Celeste is a Verb!
My friend Celeste Martin Rast died suddenly last week, in the middle of the sentence.
So many people have said at one time or another, "I want to be Celeste Rast" when I grow up, including me. Her life (and death) show us that there is no better time to do that than right now.
I am deeply honored to speak at her funeral this morning at 11am in Asheville, North Carolina, and here is what I will say about this remarkable woman who embodied verb-ness:
Celeste is a Verb!
I am deeply honored to be here, and deeply humbled by the enormity of the task, to somehow capture in a few words the essence of a person who shone so brightly in her yellows and purples and big hats and expansive heart. As I thought about what I might say, I was reminded of this statement by writer Dawna Markova: “I will not die an unlived life… I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me… I choose to risk my significance.” That sounds like Celeste to me—inhabiting her days, allowing her living to open her, risking her significance.
I was an accidental visitor to Celeste’s life. Someone who had been invited to a dinner party at her house had to cancel at the last moment—and I believe we all know that an empty seat just wouldn’t do at Celeste’s dinner table. I was suggested as a fill-in guest and though she didn’t know me, I was invited, and came to sit at that beautifully set table in a group of amazing women. I imagine the person who canceled might be sitting in these pews this morning and I thank you deeply for unwittingly opening space for me to know this amazing woman.
Celeste was a human being with an insatiable curiosity, a curiosity that led her to know deeply the stories of more people than any of us can count or know. She not only knew those stories—she entered into them in significant ways. At a deep level, she knew that every human being she encountered—whether here at church or homeless in Pritchard Park or in a symphony hall—had as deeply textured and meaningful and precious a story as she did, no matter their circumstance, their standing in the community, their joys, or their hardships.
Celeste enrolled in a six-month class I co-taught with my business partner David just a year ago, a course focused on finding more meaning in your life, on learning from the stories of our days, on crafting the story we want our lives to be. As playwright J.M. Barrie wrote, “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” I dare say that Celeste’s comparison of those two volumes was very swift last Tuesday as she left her body—and that those two volumes were the very same, no gaps between them. She lived the story she had wanted. She didn’t pursue that story; she embodied it.
Already in her 80s when she enrolled in our class, Celeste was continuing to learn and grow at a pace and with a passion not seen in most people half her age. The class was based on a book I wrote in 2008 called “Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally,” and I can think of no other person who more personified verb-ness than Celeste, and so I’d like to call my remarks this morning, “Celeste is a Verb!”
Celeste came to the class to learn from the group, most of whom she would never meet, since we convened by teleconference call. But it is more than fair to say that we learned much, much more from Celeste’s unique presence than she from us—as evidenced at least in part by the fact that several of that group traveled far distances to be here this morning to honor Celeste.
I’d like to briefly mention four of the many things I learned from her:
1. Wear purple more often – I sat in this sanctuary last Sunday watching the fantastic production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” the costumes for which Celeste was creating at the time she died. It occurred to me as I watched what a perfectly beautiful metaphor the coat of many colors is for Celeste, always resplendent in bright purples, yellow, pinks. She taught me—and many others—to wear purple more often. I mean this both literally, and also as a metaphor for what she taught us about marching boldly into our days. She wore purple more often.
2. Make life your special occasion – D.H. Lawrence wrote, "Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved." Many of us save our china and Easter hats and best linens for special occasions. For Celeste, daily life was the special occasion.
3. Love everyone the best – I sat with some of Celeste’s family late last Friday evening, remembering her. They joked we should have t-shirts made up for everyone that read, “Celeste loves me best,” because we knew that whomever Celeste was with, she was fully present with that person, and they felt she loved them best. She spoke beautifully in our class of being fully present with the person closest to her—I believe we all felt this magic. Celeste did that. She connected to people deeply. She loved everyone the best.
4. Live an irresistible obituary – Mark Twain has said, “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” Celeste has done just that. With her passing, the world has become a duller place. As part of her work in our class, she wrote her own obituary, making note of many of the causes you’ve heard about this morning and that she felt so deeply about. I was struck most deeply, however, by the end of what she wrote, what she called her real obituary, which read: “She loved intensely, awakened excited each day to see what was ahead, cared deeply, was engaged fully with the person in her presence, and danced as if no one was looking.” I posted her obituary online and someone wrote back, “Okay, now I’ve got an obituary to aspire to.” Celeste truly lived an irresistible obituary.
I was shocked by Celeste’s death, as we all were. I guess I had never anticipated she might die because she lived so intensely, with a social calendar and commitments that far outpaced mine. As her obituary read, she outlived me. When I informed a mutual friend of Celeste’s death, telling her how surprised I was by the news, Kathleen said something that rang so true with me, “I imagine Celeste was surprised, too,” she said, simply.
Yes, I imagine she was. There was so much more to do, to learn, to grow into, to help with. And yet I know she died in peace, in mid-stride, the very way she lived.
To everyone gathered here who loved Celeste deeply, who admired her greatly, who dined with her often at her immaculately set table often, I offer these words:
Death ends a life, not a relationship.
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die, wrote Thomas Campbell. We can all continue our relationship with Celeste – and keep her memory alive – and maintain our relationship with her – by wearing purple more often, treating everyday life as a special occasion, loving everyone the best, and living an irresistible obituary.
The Buddha has told us that in the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go? Celeste did all those things deeply: fully inhabiting her days, allowing her living to open her, risking her significance.
One of the pervasive images from our class was that of balancing stones, the ways in which you needed to be fully present to balance rocks, and the ways in which the moment of perfect balance came through “feel” rather than “sight.” It was a very present form of knowing, a mindfulness, that would bring the rocks (and you) into balance.
Celeste had on her breakfast table a small pile of rocks when she died, an echo of this metaphor, and a reminder to her of this practice. And so you have been offered a river stone to take with you as a way to recall this image, to remember Celeste as you hold this stone and seek balance, that special moment of poise and centeredness.
An indigenous Elder told a friend of mine about how the people we love come back as raindrops, and how those raindrops fall into the rivers, and how these people we love and the love we have for them is carried all around the world by the rivers. Perhaps these river stones you’ve been given will remind you of that image of connectedness as each of us moves forward in a different and deeper relationship with Celeste.
Celeste is, indeed, a verb! A past, present, and future tense verb…
Celeste now passes and flows and streams around the world with flying, bright, vibrant colors, in all our hearts and beyond, like a river full of love.
-Patti Digh
June 12, 2010
Memorial Service for Celeste Martin Rast
First Baptist Church, Asheville
[With thanks to artist Mary Campbell for helping create the artwork using words from Celeste's self-written obituary]
