Susan Schepp
Friends of Susan will be grieved to learn of her passing on September 24 at the palliative care unit of Strong Hospital in Rochester, NY. As mentioned in previous news updates this summer, Susan had been ill in recent months.
We who live and work at Springwater Center offer our deepest condolences to her family. Any plan for a memorial for Susan will be communicated at a later time.
Susan was a member of the Center since its inception, and was deeply engaged in its meditative work. She worked for many years with the Center's founding teacher, Toni Packer. Encouraged by Wayne Coger and Sandra Gonzalez, in 2016 she began to give talks and meet with participants in retreats.
Susan was a good friend of the Center, sharing her love and appreciation of the land and meditative work in her talks, poems and dialogues. Her many contributions included service on the Board of Trustees and beautiful ceramic bowls, platters and cups that are in daily use here.
In her last days, Susan spoke to friends of how the meditative work she had done in her life helped her deal with the illness that was taking her so swiftly. During this time she wished to hear the poems of Mary Oliver. One in particular was
When death comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from
his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
