Sunday, April 24, 2011

I will Live Again - Through Love - In Spirit - In Joy


Today millions celebrated the death and resurrection of a man.  An extraordinary man.  Some call him God.  Others pray to him.  Still some deny that he ever existed or walked the dusty streets in the turbulent Middle East.

Nonetheless many would agree that he was more than human, more than compassionate, more than we can aspire to in our human forms.  Can we still hold ourselves aloof in the face of such passionate devotion to a man who is said to have risen from his grave to walk the earth and once again embrace those whom he loved?  What if it is possible?  For a moment, imagine the joy and relief that most of us would experience.

What of Elizabeth Kubler Ross's husband, Manny, a non believer in life after death.  After frustrating arguments about her certainty that life continues after our mortal death, and many years after their divorce, Manny died.  But they had agreed that there would be roses on the first snowfall after his death.  His concession was spoken as such:

"Okay, if what your mother says it true, then the first snowfall after I die, there'll be red roses blooming in the snow."


What do you think framed Manny's white snow-laden gravesite?  Red roses.  Neither Elizabeth nor her daughter, nor any of the mourners bought the roses.  They rose like red hope from the wintery blanket.  It was Manny's confirmation.

To those who don't believe no explanation is possible.  To those who do believe, no explanation is necessary.

So it was with Cairn and I.  We'd come from different countries to connect across the world.  He was a Vampayre who had lived five-hundred years, and I a mortal 42 year-old woman.  We connected through the medium of love in which I no longer believed.  But there it was.

I'd had several messages from my mother since her death.  Even though I missed her terribly, I knew that she was with me still.  Several healer friends confirmed the messages that she has been sending to me, by describing the same images and words that I'd received.

We are all pretty confident in what we don't believe is possible.  But have you ever paused, fully present in a moment, and asked yourself, what if?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sing me Songs of Love and Strew Palms Before Me -


The palm that I wove today symbolized transformation, survival, celebration, humility and victory.  I had left my mother's beloved earthly vessel resting atop my father's in a grave site in Staten Island, New York.  But I understood, as I understood the message of Palm Sunday, that triumph craddles tragedy and vice versa.

I had been a channel to aid my mother's transition even though I wept with Cairn in a village church in Dublin. My small family's transformative journey began four years ago on Palm Sunday as we sang hymns and danced on the eve of my step father's entering a nursing home. Our lives were about to change in ways that we could not imagine.  But we understood that hope, strength and faith would lighten our paths on those dark days when the sun could not penetrate the darkness or illumine the new terrian that we, like everyone else, were forced to travel.

My step dad, Bob's voice, rang the loudest, even though his life was about to irrevocably change. We locked hands in loving devotion and committed to facing the future with courage and integrity, as Cairn and I were committed to facing StormRider now.

The palms that were strewn before Christ as he entered Jerusalem on an ass, represented the  revolution and renaissance that people had hoped he would usher in.  But it was a different revolution that he fought.  And I realized that my family and I had also fought a different battle. One where winning was dubious for the outcome was certain death.  We fought for our love even as we knew that the earthly trappings and underpinnings were about to fall away.  So we praised what had been and we prayed for the understanding to hold that love in the center of our hearts even though our days together were rapidly expiring.

Perhaps I would give a fortune had I had one to return to that day four years ago - to once again clasp the hands of those that I love.  But I know that it was a battle well fought and that metaphorically we are clasping hands still.

Will I have the courage to face a deadly outcome with Cairn?  Could I say good-bye if StormRider has the magic and the power to destroy him?  But I won't entertain that for I know that we have a powerful weapon in love.  Storm will try to destroy us through fear.  But I have learned how to diminish that particular demon.  And we will face him together.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Love and Spiritual Transitioning

The time had come.  I had to go home, even though my heart and future, I'd hoped, were with Cairn.  My heart was also with my mother and she was transitioning.  I would not allow her to take that unknown journey alone.  So I embarked on the last journey that I would take to a heart that had been my home.  Cairn wanted to come with me, and even if he could, it was between myself and my precious mother.  I did not want the distraction.  All of my attention and focus would be trained on her.  That was the way that it had to be, for me, and for her.

"I can't be here and protect you completely from Storm."
"I know, but I can't protect myself from the regrets and pain that I'll feel if I'm not with her now."
"Understand that I can surround you with love and place you in a shield of protection, if you will. The less enlightened entities can't tolerate love and light." He said as he touched his fingertips to my neck as would a concert pianist caressing his instrument.
"But I am filled with love, for her, for the life that we shared as mother and daughter.  That will protect me." And then, in response to the emerald ache in his eyes, "I have to do this if I am to live with myself."
"And that is one of the reasons why I love you as I do."

Cairn understood that I could not be dissuaded and I understood that I was placing myself in danger.  But love is dangerous business and often takes us where we'd rather not go.  So we parted at the at Dublin airport with the knowledge that my all too mortal life might also be ending.

"Go with the power of love." Cairn said gently.  A part of me longed to linger and to hold him within myself again spiritually and physically.  But he was already deeply embedded in my being and a part of myself had become his, so I knew that we could never truly be separated, not really.

I raced into my mother's room at the hospice filled with the desire to see her luminous eyes alight with blue intelligence and humor. But they remained closed and she breathed laboriously floating in realms that I could only imagine but not yet visit.  I held her well known hand and spoke to her of going home.

"I'm fine," I assured her through the tears that clogged my throat and obscured my vision.
"Go see the heather in Scotland.  Slip into God's arms and let Him carry you home."

I read poetry.  I went to the bathroom to vent my anguish so that my selfish grief would not disturb the relentless trajectory of her journey.  I talked of her compassion and love.  Her service and sacrifice in the maternal role and of how I cherished the love for spirituality, the arts, poetry, beauty, that she imparted.  After all, she was an angel who was too delicate for this earthly comedy.  Her wings had been singed by her passage here but now it was time to go home.  I saw her radiant, youthful beauty in my mind's eye and held that image, that reality for her.

Honestly I wept for what hadn't been and for what could never be as much as I wept for what we'd shared.  I mourned our imperfect personalities that were often not in sync and I was humbled by the loyalty and love that painstakingly built a bond that would transcend time and separation.  I longed to hear her voice once more but the time for that had also passed.  I'd wished that I'd videotaped her, as i'd often promised myself that I would do.  But the tomorrows that we always feel are assured had been spent. So I did what was left for me to do, I loved her and spoke gently of my gratitude and love.  I waited.