Hello!  Welcome everyone! We are so glad to have you here with us.  Isn't this place beautiful?  

 

Take a moment to close your eyes.  Let yourself become completely still.  Take a moment to take a few deep, rejuvenating breaths.

 

Feel the sun and wind on your body.  

 

Hear the sounds of the desert.  

 

Feel the silence emanating from the earth. 

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My mother, Judith Harris, loved this Earth, and she shared that love with all of us.  She saw God manifest in nature. It is so perfect that her final resting place is in the heart of the earth, surrounded by the stillness and beauty of nature.

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My mother also loved poetry.  Poetry speaks to those hidden rivers of feeling that are beyond words.  Some of the oldest poems are the Vedas of India. Many of its verses sing of the presence of the divine in nature. 

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Salutations to You, who exist in fields and farmyards

Salutations to You, who are present in the form of trees in the forest and in the form of creepers and bushes

Salutations to You, who are present in sound and also in its echo

Salutations to You, who exist in flowing brooks and great floods

Salutations to You, who are in roaring waves as well as still waters

Salutations to You, who are in rivulets and islands

Salutations to You, who are the oldest and the youngest

Salutations to you  who appear in the form of atoms and dust

Salutations to You, who appear as both dry and green things

Salutations to You, who appear as trees whose green leaves are Your hair

Salutations to You, who are in the form of difficult terrain and meadows

Salutations to You, who become fresh leaves and also dry leaves

Salutations to You, who are in the form of the earth and also of light

 

Judith Anne Harris was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 20, 1938.  Her parents, Homer and Josephine, brought her to the promised land of California when she was a young child, and she was raised in Norwalk, a suburb of Los Angeles.  When she was six years old her brother Patrick was born. Patrick was feisty and enthusiastic and loved nature as much as she did, and she loved him with all her heart.

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That was true for many things.  I remember my mother as someone who loved with passion and fierceness.  She would fight tooth and nail for those she loved and for those she felt were helpless or powerless.  She is famous for her crouched boxing stance, with a glint of steel in her eye.

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In her later years she told me many times how hard she worked in school, and how much she loved school.  She has always had a deep love for learning and books and knowledge. She was not a dry academic -- for her knowledge was sacred, grand and beautiful.  One of the great gifts she gave, one of her legacies, was this rich love of learning and knowledge.

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When she was eighteen, my mother met my father, John Van Couvering while he was working on his masters degree at UCLA. They met at a party and spent the whole evening talking about everything.  She once told me that John opened her eyes to a whole new world of art and music and academia. My father said it was as easy as falling off a log. They were married a few short months after meeting.

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The next few years were a whirlwind of university study and jobs and children, with my parents travelling to Berkeley, Kentucky, and then back to Los Angeles.  Their first three children, Antony, Anne and David were each born two years apart.

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One day Judith went to a lecture at UCLA by the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey, and discovered that he was looking for researchers to go to Kenya.  Judith called John while he was in the middle of teaching a class, and convinced him to drop everything and come and talk to Dr. Leakey. John ended up giving him a ride to the airport and there the deal was set for sending John, Judith and three kids to spend nine months living in tents on an island in Lake Victoria.

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The time in Africa was powerful and formative for my Mom.  She absolutely fell in love with the place. Many of you who knew her later heard her talk with joy and wistfulness about her time there.  It's true: it was so beautiful, with vast skies and the pure lake and the incredible people. My experience of Africa was it reached deep into your being; it was so primal, the cradle of humanity.

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The research completed, Dr. Leakey invited them to go to Cambridge University in England and get their PhDs.  This was another wonderful time for my mother. She was in the hallowed halls of one of the oldest and most famous universities of the world.  She told me about her beautiful office, surrounded by wood furniture with windows overlooking the grounds of Girton College in Cambridge. It was her love of knowledge manifest.  Her love also manifested with the birth of one more child, Elizabeth Jane.

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After a year in Berkeley we were back on Rusinga Island in Kenya for another six months doing more research for Dr. Leakey. Their research completed, they were now with four young children, stuck in Kenya because the charter airline they had return tickets with had gone bankrupt.  My father got a job in a mine while my Mom took care of us kids in a tiny town in the foothills while at the same time trying to finish her Ph D. 

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Completing her PhD, my mother received a job offer at the University of Colorado.

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When we moved to Boulder, things started falling apart.  The work was exhausting, the kids were demanding, and my Mom was undergoing a transformation on many levels.  She struggled with her mental health, she was no longer comfortable in her caregiver role, and her marriage was under strain. She came out and met a motorcycle-riding partying dyke, Cari, who helped her claim her independence and her new identity.  She and my father divorced and he moved to New York City, and she continued to try to balance her academic career with the challenges of raising a family while at the same time exploring her newly-found self.

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After a whirlwind few years of partying and drinking, things settled down, and she met the love of her life, Mary Ann.  One of my first memories of Mary Ann was driving with her in Boulder as she listened and sang to Joni Mitchell. She was fun, she was sweet, she was loving, and she was the best thing to happen to my Mom.  We are all so grateful that Mom found Mary Ann and brought her into our family. They were married in August, 2008.

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My mother was an amazing teacher, inspiring her students, who loved her dearly. Many became great researchers and scientists in their own right, including Ken Carpenter, the famous inventor of the term the "Thagomizer".  Google it. She even taught Buddhists at the Naropa Institute about the secrets of nature and would take them on field trips. She loved her students and was fully dedicated to their growth and learning.

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In 1984 my Mom, Mary Ann and I all met Gurumayi, a spiritual master who initiated us onto a mystical spiritual path.  My mother had deep deep experiences in meditation and found great solace and love on the path. She once had a dream where Gurumayi carried her on a tour through the universe and then told her with great love that "nothing is personal."  She told me that story many times and clearly felt protected and comforted by this experience.

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In the late 1980s she lost her dear brother to AIDs, which completely crushed her.  Shortly after that she also lost her father, her mother, and her favorite aunt. That experience scarred her deeply, and she regularly talked about how she had lost everyone and all her people were gone.

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While at the University my Mom fought tirelessly for the rights of women, and struggled with the male-dominated culture at the university. She was ultimately unable to succeed in her career, a common story for women, especially at that time.  She retired and moved to Chama to be close to her first love, nature. There she spent the final years of her life, making friends, walking along the river, and loving her wife, her children and grandchildren. It was there that she worked for over ten years on a massive textbook teaching the new vision of the Earth as an entire organism.   Although she couldn't finish it, Ken Carpenter, one of her students, has been working on finishing it for her and getting it published.

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My Mother saw her dear Aunt Helen fade away with Alzheimer's, and she knew she was at risk.  She purchased an amazing long-term care insurance that allowed us to give her the very best care. 

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It was very difficult to watch Judith fade, first struggling with the details of her textbook, then forgetting her science, forgetting Africa, forgetting Cambridge, forgetting her family that had passed.  She didn't understand, but we all understand the incredible dedication and service Mary Ann had year after year as her role moved from wife and partner to caregiver, losing the one she loved one day at a time.  We love you Mary Ann and will never forget what you offered and what you went through. And we want to thank all of you in Chama with all our hearts, both present and those who could not make it, that gave Mary Ann and Judith so much love and support during this difficult time.

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There were some things that my Mom never lost, even at the end.  Her sweet smile, her gentle love, an incredible sensitivity, and a love of rocks and nature.  And, as Mary Ann and many of her caretakers can attest to, she also never lost her fierceness and spunk.  Yes it could be challenging, but it was also part of her strength and greatness.

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I was looking for a poem that best represents my experience of Judith's spirit.  I couldn't find one, so I wrote one instead.

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We stand in stillness, under vast blue skies

The rocks sing in silence, a song of power, a song of love, a song of light

As we walk across the land, the earth sings to us underfoot and echoes into the silence

 

This Earth carries all of us, holds all of us with infinite Love

It is a love ancient, wise, giving, nourishing

 

Dear Earth, take back your great lover, take her deep into your heart

Hold her and care for her, wash her with peace and comfort

She comes to you now, this passionate lover

Thank you for giving her to us for some time