Welcome to my blog. Here you will find whatever is bringing me joy right now.
Please join me in this spiritual agreement, from my mentor and friend, Jana Massey:
"Together we agree that everything that we think, that we say and that we do at this time will be of the highest good. And together we ask for truth, the understanding of that truth and the wisdom to use it in our lives."
Thank you.
I was recently asked to be the 'Master of Ceremonies' at a friend's 'Celebration of Life. Few knew that her death was near and most in attendance had been surprised to learn that one so vital and full of life and love had gone.
The request for my participation had come just the night before and I had dropped everything to get ready. While preparing to leave for the gathering, I found myself in a crisis of confidence. How could anyone even begin to encapsulate or sum-up or even speak to a life so large?
I shared my trepidation with my friend Susan, asking for her help. She said that she used to not like memorials at all until one day she realized that everyone who was in attendance had been deeply touched in some way by the person who had died and that they carried with them a part of that dear one in their souls. In that way, the person lived on in the spirits of those who had loved them. This turn of perspective gave me what I needed to proceed and I opened my talk with that thought.
My sweet darling little kitten died in my arms a few months ago. Hit on the boulevard, internal injuries, she breathed her last puff of breath into mine. My younger brother has also now passed, even more recently, end stage alcoholism. My other brother's wife said her final goodbyes just a few weeks ago, brain cancer. My mother died when I was just nineteen, my dad some fifteen years ago now, my grand parents, both sides, my husband's parents and his grandparents too. Now, two siblings and a few best friends have all taken their turn crossing the great divide between life and death. As it is sometimes said, "Not one of us gets out of here alive." We all go at sometime. And when we do, too often we shatter the lives of those we leave behind. Nothing is the same, nothing feels right, because nothing is right. It takes a long time for feelings of rightness and normalcy to return. Sometimes in our despair we seek retribution. The 'If only''s, swarm in and occupy our minds. Our days turn gray. We hate ourselves for what was or was not done, judging ourselves more harshly than we would anyone else, and all of this at a time when we need gentleness most of all. If we are lucky, the tears come again and again, washing away our pain, little by little, drop by drop, one day at a time. The story of the mustard seed comes to mind, a valued parable from India. It tells of a young woman whose child died. She goes railing and screaming to the holy man of the village, insisting that if he is so connected with Divinity then he must bring her little one back to life. He tells her that he will, and that the only price for his service is a single mustard seed. Mustard grows abundantly nearly everywhere round the world and everyone in her community always had mustard seeds on hand. "But," he said, "This seed must come from a household that has not been adversely touched by death."
So, she set out on her quest, with her lifeles child swaddled in her arms, to find this seed. Going door to door, visiting home after home, those who answered her call, seeing the grief she was in, took her into their own hearts and homes and shared with her about the deaths they had known.
Soon enough she realizes that none of us are untouched by death. And that all of our hearts have been blown open by loss. With this she is finally able to set her little one down and let go.
As one friend of mine has said, "Life lurches on." And somehow, over time, we do generally manage to find peace again.
The thoughts we choose to think, and we do choose, have a huge impact on our recovery. If we stay in that place of brutal self-recrimination, or if we label ourselves with limiting thoughts like, "I'll never love again," or "I'm a bad person who doesn't deserve anything," then our emotional recovery may never fully come. But if we let go of that and become a little kinder to ourselves and open up to the possibility of finding peace, or even joy again, we can make steady progress back toward lives of love.
No, it will never be the same. It will be different. But we can still find a sense of wholeness. And that is what our dearly departed loved ones would want for us anyway. They would not want for us to be sad for the rest of our lives. They would want us to be happy, living life to the fullest and celebrating our days, on this beautiful planet, in this love filled world of ours. My blessings to you all.
Throughout much of the modern world, we have historically had three great taboos: sex, death and finances. In recent decades these have been coming up for healing. It is always best if we deny nothing. We can push things away for a time, but in the end they will be made known. Such is the case with taboos.
When I was a girl, back in the
1960’s we collectively faced our sexual taboo. It was so amazing for me to watch as 'The Summer of Love' raised itself up, with it's pinnacle at The Haight, in San Francisco, in my home state of California. As this change swept over our nation, women’s liberation and gay rights were soon free to be born. The
environmental movement and AIM followed suit as the feminine principle
began to rise.
Then in
the 1990’s the taboo of death began to be addressed. My father was
wholly unable to face the reality of his inevitable death and he, like
many others of his generation, could neither speak nor think of his death. Death was
the enemy to be avoided at all costs and the standard western medical
model of healing was the savior.
Then, the need to release that
outmoded ideology began to surface. Culturally, we could no longer deny the reality of death. Exercises addressing the prospect of death and dying began to enter our collective minds. These have grown in acceptance and in popularity as the years have progressed. Now, with the Hospice Movement, death has re-entered the home and our loved ones and their time to go is embraced with dignity and allowance.
But, our third great taboo, financial transparency has still not yet been culturally addressed. We have great disparity of wealth, not only among our friends and family members, in our neighborhoods and nation-wide, but also, and grossly so, around the world. This has resulted in untold amounts of personal suffering along with a separation from the love and oneness that we know we all share. And that is the key here, we only need to learn how to share.
Even among my closest friends, I have little idea about their financial situations. People can get fired from their jobs in this country if they even so much as discuss their income figures with their co-workers. This is still the great and firmly entrenched taboo of the western world. So, the other morning, I found myself up early, before the day was fully awake, sitting in the softest light of the soon-to-be rising sun. I had been asking myself over the last few weeks what this new situation at the pinnacle of our nation’s government was about. Knowing that Divine Creator has a hand in everything, I was hoping for an insight, and then one came. Without a thing on my mind, in that still sleepy morning light, it dropped in to my awareness, and I heard the words, “Financial Transparency.” Instantaneously I knew that this was the answer to my question. The time has come upon us now for this last, final great taboo to rise up for its healing. May we all be blessed in this Holiday Season with equality and love.
Spirit is love and those on the other side can sometimes help us by reaching across the veil between life and death. Please join me in this little video as I share three remarkable ghost stories at this time of Halloween. These show how we can be helped by those who have died and who continue to give their love and protection to us while we are alive.
As we make our transition into death, we move into a limitless state of being, full of neutral compassion. Our awareness broadens and we become one with everything. Please enjoy this short video featuring a beautiful story of a lovely near death experience.
Allyson said that mom introduced her to Janie tonight. Mom has been in Hospice since May and has, as they used to say on the farm, "taken to her bed," since July. There is no one that we can see in her room, but she is talking and visiting away in there, all night long, most nights. There have been days, many of them, where it seems that she is passing right on throught those pearly gates. But then the next day, just like the "Energizer Bunny," she pops back up with a healthy appetite and has two eggs with a couple of pieces of bacon, some toast and a quarter of a cantelope. Later that evening, it's breaded shrimp with coctail sauce. She always was a good cook and has a fine appreciation for American cuisine, including ice cream, which is how she gets her meds down to ease her pain and make life a little easier for her Hospice caregivers, the ones who do their share of the heavy lifting. Such a blessing. One among many. with Allyson leading the stellum, lighting the way for us all. It's not easy to die sometimes. Just like there are difficult births, that stand out in contrast to the easy ones, there are also difficult deaths. How does one let go of this dear old friend, the body? I don't know. I wish I did. Because, if so, I might be able to help mom to say bye for now. But I do feel that there is an elegance, and certainly an astrological significance, to the timing of our deaths, just like there is a significance to the timing of our births. So, I give it all over to Divine Arrangement, knowing that there it rests in the best possible hands. In the meanwhile, we the living do what must be done. We select caskets, arrange for headstones, yesterday we bought the mortuary plot, today we crafted the obituary for the home town paper. We also ate watermelon. A little sweet with the sad. I'll leave you with this poem, by Ranier Maria Rilke. It is one of my favorites and pretty much sums it up for me. I hope that it speaks to you as dearly as it speaks to me.
The Swan This clumsy living that moves, lumbering, as if in ropes, through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks. And to die, which is a letting go of the ground we stand on and cling to everyday, is like the swan when he nervously lets himself down into the water which receives him gayly, and which flows under and after him wave after wave. While the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown, more like a king, farther and farther on.
As difficult as death is, there can be beauty int the experience as well. Close brushes with death teach us to live our lives more fully. And the time we spend transitioning in and out of spirit is like coming home again. Join Josephine as she brings this topic to life for half and hour.
There can come a time when it is well and good for us to go. When I was in my teens, my elderly grandfather and I were sitting together side by side, quietly musing in the sun. He turned to me, placed his hand gently on my knee and said, "I think I'll be going soon. It's time for me to move over and make room for other people on the planet, so they can come here to live." I immediately said, "No, Grandpa, don't talk like that." But he calmly held his place in silence, smiled to himself and nodded. He did indeed die, quite peacefully, six weeks later. Sometimes we go to our death kicking and screaming. Sometimes it's so sudden we don't know what hit us. But one thing is certain, we will all of us cross that river into the great hereafter one day. What we can be most grateful to death about is how it helps us to live while we are here. Carlos Castaneda said, "When you know that death is stalking you in every moment of your life, your life will become magical because your priorities will change." To live in grace is to honor all of our spiritual laws: to be kind with one another, to love each other, to give and to receive, to forgive and to understand. When we live our lives this way, we can meet our deaths with open hearts. Having had numerous close brushes with death during the course of my life, I know that any one of us could go at anytime. This helps me to keep my emotional plate very clean. If I have a hunch that something is up between us, I ask. If I wake up thinking about someone, I call. If I haven't recently told you, "I love you," I do. So, here we go, I Love You. And the truth is, I do. I'm so grateful to you, yes, you, for your support in reading this blog. It helps me to have readers, and you know that. I feel your love and I hope that you can feel mine. Because, the truth of it is, life is too short for us to be doing anything other than sharing our love. So, I thank you and I give my love to you. With that, I want to wish you all a very happy Memorial Day. May we come to know greater and greater levels of love as we learn how to walk this earth together, blooming and growing, finding our way into the Golden Age of Peace, while we live each of our days, gratefully and gracefully knocking on heaven's door.
Today was a day in my life, not too unlike any other day and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with you. I woke late after a good nights sleep relieved to find that my small fever of 101 degrees had abated after three days of bouncing around above normal. Also my intermittent dizziness and brief bout with high blood sugar levels had also resolved. I had strained my gut lifting something heavy, very awkwardly a few days prior and had probably give myself a small intestinal tear and a very mild case of septicemia. Some regular doses of proteolytic enzymes to speed the healing of the tear, lots of rest and limited activity along with green juice feasting and a trip to my chiropractor friend all brought successful resolve. Hooray! The first healing of the day done. Before I even got out of bed, a friend of ours left a message that his mother was dying, inviting me to share in the emotional journey that lay ahead. It is a true honor to be asked and to be included during such a vulnerable time. We played phone and email tag throughout the day and he and I will enjoy our communications over the days and weeks ahead as we connect in that vast heart space together. Death and grief can be like a roller coaster ride. It has it's ups and downs. A time of deep healing is beginning. Then, one of my best friends, who had just sustained a doozey of an injury called needing a reading. So I settled in to a deep long distance look. I was shown a lovely path for her to metaphorically walk along that would guide her back onto the road to health. As was the case for me, a little well placed self care along with a few supplements and a slight shift in the daily routines brought the balance that was needed. Healing number three. Next my dear friend and former neighbor had come stateside to work on some pressing family needs and wound up exhausted and malnourished in just two weeks time by falling into an old family pattern of working too hard with poor self care. So, last night, after a good dinner at our house, he was much improved. And then he helped me with a little task that I badly needed done. So, I wanted to repay the favor and do something nice for him and headed off to the healthy food store and got him some very nice organic fruits and vegetables, a few organic grain products and some nice organic nut butter. Together he and I cleared out all of the pesticide laden, empty calorie white bread and other junk foods out of his cabin and sat him down to some decent nourishment with lots of fresh live food. He was so happy and it felt great for both of us. Healing number four. After that I came home and made three clear broth soups for another dear friend who had just got out of the hospital. I had planned to bring her lovely vichyssoise, Julia Child's recipe. But her surgeon said clear liquids only, for a whole week. That meant that the leek and potato soup was off and coffee and jello were the suggested items on the menu. But sugar and caffeine don't make for the best nutrition, especially when trying to heal form such major wounds. So, while I was at our Co-Op, I picked up ingredients for bone broth, potassium broth and a chicken soup. I'm a vegetarian, but she is not, and her surgery involved lots of cartilage. So, I whipped up these three nice mineral rich organic recipes. Later I poured them through a sieve to make them clear. They should sustain and nourish her well for the first week of healing ahead. To top off the day of healing, we headed off to a lovely all organic dinner with some very good friends of ours who live in a grove of trees. They are blessed each year by the return of the monarch butterflies who hang in lovely long strings while resting from their migration. As you may know, they have been in decline in recent years due to pesticides, GMO's and industrial-chemical-agricultural processes. Our friend has been filming the butterflies as they rest in the trees and has created an amazing piece of art, a prayer really, for YouTube to help increase awareness about these beautiful creatures who share our earth with us. It's simple beauty and grace moved me so deeply that tears were streaming down my cheeks and I knew that this work of true purpose, freely given, would help all of us and our world. It was a beautiful ending to a beautifully healing day.
"I Don't Know About You, but I Live in a Reincarnational Reality" This was a quote from Ram Dass that I've adopted as my own. Our lifetimes are like going to sleep at night. We dream and then we wake up again to a whole new day. It's just that with reincarnation it's on a slightly bigger scale.
There was some wonderful research done at the University of Virginia in the late 1960's by a man named Ian Stevenson, MD who was a professor of pyschiatry. He gathered 2,500 case studies of children who at around the age of two or three would speak openly about their previous families. They also spoke about their former lives and the way they died. Many of these children had nightmares about their past life experiences because when the volume is turned up loud (as is often the case in someone who has died relatively young by some violent or unexpected means) the memories can come through more easily.
My dad was one of these kids. He wasn't in Ian Stevenson's research group because he was born about 40 years earlier, however my dad did exhibit one of the characteristics that Ian covered in his research, which is known as xenoglossy. Xenoglossy is the ability to speak in a language that you've had no former exposure to, at least not in this lifetime. My dad grew up in relative isolation in the Arizona desert, and as a little tiny boy he spoke a few words of Hindi. He named his cat the Hindu word for cat. He also told my British grandmother and grandfather about his death experience in his most recent past life, where at the age of 11 he and his whole family died suddenly at the dinner table; crushed under the timbers of their home as it collapsed during an large earthquake.
This kind of experience is common for these reincarnational children: a young and sudden death, recalled at a very young age. Some of them have birthmarks or defects that match the wounds that their deceased former self had experienced. Until recently, these accounts have mostly lain somewhat dormant in family recollections or in the desks of researchers like Ian. They were usually passed off as unexplainable anomalies, wondered at briefly and then forgotten about. But now that nearly 3 billion of us are connected via the internet, we have access to lots of information that has formerly been unavailable, like Stevenson's research, along with other new discoveries in the the topic of the ongoing nature of consciousness.
Though reincarnation is not readily accepted in the West, it does have a history of recognition in the Gnostic Christian texts, as well as in the ancient Kabbalistic Jewish teachings. Throughout most of the world reincarnation has widely and wholeheartedly been embraced. Hinduism and Buddhism both acknowledge its reality. And the oral traditions, the numerous nature-based religions of the world, have always accepted the cycles of life and death and rebirth.
Lots of current research like the explorations into near death experiences show us that consciousness continues after the body and brain have died. This helps us to change our understanding about life and death. It frees us to realize that our spiritual growth is a process and that we don't have to accomplish everything in one go. We are reborn together again and again as we progressively embrace our interconnectedness and move closer and closer to love. Voltaire said, "It is not more surprising to be born twice than once." Know that love is never lost and that we all dance together again and again. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
In honor of Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos I'd like to share with you an experience that I had a decade ago while Frank and I were traveling in New Zealand. It shows the depth of love and caring that those in spirit can express to us across the veil. We had just arrived in Wellington from the Ferry and hadn't yet rented a car. So we decided to share a taxi van with several other travelers. The driver set off to deliver all of us to our respective destinations.
Frank and I had been availing ourselves of farm stays and home stays and had arranged with an older woman named Sylvia. She had shared with us on the phone that she was looking for a way to make a little more income and thought she'd try opening her home to visitors. We were to be her first guests.
As the cabby and I were busy rearranging and unloading bags from his trailer onto the sidewalk, Frank, alternating with a stately elder gentleman, were shuttling our bags up to the front door of the house. The man smiled and murmured a few words in my direction as he gathered up our things and I looked forward to being properly introduced at the door, once we were all ready to go in.
When I entered the house, I was cordially greeted by Sylvia and she showed us to our room. Frank went with her to see the rest of the house as I excused myself to briefly freshen up. Before I had made ready to leave the room, Frank returned and said that the place was very nice and that Sylvia loved tennis and was in the middle of watching a game.
I asked how her husband was and if Frank had enjoyed meeting him. He said, "No, Sylvia shared that her husband is dead. He and their two teenaged children died in a car crash late one night the previous year." I said, "Well, who was that man then?" Frank asked "What man?" I went on, "The older gentleman who was collecting our bags." Frank said he hadn't seen anyone. He went on to say that Sylvia had shown him a photo of her family. It was up in the kitchen. I went up to look at the photo and there he was, smiling at me with Sylvia and their two children by his side.
I suddenly knew that being as we were her first in-home-guests, he had come to make sure that all was well before she embarked upon this new venture. Frank and I had apparently passed his purview and were welcomed by him into their home.
With love, only love, a very Day of the Dead to each of you.
