatar of the Light which takes human form in order to lead humanity back to justice and compassion. Paul was much about justice and compassion.

I don’t know where Paul is, or if he is anywhere, but a number of prophets and wise men seemed confident this summer that he stayed by the tree for awhile before leaving, before he was given permission to go. I do still sense his spirit there when I visit, I believe there are sparks of divinity around that tree, I can feel them sometimes, and I could feel them today. My own feeling, with great respect to the wise men,  is that he comes and he goes.

I am not a prophet or a psychic, I always have questions when other have answers, I am drawn to the mystical idea of deep prayer, meditation and contemplation to look for the truth. Paul was a mystic, I believe, I think we connected in that way, we both talked often about what we didn’t know or understand, not what we did. We were in a fraternity all of our own in that way, we always wanted to go deeper. I think all of my true friends are mystics.

In the old texts, the raising of the divine spark is an ethical, political and psychological event deemed to be a joint venture of God and men and women. The divine spark can only be seen or raised or freed when humanity – when people –  learn to be good and just and loving to the poor, to fulfill its promise to be good.

Standing in the tree, watching the tattered peace flags flapping in the wind, looking up at the limb where Paul’s body hung, reflecting the crisp winter sun, watching the big horses trot by, I felt a spark, once entrapped in the shadows, released and swirling around me in the light, freed from captivity and in matter and re-establish its connection to the farm, to Pamela, to the young people there that he loved, to the Mother Earth he felt so deeply about, to the light of compassion and truth that he practiced and sought. He wanted goodness, he never felt he had achieved it..

In the field today, this spark came to me as a beautiful sparkler, a swirl of light and reflection, a caressing feeling and a whisper, tell me that all is good, that he needed to go, and was released. He is good.

The Gnostics believed that the material, empirical human being is essentially an illusion that traps and sometimes imprisons the inter and the true self. Life is a glory, but sometimes also a prison. The Kabbalists believed that their commitment to goodness meant that the sparks were a path to redemption.

When I first met Paul, he instantly confessed to me of things he believed were awful sins and crimes. He thought I would flee in shock and horror, but I was not moved by them. I told him these things that troubled him seemed more typical of the common travails of life. But he carried a feeling of deep shame and trouble around with him. He had failed to meet his own unrelenting standards, perhaps the inevitable disease of the rescuer.

I think I understand, I told him, you were not leaving life, you were seeking it in a larger, more mystical and powerful way. You were not trapped, but released, you are not lost but found, you are not destroyed but redeemed. The spark, not the body, is life.  I saw it and felt it, it was a beautiful thing, it swirled around the big field, touching down here, there, and then sailing up to the sky.