The Nudge: Reflections on Gratitude

 The Control is in The Release: 

Balloons released from atop my father's grave in 2007

 

"The Nudge: Reflections on Gratitude"

Even though I just wrote and posted the “I Need Do Nothing” post, I keep feeling an internal nudge that I need to sit down and write about the incredible experience that was last Thursday night. I tried to put it off because I have other things that I want scratch off of my to-do list for today, but the nudge is persistent so here I am.

I think the feeling is being fueled by my need to spill gratitude. Whenever I am filled and am all a’sparkle with gratitude, I deeply feel the need to release it back out into the ethers. It’s not that it wouldn’t be delightful to walk around filled to the brim with that special sauce, but rather that it feels like it’s meant to be shared and not held onto too tightly. It’s almost as if the spilling, the sharing, the releasing is a component of the energy or vibration of gratitude itself. (Suddenly, I am reminded of that post a few back about how giving actually is receiving and now I am envisioning a gratitude mobius strip which is both beautiful and amusing that both of these things have been fairly recent post topics.)

So, about last Thursday night…

Friends of mine own an incredible boutique, soHza sister, which is dedicated to the empowerment of women around the world. They recently began a new event series: Shop & Feed Your Soul, and I was invited to participate. Because the mediumship readings that I provide typically last anywhere from 60-90 minutes, it doesn’t really work for me to try to squeeze in a bunch of short readings into a two-hour window. What does work is a group demonstration where everyone gathers together and I am the messenger for the groups’ loved ones on the other side to come through. Of course, not everyone receives a reading in this setting, but can still be a very moving experience and when all goes well, we all come away with an even deeper understanding of how connected we all are with one another and with those on the other side.

If anyone would have told me years ago that I be doing this type of work, I wouldn’t have believed them and yet, here we are and I couldn’t feel one bit more blessed and honored. The joy and delight I feel light me up inside with the loveliest knowing that my feet are on my best-lit path.

Thursday night was an incredible gift. The small room was packed with every seat filled by amazing, loving, brilliant women. Their loved ones on the other side came through with details that were either validated in the moment or the following day by other family members, and they came through with humor. We all laughed and cried, and then laughed and cried some more. We found comfort in the eternal nature of our reality and in each other.

I find these demonstrations, as well as individual readings, to be a collaborative effort between the person receiving the reading, those on the other side, and me with my invisible support team serving as messenger. I’ve already said it but I will say it again, I am truly honored and grateful.

Words may never be able to fully express the depth and breadth of all that I feel in relation to this joyful work, but my guess is that the nudge will continue to poke and prod me into spilling each and every time.

 

 

 

(Quick Footnote Re: Balloons: In 2007, I was only thinking about the symbolism and my own much needed healing but now I would not release balloons due to it being akin to littering and the possibility of harming wildlife.)

I Need Do Nothing

 

"Water Color"

"I Need Do Nothing"

Let’s hop into The Wayback Machine and set the dial for 1995, when I was first introduced to “A Course in Miracles” which was an integral part of my spiritual journeying. ACIM is a self-study course that I dove into head first and practiced for many years. I made my way through the 600+ page text two or three times and did the 365 daily meditation lessons all the way through at least twice. It may have been more times than that but it’s been so long ago, that I really don’t remember.

For me, The Course answered all of my many whys. I have always been a why girl. Back in junior high, my advanced math teacher stopped calling on me when I would raise my hand because he found it tiring (and maybe didn’t always have the answer) when I wanted to know the reasons behind the theories that he was telling us that we had to accept, remember, and apply.

In my early twenties, I spent a lot of mental energy asking why a loving God would allow this world to be as it is…why would a loving God only allow certain religious followers have eternal happiness after death? None of it made sense to me, but ACIM helped all of this make sense in my heart. The Course is not for everyone and even claims that it is only one path up the mountain, but it definitely was for me.

Even though I no longer regularly read ACIM or practice the daily lessons, I spent so much time doing so for so many years that it has become the bedrock for my spiritual meanderings. I am sharing this backstory about The Course because lately, when my mind wanders during my meditations, I have this reminder pop up, “You need do nothing.”

At first, I was like, “oh that’s right, cool” and I would attempt to be still and quiet my mind into doing nothing…but then thoughts would start popping in…what should I make for dinner?...I need to reach out to so-and-so…Or, I would start to have a vision and the little narrator in my head would start narrating the experience and the vision would fade and I would just go back and forth trying to make my way back to the vision.

Then I received a clarification in my mind, “You NEED do nothing.” Somehow, I could feel the subtle difference between just relaxing and not worrying about what is required on my part and realizing that I do have a responsibility here and that is that I NEED do nothing. That’s my job.

It’s been helpful. I am still far from being able to do nothing for the entire length of a 40 minute meditation but this guidance feels important and meaningful. I am sharing it here on the off-chance that someone else may find it beneficial as well.

In closing, here’s a lovely quote from “A Course in Miracles,” though before you read it, please keep in mind that the word “sin” is used in its more original form as an archaic archery term which means, “to miss the mark”…and in ACIM terms, “to misperceive.”

“When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.” (ACIM, T-18.VII.5:7)”

The Scent of Healing

 

"Autumn Walk Roses"

Originally written 7/23/2007

 

“The Scent of Healing”

My father died when I was 12 years old. That was 28 long years ago. For the first 27 years I was unable to visit the cemetery without risking a complete and utter breakdown, reliving the loss, the funeral, how his young cancer-wasted body didn’t look anything like the father I knew and loved and how the fragrance of red roses covering the casket filled my nose and my mind with a scent memory that would last a lifetime. Also given my belief that my father is most definitely not residing at the cemetery itself, I really felt justified in never going.

Last year I finally came to see the cemetery as a beautiful place. Instead of being a reminder of great loss, it transformed itself for me into a lovely, memorial to those we love. Although many years have passed, I have enjoyed a continued relationship with my father. His body may be gone but he most certainly is not. (Please see “The 4-Leaf Clover” posted earlier in my blog.) It has been with the help of his undying love that I have managed to put one foot in front of the other for these many years, turning my grief from an agent capable of hardening my heart into my greatest gift. My processed or healed grief seems directly proportionate to my capacity for love, compassion and soulful connections.

Yesterday was a gorgeous summer day with a brilliant blue sky, fluffy cumulus clouds floating serenely in a gentle wind. I took the opportunity to leave my husband at home with the children and puppy, grab my camera and head off to Evergreen Cemetery. My plan was to enjoy some quiet time and to snap off a few photos of the beautiful old trees.

When I first arrived, I sat myself down on my Dad’s ground-level headstone. After some meditation and simple enjoyment of the day, I got up and walked around for awhile taking the photos that were my aim. After a couple of dozen shots, I felt finished but not quite ready to leave so I went back to my seat on his headstone. I was sitting there just smiling, completely at peace when someone drove past me in a Jeep, parking up the hill behind me. I didn’t think anything of it. It was Sunday and the place was fairly hopping.

A few minutes later, a 30-something year old man walked past me wearing a Cincinnati Reds t-shirt, wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigarette and carrying two long stem red roses and a water jug. He had gone about 30 or 40 feet beyond where I was sitting when he stopped, paused, turned around and headed my way. He walked up to me, handed me one of the roses and said, “If you’re here, you probably need one of these too.” I was taken slightly aback by his kindness and sensed an otherworldly hand nudging him in my direction. I thanked him and he walked away, down to the grave site he came to visit. His destination was directly in front of where I was sitting, maybe 50 – 60 feet away and so I watched as he cleared the headstone, placed the rose in the ground and watered it from the jug he was carrying. I was curious who was buried there and sensed a motherly type energy wanting to hug this man to ease his grief. He wasn’t at the site for very long. When he silently walked past me on the way back to his Jeep, he reached up to wipe the tears away from behind his sunglasses.

After 10 minutes or so had passed, I got up and walked down to the site he had just visited. Based upon the birth and death dates, it appeared to me that this was most likely a memorial to his grandparents. They were not recently passed and his grief seemed too new to fit completely. The motherly energy made sense to me and I assumed that it was his grandmother wishing to hug and comfort him.

I went back and sat for awhile longer arguing with myself over my overwhelming urge to hug this person that I didn’t even know. I’m not in the habit, although maybe I should be, of approaching people (especially men) that I don’t know and offering a hug. The powerful peace that I was feeling, my sense of being in a situation larger than my mere mortal self and my conviction that I actually could return some of the same comfort that he had given me by following his own inner voice all compelled me forward. I walked up to where he was standing, overlooking a hill. I thanked him again for his kindness and asked if I could give him a hug. He hesitated, looking at me as if I was either a lunatic or an angel and he wasn’t sure which. But he hesitated only a moment and leaned down to give me a half-ass pat on the back. Well, I hadn’t gathered up all of that nerve for nothing so I wrapped him up good and tight and didn’t let him go until he surrendered himself to this beautifully strange moment.

After the hug, he shared with me that his father and uncle died two months apart just last year and were buried on the hill he was overlooking. He also pointed out that his grandparents are buried at the site where I saw him place the rose. I told him about my Dad and about how the pain does eventually subside but that it is a process. I also told him how perfect it was that he gave me a red rose and I related the story of how for 28 years, the scent of a red rose takes me back to my pain. What went unsaid were the thoughts going through his mind as his eyes widened with appreciation for the importance of the simple gift he had just given and my knowledge that the nudge he felt was just my Dad enlisting his help to give me a much more beautiful association with the scent of roses.