5- Easter Orchids

5- Easter Orchids
We are all more than we believe ourselves to be.  It is this inner essence that cries out for unconditional love.  Giving this to ourselves and others is the journey we have embarked upon in this experience we call life.  It is why we are here.  If we can come to know this essence within ourselves and embrace it, we will see and embrace it in others.  We will know peace and the unwavering power of love.  Compassionate non-judgment is the path I have consciously chosen to take me there and I can honestly say the experience I share in this story anchored and expanded my dedication to this choice.  

In the last years of my grandma’s life she needed someone to stay with her around the clock.  While my aunt was her primary caretaker, occasionally I’d go spend a week or so with my grandma to give my aunt a break.  My uncle would drop off groceries from time to time so I could cook for us, but other than that we were pretty much on our own.  Grandma’s growing dementia prevented very much conversation.  She mostly watched TV soaps she could no longer follow, slept in her chair and drifted from time to time into some distant daydream she was having.   This woman, who had been the backbone of our family for almost a hundred years was coming to the last stages of her journey here.  She had taught me so much about life through example.  Compassion, dedication, unconditional love and acceptance were as natural to her as breathing.  She had also taught me to cook, crochet and sew.  Every creative bone I have I got from her and I knew that once she was gone from the family, the family would lose it’s center.  I also knew that it was largely because of her, that I had found mine.

I had a lot of free time to read on these visits so I always brought some esoteric material I was studying.  I would often read late into the night and throughout most of the day as I sat with my grandma.  This focused my mind and informed much of the things I pondered about life and the meaning it held.  Watching the woman I admired so much near the end of her days, magnified my introspective inquiries.  Being one who has experienced time and again that we do indeed find answers to the questions we seek, I sought to further understand the soul’s journey.

On one particular visit I had been reading from The Book Of Enoch and pondering the mystical type of experiences the text is centered on.  This is not reading for light weights, and as any serious spiritual student will tell you, old Enoch had himself quite an adventurous time!  Enoch’s  travels to heaven in the form of dreams, visions and revelatory experiences were very profound.  I didn’t study esoteric material just for the content shared or the lesson’s taught.  I believed I could have the same revelatory experiences these teachers shared in their writings.  Having been proven right in my assumptions time and again, I always sought first hand communications with my own higher mind.  However I wasn’t at all prepared for the revelatory experience I awaiting me on this visit.

My grandma perked up whenever my uncle visited.  I never really had a relationship with him even though his wife, my mom’s sister, was my favorite aunt.  The truth is he was never around much in my childhood.  He worked shift work and most holidays, so while I was with my aunt a lot, this was not the case with her husband.  As an adult I didn't see very much of either of them due to geography.  He was a fastidious man, starched and pressed. He had very strong opinions and the way we viewed the world was very different.  He was a conservative, a republican, and very outspoken on his opinions.  I was so far away from anything political there was not even a category for my views.  He freely spoke his mind and sometimes displayed a prejudice I just couldn't warm up to, but I had grown up being taught to respect my elders so, for the most part, I didn’t engage his comments.  Besides, he loved my aunt and was good to my grandma and I figured that was all that mattered.  I had no way of knowing this man was about to be the conduit through which one of the most profound spiritual lessons of my life would flow. 

It was the week of Easter, and not being religious, I hadn’t celebrated any of the holidays in more years than I could count.  But because my uncle didn’t know this, when he went grocery shopping for us and saw the orchid corsages being sold for Easter, he kindly bought one for both grandma and me.  As grandma opened the kitchen door to let him in, his tall frame filled the small room.  I sat at the kitchen table as he reached in the grocery sack he carried and presented my grandmother with a corsage.  I remember thinking what a sweet gesture it was, when he surprised me with one as well.  As he extended it and our hands connected on the small package, I was literally catapulted into a profound mystical experience.  

Time stood still as I experienced my uncles spirit expand from his being and fill the room.  His divine essence merged with mine and communicated the pure energy of unconditional love. I was suddenly caught up in the most profound realization that this is the substance around which we are all formed.  In a moment that I am quite sure only I experienced, I was transported into revelatory awareness and clarity.  I felt as though I had been given a glimpse through the veils Enoch had pierced, and never again would I mistake the personality for the essence of a person.  

6- Surrender's Gift

6- Surrender's Gift

But for a brief and tumultuous second marriage, I had been a single mother for more than a decade.   Acutely aware that my ‘picker’ was broken, I vowed to remain single until I got that thing fixed!  For many years I had been on an intense journey into personal growth.  As an adult child of alcoholism and rampant co-dependency, I had addressed my family of origin, embraced my inner child, healed the woman who loved too much, balanced my inner masculine, and found the goddess within.  I not only had the bookshelf to prove it, I had a counseling certification to boot!  Working toward my license, I was determined to be the kind of counselor that had done my own work!  Not to mention, the kind of woman that would never again be attracted to needy men.  And while I was sure of what I didn't want I had no way of knowing what I would find in complete surrender.

I was in the middle of the living room floor, rocking back and forth, my arms tightly wrapped around me.  The loneliness had gotten to such an excruciating level that I could no longer keep the tears at bay.  I was beyond sadness.  I literally ached with physical and emotional pain.  My two young children tucked into their beds, I knew the only remedy was to embrace the emptiness that wanted release and cry it out.  Several months before, I had moved into a picturesque farmhouse in the middle of a few hundred acres.  A dream come true, I guess living that dream had amplified the loneliness of not having a partner to share it all with.  

Loneliness aside, in many ways my life was the best it had ever been.  In fact, someone special to share it all with seemed to be the only missing piece.  I actually loved being independent and on my own. I was an artist and a writer and valued my alone time when the demands of motherhood, work, and school weren’t tugging at me.  I guess this was just the night that it all came to a head.  So many years of doing everything alone while raising two beautiful children, was finally taking it’s toll.  What few friends I had were married, and I was never one for night life and partying.  For the most part I was happy under my blanket of stars in my eighty year old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.  Falling asleep to the sound of crickets, waking to the birds singing, was my kind of music, and walking through fields of wildflowers was my kind of adventure.  Nothing however, could have prepared me for the adventure the next morning would bring.

Allowing myself to cry the loneliness out the night before had resulted in a peaceful nights sleep. I awoke to my favorite summertime melody of birds as the breeze wafted through the open bedroom windows.  There is nothing like the peacefulness of the country to soothe a weary soul. Warm sunshine and a gorgeous Saturday morning reminded me of all that was good in my life and coaxed me out for a walk through a pasture I had yet to explore.  I got dressed and headed out knowing that  the kids were good on their own and I’d be within shouting distance if needed.

As I waded through the tall pasture grass I reflected on the synchronistic way the farm had come to be our new home, and my gratitude for all that it had brought us.  The property had three fishing ponds on it and because the surrounding pastures were leased to area ranchers separate from the property we occupied, we got to enjoy horses, cattle and sheep without being responsible for their care.  The house itself was one of those great old places with 14 ft. ceilings and massive windows that were designed to allow for great cross breezes throughout every room. When we moved in I had explored the place from top to bottom and found a great antique walnut bed in the attic that I refinished for my son’s room with the landlords permission.  Beautiful vintage pieces found their way into the house as I scoured tiny shops and garage sales, and in no time it felt like home.  Of all the places I have lived, before or since, it has remained my favorite. Long before  'Law of Attraction' teachings were popularized I had intuitively used those principals to step into the life I was living here with my children.  It felt amazing to actually walk within a reality I had spent so much heart-felt emotion imagining.

Walking deeper into the pasture I noticed a small rise in the distance and what looked like old iron fencing that had fallen in a bent and tangled heap.  Curious, I moved toward the area, climbing the gradual incline through the thick grass.  To my surprise I found myself surrounded by what seemed to be a long forgotten family cemetery.  Because I am one of those strange beings that happen to love old cemeteries, I was fascinated by my discovery.  I walked around the fencing and through headstones that ranged in dates from just before the turn of the last century through the mid-1900’s.  Some were ornate marble works of art with precise engraving and designs carved into them. Others were crude blocks of cement with a single name that had been scratched into the near dry concrete.  Some were in German and some in English.

Reading the headstones I could decipher, it was evident many generations had come to rest in this hallowed ground.  What was also evident was the human drama that had been played out upon this land.  Some epitaphs suggested young women had died in childbirth, and there were many children’s graves.  Seemingly taken by fevers and various epidemics, in one section several siblings were clustered together as one by one the dates revealed they had lost their battles.  I was greatly moved by the bittersweet, and devastatingly sad epitaphs.  As a mother myself I could only imagine burying one child after another only weeks and sometimes days apart.  The grief was as palpable as if the parents themselves surrounded me. Pushing aside the encroaching weeds and tall grass that covered much of the engraving, stone after stone became a math quiz as I deciphered the years between birth and death dates.  The lack of longevity was apparent among those buried there. Only occasionally would I find someone past their sixties.

At the center of the mound, shade from a large tree blanketed the grave sites. Leaning against it, I looked out across the surrounding beauty of this land.  In every direction, rolling hills and aging trees seemed to bare witness to a history I could only imagine.  Moving to the edge of the cemetery, away from the stones and out past the fencing, I stood on the rise and gazed down at one of the ponds in the distance.  I was filled with thoughts of all those that had come before me. Their hopes and dreams of family life, love and accomplishment, as well as their joys and sorrows were not so different than mine.  My mind wandered to the the Native Americans who once occupied and had been driven off this land long ago, the settlers that had followed them, and later the immigrant farmers. First generation Americans born and buried here filled my mind as down through the years I moved closer and closer toward my own time. Gratitude filled me as I became profoundly aware of how blessed I was to call this wonderful place home.  With healthy children, loving family, dear friends and work I was passionate about, I felt rich beyond measure. All hardship and loneliness fell away.  Something inside me knew my life had purpose and that I was aligned with a type of unseen guidance.  In that moment, just as I had given into the loneliness the night before, I gave in to the intuitive wisdom within me.  In an act of absolute surrender I raised my face to the sky, closed my eyes, and with heartfelt sincerity whispered, “If it is your will that I be alone for the rest of my life, I accept that.”  I had turned my will and my life over to a power greater than the small personality self that I, all too often, believed myself to be.

In a sudden sweep of all consuming expansion that I can only describe as timeless suspension, I was shifted into a state of revelation beyond this world.  Freed from my limited physical aspect, I became awareness itself!  It was as if the universe had been stilled.  I was, at once, everything and nothing at all.  I was literally at one with all that had come before me and with all that would ever follow.  I was limitless, unbound and expansive beyond measure.  I was in everything and everything was in me.  Understanding filled me, as absolute truth replaced perception.  In that very instant I knew beyond any doubt that this palpable wholeness was and is who I am…who we all are.  Not separate beings, struggling to survive, but limitless oneness, complete and whole. I was experiencing my own higher minds awareness in magnificent, multi-dimensional expansion. Then, just as swiftly, I was back ‘inside’ my limited, physical state of being.  But the message continued and revelation unfolded as it gently showed me what I have come to know as ‘the extraordinary nature of ordinary life’. Shaken and awestruck, I looked down and discovered that I was unknowingly straddling a crudely etched concrete marker, nearly buried in the ground. It bore a single name….my name!

In disbelief, I stooped to run my fingers slowly across the letters of my last name.  Tears filled my eyes and I knew that a part of me had just died on that spot and was forever buried.  I also knew that I would never be lonely again.  I was forever changed and this change had been birthed by way of such complete surrender it was beyond any decision or mental exercise.  From the moment I released all the pent up sorrow and struggle, and allowed myself to collapse in a heap of tears on my living room floor the night before, to the moment I was moved to turn my tiny will and my limited life over to the will of All-That-Is,  I had unknowingly stepped into a state of complete and total alignment with the rest of me…my higher/expanded self!  My surrender was met with an expansion into the Oneness that it is, as the tiny aspect that I believed myself to be died. My awareness had expanded and I knew I was now living from a completely different perspective.  I no longer needed a partner to be complete.  I was complete.  I was whole.  I was changed.  Everything became more alive for me because I was more alive.    

Two weeks later, the man who was to become my husband walked into my life.  So matched were we, that only thirty-nine days passed from first date to marriage.  He loved my farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and my story of how I had surrendered the will of my personality so that my higher/expanded aspect could prepare me for someone like him; a mystic, a shaman and a teacher like none I had ever known.  Surrender’s gift is that it introduces us to who we truly are, and then it aligns us with people, places and timelines that are waiting for our expanded awareness.  From there we can move deeper into the expression of all that we truly are.   Phil opened doors in my mind that I didn’t even know were there.  He gave me the freedom and encouragement to walk through every one of them and he delighted in the gifts I found there. I gave him love and appreciation and just enough prodding to encourage and validate the gifts in him he was unable to see.  Skeptics may discount my experience and nay-sayers will give no credence to the notion that my surrender brought Phil into my life.  But I will always believe that our’s was truly a match made in Heaven; surrender’s gift! 

7- Creative Intervention

7- Creative Intervention

Phil provided the foundation for me to dive deeply into the larger questions of life while pursuing my creative side.  Not only did he love being surrounded by the energy of an artist, he truly enjoyed the long philosophical discussions and spiritual questioning I constantly brought to the table.  In our marriage we were truly best friends and I had never known this in my life.  We  also loved working together and were one of those rare couples who preferred to be together all the time.   Frustrated with my blocked creativity, I once told Phil I felt like I needed to waste 100 canvases to just get past the feeling.  His response was to agree, support me in creating a proper studio, and promptly fill it with canvases and whatever else I needed to break free of my limitations.  This was quintessential Phil! However, neither of us could have known the stage he was setting for the mystical experience that would birth my journey into what I have come to call Creative Introspection.

In the early days of my new marriage I continued my introspective work, dredging up those issues I felt were limiting my life.  It was hard work and it estranged me from my extended family as I delved into childhood issues that threatened those unwilling to explore the past through a functional lens.  This was taking an emotional toll on me as I came to terms with the family dynamics that had contributed to my feelings of abandonment and shame.  My spiritual mantra of ‘Lead me into all truth.’ was painted across every aspect of my life and it served me well even though it disconnected me for a time from those I loved.  

One night I awoke in the wee hours of the morning.  Pitch darkness surrounded the beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that Phil now shared with us.  Having leased the place sometime before meeting Phil, he often teased that he married me for the farm.  We loved the place and its quiet, peaceful surroundings.  As I slipped from bed, making my way through the darkness like a blind woman who knew every nook and cranny of the room, it felt as though something beyond me was moving me along.  I knew I wasn’t wide awake but it seemed like I was being led as I experienced myself from two points of view; subject and observer.  

I entered the new art studio which was just off the bedroom, and began to set up one of the new, larger canvas’ for painting.  Still in this strange, unfamiliar state of being, I watched myself fill a pallet with oils paints and marveled at the colors being chosen.  One part of me was curiously watching what another part of me was doing, but the two aspects were only slightly connected.  I had never experienced anything quite like this before and it intrigued my curious nature so I trusted it.  I was not being ‘taken over’, I was experiencing an expanded state of awareness and being.  

Hours flew like minutes as a painting filled the large canvas I had placed on the easel.  Only the morning sun streaming through the studio window alerted me to how much time had passed.  As the sunlight and the awareness of time shifted me, I was suddenly wide awake, fully integrated and absolutely astounded at what had happened.  Unable to take my eyes off the painting, I backed toward a small sofa in the room as huge waves of deep emotion rippled through me.  I simultaneously laughed and cried from the depth of my being at the realization that I was being healed.  A flood of energy was moving through me as I stared at the painting which had also come through me.  In every way the painting was symbolic of the journey I had taken through life.  As I stared at it, it functioned as a sort of archetypal life review.  It spoke to me from an energetic level validating every emotion and every wound I had ever suffered.  It brought forgiveness to everything I ever held against myself and it freed me in ways impossible to explain.  This energetic exchange went on for about a half an hour as everyone else slept.  It left me refreshed and reborn somehow.  Renewed, I felt a freedom I had never experienced in my thirty-five years of life.  What was this that had transpired in the dark stillness of the night, I wondered.  What spiritual connection was there between creative energy and self-realization?  My head was swimming as Phil emerged from the bedroom.  

I could hardly contain myself as I shared with him what had happened to me.  We made coffee and talked for hours as we sat before the painting in my studio.  He had no more answers than I, but he could see the change.  It was obvious, and he could feel it.  My pursuit of an art career was shifted that day.  Now I was propelled to understand the connection between creativity and spirituality as it applies to self-realization.  My life’s work in psycho-spiritual healing had now merged with my lifelong creative impulses and I began to see everything I had ever created in a new light.  Songs that had simply come through me, volumes of poetry that had written themselves and gotten me through some of the most difficult times of my life were suddenly understood in light of this energetic experience.  

Using creative energy to spiritually understand ourselves and heal was now my focus.  Over time I was guided to the realization that creativity can serve as a healing conduit because we are creative energy incarnate!  Therefore, when we direct our focus to the larger questions in life, (Who am I, Where did I come from, and what am I doing here?), opening a creative avenue is like opening a portal through which our answers can flow to us…from us; our higher self!  From this day forward my art and my awakening were inextricably tied.  The answers that flow through the end of my paintbrush and pen have profoundly moved, inspired and awakened me.  While I have won awards and had opportunities to pursue a traditional career in the arts, those arenas never captured my passion.  Spiritual awakening and enlightenment was always at the forefront for me.  That it merged into my unwavering creative indulgences has been a gift beyond measure.  But that is what life gives you when you give yourself to life rather than the distractions of life; gifts beyond measure.

Some refer to creative experiences like these as channeling.  I myself once accepted that term for lack of understanding what was really happening.  Today I realize that I was simply tapping into a frequency of my own infinite being which allowed for higher exchanges of information to come through.  There is quite a difference between giving oneself over to ‘another’, as one who channels does, and aligning with one’s own higher aspect.  The first sets up and continues the idea of separation and dependence.  The later is freeing and revelatory as it connects oneself to their infinite nature.  I have experienced again and again how creative energy serves as a wonderful conduit for connecting to one’s higher-self.  When I tie this to my personal quest for ongoing enlightenment it never fails me.

10- The Illusion Of Reality

10- The Illusion Of Reality

At fifty-six, my father, husband and girlfriend of twenty years were in various stages of terminal cancer.  As I walked this intimate journey with them, the gifts and insights I received were innumerable. I attribute this to a practice Phil and I had embraced for about three years.  Using a mindset of compassion and non-judgement with regard to all experiences that arise in life,  present moment awareness is heightened. Due to this we discovered a complete shift in our experience of life itself. As the primary caretaker for my rapidly declining husband and girlfriend, I was thrust into an expansion of that shift.  While the people in the world around me went on as usual, I no longer shared their experience of it. The collapsing of  timelines, and synchronistic experiences became as much a part of life as the air I breathed.  I literally watched the differences between my experience of ‘reality’ and theirs, as if it was being played before me on a stage.…because, as Shakespeare had written, indeed it was.  

Living in the continual awareness of what is truly important and what is mere distraction was life changing.  When the people I loved were nearing the end of their physical incarnations, and as one by one they passed, a kind of awareness set in as to the true nature of this thing called life.  The normal comings and goings of everyday-ness were more evident to me as I watched the world scurrying around in distraction and routine while I was enveloped in a heightened sense of present moment awareness.  A dear friend of ours, Ed Rubinstein, once wrote a book titled Waking From The Trances Of Everyday Life.  It spoke to the mindlessness of habitual ‘doing’ in ordinary day-to-day living rather than living from a state of presence while attending to those same tasks.  I found myself acutely aware of this phenomena. I was living within a kind of slowed down state of hyper-focused awareness where time was ticking forever away, while the people interacting with me didn’t even seem to notice.  Caught as they were within their own trances of everyday life, two very different realities co-existed side by side, only appearing to share commonalities.  We all drove our cars, ate our meals, slept in beds, walked the same halls or sidewalks, even discussed many of the same subjects, but our realities of what was transpiring in those moments couldn’t have been more different.  This fascinated me and I began to not only experience, but understand the concept of ‘peace amid chaos’ and the teaching “peace that passeth all understanding” more than I ever had.

Instead of living along a timeline of fear and dread as a soon-to-be mid-fifties widow facing the loss of my beloved husband, father and friend, as well as my home and income, my experience was quite different.  Instead of life pulling at me from all directions, I was free to focus on my very ill loved ones. I stood amazed at the peaceful and meticulously guided experience my husband Phil and I were both having as we lived out his last weeks at the hospital.  Spiritually centered in a thought system based in compassionate non-judgement and presence for years, together we each experienced what we considered heightened results of those efforts as his passing grew close.  An ever-flowing stream of synchronistic experiences seem to provide whatever we needed whenever we needed it, and struggle was not even a blip on our radar.  Other than the weariness of living in a hospital week after week, we were free from tending to all of life’s necessities as one by one they were either eliminated or addressed through no doing of our own.  In fact, many things that would normally need attention during the illness and after the passing of a spouse, had been eliminated the week before we even learned Phil was ill.  This is what I refer to as the collapsing of difficulties along timelines due to our practice. This, in my experience, results from an attitude of acceptance and non-attachment in regards to life experiences.  Over and over I experience the peace that unfolds as I curiously approach life without judgment or attachment to outcome, simply witnessing what it holds rather than resisting or struggling against it.  Even as I reflect on such events to share them here, I am in awe at the ease with which the road ahead of us was prepared even  before we knew it was coming.

With Phil long past retirement age, and as spontaneous as we were, it wasn’t until the lease on our condo neared renewal that we decided it was retirement time.  Having always envisioned an RV lifestyle, we decided to move in that direction. Upon hearing our plans, my daughter unexpectedly suggested that rather than paying a heightened month-to-month condo fee, we should move into her guest room for a few weeks while we hunted for our RV, so we did just that.  Within a week we sold or donated most of our possessions, put my art studio in storage, and moved out of the condo. Since Phil wasn’t going to give notice of his retirement until we found our RV, a week later, when a routine examination revealed colon cancer, we still had the full coverage from his insurance and he was still gainfully employed.  Therefore, we had almost no bills, no property that needed tending, our finances were intact for the remainder of his life because his salary continued, and I was not left with the expenses of an RV I would not be using.  Add to this that I was able to live between the hospital and my daughters guest room, which made everything very convenient.  Even the choices Phil was able to make from the hospital with regard to structuring his retirement income were informed by his terminal diagnosis.  Those choices eliminated any remaining bills I would have been left with and provided me with a small monthly income to fund my expenses while taking care of my girlfriend for the next two years.  This would not have been the insurance or retirement structure we’d have made had his diagnosis come even one week later.  As astounding as all this was, it didn’t end there.

As Phil and my father’s passing was bridged by less than a day, even the window of time I found away from Phil’s bedside in those last days, to visit my father before his passing, was filled with a blessing.  A kind of coherency rare in my dad’s last days was granted the morning I visited.  And while my visit lasted only a few hours before I was unexpectedly called back to an emergency situation with Phil, we said all that we needed before his transition.  Even after Phil’s passing, everything was so perfectly aligned that I was able to spend the time necessary to care for my girlfriend as she battled her own terminal illness. Because all of my worldly and personal responsibilities had been synchronistically resolved, it was impossible not to marvel at these amazing results I attribute to the daily practice of compassionate non-attachment which Phil and I had embraced for so long. But before I move on from sharing the collapsing of difficult timelines, I want to share perhaps the most profound result of all Phil’s experiences during this time.

As if facing the end of one’s life isn’t typically jarring enough, exiting through the painful conditions associated with colon cancer is not an easy path.  Unless, like Phil, one had spent years playing a conscious game of ‘Don’t Make It Real.”  Borrowing a phrase from the ACIM (A Course In Miracles) community, Phil and I had spent the last three years helping one another view and respond to the world as a projection of the mind, and therefore not ‘real’ in the sense that most experience it.  Seeing everything in the physical world of form as a reflection for our own benefit of awakening from thoughts of separation, we helped one another get out of the perception based conditioning of our thoughts; those automatic responses of believing the minds projection and the results such thinking produces.  For years we reminded each other, numerous times each day, to step away from the divided mind of perception and into the whole mind of compassionate non-judgement.  This practice brought us into present moment awareness like no other.  We got to the point where just the phrase “don’t make it real” could almost instantly shine a light on any situation, lifting the heaviest burden or pulling us out of intense frustration.  We laughed at ourselves often as we found one another emotionally snagged by the things in life that we were ‘making real’.  We marveled at the way this ‘not making it real’ game really seemed to lighten or shift our experiences. Our world filled with synchronistic wonder as this practice freed us from the cycle of cause and effect and collapsed difficulties along timelines.  This proved true even along the timelines we were unknowingly moving toward.

I first received the diagnosis of Phil’s cancer in the hallway just outside an exam room where he was resting from a colonoscopy. Upon sharing this news with him I took his hand and immediately asked him if he was scared.  He smiled, saying no, and that he wasn’t going to ‘make it real’.  We agreed!  We weren’t making light of the news, we simply weren’t afraid!  On the contrary, we knew that walking through such a circumstance using the practice of compassionate non-judgement would be profoundly opportunistic on our path of awakening.  And since spiritual awakening had become the center of our lives for many years, we simply continued the practices we had found, opening ourselves to the mystery unfolding before us.

The staff tending to Phil at the clinic came in and out of the room with lowered eyes and consoling words, sharing their sadness about the diagnosis. Each time one would leave the room Phil commented and repeatedly pointed out to me how the staff’s response to the situation was so conditioned that they couldn’t even see that we weren’t in fear or disbelief.  So conditioned to the beliefs they held about the news of a terminal diagnosis, they weren't able to be present to the very people they were attempting to console. It was then that Phil and I knew we would walk through what was ahead of us together, in the same kind of peace-filled awareness bubble we had played in for years.  A bubble of awareness that most of the world couldn’t see. We weren’t in denial.  That is not the nature of the ‘don’t make it real’ perspective. We had simply conditioned our minds to see beyond the programmed illusion of separation that ensnared most.  Completely aware of the physical prognosis of the diagnosis within the illusion, we were intimately connected to the reality beyond this illusion of separation which the diagnosis had also brought, and therefore completely free of fear!  As time went on and Phil’s illness progressed it was sad to watch the suffering of loved ones who only felt the ‘reality’ of impending loss.  Personally, we knew this to simply be a time of transition; a glorious time that truly should be celebrated as one steps into an expansion of themselves free from physical limitations, having completed the mission their incarnation facilitated.

Through surgery, and conditions arising from the surgery, through living at the hospital almost day and night for eight weeks, and being given various and ever shortening time frames for survival, our peace filled bubble of expanded awareness remained around us.  While I was often physically exhausted, from living at Phil’s bedside and checking in on my girlfriend when I could, Phil and I were most always in good spirits.  Alone in his room we would often talk about how amazing it was to experience ourselves actually living the awareness we had come to realize and reaping the results in this time of heightened circumstance.  It is easy to think you are growing from your spiritual perspectives when things are going smoothly.  But when the road gets rocky you get to see the degree to which your beliefs and experiences align.  We were amazed how natural it was to continue to live from our heightened awareness as Phil literally lay dying.  Phil would visit with loved ones and friends that came by, and when asked how his attitude was so upbeat, he would share his excitement about the adventure ahead of him in terms he felt they could understand. “I’ve spent my whole life wondering about the spiritual world and now I’m going to experience it first hand!” he said to one friend.  “Why be afraid?  We don’t die!” he would exclaim.  This was quintessential Phil.

Apart from high spirits Phil was also virtually pain free throughout his entire illness.  Rarely if ever on pain medication, he remained alert and truly ‘with us’ until he slipped quietly away in his sleep the night we brought him home for hospice care.  Having since watched the stark contrast of my girlfriends long and harrowing struggle with the exact same illness, and her painful lingering as she held tightly onto her body in her last days, the differences that an awakening mind like Phil’s experienced was again magnified for me. So different was his experience through his illness and transition that it is impossible to know just how much of it to contribute to his practice of compassionate non-judgement.  However, I can honestly say I have never heard of such an ease filled and almost completely drug-free presence associated with anyone passing from colon cancer.  I personally credit much of Phil’s experience with his practice of compassionate non-judgement and the difficulties that were collapsed because of it.  As for my own experiences I am certain they were aided by this practice.

A day or so after Phil transitioned, a profound thought dropped into my awareness.   It was deeper and more substantial than normal everyday thoughts that run through my mind and it caught me completely off guard.  More like a statement of fact, it carried more weight than the words themselves and was accompanied with an expansion experience beyond-the-body.  The thought was this,  ’If Phil is dead, then I can’t really be alive.’  A profound shift instantaneously arose in me and the concept of illusion that is taught in esoteric scriptures literally expanded in my awareness.  I instantly grasped a new level of understanding with regard to the physical world as a projection of the mind.  A confirmation was extended that there truly is no such thing as life (or death) as we define it.  There is only awareness…eternal awareness.  I have come to realize that this is what we are, and this is what we expand into more of upon our passing.  As we exit the limitations of our physical experience, we expand into more of that awareness, which we never truly left, but only imagined leaving in our illusion of separation. From there, if we have evolved our consciousness enough to move beyond the planes of matter, energy, space, and time we can align directly with this awareness.  For Phil and I, this evolution was practiced through compassionate non-judgement.

Because I had been wrapped in an uncommon cocoon focused on what is referred to as ‘end-of-life’ scenarios multiplied by three, I had been experiencing huge doses of this awareness for quite some time.  The comings and goings of the world around me continued to mirror stark contrasts between my reality and the hum of a distracted, unawakened reality.  Experiencing the ease of the timeline associated with Phil’s passing and how everything was divinely guided also magnified my years of practicing compassionate non-judgement, and not making things ‘real’. Giving our personal power away to those things that we grasp onto as ‘real’ limits us from our limitless, eternal nature.  Having been able to embrace the world as a mirror of the fragmented mind, even through Phil’s illness and passing, I had fostered a new level of awakening.  In truth, Phil was no more dead than I was alive….not in this physical form of illusory projection anyway.  We are both beyond those small concepts of life and death.  Knowing this allows me to approach life differently than if I buy into any ‘form’ as who I am.  The freedom in this doesn’t divorce me from the responsibilities I align with in my incarnation or remove me from tragedy.  It does however lighten this for me and moves me from one experience to the next with grace and gratitude. The opportunity this world affords me to choose love and compassion at every turn connects me deeper to my true essence. I have come to realize this as a gift beyond measure.  While I am only practiced at it and not perfect, I have come to realize that it is this attitude that moves me closer to true Self-realization.  

11- Good Grief

11- Good Grief

Even with an absolute understanding that life is eternal and that we can stay connected to our loved ones after transition, acclimating to the physical absence of someone you have spent the better part of your life with is tough.   The grief process is just that…a process.  Even for those with heightened intuition or obvious experiences that we remain connected, there is a necessary period of grief.  As Barbara Brennan’s work shows, energetic cords literally connect us to one another.  The deeper the connection, the stronger the cords.  At the time of a loved ones passing these energetic cords are literally severed.  Appropriately experienced, grief is the way of processing this separation and initiating the return to individuation. Good grief is a necessary energetic release expressed through the emotions.  Suppressing these emotions is as unhealthy as drowning in them. Unfortunately, many do get stuck in the most difficult phases of grief and do not process the energy necessary for healing.  For that reason I want to share an uncommon practice which not only transformed my grief but illuminated my world. 

Following Phil’s transition, from time to time an overwhelming sensation of profound loss would completely encapsulate me.  Anyone who has lost someone very close to them experiences this aspect of grief.  Unfortunately what is more uncommon, is something I experienced in the midst of these episodes of despair.  As suddenly as the overwhelming emotion of grief would come upon me, it would be lifted from me.  It was as if some invisible force literally removed a heavy blanket drenched in the weight of sorrow from around me.  Often my tears would stop in midstream.  The emotion wasn’t replaced with another feeling or thought, the heaviness was just lifted from me.  As a trained counselor and trained reiki master I knew the value in letting the emotion flow whenever and wherever it wanted to, so I wasn’t repressing the intense emotion.  It was quite literally being lifted from me.

The first few times this happened I was perplexed.  Alone in the guest room I was occupying at my daughters, I would occasionally burst into sobs that would cease almost as soon as they started.  Not because I was choking them back, but because the deep grief out of which those cries arose would unexplainably evaporate, much like a dream upon awakening.  All that I was ever left to deal with unaided was a gentle sadness that was manageable and natural.   

After a while, this phase was followed by another which was not only welcomed, but deeply intimate.  A soft introspective kind of energy began to stay with me.  It was a type of tenderness that would emerge as I began speaking about Phil or tending to the business at hand following his passing. It would sometimes include tears or tender emotions, but it had a sweet energy attached to it and I simply allowed it as it arose.  In the presence of a stranger or with friends I was quite comfortable aligning with this energy.  Much like an emotional reverence for all that we had shared in our life together, it was, in many ways, my initial avenue for remaining connected to him.  If I had to describe a feeling associated with this connection it would be an intimate gentleness or tender sweetness that only I could experience.  It was born out of our unique relationship and all that we had invested in it over the decades.  It was Phil, wrapping his presence around me.  This was good grief!

It was this connection that inspired me to write letters to Phil at the end of each day.  Just as one would write and mail a letter to a loved one without expecting an immediate reply, these letters extended my connection to him because it focused my mind in our eternal connection.   Where our thoughts are, our emotions follow.  I realized that the more I stayed focused in the present moment, bringing to it all that I desired, the more I aligned with the signature or essence of who or what I desired to connect with.  This was demonstrated through the letter writing.  Of course, I also talked to Phil all the time as if he were physically beside me.  We had loved our life together.  It was a quiet, simple life and because we were both such introverts, it was mostly solitary, which we enjoyed.  We had one another and were deeply connected in our intimate aloneness.  The type of shorthand that grows between spouses is palpably absent when one transitions before the other, and nothing prepared me for the space this left behind.  Talking to Phil and writing the letters each evening greatly filled that space for me.  Eventually he would reach through time and space and connect with me in ways that touch me even in the remembering.

Early widowhood was not something I had anticipated and after a while I found myself wanting to connect with others who could relate to it and sort of walk me through it.  Hospice kept reaching out offering grief support, but my experiences weren’t reflected in those groups.  I tried reaching out to an online support group for widows and widowers in hopes of sharing my experiences but I soon found out that no one in those groups was having the kind of experience I was.  Many were in deep grief…for years….stuck in that feeling that would be lifted from me almost as soon as it would arise.  As I tried to explain my experiences, the forums reflected that no one understood.  There simply was no framework for them to relate to what I tried to share.  Even among widows, I was without a community in my widowhood.  That’s when I intuitively knew that my experiences were the result of the compassionate non-judgement awakening practice Phil and I had used for years….and one that we had made a game of practicing together in the years before his passing. 

This practice stemmed from studying a variety of esoteric, psychological as well as scientific perspectives. Over many years I had pieced together a practice stemming from Eastern thought, Western channeled material, shamanic practices, as well as psychological and scientific theories I felt led to explore.  Each of these disciplines were teaching much the same things from different perspectives, and sometimes from a religious framework I didn’t personally feel the need for.  Together they formed a foundation of awakening through compassionate non-judgement with regard to life scenarios.  This brought an uncommon ease to life that I had not experienced prior to this practice. 

Having had many mystical experiences, the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung first captivated me.  His teaching around the subjects of projection and deep introspection had a huge impact on me.   Then came the Taoist and Buddhist teachings of non-duality, and self-inquiry which fit perfectly into the Jungian framework I was exploring.  The work of pioneers like Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Lipton, Larry Dossey and the like also influenced my understanding. Next came channeled material from various sources along with the teachings from A Course In Miracles and the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’Oponono.  It has been my experience that exploring the teachings that show up in response to my ongoing sincere request to be ‘led into all truth’ is my journey to Self-realization as source-realization. I literally follow the guidance placed before me, weighing it as I go for resonance and then trust where it leads.  In this way I have not gotten bogged down in any ‘path’, tradition, religion, philosophy or dogma.  Instead I have been able to grasp what served my truth-quest while remaining open to further lessons.  I do not adopt beliefs!  Anything I believe…and I mean anything, can greatly limit the communication between my larger aspect or higher wisdom and my physical expression of self.

There are many sources and avenues to explore, and these are just some of the ones I was guided to piece together based on my experiences.  I have come to understand the value of expanding intuitive awareness for the support it lends my own higher mind guidance.  When I nurture this connection it grows.  When I allow myself to be externally guided, this connection diminishes.  Creativity is one conduit for nurturing this intuitive connection.  It has always fostered an avenue through which guidance can speak to me and teach me.  Outside material then appears in a timely fashion to serve a supporting role to the intuitive nudges I experience.  Traditional meditation has never spoken to me.  Its passive nature is not my preference for journeying nor do I experience it as an avenue for truly moving into Self-realization. 

In a nutshell, this is my practice;  I understand that everything is a projection based on individual perceptions.  Therefore, I take responsibility for mine, choosing to see everyone extending either an extension of love or a cry for love.  This helps me move away from judgment. I can then embrace whatever emotionally triggers me as though it is simply a reflection of something I have the unique perspective to heal.  From my individual perspective of duality or separation, I take full responsibility for what I am projecting into my awareness, then bring that situation into the healing energy of compassion.  This transmutes (converts) any ‘negative’ energies that were triggered in me, dissolving them and shifting me toward a state of non-dual wholeness.  This heals the fragmented aspects in myself as an individual, and energetically contributes to the healing of the collective.  My experience is that this process also shifts and collapses difficult timelines and, as it did for me, greatly reduces suffering in those times of grief or loss. From this perspective I am opened to further guidance from my higher wisdom and led into all truth, which has been my focus in this lifetime.

We have been conditioned in western society to associate the length of one’s grief to the depth of one’s love.  My hope in sharing the way my grief was seemingly supernaturally lifted because of the practice I had used for years, is that others may benefit from such a practice or from the resources I used.  I would also like to validate the awakening aspects involved in such practices.  Phil and I both felt that our journey through his unexpected illness and terminal diagnosis was greatly cushioned because of our shared practice of compassionate non-judgement. We also felt that a loving marriage fostered a thriving survivorship.  We spoke of this before his passing and I can still recall his loving countenance and peaceful assurance that following his passing I would be okay.  I believe I am doing our marriage of twenty-two years proud by carrying forward all that he gave me.…and continues to give.  His presence in my life following his transition has been unquestionable.  In life, we knew ours was the road less taken.  I know that is still true as I continue my journey.  It takes me places I find impossible to share with those who simply can’t relate to that which is beyond the physical plane.  This doesn’t make me special, it just places me in the minority as one who has consciously undone much of my programming in an effort to experience self-realization as source-realization in this lifetime.  I share my stories in an effort to share myself, my journey and my experiences with any who might also desire such realizations.  There are lots of areas of my life I haven’t mastered, but grief is not one of them. I hope sharing my experiences helps those looking to end the suffering that often accompanies the loss of a loved one.  One of the truest teachings I have ever personally experienced came from A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and it goes like this…. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

13- The Rest Of You

13- The Rest Of You

In the last year of my late husband’s life, long before we even knew he was ill, I would catch myself at times, gazing at him in simple appreciation..  I would feel the gratitude well up in me for having him in my life.  At night before falling asleep, I would think about all he had given me and dwell in appreciation for him.  Fourteen years my senior, he had been the wise shaman who had opened me up to myself in ways I could never have imagined. Our shared perspectives and limitless curiosity made for a partnership of uncommon explorations.  Deep philosophical conversations and shared mystical experiences framed our lives together.  This kind of reflection was not typical behavior for me and it is only highlighted in my memory because it happened so often in the year before he passed away.  It was like some part of me was drinking in those last months with him before either of us even knew these were our last months together.  Intuition is indeed a curious alai. In retrospect I am so grateful for those times.  For the stillness and clarity of those moments.  For the awareness that I wasn’t taking our life for granted but truly connecting with him.  What I couldn’t have know was how the loss of Phil would connect me to an aspect of myself I had even realized was missing.

In that last year I had also decided I wanted more laughter and light-heartedness in my life and I used to tell Phil that we needed to be less serious and more playful.  As philosophical minded clinicians, we hadn’t come from particularly light-hearted stock.  I was far worse than Phil about the serious side of things, but something in me knew it was time for change.  I used to say that in my next life I want laughter and love making to be the priority, and seriousness could fall by the way-side. I’m a big believer in calling into your life those things you want to step into and as we neared Phil’s retirement I could imagine us opening up to a whole new way of life.  With plans to hit the road in an RV and go where the wind blew us, it was easy to imagine a lighter more care free way of living.  I had long ago unplugged from the world of clocks, calendars and schedules.  I truly lived a quiet life filled with creativity, introspection and spiritual pursuits of awakening.  It’s amazing how my life today reflects so much of what I envisioned for myself and yet so little of the structure I envisioned living it through.  

Not quite a year after Phil’s passing I had an experience that would shift everything.  The uncertainty of how my future would unfold as a widow in my mid-fifties was not really foremost in my thoughts.  I was getting on with life by starting up a small decorative arts business, as much for my sanity as for the income it would provide.  With Phil gone I had so much time on my hands I felt as if I might fall into an abyss of emptiness if I didn’t throw myself into something. I wasn’t lonely but I was without a foundation for my future.  I had always been independent minded and going life alone didn’t scare me in the least.  I trusted things would unfold if I just put one foot in front of the other toward a direction I enjoyed.  Then one morning everything shifted in a way I could have never foreseen.

As I was almost finished drying my hair in front of the mirror one morning, I felt a type of energetic weight drop into me.  Startled, I turned off the dryer and stood staring into the mirror as an understanding of what had happened began to fill my awareness.  I don’t know how else to describe either sensation.  A slight heaviness simply fell from the upper right hand side above me and merged with my being as, in my mind, I heard the words “the rest of you”.  In a flash of all consuming awareness my consciousness then expanded, revealing an understanding of what was happening.  Apparently an energetic aspect of myself had shifted to assist me throughout the previous year.  The loss of both my father and my husband only a day apart, while being the primary caretaker for my girlfriend as she fought the same cancer that had taken Phil in a matter of weeks, had been no small gauntlet.  However, I was completely awestruck at what I was being shown.  

Unaware that this energetic assist had even happened, I was apparently ready to reintegrate some aspect of myself that had been operating apart from me.  However, my higher wisdom was also communicating that the energy aspect that was coming in now, wasn’t the same energetic aspect that had moved aside the year before.  I was then shown that for years I had been living as if I was my late husband’s age, and now it was time to embrace my true age.  Phil had passed away only two months prior to his seventieth birthday.   I suddenly realized that I had no idea of what it was truly like to be in my mid-fifties.  Stunned by the experience, I sat dumbfounded for quite some time.  Later that day, still somewhat dazed, it began to sink in that not only was I truly clueless about what life was like in one’s mid-fifties, I was going to have to figure it out on my own.

All week I kept reliving the experience in my mind.  Having had such a solitary lifestyle with Phil, I had virtually no social life outside of my family, and with my closest friend battling much bigger issues, I really had no one to talk with about the experience or where it had left me.  I wrote letters in my journal to Phil but I knew I needed to connect with others my age in order to explore this second half of life issue.  But where to start was a dilemma.  Then one day while tidying up the living room, a commercial came on TV for a free online match-making service.  I grasped at it like it was an inspiration idea.  Not the dating part,  but I thought it would be a great way to peer into the world of fifty-somethings without having to go ‘out there’.  To say I’m an introvert, as anyone who knows me can testify, is a huge understatement!  Anonymously peering into profiles of my age group across the vast landscape of cyberspace seemed a perfect place to start.  I  went to my computer, signed on and began my voyeuristic adventure.  Was I in for a surprise!  

I had never even been in a chat room let alone on a dating site.  I was naive to say the least.  Thinking at the most, I might connect with a few women friends or someone in my position, I began to fill out the profile.  That’s when the profile questions clued me in to a world I couldn’t begin to understand.  Fortunately my daughter was much more savvy and helped me realize I wasn’t going to find any newly widowed “girlfriends”….unless I was looking for something she was quite sure I wasn’t looking for.  Like I said, naive!  We laughed about the whole thing but decided it couldn’t hurt to use the site to see what fifty-something looked like.  I answered hundreds of questions, filled out a very blunt and honest profile, included recent pictures, and reviewed the matches sent to me by the algorithm of the site.  I have to say I was amazed that an obviously overweight, mid-fifty year old woman who told the truth about her mystical and less than mainstream weirdness, would even get any responses.  But I did, and after only a week I knew cyber connecting wasn’t for me.  I decided to delete my profile when I noticed a very short, very polite e-mail from someone my age who lived about an hour away.  Before deleting I chose to look at our respective answers to the questions posed by the site.  Out of hundreds of multiple-choice questions we had answered almost every one the same way.  So, I replied to his message.  From that day on long e-mails and lively banter through texting ensued and we found ourselves writing non-stop for a week.  His sincerity, sense of humor and honesty amazed me.  The things we had in common were uncanny.  An artist like myself, and as deeply in love with music as I had always been, was just the beginning of our connection.  He found my ‘weirdness’ intriguing and I found his sense of humor just the breath of fresh air I had wanted for so long.  A week later we met and have been together ever since.  The last few years have flown by with love, laughter and understanding I couldn’t have imagined.  Apparently I didn’t have to wait until my next incarnation to experience a life where laughter and lovemaking were the priority….and there is still room for my metaphysical weirdness.  Meeting Michael was definitely arranged, but not by an online dating site!  That was just the conduit.  We are as amazed as anyone as we venture into the second half of life together, but we know it was not without planning and design from the soul level.

The story doesn’t end there.  It has other twists and turns that makes it all the sweeter.  Just as Phil and I were destined to meet and grow together, following my surrender experience at the cemetery on the farm, so were Michael and I.  Only this time it had been his surrender experience that unknowingly triggered my journey into his life.  In the three years prior to meeting me, his life had been turned upside down.  A successful thirty year career in a rapidly diminishing industry coincided with the foreclosure fiasco that swept across the country leaving him to start over in every area of his life.  He had lost his career, his home and his marriage.  A job offer in Texas had moved him into my neck of the woods, but not without taking a devastating three year toll on him.  Alone and lonely, all he had worked his entire life to build was suddenly gone with seemingly no rebound.  No matter how hard he tried, Michael faced his own dark night of the soul.  He was just emerging from it when a last ditch effort to rebuild and share his life with someone, coincided with my one week venture into an online community I was prompted by guidance and synchronicity to explore.  What were the odds?  Pretty good when you consider that what really met was Michael’s willingness to surrender and my willingness to follow the intuitive breadcrumbs strewn before me.  We just happened to be the faces on the energetic pull that our choices created.

I am quite certain the meeting between Michael and I was part of a grand design.  And I know that Phil had a huge hand in it!  This has been confirmed in my communication with him and I have been told by two intuitives who I very much trust, that he proudly takes credit for arranging our meeting.  It just happened so easily and effortlessly and in such a tiny window of opportunity!  On my end, following a year of illness and loss, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  On Michael’s end it was the result of deciding to give life all he had rather than give in to all he’d lost.  Together we are both more than we were alone and we marvel everyday at a life we never expected to know.  I am in many ways for Michael what Phil was for me; opening new ways of thinking and experiencing the world.  He is for me the laughter, love and adventure I was calling into my future, as well as a support system in every way for the reinvention of my life.  Just as Phil supported me in opening up my world, Michael supports me in taking all that I found into the world!  Each man honors the other as they live side by side in my heart, each bringing gifts that I cherish and could have never found on my own.

15 - More Than Meets The Eye

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

My father’s experience in the last days of this life were proof that life will surprise even the toughest skeptic.  Not one for metaphysical or spiritual beliefs, my dad was intrigued by science.  While he believed their was a power greater than himself, he didn’t wrap this notion up in myths or stories.  He was a hard working, practical man.  It was in fact, his journey into agnosticism during my early teens, along with his exploration and abandonment of religious philosophy that laid the groundwork for my own fascination with exploring the nature of spirituality.  I also watched him struggle and overcome a family history fraught with alcoholism.  So with more than thirty-five years of sobriety at his passing, it was also his reaching out for help that inspired my career in counseling.  

15- More Than Meets The Eye

My studies and my own personal growth work led me deeper and deeper into questions about consciousness and the meaning of life.  As my spiritual journey filled with multi-dimensional awareness and mystical experiences, I explored energy work and became a reiki master. My sister followed a similar path and we, along with my mom often spoke of our metaphysical experiences despite my dad’s scoffing.  Even though he was highly intuitive and very grounded in nature, he thought our take on things mystical was foolish.  However, from his deathbed in the last days before his transition, he began to have experiences that would change this.

As my dad neared the end of his life he was in hospice care in his home.  From his bed he began to see pets and loved ones long crossed over. I gratefully managed to get away from my dying husband’s bedside for a few hours in time to be with him before his passing.  I was able to tell him what his life had meant to me and all he had taught me through witnessing his journey.  This meant a lot to me but what has meant even more is what I experienced at the close of my dad’s life.  As I sat close by his side, terribly weak and only able to whisper he asked, “What are all these people doing in my house?”.  Since only a few immediate family members were there, I said, “Dad, you are seeing things that we can’t see.”  He looked straight into my eyes and with wonder in his, he exclaimed, “I think I know that!”  It was a statement that not only acknowledged what he was experiencing, but that he now knew for himself that there was more to life than meets the eye. A mostly unseen world that eludes us unless we are open to it surrounds us all.  It was wonderful to watch him accept this awareness.  In his last days he knew death was not an end.  His life would continue in other dimensions and he would indeed reach out to us from there, as my mother now experiences continually.

I was so grateful for these hours with him; for witnessing such a profound transition at the closing of his incarnation.  Once again, watching another of my father’s life experiences, shaped and strengthened my own journey.  We all have an opportunity to come to such realizations at the close of our lives. Some of us, those who desire to awaken before death, will experience our multi-dimensional nature at will.  This is the way of true self-realization, stepping not onto a path, but directly and experientially into our true essence.  I have had and so many personal experiences of this expanded state that I have no fear of death what-so-ever.  I know it simply as a transition from one state of being to another. I am grateful that in his last days my Dad began to experience this awareness as well.  My brother was with him as he departed this realm and the story he shared with me about his transition was quite fantastic and other-worldly. My mom is visited by him often and she has told me of seeing him and also waking to him cradling her in his arms. My mom’s sister also had a vision of her husband following his passing and my grandmother was connected to many of her relatives after their passing.  I share this to emphasize that life does not end and death is a fallacy.  We move from physical expressions, yes but this is not death.  The more we embrace this truth the more we can remain in contact with one another following these transitions. I have heard and experienced countless stories from people who have done just that.  Hopefully we are moving into a time when this will be the norm and we can let go of our conditioned ideas about death.