Each year I enjoy some ritual on my birthday. Yesterday afternoon I still did not know what that was to be. Riding to the birthday celebration of our 85 year old friend, I learned of a marvelous exercise called “Corpse Prayer.” It comes from Jarem Sawatsky’s book, Dancing with the Elephants: Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain (How to Die Smiling Series, #1).
The “Corpse Prayer” exercise resonates deeply with me because it is essentially my own Imagine Healing process where you anchor positive images along your future timeline to allow the worry brain to turn off. In my process, you build in the caveat although things won’t happen exactly as you imagine it, as you make an image that lets know things have gone so well, even better than you imagined it….
As Sawatsky suggests, I imagine the last three minutes of my life.
I am propped up in a big fluffy bed. The bedclothes are pristine white. Stacey is there with me. I have no pain or illness, just old-age. It is time to let go. I see Stacey as old too. That comes as a surprise. White hair. Wrinkled hands. I feel sadness for a moment that her life will not be much longer, then I let that go as I celebrate sacred life and sacred death. I love her so much. I am so blessed she has been with me since I was only a child. I breathe the familiar Corpse Prayer:
Corpse Prayer
Be not afraid.
I give thanks to god who created all things good.
In christ, all things hold together.
I am not entitled to life without death.
I embrace sacred life.
I embrace sacred death.
I embrace the growing and crumbling in between.
Smile at yourself in the silence…
Jarem Sawatsky
Sawatsky says to next imagine the moment you will be buried. Since I plan to be cremated, I saw that happening and breathed the Corpse Prayer again. I am not entitled to life without death.
Two years after death, you are to see your body decayed. I see the place my ashes had been spread. Barely any shards are left. A cat walks on the ground and I think, “I love kitties.” I breathe the Corpse Prayer again. I embrace the growing and crumbling in between.
Now I am to imagine myself 80 years after my death. My granddaughter (Courtney’s) child is old. I breathe the Corpse Prayer to her. Be not afraid…
I smile at myself in the silence. Happy birthday to me!
Listening to the wind blowing, thoughts come to mind of how relative our perspective is. A prime example of that is weather.
Bundled up out for a walk, Floridians see Michiganders riding bikes in shirt sleeves.
Americans look into a brimming pantry complaining about nothing to eat.
“No Ordinary Face” was first shared at an open mic. I have since been encouraged to share the story more widely. It certainly is a powerful demonstration of perspective.
No Ordinary Face
It has been over twenty years since I met her, but hers is a face I will never forget.
I work as a wellness consultant, sometimes called a holistic healer. She had been referred to me by one of my colleagues, for a surgical support session. Physical healing happens more easily when you are emotionally and mentally prepared. Combining hypnosis and energy medicine I help people “imagine healing.” I knew she was facing an extensive reconstruction following serious burns, but nothing I had been told about her prepared me for what I was seeing.
“So, you are scheduled for plastic surgery?” I asked. As she answered I jotted the date and time and hospital onto her chart without looking away from her face.
With a poise not anticipated from her shocking physical appearance, she provided a brief highlight of her MANY previous surgeries.
As she answered my unspoken question, without permission my chest with it’s now rapid-beating heart leaned forward ever so slightly, “I set myself on fire. I did not want to live,” she was not apologizing but merely helping me understand. “More than my not wanting to live, I thought no one would care if I died. I was wrong, nearly dead wrong.”
“As the flames caught,” she continued, “I heard a voice yell ‘OPEN THE DOOR AND GET OUT OF THE CAR…. NOW!’”
She went on to tell me that her life had been totally changed by that event. I thought to myself that was an understatement. There was no person who yelled. She recognized the voice as god, an angel, or some divine guide.
As though proof of these changes and her true value, she reached in her purse and produced a photograph of a red-haired, blue-eyed toddler sitting on the most realistic rocking horse I have ever seen. “I have a daughter now… My daughter knows she is loved,” her voice trailed off wistfully as she placed the photo back in her purse.
“There are other people who feel like no one cares but it is not true. I would not be here today had it not been for that voice… Someone cares. Call it what you want. I am living proof someone cares about each of us.”
“I don’t really remember what I looked like before,” she added with twisted grin, “but I love this face.”
When she had doused the car with gasoline, climbed in behind the steering wheel, and struck the match, her previous face had melted away like a candle burning in the August wind.
This face. A face made from other body parts: abdomen ears, underarm eyes, back-of knee nose, and labia lips: this definitely was no ordinary face.
As a writer, generating material is as easy as paying attention to the burr beneath your saddle. On January 5 of this year wishing our granddaughter happy birthday pulled me back 19 years to the day she was born. The words “winter wonderland” — one of the nicknames for Michigan, my home state, were not the first on my lips.
Drifts were piled outside that rivaled the summit of Mt. Everest. Visibility was reduced to the nose in front of my face. Temperatures had plummeted so low the gas line in our car was frozen solid even while it was parked in the garage.
We were not getting to Tennessee for our granddaughter’s birth.
January 5 that year I cried all day.
There are times in our lives when our human efforts are just not enough to bring about what we want. I could not clear the roads, and I could not stop my granddaughter’s timed entry into this world.
For several years our family has drawn names and made hand-crafted gifts. This past Christmas, I got my granddaughter’s name. I designed a deck of cards, and a companion book of inspired writings to correspond with each card, based loosely on the symbolism in a Tarot deck.
Yesterday I received a gifted copy of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockward. Our poetry group has begun working through this wonderful book. As I opened to the first chapter, our assignment, I read:
Those who have caused us early pain and loneliness, the sources of our art: should we detest them or kiss their feet? ~ Wesley McNair
A tear formed in the corner of my eye as I read my granddaughter’s words in response to my happy birthday message. “I’m so thankful that you’re my Gammie…”
To which I replied, “And I’m so thankful that you’re my granddaughter. Sometime today or tomorrow draw a card from ‘Courtney’s Cards’ and see what the message is for your birthday. You can share that with me!”
“I’d love to.”
She picked the King of Spades.
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good; but that God will make us good because he loves us.” ~ C.S. Lewis
Amen.
I am symbolically kissing the feet of the snow that has piled around my home this week this year freezing the water line into the house. Even the most bitter of our days will thaw out and the difficult will be made easy. Spring always follows winter…
As my fingers find their way on the keyboard, fireworks are booming around me. That is how some people celebrate New Years. My thoughts go to the Veterans with PTSD and dogs who feel panic when experiencing loud noises.
New Years is such a significant opportunity for ritual. It is one of my favorite days of the year. This year, it is also a full moon.
The full moon is a time to release thoughts, beliefs, habits, memories, attitudes. Let go of everything that no longer serves you, bless and release what you no longer need in your life. Honor and transform any aspect of yourself that you have outgrown. The energy of the full moon joins powerfully with the beginning of 2018.
Barbara Brodsky has been my meditation teacher for many years now. Each day she shares a “Thought for Today.” I love the words from December 31, 2017:
Deep Spring Center Thought for Today
To manifest in the world begins with intention and conscious thought. What do you wish for yourself? ‘May I abide in well-being and freedom from affliction, freedom from anxiety, freedom from hostility and ill-will, and may I maintain well-being in myself. May my heart open and flower. May I love and be loved. May I find the healing that I seek. May I find the ways to live in harmony with others and them with me. May I be free from suffering. May I be happy and find peace.’ Now offer those same intentions for the world.
As I wait for the noise outside to stop, I welcome the inner silence which is always there.
Do you receive the Sacred Story each Saturday? If not, go to DebraBasham.com to subscribe to receive posts by email. This one fits so well with our New Years intention:
Things Will Get Better
by Debra Basham
Sacred Stories
These were very dark times as she was recovering from alcoholism. It was not that she wanted to drink—but neither did she want to live.
She had rolled up towels to put around the doors and windows and intended to turn on the gas and end her pain.
She heard a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
A woman answered. “It is Pat. I have an appointment with you.”
Not wanting to draw attention from the neighbor, she opened the door a crack. Pat marched in, went right to the kitchen and sat at the table, looking over at the towels. “See, your name is right here on my calendar.”
Pat went on to say her husband was an alcoholic and she knew about depression. “Things will get better,” she said.
Then she left….
(Note – This story was shared in a public AA talk and while I do not have written permission to share it here, I think you will agree that the teller of the story would want others to know things will get better.)
Make this next year your best. Gift the world with your authentic being. You are a peaceful soul….
I love order. Maybe I am not totally excessive compulsive about it, but I when I have been called a “neat freak” I have taken that as a compliment.
This week, as many others are busy with holiday preparations, I am preparing our tiny house for a big construction project that will begin right after Christmas. As some areas are being emptied out, other areas are being jam-packed.
One of the things I notice is that even my chaos must have order to it.
I took a break from my preparations yesterday and enjoyed listening to the December 17 talk given by Reverend Linda Beushausen at St. John UCC in New Buffalo. The talk was on Joy, specifically that joy is not an emotion but rather a choice we make. She told about a person who admits to having a challenge letting go of the stuff she has held on to that has kept her a victim and let joy in. Gay Hendricks calls this the challenge of expanding our upper limits. He says those profound shifts in your internal set points do not generally happen overnight, but Linda gave us a hint how we can access more joy.
She said gratitude is how we get to joy. When I put that phrase (gratitude is how we get to joy) into the search bar, it yielded about 6,950,000 results! A few of those include:
Today, my business partner lost his wallet. He had been running errands and when he stopped to get gas, his wallet was gone. He back-tracked to the previous stops, but his wallet was not yet found when he sent a message telling me it was missing. A few minutes later, he sent word that his wallet had been returned with everything still in it. His message ended with this: “Certainly guardian angels seem to have come to the rescue, and I’m grateful….”
That reminded me of “Package” published July 18, 2015, in Sacred Stories. If you are not signed up to receive the Sacred Stories each week, you can sign up to do that. Sharing them gives me joy!
As you continue with what ever preparations you are involved in right now, may you find that your gratitude is a bridge so you can find then find joy in the journey.
It is a wintry day again. For the time being, I have abandoned the riding of my Airdyne in the chilly barn for walking on a treadmill in the warmth of the community room.
My least favorite part of the winter weather is how I brace against it. The whole body tenses up, and the seconds to walk in from the car are endured, rather than enjoyed.
I have never understood that, as I am a January baby I should love winter weather, right?
This morning I read this marvelous quotation from Each Day a New Beginning, by Karen Casey: “We can serve one another best, never by commiserating with sadnesses, but by celebrating life’s challenges. They offer the opportunities necessary to our continued growth.”
One friend said goodbye to her pet bunny rabbit (of 14 years). Friends are supporting their daughter through a recent diagnosis of stage 3 colon cancer. Many have lost loved ones this year. Our own family is celebrating the holidays one brother short. Life has its challenges.
Here is a certain truth for meeting all of life’s challenges from Neale Donald Walsch: Nothing changes the environment like one person deciding to love another, no matter what.
I used to have a “Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off” refrigerator magnet. This evening the smoke alarm went off here in the tiny house but I was not burning dinner. I was burning a piece of paper in Frankincense and Dragon’s Blood Resin to release an ancient pattern of guilt, anxiety, and emotional pain older than my body.
Most people know of the ancient healing powers of Frankincense. Dragon’s Blood also has wonderful healing properties. It is often used for protection, power, and good fortune, and to dispel negative energy.
The negative energy dispelled tonight goes way, W–A–Y, back. I was first aware of feelings of sheer terror in October 2011 while I was in Europe. I had been under stress for days before the evening in Switzerland when my “resting” heart rate of 103 was recorded for 30 minutes on my HeartMath emWave2.
I have told very few people of my experiences in Europe, but I did spend three months writing about it a couple of winters past. Having heard parts of the writing, one of my Florida writer colleagues gave me this sage advice, “It is okay to go ahead and write it as a memoir, to get the emotions out. But publish it as fiction. People will have difficulty accepting your experiences as fact but they will eat this story up thinking it is fiction.”
The paper I burned today was a representative of all 75 pages of my “Twelve Days in Europe.” I am too practical to print 75 pages to burn. That would be a waste of resources. Intention is powerful and my intention tonight is that everything inappropriate has gone up in smoke.
In the process, charred into the piece of paper was a heart.
The paper became a chimney, not burning but instead funneling the smoke into dancing images that were truly mesmerizing, amazing, and beautiful.
After the resins were burned completely, I lit the paper. The ashes fell neatly into the rainbow abalone shell. After they were cooled, I went out into the cold night and scattered them onto the earth.
The holiday season is a time when we do a lot of giving and receiving. One gift I received was enjoying lunch out with Jane Foster. Jane had 22 malignant tumors on her liver when her surgeon closed her up in 1999 and told her he could not keep cutting on her. He said she needed to, “Find a holistic healer.” I’ve included a link to a video interview with Jane in 2011 at the end of this post. She lights up my life…
Jane has discovered she loves horses and I was blessed to gift Jane with one of Amy Midnite Remisoski’s adorable Pine Pony wreaths.
Jennifer Louden’s Self-Care Minder, Year 2, #29
November 30th, 2001
SELF-CARE MINDER
It’s holiday time. Do you know where your soul is?
Have you asked soul what she wants to do and feel during this month? Can you give her lots of time to respond (a thirty-second check while in line at the bank doesn’t work so well with soul)? And after asking, would you be willing to honor what she has to say?
Here’s an excerpt from the Self-Care Minder written this time last year:
This is such a tender, heart-open-wide time of year. Simple things like the blood orange and lime yellow leaves wiggling outside my window and the sound of our heater coming on bring tears to my eyes. A deep yearning to nest, to deeply connect with those I love, to know soul comfort as well as I know the curve of my daughter’s smile, simmer in me.
A spiritual longing breaks through the surface of my life and catches my heart. It is a radiant song that I can’t quite hear the lyrics to. I want to stop and listen but instead I find myself emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, sorting Aunt Edna’s silver.
Perhaps the barrier between this longing and our daily lives grows thinner during the holidays. All that is required to cross the border is courage and stillness, and perhaps a friend for support.
We are entitled to “to feel ourselves beloved on this earth” as the writer Raymond Carver wrote shortly before his death. Yes, dear ones, we are.
I asked my daughter what she wanted the holidays to look like and she said, “Games like hide-and-seek and sleeping giant and everybody just being together, and you know, I would like just a few presents.”
How strong and sincere it feels to be living soulfully during these days of darkness and glitter, yearning and connecting. What does that mean specifically? To live soulfully, I am: Stopping and pausing OFTEN to ask, “What do I really want to do?” Questioning every “I have to” especially the ones that seem so IMPORTANT. Watching for bodily sensations of feeling hurried, panicked, or pressed upon, and using these sensations to wake me up to what I’m thinking and doing, and is there another choice I would rather make?
Basically, I’m learning there is no real reason to be freaking out over when or where to buy the Yuletide tree. Reminding myself the only thing that really can’t be replaced is time with those I love: my 82 year old Dad, my 7 year old daughter, my sister, my mom, my husband and you know, they just want peace, laughter, and a little sleeping giant game once in awhile.
I’m letting the rest go, gently, gracefully, and with a good guffaw at all my shoulds.
Fortunately we don’t have to wait for a health crisis to discover what our sweet soul wants. A bit ago I received a text message from Jane. “I want to write a book. Because I’ve been on this journey for 30 plus years, I think I can inspire others.”
Like Jane’s, my sweet soul wants everyone to Imagine Healing!
Thanksgiving means different things to different people. This year, I am thankful for more than most.
So many people I love are navigating challenging situations; adult children passing with cancer, living with addictions or with those with addictions, recovering from surgery, and money stress (or lack of money stress). At the root of all of these lies FEAR.
In essentially every situation, fear is not ideal, and religions offer many warnings.
Of course, those who recognize we live in an inclusion-based universe realize that telling yourself not to be afraid can be counterproductive, given that sometimes it is not even your fear.
This week while in Tennessee for Thanksgiving I was blessed to visit with a good friend who is a Nurse Practitioner. She is also a healer. She knew immediately that I had picked up some attachments, and this was the cause of the anxiety-driven elevation in blood pressure I have been experiencing.
My initial exposure to spirit release work was in Healing Touch, through Kathy Sinnett, and a very small book, The Unquiet Dead by Dr. Edith Fiore. Her work was studied and performed (and published) by William J. Baldwin in a very big book, Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual.
I was fortunate to be trained by Robert and Caterina Pellegrino-Estrich as well.
One suggestion my friend made is to notice when you are feeling anything other than good. Depression, addictions, chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety. These are all symptoms that might be appropriate for spirit release work.
Caterina says spirit release is the first therapy to be done regardless of the presenting problem. Kathy Zerler says if you treat everyone you meet as someone who is in pain you are probably treating them right. Perhaps this is true about energetic attachments, too.
I work in this field and I had missed my own state of attachment. I certainly feel better today.
What else might be possible as you take responsibility to clear your energy field….
Steps to Spirit Release Work and Soul Retrieval
Opening ritual from Angel Gail Konz:
I am the light
The light is within me
The light moves throughout me
The light surrounds me
The light protects me
I am the light!
Addressing the attachment with genuine love and desire for well-being for all:
You died and you don’t have a body.
Your being attached to hurting me and it is not good for you.
There is no hell. All that awaits you is a wonderful light body.
Look for the light. Beings that love you are welcoming you so we can both be free
We all deserve to be free. You are loved. Go now….
You will sense this release, maybe seeing or hearing confirmation as well. Immediately begin to call your spirit back from this time in childhood. You might imagine picking a bouquet of flowers or gathering a basket of fruit or any metaphor that allows you to claim all of your own genuine parts. Others can have their own…
Closing ritual:
I release all energy that does not belong here. I release all karmic responsibility and obligation in and around this work, knowing the work comes from our expanded self and God. I give thanks for the many blessings, above all the honor and privilege of serving.
Last evening I attended my brother-in-law’s wedding. He has been a care-giver for many years for the woman who is now his wife. The hospice spiritual care coordinator performed the ceremony. Theirs is not young love, and the decision for them to marry is not something everyone will understand, but it is precious none-the-less. When I crawled into a warm bed last night yoga was the only thing on my calendar for today. As I moved into my day, however, opportunities popped up. Like the pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, my schedule has kept moving and showing me life and love.
I was able to have lunch with my dear friend and her two young children. Her son will be two in December and her daughter is almost three months old. You can imagine how wonderFULL her life is!
My afternoon was spent sharing with a colleague in the healing arts I met for the first time today. It was tender to appreciate one another and to witness the divine movement that brought us together. She understands the privilege to work with another. As Ram Dass says, we are all just walking each other home.
This evening I will share a letting go ritual with a mom and her adult child who is in hospice care.
As I let myself notice, it is obvious that everything that occurs in our days is an unfolding of the highest interest of all.
This morning I watched a video talk by Mary Reed, author of The Unwitting Mystic. I think I would have noticed the unfolding anyway, but I appreciated Mary’s starting my day with that expanded awareness. This afternoon I also watched a video where Mary led a box exercise about our attention and shifting out of mind constructs. She says to put all of our thoughts (including all of our past, fears, beliefs, memories, etc.) into a box so we can let our mind be in service to and in partnership with Divine Love.
Our precious life can be lived not wanting to be where we are and not wanting to feel what we are feeling. Mary says Mooji tells us to find that place which is effortless at rest within itself and be one with that. It would be marvelous if we can all slip into this place as easily as slipping into a comfortable pair of jeans or listening to a favorite piece of music.
It was raining here again today as I was out-and-about. I observed how I had a choice to resit the rain or just notice that the wet and the wind was cold against my face as I had a judgment: uncomfortable. My body contracted. From my meditation practice I remembered simply to note aversion.
Grateful for that awareness.
Grateful for the opportunities to be present in my own life.
Grateful for teachers and learners.
The phrase, “We are each a single piece of glass in a kaleidoscope” keeps coming to my mind. We are not together by chance. We are not fastened together. Life is not some random shaking of the glass. Purpose and meaning are inherent in everything, and the placement of each piece and the subsequent shifting yields yet another beautiful view.
May all beings come to the end of suffering.
Here is a photo of the sweet little one I was with today:
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