HOW DO YOU SAY GOOD-BYE IN THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE?

                 You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can,
                 not only to help  you die peacefully, but to help you live until you die.
                                                                                         Dame Cicely Saunders

HOW DO YOU SAY GOOD-BYE IN THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE?

Everybody adored my grandfather. Full of love, still waters running deep; he made me laugh. That is, until the last stage of his life.

His doctor gave him three months to live. He told him he needed a year. Shortly after Christmas in January, just after that year, he entered the hospital.

Our family had been summoned. We approached the hospital elevator. “No one under 12 is allowed in the critical care unit,” the sign read. My parents told my youngest sister that she could not visit. My father would stay with her. Later, I would relieve him.

I saw the crushed look on her face. It haunted me all the way up the elevator and down the long, dark corridors. I watched my other sister tremble as we neared his room.

Our grandfather met our gaze. His sunny smile greeted us. Protruding tubes were out of place on a body that had always been a call to comfort others with hugs. Delighted to see him, we smiled and rushed to hug him anyway...taking care, as much as teenagers can. Dying did not seem present. Love was. Once engaged, we stepped back and met his eyes. Where’s Sam? I flinched as our mother told him that she would not be coming. Wendy looked down at her shoes.

Our mother left to get water for him. Though not groomed to be friends, my sister and I shot each other a glance. A plan was made.

“Did you see the stairs outside his room?” My sister said, “Yes.” “I am going to run down and get Samantha. We’ll run upstairs and be back before there’s trouble.” My sister lit up. My grandfather gave us each a conspiratorial look.

Downstairs, I said I would stay with Samantha. Not exactly a lie. I waited until the elevator closed and asked, “Do you want to see Grandpa?” An emphatic nod ushered a beaming smile across Samantha’s face. “Then grab my hand.” We sprinted up the stairs that opened only two doors away from my grandfather’s room. Inside, my grandfather’s body heaved a sigh of relief. Samantha was doe-eyed with wonder. She was so happy to see him and he laughed upon seeing her.

Moments later my father entered. No scene, no drama. My grandfather had a calming effect on my parents. Today was no exception. The love between a grandfather and his granddaughters was so overflowing that the promise of an enduring connection, transcending all, would remain.

Two days later, we learned that our grandfather had just died.

It brought such joy, that ending revolution; living close to the edge of intimacy as it unfurled, sharing our last goodbyes.

LIVING ON FAITH IS MY GROWING EDGE

When you change the thought, your reality must follow. You have the ability

to quickly change your patterns of thought, and eventually your life experience.

                                                                                                           Abe Hicks

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was how happy I was to be all snuggled in and warm.

My second thoughts were ones that Einstein assures me cannot be solved “with the same thinking that created them.” Often, I kick out those negative thoughts.

But this morning, and only for seconds, I dipped into thinking about a personal issue that created results I didn’t want. A second thought crashed in about a friend’s trouble. Following was concern for a global event.

That train of bad thinking was sending me off the rails before I even climbed out of bed.

That’s how the train of unwanted thoughts creates situations WE DON’T WANT. That I DON’T WANT. How many of you can relate?

Promptly, I kicked out that train of thoughts. I realigned with Spirit and my Faith in Spirit. “I am perfectly aligned” is a great affirmation.

I intentionally thought of five happy events. I watched my worry pack her bags and leave. I repeated my affirmations. I remembered things working out. I took a breath.

I sent love and mantrams to me, my friends, and to the global community. I thought positive thoughts. Realigned, I sighed. Here, at midday, things are in flow and alignment.

LIVING ON FAITH IS MY GROWING EDGE.

Recently, I’ve done inner work, cleaning out yesterday’s negativity. My new inner life is transforming my outer one. I still need, on occasion, to keep faith that the changes not yet here ARE coming. It’s my growing edge.

FAITH BELIEVES IN WHAT’S YET TO BE SEEN.

I once “talked” a disabled, abandoned VW bus into running. I then went on a 515-mile road trip. That same year my partner, a friend, and I were waiting to board a plane. From our stopover in Dallas, our friend, Jean, would fly to New York for the holidays. My partner and I were flying to my sister’s wedding. We had three hours once the plane landed to arrive at the church.

The announcement blared out: “Due to storms, this flight may be delayed.” Jean was thrilled. She was frightened of flying and hoped the flight would be cancelled. I strolled over to the desk attendant for a chat. Yes, cancelling the flight WAS a possibility. No, no other flights would get me to the wedding on time.

SPIRIT WANTS US HAPPY AND TO SUCCEED.

I took another stroll around the area. I quieted my pounding heart. I could not let my sister down. I was a Bridesmaid. I asked Spirit what to do.

Take a breath. See you arriving on time, safely. Breathe. Sit down. Keep the Faith. Lean into Faith.

Another announcement came: This flight might be cancelled. Jean was giddy. I quietly closed my eyes.

We were told to get on board three minutes before the decision to cancel the flight was to be announced. SHAZAM! The Universe OPENED the Gate.

LIVING ON FAITH is a practice. WHEN was the last time you LIVED ON FAITH, dear Reader?

FOUR ELEMENTS: THE FIRST ELEMENT IS AIR

Of all the elements, air or wind is the most mysterious. It is what gives life to all creatures on this earth.  And when it is done, each of us has breathed our last.

                                                    ~Karla

Now Wind asked Ababinili if she could have the humans as her children, but again, Ababinili said, "No, they can't be your children, but they can be your grandchildren so you can remove the unclean air and all kinds of diseases.” 

                                                                           ~A Chickasaw Legend

http://www.littlewolfrun.net/ChickasawLegends.html

I AM THE WIND…

I am the wind who rages fiercely during a storm, who bows tree limbs over in pain, yanking branches and ripping leaves from their source. I am the wind who produces funnel clouds, destroying homes, pulling up the roots of trees and relationships held dear. I am the wind who whines low moans through the trees on an eerie dark night. I am spooky, for I scream a voiceless music, sending piercing chills up and down spines.

I am the wind who barks icy winds into winter, my biting breath seeking warmth beneath protective coats, whipping stabbing coldness into unwary backs. I am the wind who annoyingly blows precious papers from groping hands, sending them rolling, turning, and twisting.

Like a teenager bolting through the door, almost stepping on the dog, not noticing her grandmother sitting in a rocker in the living room...I am the wind.

I, too, am the summer breeze who sings sweet lullabies through the trees and over green grasses. I am the wind who gracefully pushes the sails of floating rafts. I am the hearty breeze who gives a reassuring voice to questing uplifted faces, sending a fresh air of heroic calm to surge within them. I am the wind who bears the seeds of tomorrow’s life, dispersing them over this vast earth.

I am the gusty breeze who blows through trees, swishing and dancing their leaves that tilt and sway in sheer ecstasy.  I am the quieting breeze who comes in comfort, wafting into musty corners, consoling children, dogs, and elders, as they lie weak and afraid. I am the autumn breeze who mournfully, yet resignedly, tugs at the leaves of yesterday’s life and sends them silently to the grounds of death. I am the gentle breeze who dries tears from red-eyed faces. I am the wind who gives seasons their life, dutifully answering the calls of my command.

I am in Nami and her gentle surprise of nosing my hand after the hike, saying, “Thank-you for taking the time.”

If I frighten you, is that not simply your response to me? I am not here to frighten you. I can be extreme: I can hurt, destroy, and give ghostly chills of doubt. And yet, I give comfort, strength, tranquility, grace and life. I can do only as my nature wills. My demands are great. I cannot choose to be only the soothing breezes. Would you rather that I end my breath, with nature fading out because there is no one left to blow the breath of life into her creation? Or will you accept me—my rasping and turbulent winds as well as my sweet and tranquil breezes—all my airs enunciating my offering to life?

TRANSITING SPIRIT

Gismo:

I am a sound sleeper when I am nine years old. Yet when our beloved dog, a beautiful brown Cocker Spaniel, Gismo, comes into my room, late one night, I open my eyes. He gently eases his body down onto the rug. Liquid brown eyes gaze into mine. The look of pure love is there. His eyes then take me into deeper shores. Soon after, he exhales and is gone.

I lie there watching him. His big old brown eyes are now forever closed. I watch for a few moments careful to make sure his furry body is unmoving. Where once was breath, now there is none.

I lie there in witness to quiet interlude. I am too young to know those words then. Yet, Gismo’s peaceful dying remains in my heart and being.

Muriel:

I am one day away from boarding a plane for Hawaii. I’m eager for my osteopathic treatment that will help me release the sciatic pain, preparing me for travels. I have been seeing the celebrated Dr. Muriel Morgan Chapman for a few years. I know fully her miracle touch.

Arriving there, I have no time to sit under her sprawling oak tree. The door to her office is uncharacteristically wide open. Slowly, I walk over to it. I find Muriel lying face up on one of her treatment tables. Quietly she says, “I have fallen. I cannot get up.”

She requests me to help her get into her house. While her house is only yards away, momentarily I wonder how I will accomplish this, given my injury. As if on cue, another car pulls up the long driveway and parks. Together we help Muriel into her house.

It becomes clear speaking first with Muriel, and then her daughter, that no one is in place to care for Muriel during this stage of her life. She has cancer and the treatments are no longer working. Muriel is well into her eighties.

My first planned vacation in years is mysteriously rearranged. Overnight, I become a hospice caregiver. My trip to Hawaii is cancelled. I am privileged that Muriel calls on me to stay with her.

What I learn is more than I can convey. After all these years, nothing expresses the level of intimacy, stripped-down core encounter, that we shared. My life is redefined.

There is a quiet hush in the home that governs interactions. My years of meditation barely prepare me for this depth of connection. After all the communication, healing and death and dying training, I am invited to be wholly present. This is practicum. This is raw intimacy. The daily conversations are centered on real life and death concerns.

Every day I watch life around and in me move away from the mundane and into the subtle, still, sacred space. To be sure, there are conversations, dialogues, some easy, some not, risks taken, discoveries made. People daily come and go. We are also down to basics. But another aspect of life ushers itself into view as Muriel lies dying.

Daily, I take leave to drive across a bridge to work midday; it is shaping our letting go. These are not easy moments. One day, just as I am getting ready to leave Muriel’s bedroom, she shifts our dialogue from tentative leave-taking to true engagement.

“Good-bye,” she sings out in that singsong, lilting voice of hers. She is weak, yet her sparkling brown eyes twinkle as I start for the door.

“Good-bye,” I smile at her, singing our new song back to her, my hand slowly waving.

“Good-bye,” she sings out again, as I move into the living room.

“Good-bye,” I intone, voice quivering.

Over and over, our voices are singing out, one to the other, as I walk across the living room. There is no holding back this moment.

Our good-byes continue until her voice fades. I open the front door to the outside. My heart is wet with tears.

These experiences helped me be unafraid of death. They opened my heart. They opened me to deeper love. I know many people are fearful of natural dying experiences. I’ve been witness to traumatic deaths and their impact on families, friends and culture. I wrote this blog to start a new conversation, exploring a comfortable relationship with positive dying experiences.

Dear reader, do you remember when someone you loved died in a natural way and it opened your heart?

CHOOSING TO LIVE AND LET LIVE

Killing, as a solution, comes easy to this culture. We seem to reach for it first.

Is there a problem we haven't tried to solve by wiping it off the face of the earth? Pesticides, herbicides, war, antibiotics [suicide, homicide, genocide, euthanasia]-other options considered only if eradication doesn't work, which it usually doesn't, at least not in the long run.

                                                                            Priscilla Stuckey, Kissed By A Fox

When I read Priscilla’s book, I came to a sentence that rocked my soul. “Killing, as a solution, comes easy to this culture.” As a systems thinker, I’ve been in reflection. Many actions are shaped by cultural beliefs and myths handled down that we unwittingly perpetuate. Waking up to this reality startled me. It’s amazing to uncover systems contributing to a collective anesthetization that defends killing as solution.

We will never find positive solutions when aligned with myths and practices that ennoble killing, or unnatural dying and suffering. Albert Einstein is right: “We can’t solve problems by using the same mind that created them.” Consider two beliefs conditioning us in matters of killing, from two people who went beyond tradition.

Death or Life 1:

·       The first people canonized as saints were done so because they were martyrs. By being a martyr they were proving their faith. To die for one’s religious beliefs was considered noble.

What does this canonization criteria mean for aspirants wanting to make a difference? Do we need to be killed, die unnaturally or suffer? Is this tacit validation for “holy” wars?

·       Saint Hildegard lived a long life, dying of natural causes. She denounced the practice of self-flagellation and was a composer, Prioress and holistic practitioner.

Rev. Amy Freedman celebrated her life in saying: “Even Naturalists can appreciate her mystical insight long before atoms were discovered, that there is a divine energy animating every person, creature, and plant.” Does Hildegard’s life inspire you in making a difference?

Death or Life 2:

·       One slow dying belief: “animal experiments are vital to the advancement of medicine and science.”

What does this belief suggest? That life is expendable? When we believe we are saving life by the taking of life, what do we lose? Do we lose our integrity and faith in “no harm” solutions?

·       Jane Goodall, Scientist and “Messenger of Peace” thinks so: "By and large students are taught that it is ethically acceptable to perpetrate, in the name of science, what from the point of view of the animals would certainly qualify as torture. By the time [the students] arrive in the labs they have been programmed to accept the suffering around them."

Jane Goodall named the chimpanzees that she studied. She upended long-conditioned beliefs about efficacious research. She changed science. She shines her light for the pathway of “no harm” solutions. Does she motivate you?

What choices did you make reaching for wrong solutions? What solutions have you discovered that honor ALL life?

DO WE EVER TIRE OF THE SIXTIES?

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.

                                                                                             Julian Bond

In my last blog, I mentioned the all-intrepid “sixties”.
http://consultingforpassion.blogspot.com/2014/04/its-time-for-what-to-do-it-all-or-to_25.html The sixties are a good marker for what’s possible. It was a fundamental moment when life mattered and investment in a future counted for something. It shaped a global “conversation”. In organizational development, we call that shaping a new organizational culture.

Folks were tired of inequality, injustice, dogma; the US going to war, and promises made but not kept. Universities were hotbeds of change. Students were through with hypocrisy. They wanted values built on living out noble truths.

I asked a friend, a high profile University administrator, what was her best career accomplishment? “I left my job to travel down south in support of Martin Luther King’s initiatives.” I was inspired. Such are the affirmations that change cultures.

“The Sixties” was a meeting point of collaborative ventures. It was a time of great integrity. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Other Afro-Americans sat down in what once were “white people only” diners and requested to purchase a cup of coffee. Martin Luther King studied Gandhi’s ahimsa model and implemented an American non-violent protest movement.

“I have a dream” is at the heart of any good organizational development work.  Finding that dream, laying down the values, and creating the culture that supports that dream being realized is how change occurs. Martin Luther King inspired a nation and generated an organizational design for a hopeful future. Ask anyone who was active during that time and they will tell you: it changed their lives.

Well, guess what? It’s still “The Sixties.” We’re still working for equality for all women, children, races, cultures and economic groups. And then there’s Mother Earth and ALL her children. Alice Walker was asked about the future she wanted. “I want a world of peace and happiness and joy and plenty of food and water for everyone. That’s what I want for everyone, men and women, animals and trees.” Today, I received an email from a friend who is working on an initiative to save the wolves.  My heart lightened. Every shift in our shared culture initiatives empowers us all.

Every organization I know needs organizational development. In the sixties, we were on fire to develop our leadership, that of institutions, and of a nation. We asked ourselves the hard questions. We sought mentors. We became teachers. We evolved equitable partnerships. We set the bar high.

What would thrill me? I want all organizations to step up and request organizational development, inclusive of stakeholders, CEO’s to frontlines. People and animals deserve it. The environment needs it. So do the organizations!

Our world is waiting. What organizational change will you initiate, dear reader?

BELLISSIMA: READY TO ROCK YOUR SOUL?

We are constantly being asked to turn our faces away from our own internal images of what is right, true and most of all alive for us. The very simplicity of these images may seem to speak against them. We give them away thinking they cannot be reflected by the complex experience of the world in which we have learned to live. But giving them away, we find ourselves strangely empty. Finally, we understand that though the world will never be simple, a life that honors the soul seems to have a kind of radical simplicity at the center of it.
                                                                        David Whyte

No twerking or other vulgarity, no sexy clothes, not even any makeup. Talent and enthusiasm is all this 25-year old nun needs to do to bring a heavily tattooed man to tears, and elicit acclaim from everyone in the studio. Brava!!! Bellissima!    
                                                                       Molly Alexander Darden, Huffpost Blogger

I have a gift and have come to give it to you. Shouldn’t things be that way?
                                                                        Sister Cristina Scuccia

How many of you know that you have something to say and hold it back? Recently THE VOICE has been in my space. First in my own inquiry: How can I give inspired voice to my work and life? More visibility? If living an authentic life, what is my most important decision this moment? What gives it voice? I keep choosing what my heart yearns to hear and needs to express. Amazing.

As I am finding new voice, I receive a happy email from a friend. Did I hear the news of who recently was on the television show, “The Voice”? I had not. Isn’t it fun how the media, instant and accessible, lets us celebrate all the new voices getting out here into our world? Even the relatives of a good friend.

Also recently, another friend and I were knee deep in coaching. When I coached him, I heard my voice come from this deeper place. He realized from this call that his new project was life altering. When he coached me, his integrity flashed across the phone like a laser. “David Whyte’s radical simplicity might be something you want to immerse yourself into. When life throws curve balls, don’t duck.”

For me, radical simplicity is faith in the unseen; the simplicity of “what is right, true and, most of all, alive” in me right now. Turn life’s uh-oh into possibility and promising outcome. Letting go of my firefighter habituation. Radically calling forth riveting surprises to engage a new voice.

Like one of my favorite horses, shaking loose from too much fuss, I was about to step outside for a morning hike. I let the rain nudge me back inside. I asked myself: “Okay, now what? What does my heart most need to hear?” Well I discovered it; The VOICE that rocked my soul. I invite you to listen and be surprised. Lighten your soul and spark your expression!  http://youtu.be/TpaQYSd75Ak Jaw dropping, foot stomping, yes?