Tag: dying

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When our work is the suffering of death….especially a beloved’s suicide

When someone we care about dies, there is perhaps nothing so intense.

(I know this isn’t always true).

And yet, as I work with people and within myself, I see the deepest grief, dread of life without them, panic, abandonment, fear and longing all come to the surface when someone close dies.

When the death is by what we call suicide, a choice to move into that death experience deliberately….

….it can bring some unique thoughts.

We believe they should have stayed, should have chosen otherwise, shouldn’t be gone–not this way.

We even imagine other options for death (at least I did) that might have been “easier” somehow.

Strange the mind is.

“It would have been easier if he had died in a car accident”. 

I had this thought about a friend I loved dying by suicide.

That way would have been better for his children, wife, extended family, community, himself.

Can we absolutely, solidly, positively without any doubt know that our thoughts are true?

One thing I can know is true is the courage and grace I witness when someone does The Work of Byron Katie on the death of a loved one.

When the death is by suicide, it is profound.

To be with the voices that scream “shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t, no, no, no, not this way, no” takes such immense courage and listening as we sit with the four questions.

The story of death seems bleak, terrifying, unknown, filled with loss, disappointing, maybe even horrifying.

I’ve had the thought “I can’t go on”. 

I’ve had the thought “THEY can’t go on” about or for other people who have experienced death of loved ones by suicide (and other death).

Heart-breaking. 

In the work, we ask this amazing question four:

Who would we be without our beliefs about death; death by suicide, death by other means….death?

Right now, who would we be without our ideas, dreams, imaginings, anticipation, expectations of death?

Who would we be without the story of loss as we remember holding that person in our arms who has since died?

Join me to sit in the beautiful inquiry of a woman new to The Work who had someone she cared about deeply die by suicide.

May this inquiry serve you and all those suffering from unexpected death.

For those who would appreciate the healing of group inquiry over six weeks starting this coming Monday July 20th….this is the one “six week retreat” we do online together.

We call it summer camp, and it’s all virtual using zoom.

You can share, listen-only, soak it in, participate by speaking and doing The Work, or share in writing in our private forum.

You come and go as you need to, and choose the days you’ll attend (you can mark your calendar).

We gather for daily inquiry of 60-75 mins for the whole time (except weekends). Mondays we meet at 9am PT, Tuesdays 5pm PT, Wednesdays at Noon PT, Thursdays 3pm PT, and Fridays at 8am PT.

Read more about camp and sign up here. Pay from the heart contribution of sliding scale or based on what you’ll attend or listen to. (Everything’s recorded).

Much love,

Grace

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I am NOT this body, I AM this body–the dance of inquiry here, now!

Lately, I’ve been doing The Work with many people on this body.

It seems like it’s our personal vehicle, it takes us everywhere, it is a living contained organism that’s only ours, no one else’s, this body.

This body.

We’ll move out of it one day, appearing to leave the world (who knows for sure), perhaps having the chance to say goodbye (maybe or maybe not).

And yet, even with all this individuality and independence and solo journeying through life (and some of us enjoy it that way)….

….there’s nothing like gathering with others and sharing the process, the mystery, the stories, the tick-tock of time passing.

Something so very precious about noticing how very Not Alone we are.

There’s a chair, a wall, a rug on the floor. There’s a tiny spider lowering itself from the ceiling.

In my particular environment at the moment of writing these words, there are two other human beings sleeping behind closed doors in bedrooms, on this early morning.

Last night I gathered with eleven other people for a Full Moon circle. A medicine circle.

An important component or structure of this particular circle (as for many circles), every single time, is each person speaking with a talking stick. There may or may not be a topic. You can speak, or not speak. The one holding the stick has the floor, with no interruptions.

Just like on retreats in gatherings to inquire into our thoughts with others, sharing happens out loud. We come together and listen.

What struck me last night, as it has before, is how we don’t know what others will say…and we don’t even know what WE will say.

There can be planning, organizing thoughts, changing our minds, “deciding” on a topic, or no planning at all.

I believe I am the one sharing. This person I am, this voice, this mouth, this “me” with this body.

But I get surprised every time.

During this time of year, we’re moving into winter where I live. The season is growing dark and colder, all the leaves falling from the trees, the heater in the house whirring, a sweater coming on over the head upon rising out of bed.

At this time, I feel the deep contentment of sharing with others in these inquiry circles that appear to have come together with Year of Inquiry and Eating Peace Process, where we are simply, deeply, regularly moving into exploring What Is over and over again with the four questions.

We’re watching this magnificent mind (or, OK, this torturous mind), and sharing it in writing or out loud. We’re listening.

I notice the mind LOVES asking and answering questions. It likes searching for answers, it likes investigating and learning so much, and making natural shifts or adjustments out of asking whether or not something is really true.

I also notice the mind loves doing this with other people. Otherwise, it can go down worm holes and wild goose chases and side bars and mazes and perhaps get lost there for weeks (years) without a flashlight.

So back to the body inquiries I’ve been privileged to be a part of lately.

We all see how we’re assigned to this particular body, and then at least if you’re like me, I wind up believing “it’s mine” and then….I’m all alone, really.

It can sometimes be quite stressful.

How do I react when I believe I’m all on my own? Self-contained? Unique? Independent? By Myself? Special? The One with This Problem (physically, emotionally, relationally)?

I see myself as vulnerable and isolated. I feel nervous that “my” body is a unique organism or vehicle, especially if it has illness, or pain or something damaged, or by comparison it’s not as good as it once was in history, or not as good as other bodies I see.

I FEEL alone when I believe the thought I’m on my own.

So who would I be without this thought that I’m all on my own, self-contained, unique, independent, by myself, special, the One with this problem?

Relieved. Sharing. Connected to other humans. Putting myself in the company of others on purpose for sharing circles (even if my mind criticizes other people or things that happen there sometimes).

Without this story, I notice the cushions in the rooms so soft and available for support, and the four walls of the room standing strong for apparently many years, long before the body I seem to live in even existed.

Without this story I notice how this mind can open up to so much more than this body–it sees other visions, places, items in the environment. It gives attention to other people. It joins with things.

Turning the thought around: I am NOT all alone. I am surrounded, merged, connected. I get in a vehicle (which puts me in the company of a machine called a car) and drive to a gathering of people with a bright moon overhead in the night sky.

I am not all alone.

On telecalls almost every day, doing The Work, I share with people wondering about their behavior with food and eating, or with their thoughts, or with the people in their lives.

I read peoples’ words as they consider their minds, from their writing online, our questions, our puzzlement. I read their answers to the four questions….so dear. I hear the voices of a whole group on the phone gathered to study this human experience, together. I read other peoples’ comments in the Eating Peace group or the Year of Inquiry group and we’re together.

Turning around the thought again: My thinking is all alone.

Sure. The mind is running, just like my heart is beating. It’s doing its thing.

And the minute I connect with other beings to ponder an idea or a concept, this isn’t even true anymore.

What I notice is how often I have had the thought I’m all alone when the world seems threatening and I’m scared.

I never have been. Only the mind says so.

Otherwise, there’s stuff, mugs, tea, furniture, grass, trees, sky, activity, animals, sounds, humans, leg, arm, computer.

I notice the surprise of what comes out of the mouth when I’m in a sharing circle. So, even the words or this writing is not “mine”!

I have this body, it is “mine”—is it true?

Can I hold this contemplation with the deepest joy of mystery?

What if it’s a good thing that nothing belongs to me….not even this body, not even this mind?

I notice, there’s something very exciting about not being able to identify For Sure that this body, this thought, these words are “mine”….and yet still be here, noticing.

What a thrilling mystery.

“A man who knows that he is neither body
nor mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for. Or, you may say, he is equally ‘selfish’ on behalf of everybody he meets; everybody’s welfare is his own. The feeling ‘I am the world, the world is myself’ becomes quite natural….

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.” ~ Nisargadatta in I Am That

Today, I thank you for being here and reading these words.

I love you, being here in whatever way you are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your presence matters. How do I know? Because you’re here.

Much love,
Grace
P.S. In two weeks I’ll be at Breitenbush and my husband Jon will be in the retreat group with us all (he loves The Work). The forecast calls for very cold rain. Dark, cold, fresh, exquisite woods with cozy warm cabins, and optional hot springs soaking if you like, and a circle of wonderful investigating human beings all interested in looking at their stressful thinking. Dec. 6-9 (Thurs evening through Sunday lunch). Call to make your reservations 503-854-3320. Only a few spots left.

P.P.S. If you deeply desire to join one of the groups underway, there’s always room for those who want to share with others in inquiry. You could jump on the inquiry train. We’ll welcome you with open arms (in either eating peace or year of inquiry, if you have some experience in The Work). Hit reply to ask.

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Opening Day Free First Friday July 6th 7:45-9:45 am PT….and Unexpected Death

Summer Camp for The Mind starts in a week.

But actually, there’s Opening Day this coming Friday July 6th for everyone and anyone. You don’t have to sign up for Summer Camp until the weekend, if you like.

By attending only on Opening Day, you can get a taste of an online inquiry group, or use it as a stand-alone experience of The Work.

In other words, you can attend Friday’s Opening Day from 7:45-9:45 am Pacific Time, and then decide over the weekend if you want to jump on board for all summer through August 17th.

For Opening Day of Summer Camp, head to the Summer Camp webpage and find the direct link right there. Opening Day will be recorded. You can listen later if that works better for you.

Read more details about Summer Camp, or go ahead and sign up, right HERE.

ITW folks: If you’re getting credits in Institute for The Work of Byron Katie, you’ll need to commit to attending 7 sessions live during the summer to make sure you get 10 hours credit. I’ll take attendance.

Speaking of Summer Camp, it’s actually kind of odd and supportive and wonderful and strange for me to get ready for this Summer Camp program.

Because a huge and major transition has just occurred in my life and the lives of my children and extended family: the passing of my first husband, loving father of our two young-adults children (ages 21 and 24). He died early Saturday morning, June 30th.

He had not been considered well for 8 years, tackling cancer, treatments, stem cell transplant, chemo rounds and finally….death.

Sitting with someone I love and know for so long as they navigate through illness and dying, gazing at a familiar face in permanent sleep, feeling the body grow cold, is not new for me.

But this time there was a deep melancholy within and heart-breaking tears, watching the children we had together sob their eyes out. My father also died at the very same age, almost exactly to the day.

My former husband’s sweet and supportive companion of five years, (and they just got married in the hospital), was incredible through the last several years of his journey with cancer. She’s been there for him in a most remarkable way.

Not long ago, when my current husband and I visited her and my former husband bringing pizza, she shook her head “no” when Tom suggested the hardship she’s been through in taking care of him.

“It’s a privilege” she said.

I’m so grateful for being so included in any part of this journey of relating to the man who just died, and all the chapters of being in relationship with him. Any and every heart-breaking part.

If I had been able to see 15 years ago, before divorce, a picture of June 30, 2018….I would have been shocked beyond belief. Stunned.

How do you react when you believe a story of the way it should be….and it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped or planned or expected?

I agonize. I feel sad. I have images of regret, missed conversations, confusion. I have anxiety within. I can’t sleep. I feel ungrounded, shaky. I might feel like I don’t belong. Discouraged.

Who would you be without this very stressful thought that the way it’s gone is horrible, worse than expected? Without the thought that it should be different than it is?

Without the belief, I notice I’m lying here on my soft bed, typing, and I’ve done this 1000 times without worrying about the way the future should go, will go, must go.

Without the thought it should have gone differently….

….I’m able to notice the precious space of this moment here, and that I have no idea of the entire picture or story.

I notice how well I’m doing here now, and how well I’ve done so, so, so often in life without someone being around or without something going as I expected or dreamed.

Without the thought “it shouldn’t be like this” there is no regret. There are tears flowing, and they feel like immense love and gratitude.

Turning the thought around: It should have gone this way. 

As Byron Katie asks: How is it good for you that it went the way it did? How is it good for the other person, or the community? How is it good for the world?

Wow. I know this doesn’t mean I have to love it, or wish for it, or say thumbs-up to it, or vote for it.

I notice, I didn’t get a vote.

Reality went the way it did. Can I find something supportive about that? Can I find the love, the care? Can I be willing to see with more expansive eyes and heart?

It’s not to make something fake sweet and easy, that isn’t.

It’s an invitation to give weight to this other side of duality, the one I often miss when I’m upset or troubled. The side that says “maybe you’ve missed something” rather than assuming what’s happened absolutely shouldn’t have.

I begin to find turnaround examples for it being OK, interesting, beautiful or supportive that it went way it did:

  • I found an internal power of willing-to-do-what-it-takes, after the divorce from this man who has now died, that I never thought was possible when it comes to career, earning, ability to pay my monthly mortgage and not foreclose on my house
  • I learned I can love, even if I rarely see someone, and appreciate sharing their life with me
  • my children and I were laughing and joking as we took a little road trip together yesterday, the day after their dad died. I was amazed and touched by seeing what life looks like when it’s not filled with constant desperate suffering. It looks like people playing the road-trip games we’ve always played. “Those are my cows!”
  • we’ve spent the last three winter holiday seasons doing blended family things which were super fun, loving, joyful and abundant
  • I’m getting to spend many hours with my kids, hear from friends I haven’t heard from in many years, share deep conversations with others who loved my former husband, replay amazing memories
  • A sense of openness to Reality comes alive in this work on death. Isn’t that what I always dreamed of? Feeling friendly about the world, life, reality?
The list goes on. And will keep going on.
Who would I be without my story of endings?

Someone able to write this Grace Note today, and feel very excited about sharing inquiry with other people in the world as we dial in together Friday, and into Summer Camp next week.

Someone who can still imagine summer within, even through tears and a swelling heart.

“Until we know that death is as good as life, and that it always comes at just the right time, we’re going to take on the role of God without the awareness of it, and it’s always going to hurt. Whenever you mentally oppose what is, when you think that you know what should and shouldn’t happen, you’re going to experience sadness and apparent separation. There’s no sadness without an unquestioned story. What is is, because it is. You are it.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

P.S. To find out more about Summer Camp, click the photo here.

Join Summer Camp for The Mind
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Again and again returning to the space between thoughts

Next Living Turnarounds Half-Day is April 22nd 2-6 pm in Seattle at Goldilocks Cottage. Sign up ahead of time to hold your spot–we were totally full last time.

Three spaces open for commuters to Spring Cleaning Retreat in Seattle at a private gorgeous retreat house. AirBnb’s close by if you travel from out of town.

Sometimes, people say they’d like to do The Work but they’re not sure where to begin.

What should I pick?

Here’s one of the best and most simple ways: a relationship that feels troubling from any time in your life. You might love and adore the person, they might not be in your life anymore, they may even have died, or you might see them every single day.

Son, daughter, mother, father, grandpa, grandma, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, boyfriend, girlfriend, whomever you’ve dated, boss, employee, co-worker, best friend.

Life has shown you moments of turmoil or discord with others.

That’s where you can go to begin The Work–seeing someone, anyone, at any time, who in their presence you felt disturbed.

Uncomfortable relating is a huge percentage of our stress.

Compulsive off-balance behavior often comes out of some kind of disruption with a person. My own tendency was always to eat compulsively out of anger, nervousness, sadness or excitement OFTEN resulting from my thoughts and beliefs about other people and what I thought they thought of me.

Even if you’ve done The Work before on someone in your life, maybe many times….

….there’s nothing wrong with repetition, practice, and doing it again.

Each time I sit down for The Work, it’s a new potential discovery. No expectations. Just starting now, with the feeling of Not Liking something that’s been said, done, offered, communicated.

Tomorrow I’m heading for a 3 day retreat with Roxann, Byron Katie’s daughter who’s had the great privilege of doing The Work for 25 years or so.

For an entire month, I’ve been thinking about who I want to do The Work on again in a new way, from the life I’m in now….and I see several familiar faces cross the field inside my mind.

That one bipolar alcoholic boyfriend, the best friend who did the crazy inexplicable betrayal that had to involve a lawyer, the good friend who snapped at me, the sister who cut me off, my former husband divorcing me.

The ones I believe caused trouble.

Even if I know it’s in the past, that it’s over, that it’s now an image or replaying movie….I found incredible turnarounds to “live” because of what went down between me and that person. Benefits. Change. Transformation.

But I kept seeing one person’s face in my mind.

Dad.

If I still tap into the voice of the little girl within (even though I was in fact an adult when he died–barely) I feel the tragedy. I respected him so much. I was so, so sad he died of cancer “too soon”.

Maybe one of the reasons I’ve thought about my dad lately so much, or considered him for my upcoming 3-day inquiry, is that one of my best friends died of cancer last September. He knew my dad. My dad, his dad, my mom and his mom all went to the same church throughout childhood.

My friend’s death was like a replay in many ways of my father’s death. Strangely coincidental. They both had similar personalities of true kindness and a deep abiding love for intellectual learning.

Last summer, when my friend was so ill, I hugged him in a long goodbye and we said “I love you” the way that had become wonderfully comfortable. I wasn’t sure I’d be seeing him again or not. I had a week-long program way in Northern Ontario I was attending (including the topic of death and dying, incidentally).

“I won’t die until you get back” he said to me as I left. We both chuckled with the heartbreak of it. We had many long conversations about death, his death, dying, how he felt about it, about our lives growing up in the same neighborhood and everything we’d ever gone through.

In Canada, I thought about him all the time. He was getting too weak to text, or talk. I went out and walked when my program wasn’t in session.

Along a quiet highway road running near a gorgeous smooth late-summer lake, I suddenly realized I had been on this road before.

When my dad was dying.

The exact same road in a remote place in Ontario, here I was almost 30 years later.

I hadn’t recognized the location at first, where I had taken a writer’s workshop on my honeymoon road trip. I knew that workshop was near this lake, but couldn’t remember exactly where.

Then walking on the very same road, I was there. With the flooding memories of what was happening in my life back then.

Someone I loved and respected and admired was dying.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

So today, I’m writing a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on my father’s death, including my thoughts about cancer, abandonment, temporariness, suffering….not editing or moving into what I think I “know” about this worksheet and these false thoughts already.

I can look again.

I can walk in the same place again, thirty years later, without even having planned to walk there.

Don’t we look again anyway?

Isn’t it a wonder to notice the repetitive mind and give it care and attention like a little child who repeats the same things over and over, in innocence?

I lost my dad, I lost my friend….is it true?

“You can’t have anything. You can’t have any truth. Inquiry takes all that away. The only thing that exists for me is the thought that just arose….So again and again, we return to the space between thoughts.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

P.S. Facebook LIVE today 10 am Pacific Time. Let’s do The Work starting with how to find and hold that one moment, that situation, and begin our work.

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You don’t ever let go of the thread….

The early morning is dark with misty rain pattering on the quiet pavement. I roll my little red well-worn carry-on suitcase to the car my husband has already started. The lights glow in the dark, the white clouds rising from the exhaust pipe.
My heart is very full, my mind seeing images of the Ottawa airport where I’ll eventually land, and the goodbye I said yesterday to one of my oldest, dearest friends.
Yesterday, I felt quite anxious about this trip.
Not because of the destination. I’m flying to gather with a beautiful group of people I’ve gotten to know over these past 18 months who all form the Orphan Wisdom School. We are scholars, gathering to hear the wonderings of Stephen Jenkinson, author of “Die Wise” and master storyteller, historian, question-asker. We talk about death, culture, sorrow, loss, humanity, religion, love.
No, my anxiety wasn’t because I’m about to attend our final session together, although I’m aware it’s our last. The week is yet to come, and new conversations still to happen.
My anxiety came from the goodbye I just said.
My sweet friend is literally in his final days of life, and he may be gone from this world while I travel.
As I sat by his bedside yesterday, we both knew it might be our last meeting, our last goodbye.
What a strange experience to know you will likely never see someone again. I think of immigrants long ago leaving for another country. All the human death from disease (in other words not a sudden or surprise death that’s unanticipated). Moving far away in the physical world because of slavery or war. Jobs taking people half way around the world to seek their fortune. Children growing up and leaving home.
Saying goodbye and knowing you’ll never meet again.
Not physically, not in this world.
Goodbyes are sad, tragic, frightening.
Let’s question this. Because The Work is about looking at everything, anything. Including goodbyes of such magnitude.
Especially goodbyes of such magnitude.
Is it true that goodbyes are sad, or tragic, or frightening?
Yes. So very sad. I’ll never see him again. We’ll never have our deep conversations again.
I thought this about my father during his leukemia illness so many years ago. Tragic.
I thought it frightening when my daughter left for Europe and bombs were exploding there. I thought it sad when my son moved away to college. I thought it terrifying when my former husband wanted a divorce.
Missing them. Gone. Goodbye.
But can you absolutely know it’s true that saying Goodbye is wrong, or that feeling all this is too horrible to stand, or that these experiences called sadness, fear or devastation are too great to bear?
Can you know you can’t go on, despite such a deep, formidable goodbye? Can you be sure you’ll never see them again, really (even if they’ve died)?
No.
I’ve seen my dad regularly for over 25 years, and he hasn’t been on earth in a body since 1991. I see him in my mind. I see him behind the wheel of a car as I stare at a man who looks just like my dad with his salt and pepper beard in the lane next to me.
I see my dying friend’s smiling face and hear the way he says “I’m serious!” with a smile, which means in our language “I so agree with you 100% on that point!” I see him saying how much he loved me, and everyone he loved and felt close to, when he learned he had a terminal illness five years ago. He became more expressive. He said what he thought more often.
I can’t know for sure, in absolute terms, that goodbyes are sad, tragic or frightening in and of themselves. I can see it might be my thoughts about goodbyes that produce suffering.
Goodbye seems to be a part of life. Fully and completely. We don’t only have Hello. We have Goodbye. That’s the way of it.
How do I react when I believe Goodbye is so sad, or tragic, or something to be feared?
I start to feel anxious. Pictures race through my mind of holding my friend’s thin hand, rubbing his swollen feet. Pictures of laughing so hard with him at a party a few years ago, caught on film. Pictures of our childhood neighborhood, the walk from his house to mine when the world was closer together and simpler.
When I believe Goodbye shouldn’t be happening, I feel a movement inside like drinking too much coffee. Can’t sleep. Need to get “work” done. Laundry, tasks, post office. Wondering if there’s anything else I can “do”. Hard to hold still. Wondering what it would feel like to know this might be your last day.
But who would I be without this terrible story of Goodbye?
This doesn’t mean it isn’t heart-breaking into a million pieces. It doesn’t mean I don’t cry.
I do.
I cry as I get into my car after leaving the building where my friend lies, rain still misting on the city street.
Without the thoughts it shouldn’t be so, and life shouldn’t include goodbyes and endings….
….I stop feeling frantic, conflicted.
Something very deep within stops fighting the moment. Something remembers I am not in charge, but something far greater–the movement of life and death–knows more than I do. I am not too small for this. I am a human being, I have the astonishing privilege of awareness of All This.
Turning the thought around: Goodbye’s are filled with love.Goodbyes are the awareness of love. Goodbyes are bitter and sweet and profound and life-changing. They are life-shaking, beautiful, fearless.
Believing my thoughts about goodbyes was what brought anxiety and sleeplessness, and suffering.
And it isn’t really a total and absolute “end”.
You are in my heart forever, even if you are no longer in this room, no longer in this town, no longer in this country, no longer on this planet in your human form.
The Way It Is
~by William Stafford
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
 
The thing is, we don’t even have to hold on to the thread. It’s with us no matter what, even if we forget it’s attached.
The word goodbye in English comes from Godby, Godby’e, Godbwye, God b’w’y, God bwy yee, God buy you, God be wi’ you, God be with you.
Infinity, vastness, mystery, and love be with you, carrying you always (it is).
God be with you. God is with you.
God be with you, dear sweet dying friend.
God be with you, father. God be with you, all the people of the world coming and going and living and dying.
God be with you, dear reader.
Thank you for being awhile here with me.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Much love,
Grace
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without your stressful story of death…

The profound, sometimes shocking experience of someone else’s death or dying can be life-changing, and feel absolutely devastating.

Notice, however, that these profound experiences are someone else’s death. Always.

Our own….we don’t know so much about. And we won’t. Not until we’re going through it. Then we’ll know.

In my most recent Peace Talk podcast Episode 112, I share a poem by the late Seamus Healey.

Poetry about death may seem odd, and difficult, and uninviting….

….or like something we’d never want to be poetic about.

And yet, giving an artistic brilliance to our deepest loss of people we care about—death—brings a blaze of light to it.

Who would I be without the story of death?

Hard to fathom almost. Hard for the mind to “get” this one. And yet, possible to imagine and wonder about.

One thing I’ve noticed, as I wonder about death and who I am without my stressful stories about it, is I would realize death happens, and so far I’ve lived on, even when others I love so much have died.

And I might cry true, deep, life-changing tears instead of holding my grief and fear in. I might live more fully, more intensely, more with the awareness this life is very temporary, this time here on planet earth in this body, very short. It’s just the way of it. It somehow must be OK, because it’s reality.

Without my stressful story about death, I might feel grateful I’m alive today, so very grateful, and prepare for the future moment, called death, with more clarity, less fear, more acceptance, less anger, more joy, less resistance.

I might even get to work and roll up my sleeves since I’ve got today, just today, to inquire and to act, to share, to feel whatever “here” feels like.

Because I am here. For now.

They were here, and for awhile our lives intersected (thank you dad, grandparents, great grandparents, friends, neighbors). I am connected to all my past relations, for generations back. I am connected the minute I’m thinking of them, and honoring them.

Without my stressful stories about death, I stop avoiding the memory of these others I once lived with.

I notice they are still alive in my heart, in the DNA, in spirit.

Enjoy Peace Talk Episode 112, then the next one will be an interview. It’ll be a surprise!

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you’re in Seattle area (or can get yourself here)….I am offering a special three hour workshop at East West Books “Loving What Is: Ending Suffering Over Body, Eating, Pain, Sickness, Death”. Everyone will get to do The Work of Byron Katie from start to finish, focusing on this often very stressful area of how the body is affected physically….including weight, shape, pain, or even aging and death. You’ll get to pick what’s stressful for you, personally, and inquire thoroughly to see what’s really true. An amazing 3 hour opportunity for only $25. Register HERE soon, this is limited to 15 people. Saturday, June 11th.

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Life contains tragedy and sorrow

footprintsonsand
everything comes and goes, the tragedy, the joy

Yesterday was my father’s birthday.

Only not really. It was the anniversary of the day he was born as a human in that particular lifetime he walked through.

1930.

He died many years ago. He never made it to 85 which he would be today. He did not age into elderhood. He was still teaching at the university. No grandchildren had been born (although I know they were a twinkle in his eye).

He got leukemia, or his body did, and he died two years later.

I was by his side, holding his left hand. All my sisters, and spouses or boyfriends, my dad’s dear friend, and my mother, were surrounding his bed.

Candles were burning, the sky was pitch dark. Rain was pattering on the old 1920s glass window panes of our family house.

We were all singing. The same lullabies he sang to his four daughters who he cared for so deeply, we now sang to him as he left.

As he took his very last breath and died, I felt his hand grow cold so quickly.

I was astonished to recognize this…and then realized….“of course this would happen.” 

The heat, the life, the blood, the activity within this body simmering down, down, down.

It was the first time I was with a dead body.

Several years later, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

During the 12 hours of birthing, and the hours and days that followed, I sometimes thought about when my father died, and the great allowing of life to unfold and do what it does….

….at its own pace, without any control of the process.

Every human present at these events had to simply be there, witnessing, stepping in when support was needed, always allowing the thing (death, birth) to happen.

I also noticed, I gave birth before I had ever even seen a birth.

My father died before I had ever seen a person die.

Strange for such profound events to be so closed, or quiet, or somehow hidden.

Don’t these things happen by the hundreds and thousands every single day?

But there are perhaps some beliefs and concepts that hang over the experience of birth and death that make them fade into the background of daily life, so that in my 20s I would have never seen them before until I was participating in them directly.

What could they be?

  • death is horrible, private, personal, an end, loss, evil, wrong
  • birth is private, personal, exposing, naked, hopeful, good
What do death and birth mean to you, that you would feel uncomfortable, sad, anxious, terrified, worried, or angry?

 

People write to me often to ask about death, or major transitions of all kinds (which include birth).

 

Yesterday I watched a movie called Griefwalker about Stephen Jenkinson, a man who has worked with hundreds who are dying….and then I got to see Stephen Jenkinson in person speak and read from his book Die Wise.

 

(Remember my Grace Note that I was buying a ticket to see myself on Thursday? Well….I got a ticket for me, and my two kids, to see Stephen on Thursday, so that’s the way it rolled. You never know how something will turn out, do you? That’s another Grace Note).

 

One of my first inquiries in 2005 was “my father died.”

 

It seemed true….

 

….and I discovered how he lived within my heart, so closely I could call on him anytime. More quickly than when he was in form, to be honest.

 

I had done The Work on my own moment of cancer diagnosis, even though it was not terminal….the fear had raced through me.

 

I have thought deeply about death, and wondered about my fear of it. I have questioned that death is frightening….or that dying is frightening….and found deeply that I can’t prove that it’s ultimately true.

 

But I learned something new from Stephen, at just the right moment in my life.

 

Not only is this passage called death coming, but it’s a wonder, and inevitable, and happening For Sure at some unknown point.

 

And I do not have to fear it.

 

Today, I have the brilliance of this one day, apparently “alive” on someplace called earth.

 

Castles fall down (I saw some of those last August).

 

A new house is built.

 

I gave birth to two children and they were born to eventually die, who knows when.

But what I can do, is question my painful thinking about my stories about birth and death, rather than dread them.

Who would you be without your beliefs about birth, about death, good, bad, evil, wonderful, wanted, unwanted?

What if both life and death are equally true and mysterious?

  • death is shared by everyone, its what we do
  • birth is shared by everyone, its what we do

“At the very heart and core of our being, there exists anoverwhelming yes to existence. This yes is discovered by those who have the courage to open their hearts to the totality of life. This yes is not a return to the innocence of youth, for there is no going back, only forward. This yes is found only by embracing the reality of sorrow and going beyond it. It is the courage to love in spite of all the reasons to not love. By embracing the tragic quality of life we come upon a depth of love that can love “in spite of” this tragic quality. Even though your heart may be broken a thousand times, this unlimited love reaches across the multitude of sorrows of life and always triumphs. It triumphs by directly facingtragedy, by relenting to its fierce grace, and embracing it in spite of the reflex to protect ourselves.” ~ Adyashanti

I bolded these words. Because they aren’t the nicey-happy-sweet-kind-lovey-comforting words I sometimes have preferred when it comes to thoughts about this birth/life/death path.

But they are the truer words: overwhelming, tragedy, sorrow, broken, no going back…..

…..even though, unlimited love, always triumphs, fierce grace, embracing.

That’s why when I think of my dad, I can still feel the heart-break and overwhelming love, and wishing I could be with him again, and also unlimited love that has never died.
I remember and know that I am connected to him, and I honor him, and those who gave birth to him and all my ancestors.
I embrace them all in my heart, knowing also that I will be an ancestor, too, and so will my children.
Much Love, Grace
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Who Would You Be In The Presence of Chaos?

For those of you asking about early-bird payment plan, you are correct there was no option for this on the Year of Inquiry information page. None.

I completely forgot it.

Since this option hasn’t been anywhere in sight (we’ll talk about me as a non-detail person another time) click here, scroll down to the very bottom of the page where the payment plan option are listed, and you’ll see early-bird payment plans added for YOI.

Because I didn’t even have them posted until late last night, these early bird plans are available until Friday.

*******

Your thoughts of chaos and suffering were not created by you, but you can imagine who you would be without them
Your thoughts of chaos and suffering were not created by you, but you can imagine who you would be without them

I know I’ve been constantly mentioning Year of Inquiry, but there are other very, very powerful events happening around me, too.

The serious illness of a dear friend, a long-awaited journey to the place I was born (I leave Wednesday), reuniting with two important friends with whom I lost touch, and facilitating people on incredibly deep stressful beliefs about love, longings, and death.

Sometimes, when you sit with others who are facing huge change, loss, or who are very frightened, like my friend who is very sick….

….there is nothing to do but be.

Who am I, without the story I’m telling? Without the thoughts I am thinking? Without needing to do anything?

Without the fear being all there is, whether fear of dying, or fear of the terrible pain my friend is going through right now, or fear of the temporariness of this life?

Who would you be?

Who are you, without your stressful beliefs?

I notice as I spend time with my friend today who is so very sick, and feel the sun on my face, and later hear my daughter telling me about her weekend away with two friends.

Here, there is space.

Here in this moment, a red flowered rug, two glowing computer screens, a light over a kitchen sink, a candle flame in a glass jar, an empty water glass, a pair of blue flip-flops, a scrap of ragged white paper on the floor, a young man called a “son” walking through the room with two fat library books in hands, a spider moving slowly around a web in the ceiling corner, and thoughts of my friend.

Here. Sometimes, with a breaking heart.

“This is about realization, not about changing anything. The world is as you perceive it to be. For me, clarity is a word for beauty. It’s what I am. And when I’m clear, I see only beauty. Nothing else is possible. I am mind perceiving my thoughts, and everything unfolds from that, as if it were a new solar system pouring itself out in its delight…..

….So you don’t drop your thoughts of chaos and suffering out there in the apparent world. You can’t drop them, because you didn’t make them in the first place. But when you meet your thoughts with understanding, the world changes. It has to change, because the projector of the entire world is you.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is

Here, I notice even with a breaking heart, and a temporary human life, and my friend’s beautiful eyes who I looked into today as she felt terrible physical pain and enormous courage….

….I love this place, even though it is so heart-breaking sometimes.

That’s who I am without completely believing the stressful thoughts.

And actually, with them, too.

Much love,

Grace