The Pandemic is a Portal

Sphagnum moss is comprised of living, photosynthesizing cells connected to a long trail of dead cells that can
be hundreds if not thousands of years old. The dead cells provide structure and carry water up to the living
cells. The dead cells also expand as they fill with water, pushing out air to create an anaerobic environment
that slows their decomposition. In this relationship, the dead support the living. They are distinct but not
separate. I think about these ancestors. This entire ecosystem is a pocket of life left over from the last ice
age. As I walk through the bog or lie in the moss, a massive network of sphagnum supports my weight. As I
feel the moss softly yield underneath my feet, I think about the work of the dead that is activated through
our movements and bodies. Death carries connotations of finality within this language, but in practice it
points to a process that is, again, always changing. I think about how I may remain connected to the fabric
of the world as I take part in this humbling process and let go of the ways in which I cannot not be present.
Perhaps fire doesn’t only have the power to transform but may spark a perpetual cycle that can bring out
the past. [4]
It’s the night of the new moon. I lay out all the most beautiful food in the house and make a meal to share
with my grandfather. As I light incense, I realize that it’s been many years since I’ve been in his presence.
I think about sitting with him as a child when he was full of laughter and music, and I feel his joyful spirit
running through me. I think about sitting with him in the hospital when he was speechless and distressed.
It feels good to sit with him again. I am tremendously tired, and I’ve needed this company and connection.
I stare at the three sticks of incense and see the interweaving of spirit, practice and community. It’s funny
how fitting it feels to be compelled to continue such ancestral practices even as, through distance, death or
sheer difference, I become more removed from my blood relatives. I think about the stories of hungry ghosts,
perpetually empty and dissatisfied, and hope that this particular gesture can speak to such hunger.
I fold and burn a bundle of joss paper out in the backyard and remember doing this with my grandfather, for
his mother, when he was alive. Watching the paper curl into ash, my mind wanders and dwells yet again on
dying. I breathe in the incense and breathe into the uncertainty of this long year of sickness, accepting the
fear of the unknown only to have it return so that I must embrace it again. The scent of sweet, carcinogenic
smoke is a reminder of all the things that could kill me right now, but for the moment this inevitable threat
also smells like home. I kowtow three times. My body is loaded with the weight of drugs, sickness and crazy
fucking thoughts, but my heart is wide open. The last tiny ember disappears into smoke.
[1] Hellmut Wilhelm, ed., Cary F. Baynes trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1977), 90.
[2] Ōe Kenzaburō, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (London: Marion Boyars, 1978), 100.
[3] John Hersey, Hiroshima (New York: Bantam, 1946), 89.
[4] Much of the thinking in this paragraph around sphagnum and ancestry is in conversation with Robin Wall
Kimmerer’s essay “The Red Sneaker,” in her book Gathering Moss (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003).
S F Ho is an artist who is 90% chill, 10% not, living on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ peoples. They’re into community building, books and being
sort of boring. They recently finished writing George the Parasite (2020), a short novella about aliens,
love and boundaries.
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