Letting Go

I am glad to be writing tonight. It has been five months since my mother died.  I have been in grief counseling through Hospice and it has been very helpful in being with the experiences  of sadness and disorientation and the search for new meaning in my life that are part of my grief.
I was with my mother when she died. My experience was one of awe. It was so clear to me that she was not her body. Her body was the shell left behind when her spirit was ready to depart. During the decade of the decline of my mother's mind I watched her check out little by little until she was barely communicative. Sometimes she could speak a word or two and her eyes were still very expressive.Yet she was a very different version of the smart, strong-willed, sometimes critical, sometimes supportive, person she was before dementia. I missed who she was and also was relieved to be less afraid of her because she gained sweetness as she declined.  I have spent the last five months processing what she meant to me and how our relationship has impacted my life. I am emerging as person who is less dependant on external validation and more trusting of my own truth. I am more in touch and connected with my little girl inside and my spiritual support. I am more open to asking for help from and  listening to spiritual guidance.
Being a part of my mother's death was like watching her free herself from the confines of her physical body. Her spirit expanded as she left and filled the room. I was aware of both the eternal nature of the spirit and the impermanence of life. It was so clear to me when my mother died that we are here for a short time and then we shed our bodies and move on to what's next. After my mother's memorial service my daughter and I left for a camping trip. Our intention was to honor ourselves and my mother in nature. Praying and walking and singing and soaking I took in on a deeper level how unhappy I was in my relationship of eight years. With the distraction of my busyness gone I could face how I yearned to let go of all the years of trying to make my relationship work. During my relationship with my partner, when I would go deep inside and ask what I should do the answer was , love him with all of your heart. I know that meant accept him for who he is and stop trying to change him into who you want him to be. That was my part of our relationship dance. I had been moving toward that acceptance in the months before my mother died. I had gotten to the place where I really accepted my partner for who he was and loved him for who he was. When I listened to my inner guidance I would now hear , love him with all of your heart and let him go. He was unhappy too. We would go back and forth from being willing to let go  of each other because we both knew being partners was no longer the right relationship for us, to clinging to what we had and convincing ourselves that it was good enough. We would each angrily threaten the bond saying we were going to leave and then plead with the person wanting to leave to stay. Our spiritual connection was strong and had been the glue that held us together.We were both scared to let that go fearing neither of us would ever find that again. We were both afraid to be alone. We had been in couples counseling with two different skillful counselors.  After our sessions we often felt connected and close for a time and then would be back butting up against some fundamental differences. I think we both knew on some level it was too painful to continue and too scary to let go. We separated a week after my Mom died. It took great courage to let each other go. I know it was so painful for both of us. I hope some day to be able to  ritualize the completion of our partnership and to recreate our friendship. We were able to be mostly respectful  and kind about separating and I am so grateful for that. It was very scary and very sad. Letting go of my partner and my mother and facing my fear and sadness has been difficult and very healing. It is scary for me to be alone and yet I am getting stronger as I learn more deeply to look within for my strength. It is so challenging to reach out for support with my friends. It is easier to isolate myself. I am fortunate to have some very good friends. I feel blessed. I embrace this era of my life with all the challenges and joy it brings. I am finding contentment within myself and facing my lonliness  mostly without running away. Meditation and yoga have been lifeboats to help keep me afloat in these turbulent and ever-changing waters. I cry a lot and am laughing more. I think they go together. In the midst of it all, I am grateful for my rich full life. I have work I love and a new grandson. Death and new life. When one door closes, or several doors, space is created for the next door to open. 
Thanks for listening and for giving me the space in your life to share  my journey with you. I am wondering what your lifeboats are that help you to navigate the choppy and smooth waters of your life?

Colt, grandson extraordinaire

I am writing this on my IPhone because I have tried several times to write on my home computer and it isn't allowing me to enter a new post. I have very exciting news. Colt,  my first grandson, was born on November 8th 2013. He came ten weeks early and has been in neonatal ICU until today. Today he came home with his happy parents. I am so excited to be a grandma. I never thought I could
 love anyone as much as I love my daughter. I loved Colt before he was born. I started sending him deeksha blessings every day when he was newly conceived. Out of this energetic connection I felt close to him and connected. When he was born ten weeks early it was very scary. Two paths were before me. One pathways full of fear, worry and anxiety about what would happen with
Colt. The other pathway was about All is Well. That was the pathway where I kept asking for spiritual help to come back to when I found myself spiraling off into worst case scenarios. When I met Colt in person my love deepened even more. He was so tiny and so beautiful. I felt like I had known and loved him always. Seeing my daughter with him was so heartwarming. Colt's parents have done such a good job of parenting under very challenging circumstances.
It has been such a teaching to love this little
Being so much and to keep allowing myself to be afraid for his well-being and to return to
trusting that the universe is holding him in love and that he is OK. My trust in the universe has been strengthened by asking for help. If left things up to my ego I would fear the worst. So it has been a blessing to notice the path of worry and ask for help in trusting the all is well path.
I welcome this precious being into my life and honor the new era for his parents and for me. I  ask for support in being the best grandmother I can be- a good enough grandmother. I ask to trust that my love is strong and can be felt and counts even if I am far away. Thanks for sharing my joy. I am so grateful for all the joy my sweet grandson has brought to my life already. All is well, even in the midst of my fears and doubts. All is well holds us in love waiting with the patience of a grandmother for us to return to awareness of it. What can you ask for help about returning to the awareness of all is well in the midst of today?

Artist's soul

I'm not sure what I am writing about today. I have been practicing surrender this month so I am writing with the idea of surrendering control about what I am writing. Let's see what happens.  Thank you for being part of my experiments.
I have been walking in the leaves almost every day. The crunching sound is very satisfying and my little girl inside, Andie, loves it. This has been the most miraculous fall I can remember. The leaves have been so much more orange and red than usual. As I walk the trees take my breath away with their beauty. I have been asking for spiritual support much more often in the past few months. My grieving process has been very deep and challenging. There is something about having both of my parents be dead that makes life seem so much more impermanent and fragile. Hence, I have a heightened sense of wanting to honor each moment and be present for it. I have been asking for spiritual support in giving consistent attention to my little girl inside so she can feel safe and secure. I didn't get that growing up and I often felt scared and self-conscious. I tried very hard to please my mother. She was a very hot and cold person. She could be very loving and then for no reason she would be angry and slap me. I learned not to trust people and to be wary of relaxing around others. Now I want to continue learning to soothe my little girl inside so we both can relax.
Andie loves to do artwork. My grief therapist gave me a plain cardboard mask to decorate. The assignment was to decorate the outside to represent my adult self and the inside as my little girl inside. Last night I painted the mask. In the process of painting I realized two things: One is that Andie is a great source of inspiration and creativity. When I give her consistant attention I get to tap into her spontaneous passion for creating art. The other is that creating art is deeply satisfying for me and I want to do more of it! My dream is to reclaim my artist self. Andie really wants to help. So, back to the idea of surrendering control. If I relax and let go of planning out all of my time I can create more space for being. In that space I can ask for help in surrendering to my inner guidance about what I want to do with my time. In the moment I can be patient about waiting for what really feels right to bubble up. I can lie down on my back and breathe and wait. Being is a challenge. Sometimes even my spiritual practices feel compulsive to me because they can be so fueled by doing them to be OK. Lately I have been kinder and more flexible about being OK regardless of what I do. I think I am doing a good job at being more spacious with myself and showing up for myself with love regardless of whether I exercise, meditate,  pray and do yoga every day. Expressing myself artistically isn't going to become another practice I feel badly about myself for not doing. I want it to flow from kindness rather than conditionality.
It's funny how difficult doing even somethin I love to do can be if I feel like I need to do it to be OK.
That's the principle of negative magnetism of the universe operating. I made it up. It is that anything we thing we need to do or have to be OK alludes us. The universe knows we don't need to have or do anything to be OK.  When we love ourselves conditionally the universe steps in and lends a helping hand. I remember when I thought I had to be a certain weight to be OK. That certain weight was a lot less than I weighed. Only after I stopped hating my thighs and thinking somehow that would make them smaller and accepting and loving my body as it was, was I able to have the body I wanted.
So, I even have a room in my house I call my art room that has become my junk room. I have begun to declutter it gradually in a slow and steady way. If I think I can berate myself intop cleaning the room up I know it grinds me to a halt. All or nothing becomes the game. What works better is to do a little at a time to carve out the space for my artist's soul.
Part of expressing my artist's soul is to write this blog. Andie and I both appreciate all of you who read this blog and the support you have given me to express myself creatively. Thank you

My mom's death part 2

I am writing in purple in honor of my mother. My mother loved purple. She had a bumper sticker on her car that said, I Love Purple.She made me a purple and white afghan that took her four years to crochet. I have wrapped myself in it for twenty years when I am working. Wrapped in it on the first cool fall day this week I remember her and feel wrapped in her love.
  My Mom has been dead for almost seven weeks. I have been seeing a grief counselor through hospice, who has been very helpful.I have learned so much about grief and how pervasive an experience it is. Grief has affected me emotionally, physically intellectually and spiritually. I cry often without exactly knowing why, I have been having trouble sleeping and remembering things, I feel a  sad, heavy weight on my shoulders and fear arises without warning. I am so aware that I am the next in line with both my parents being dead. I feel disconnected from the universe and then joy floods in and I feel connected to all there is, grateful and filled up. 
   Mom had two TIAs which are mini strokes on Monday August 4th which left her pale and listless and less able to move . She seemed to rally during that week eating and drinking well.  My mother started her dying process that Friday night. She stopped wanting to eat and then on Saturday spit out what she was given to drink. I worked with the  loving staff of the assisted living facility to let them allow her not to eat or drink. They cared about her and wanted her to keep living. I cared about her and wanted her to be allowed to die. They were willing to listen. On Saturday night I felt her declining. On Sunday, my partner came down from Boulder and my daughter he and I assembled my mom's kosher casket. Her wishes were to be buried next to my father in Colorado Springs in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. A kosher casket has no metal parts and hers was a plain pine box. It was a sweet ritual to build her casket together and increased my sense that she would be leaving soon.
I was supposed to leave for Boulder to see three clients and our couples counselor on Monday. I decided to cancel everything and stay in Denver with my mother. We called the hospice nurse and when she arrived she said my mom wasn't in her final decline and could live for a week. I felt silly for cancelling everything and began to second-guess myself. I realized I wouldn't have been comfortable leaving regardless. That afternoon my daughter and my nephew came to visit their grandma and said goodbye to her. They were very close to her and it was sweet and sad. That night the caregiver asked me if I wanted to sleep in my Mom's room. I instantly knew that felt right and was so grateful to her that she offered. They were kind enough to move her roommate to another vacant room so I could sleep in the bed next to my mom. During the night my Mom was breathing heavily with the rattling breath my father breathed the night he died. I felt an outpouring of love for her fill my heart. All of my impatience and frustration and feeling of being burdened by taking care of her melted away. I held her and told her I loved her over and over and thanked her and asked for her forgiveness and forgave her. At four in the morning I woke up and went to her bed. She died shortly after. Her eyes were wide open all night and she was reaching upward. It felt to me like she was connecting with my father. That was comforting to me and I hoped to her. It took me a long time to be sure that she was dead.  I sat with her body for two hours trying to be sure and thinking I needed someone else to validate her death. Finally I knew she was dead because her extremities were cold and her heart had clearly stopped beating and she wasn't breathing. I knew I could trust my own truth and didn't need external validation. That was very healing for me. I called my sister at 6 and she knew my mother had passed. She was on a plane to Denver in a few hours. 
   It was a beautiful experience of being alone with my mother  during her dying process. It was so clear to me by the dawn that she wasn't in her body anymore. I could feel so keenly the impermanence of life.  I could see her body as a vessel that she had inhabited and now had left. I knew her spirit was free. I knew she was no longer imprisoned in a body and mind that were so very limiting for her. I could feel her spacious presence with me and no longer in her body. It was a very joyous experience. I felt kind of dazed and other-worldly and had trouble relating to all of the peoples' condolences at first. Watching the mortuary people take her body away brought me back to the earth. She was buried, as is the Jewish custom, in 24 hours, in a simple graveside service on Tuesday in Colorado Springs.
Being with my Mom through her dying process has had a profound effect on my life. Death informs life. I will write more later. Thanks for listening. I hope my experience with death is informing your life, too.

My mother's death-part one

This blog post is in honor of my mother. She died on August 11th 2013. She was in a declining dementia process for 8 years. As her dementia progressed I lost my mother a little at a time. She was in and out. Sometimes there were days when she seemed like her old self- loving and very opinionated. She was easy to talk to about anything. When I was growing up I would come to her to talk about boys or my ideas or my disatisfactions. By the time I was a teenager, I learned that she was supportive if I agreed with her. The rest was a challenge. She could be critical and invalidating if she disapproved. I shared less and less with her about what was important to me.
Still we were in regular contact. I had learned to look to her for validation and to doubt myself. When I left for college I rebelled against her and did the opposite of what I thought she would approve of. When my parents came to visit me at college in Vermont my mother said, "your brother is smoking cigarettes. " I turned to her and said, "you should see what I'm smoking!"
She helped me apply to Cornell to transfer in my Junior year and to go to Israel  that summer. When she agreed with something I wanted to do she would put all of her energy behind it. She had a lot of energy and could be very encouraging and helpful.  I learned to be small about navigating the physical plane because she was so good at it and wanted to be in charge. In the midst of my rebellion my Mom's approval was still important to me.  I thought it was my job to make her happy. If she was unhappy I usually thought it was my fault and tried to fix things. She also thought it was my job to make her happy and let me know how disappointing some of my choices were to her. I often felt guilty. I cancelled my wedding and decided to move to Colorado with my boyfriend and live with him instead because I didn't know if I wanted to marry him.  My boyfriend and I and my parents met with a counselor at Cornell to try and work it out. The counselor told me after the session that my mother cared more about what other people thought than she did about me and I better get used to it. My mother disowned me and at the same time continued to plan the wedding. My father, as usual, went along with her.
I moved to Colorado and actually came home at the end of that summer with my boyfriend to get married. I feel so much compassion for that 21 year old me that convinced myself that I wanted what she wanted and went along with her wishes. I remember pushing my fears and doubts under the rug as I walked down the aisle at the synagogue. My mother was supportive during my divorce.
My parents moved from Syracuse, NY. to Colorado Springs in 1978. They sold their home and quit their jobs and moved here. It was very courageous of them. They were both avid skiers. 
My mother was very active and exercised every day. She had many friends and did a lot of volunteer work as well as teaching full time until she was almost 70.  My father died when she was 70 and he was 75. I got to be with him when he died and I felt closer to him after he died than I had when he was alive. In his last years although he was in a physical decline he began to stand up to my mother and their relationship seemed to get better.
My Mom went into a three year long grief period that turned into what's called complicated grief. That means the person never comes out of it. She began to lose her mind rather than to face my fathers death and her feelings about it. I was still trying to make her happy and at the end of three years I told her I couldn't listen anymore. Gradually our roles began to shift. As her decline progressed she was less and less of the mother I had known all my life. Eventually she became sweeter and more loving and her angry edge seemed to dissolve. As the years progressed I began to surrender my lifelong pattern of craving her approval. I learned to honor my inner divinity more and more and to trust myself more and more.
My mother rarely spoke at the end. She had very expressive eyes and people loved her. I am so grateful for the time I had with her in Boulder and then in Denver for the last two years. I learned to care for her whole heartedly. This blog was supposed to be about the miracle of her dying process and I will do another installment. I honor my mother for what I learned from her. Working with her legacy has helped me to be the compassionate person I am today.

A prayer

   This prayer came to me when I was on a silent meditation hike. The title is He na ne. Hee-nay-nee means here I am in hebrew. The prayer ends with gracias, thank you in Spanish. It is important to me to clearly and directly ask for help with what I want help with. I feel held by spiritual support and when I call on that support I feel it much more strongly.

He Na Ne

Great spirit

help me to be 

grounded in my body

open-hearted

clearminded

connected to spirit

and present with it all.

Gracias

Gratefulness

Today I am feeling grateful. I have 24hrs. to do whatever I want. That is my idea of bliss. When I finished seeing my last person before the July 4th holiday the first thing I did was  a drawing in pastels about my feeling tone now. What came up was gratitude. I am grateful to have this time to relax. I am grateful that I am learning to relax. I have been doing physical therapy for my pelvic floor muscles and I am learning a lot about letting go of the tension in my muscles. I am getting trigger point dry needling to help me to relax those muscles. It is uncomfortable and sometimes painful and I think it is helping. It is good for me to be focusing on my pelvis, reminding myself that it is safe for me to inhabit my body. I finished an interview of Philip Shepherd in The Sun magazine last week about the pelvic brain. He says that as a people we have moved away from the brain that is in our belly and focused too exclusively on the brain in our cranium. The pelvic brain is made up of a similar network  as the brain in our heads. It has innate intelligence and can be relied on for decision making. Shepherd points out that  decision making from our gut or intuition has been mistrusted since the age of agriculture. At that time we learned to see nature as something to be controlled and conquered rather than as a source of nourishment and groundedness. We cut ourselves off from our softer more receptive nature and focused on dominating the world with our craniums. Although we have made great technological advances and have created material abundance it came with a price. Reynolds suggests that in reconnecting with the brain in our bodies we unite mind and body and come from a place of wisdom and knowledge. He does workshops to support people in learning to be embodied. From this embodied place we see the oneness with all beings and with the earth. As I work to heal my pelvis, my new found awareness is supporting me in listening to my body's wisdom more deeply. I am grateful.

I just returned from a nature based silent meditation retreat. Gary and I have done this retreat for all four years it has been happening. It is a camping hiking meditation retreat in Rocky Mountain National Park. Thirty practitioners two leaders and a cook share the space of silence. The leaders created a very safe space for us to practice meditation in by setting clear boundaries and guidelines and with the power of their presence. Being in safety surrounded by natural beauty is a joy for me. I felt held in love by the universe. It rained several times each day and I could touch the part of me that felt genuinely grateful for the rain, even in the midst of being afraid of being cold and being irritated. We hiked each day and meditated along the trails and in a meadow at the base camp. I noticed I was suffering much less than last year because I was kinder to myself.  It was easier for me to speak to myself more lovingly even when what I was being loving about was not being loving. I created more space to be OK with my choices and to notice my judgments of myself and others. I spent  time hiking behind a woman with a large round butt and working with myself about my fear of being fat. By the end of the hike I felt love for her freely and appreciated the beauty of her round rear. I could see more clearly that all of what I judge comes from my own fear and it was easier to embrace myself being afraid.
 I love being silent. It is so much less difficult for me when I don't have to try and hear people socially. I could feel my body relaxing the tension of straining to hear and not knowing whether I will hear clearly or not. I felt grateful for the silence as an opportunity to slow down and be stiller. Sitting for all those hours in a not so comfortable chair created deep tension in my pelvis. I was sad to come back in pain when I had been pain free for a few weeks. At the same time, I was  glad to have the opportunity to sit with like-minded practitioners. There is a powerful energy that gets created sitting in a large group that is very different than meditating  alone. I am grateful to be able to marinate in that energy for a long weekend. I was also grateful for the healthy delicious food that was provided by the skillful cook. She prepared food that took my food allergies and the allergies of other participants into consideration so we could enjoy it freely. The tastiness also inspired me to expand my limits about what I eat and how I prepare it. It was a great pleasure to learn from a master. I am also grateful that the leaders offer these retreats with a charge for the food and rental of the campsite and that they are willing to be paid for the rest by donation or dana. Dana is a pali word for generosity. Each person decides with both of their brains what to contribute. The process of seeing what number arises has become more satisfying and I have learned to trust it. My number felt good to me this year. I am grateful that the leaders are willing to show up and put in enormous preparation and energy of presence and organization and offer the teachings according to the generosity of their students' hearts. Lastly I am grateful to you, dear reader, for being willing to read what I write. Thank you