Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day on which many Christians receive a mark of ashes on their foreheads to symbolize their regret of wrongdoing and their acknowledgment of mortality—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  Even without the religious connotation, ashes have always reminded me of the temporary nature of things.

I grew up in a small row home with a coal burning furnace to keep us warm in the winter. Coal burned hot and bright for only so long. After that, we just had buckets of cold gray ash. One night when I was six, fire burned a hotel in our town to the ground. Of the velvet couches, oak paneled walls, and wingback chairs only powdery mounds of silt remained.  And, as I grew older, I knew that when my dad lit a cigarette, it heralded the beginning of a few moments of conversation. Cinders marked the end of it.

Accepting the impermanence of the world isn’t easy. Especially on a day which focuses on the fact that I’m not permanent either. But today I tried anyway. I reminded myself that this present moment is all I am ever really sure of. I encouraged myself to let things go, to release control, to loosen my grip. I practiced a DBT skill called “radical acceptance.”

This skill involves completely and totally accepting the reality of a thing, just as it is. And, no, it’s not the same as approving of something. Rather, it is coming to terms with your whole heart, mind, body, and soul that “it is what it is.”

Elisabeth Kubler Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist alluded to this type of acceptance as the fifth stage of grief. As an example, she pointed to dying people who choose to stop fighting the inevitable and to enter a stage of accepting “what is.”  Peace often accompanies this type of total acceptance.

Ashes remind me that comfort runs out, landscapes change, time with those we love comes to an end, and no one lives on this earth forever. Today as I practice accepting, I breathe in the sacredness of the present moment. It is enough.