Today I made a hickory milk and buried a dog, events of patience and gratitude.
The dog was loved by my neighbor, a luminous woman I’ve known nearly all my adult life. The hickory nuts were picked last fall in a churchyard where I stopped for Brunswick stew and conversation.
They were so beautiful, those hickories. I made some milk last year and filled a large wooden bowl with the rest. There they sat on my bookcase until October again, still fresh and available to generate a tree or the dark healing nutmilk that I make in transition seasons.
To make a grave for a precious dog bring all your tools to the clearing, shovel is not enough for hard ground; bring a mattock, a long heavy pry bar, a pair of leather gloves.
To make hickory milk you need tools as well, a hammer, a pot, a stone.
The nuts are reluctant to be crushed. It takes time, a solid will, the right place.
When you engage to make a grave, do so with a kindness you carry with you like an old leather satchel; useful, practical, comforting. Do not falter. Measure the body in your mind and proceed with your tools, saying the beloved’s name now and then to give courage and bless the ground. It must be deep and broad enough to comfort the living and the dead. Mind the mosses nearby, preserve the topsoil for what remembrance might be planted later.
When you have a potful of broken nutmeats in your hands and have left some for the squirrels and birds, fill the pot with water and lay it on a fire until it becomes redolent and pleasing. Tomorrow, you can strain it out, put the milk into small jars and give some away, first to the grieving neighbor you love.
There is just enough time left before dark to bury the dog. Wrap her in cloth, maybe a beautiful old quilt too ragged to use, and drag her heavy body to the grave. Lower her in gently and say her name. Cover her and add a libation to the corners of her tidy grave. Proffer a long and soulful hug to the woman who loved her.
Go home, tools over your shoulder, noticing and blessing the ground under your feet.
