Bloom

In 2002 as the first anniversary of September 11 approached, some friends and I grappled with how we were going to mark the event. We wanted to organize something, but what and where? There were plenty of flag-waving, terror-fighting “pledges to patriotism” being promoted; equal numbers of prayer services were available, especially in the vast array of flavors in the Christian community--you could have your pick, with flag or without.

But somehow none of these felt right. Having just returned from my first overseas service project--a summer teaching English in the newly democratic and primarily Buddhist country of Mongolia--I had the enthusiasm of the newly awakened multicultural; like many people both within and outside the Christian faith, I was sensitive to the divisiveness that this lightning rod event was causing. We needed a place that transcended all the rhetoric, a container that could hold something bigger than all our biases.

Enter Oakhurst Community Garden. As I passed by on one of my regular neighborhood walks, it seemed to speak: “By the way, I am designated an international peace garden,” the garden murmured modestly.

One phone call later, Sally Wylde, the garden’s visionary founder/director, gave the answer she almost always gave when presented with a request, or an opportunity for service. “Absolutely!” she said. “It’s perfect.”

Two weeks later the event had grown organically into an interfaith expression of remembrance and mourning, a commitment to service and a call to peace. On the evening of September 11, people slowly streamed into the garden, until nearly a hundred clustered amid the waning harvest of tomatoes and squash and herbs. Some planted bulbs, others presented poems and readings from Buddhists, Christians and Muslims; an acapella group from the local synagogue lifted a prayer in song. A letter from Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of the families of survivors, called for unity in our collective grief and our hope. As night fell, the garden glowed with candlelight under the drooping heads of sunflowers, as neighbors, many of whom had never met, offered prayers for the victims, their families and the world. A photographer from Life magazine captured the scene.

Eight years later, we gathered today in the Oakhurst Community Garden. This time the focus was not the anniversary of that fateful day in 2001, but the remembrance of a woman who was teacher, learner, mentor, leader, servant, playmate, co-creator, activist, seeker, artist, friend. Stories and song, puppets and flowers, parade and potluck embodied Sally Wylde’s life in an exuberance that words can only glimpse. Did that rainbow really appear overhead as we sauntered and drummed down East Lake Drive?...now that’s just showing off! What more would you expect from the woman who created performance art ("The Lump Journey") in response to her body's encounter with cancer? The vibrant expression of her life and faith swept us up into the power of imagination, into the possibility of personal and communal liberation.

I was happy that, among today’s glowing and honest tributes, her husband Britt lovingly acknowledged her “sailor’s mouth." Once she sat with me over coffee compassionately listening as I grappled with the pain of divorce and the personal journey into therapy. Having grappled head-on with her own demons, she looked me straight in the eye and said with that New England candor, “Of course it’s hard! No one would do this work unless they fucking had to.” Well said, and true. But Sally rode the work full stride into art and gardens and webs of connection that transformed not only her own heart, but the lives of all those whom she touched--many of whom were gathered today to celebrate, honor and remember her with gusto. As she would have had it.

Today, Sept 11, as conflict and controversy swirl around us, when hatred and ignorance are in alarmingly plentiful supply, I can think of no place I would rather be than with these people, to honor this amazing woman, and to reclaim the roots that have grounded me in the sometimes uplifting and frequently frustrating path of social justice. Tonight, Amanda and I lit the single white candle in the Peace Garden, quietly remembering that evening 8 years ago. “Yeah,” I said. “Leave it to Sally to go ahead and tackle world peace.”