Archive for June, 2012

The Last Leaving: Oneness Isn’t Just a Theory

June 7, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Bliss, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, memorial, Somatic Therapy, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing, Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There’s a magical quality about the Teachings of the Spiritual Heart. It’s about the perfection of timing, Spirit’s timing. John-Roger has told us that we’re never given anything by Spirit that we cannot handle. So while ALL the teachings are present in every moment of our existence, the learnings are revealed to us only as we can open our consciousness to use them for our upliftment, learning and growth. In my case after thirty-seven years of study, I am still learning and Spirit is still revealing, and if I’m lucky (stay connected) and I stay awake until I pass from this world, I will be learning right up until my last breath and beyond. And I thank my lucky stars (or should I say my good karma) that Kenny showed me the way to look forward to my own transition with joy and anticipation of the bliss that awaits me on the other side.

In all the years I have studied the teachings (more than half my life), the lessons repeat and not only have I seen them coming again and again, they also can sting a lot harder each time until it’s powerfully obvious that they can no longer be denied.

It follows then that our dying is perfectly orchestrated according to the life we have led and the teachings we have learned. Know this though, we have until that last breath to make up for eons of sleepy lifetimes and unconscious choices. I saw this when Kenny got sick. Both our lives made a bee line toward God like we’ve never experienced in this life. We had nine months to clean up our acts. For me that meant dropping ALL my judgments about how he led his life and coming into full and unconditional cooperation with the support he needed from me. For him, I saw him come into acceptance of his condition and alignment with his purpose of healing himself on every level possible and announce his mission to touch as many people’s lives as possible with his message of joy and fun. Day after day, week and month, we rushed up the levels of consciousness such that we were listening for Spirit’s direction, following it and reveling in the discoveries that only supreme sacrifice affords on a daily if not hourly basis.

John-Roger has told us in more than many seminars over the years how important it is to meditate and pray and the more we dwell upon God and his love, when we finally reach those last moments before we leave for the last time, our thoughts will be on God, and that’s where we will go, into the Heart of God. J-R encourages us to keep the mind clean, the body and the emotions also. To do everything we can to live as long and healthy as we can to complete our karma so the record will be dissolved and we go free. Where we place our consciousness there we go.

And while we are on the subject of the orchestra of angels who will be waiting for us when we leave for the last time, I’m convinced that Oneness isn’t just a theory. I still have a little trouble with time (the reality that everything’s happening right now), but I’m excited to say I have personally experienced the oneness. If I leave this world with just a glimpse of timelessness, I will be most gratified and at greater peace. But oneness is evident to me right now. I experienced it (and still do) with Kenny when we were of one mind and heart taking care of him. And I experience the oneness when I’m with someone who asked me to just listen. I experience it when I consciously activate my ministry, embracing whoever and whatever is in front of me. I heard it said in my University of Santa Monica program in Consciousness, Health and Healing, that when we utter a blessing toward another being or thing, the blessing reverberates throughout the universe as positive energy—energy that heals, energy that loves, energy that carries compassion and understanding. How remarkable is that! Thus is explained the power of prayer. And so it follows that when we utter a negative thought, the same is true. John-Roger wrote a book entitled You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. One of the spiritual laws he talks about in this book is that it takes twenty-five positive actions to balance one negative action. Better get crackin’ doing and thinking good things before it’s too late to catch up!

So everything we do, think, feel, and speak affects every other thing. Kind of like Uri Geller bending spoons with the power of his mind. Kind of like when we intuit a next step and it proves to be the perfect next step. Or a medium who contacts the souls of the dead tells you something only you and your loved one could have known. Or how group peace walks actually do make a difference. And talking to plants telling them we love them can make a measurable difference in their wellbeing. How praying for one Soul sends a vibration of love to all Souls. How praying for the Soul of a person who has left this world can support their upliftment. In my own way, in my own timing, I know I will embrace more and more of Spirit’s understanding. The understanding that surpasses the mind and envelopes all space and time. One thing I know now is my gratitude is bigger than I can imagine.

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It’s All in How You Look at It, the Blessings

June 7, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Bliss, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, memorial, Somatic Therapy, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I asked Kenny what to write about to begin the process of ending this book and he said, “What if you were to look back on your life and your relationship with me and my illness and my death and all the learnings you are now aware of as blessings?”

This is for a later chapter, but that reminds me to mention here that I am convinced blessings reverberate throughout the universe. Can you embrace that! Isn’t that remarkable to contemplate? Same is true of negative thoughts. Throughout the ENTIRE universe! No wonder the title of one of John-Roger’s award-winning books is You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought.

The blessings:
As noted in the New Day Herald article earlier in this book, Kenny was as much looking for me as I was for him. Our friends thought we’d make a good match and if you believe that blessings ripple throughout all creation, then it must be true the entire universe was lined up to support the match. The blessing? We both were in the right place at the right time to do the right action—to find each other.

Our friendship grew rapidly from spending time chatting about our interests, which had proved to be similar in many ways (or so our minds construed them to be) to within a month holding hands after a sumptuous Thanksgiving Dinner. The blessing? Time stood still that month while we meandered through tales of our lives together. While we found infinite ways to drink in each other’s essence. While we filled ourselves with memories of the last encounter until we would be steeped in the next one. It was as if we had known each other since before time.

And indeed as noted earlier in this book, we assisted each other in dying at least thirty-five lifetimes prior to this one and we had been together in one way or another for at least one hundred lifetimes. It was as if we had known each other since before time!

On Leap Day 1996 at Beloved Windermere Ranch, just three months after we first held hands, Kenny proposed to me. Those three months flew by dotted by a trip to my cousins’ for Christmas where he met my family for the first time, and a New Year’s celebration at home-sweet-home and many evenings pouring over projects for which he was my volunteer at the seminary. I hadn’t said yes yet. Having been married twice before and witnessing others take their vows, and the karma that went with them, it took another two months for me to finally agree. The blessing? Patience? Or is it blindly sitting on the conveyor belt of the march toward matrimony? Perhaps the blessing is the ability to see but not see. To know on one level the lessons and blessings that were to streak through the sky like Haley’s Comet racing to earth once the legal deed was done, and on another level to unconsciously ignore the star shower as each day rolled by.

I think it was the latter—for we made our bed (carved out the karma), we lay in it (met the karma with the best each of us could give to it), and what was to come was a marriage of multidimensional awareness (oblivious to solutions in the physical but willing to slog through it on every other level) that got richer with each passing day.

The marriage vows were deep, the Traveler’s blessing was profound, our purpose on earth in this lifetime was being played out, unraveling a blow-by-blow battle of wits, habits, untruths, blind furies, and pull-no-punches protective maneuvers, while our Souls were dancing with delight that we’d found each other, that someday soon, not more than fifteen years later, it would all become crystal clear why in the first place the match was made in heaven.

Yes indeed, we would culminate this agreement to go into the Heart of God together by completely abandoning our conditioned relationship for one of unconditional loving, gratitude, selfless service, single focused, tenderness, depth of understanding and oneness. As for my multidimensional abilities, all this wonderment was rolling by like a 16mm movie projection while my body and mind did the tasks at hand to care for Kenny, and my emotions tried to negate the depth we were experiencing on other levels—I kept busy doing tasks that would push my grief away. Amazing how this happens. It is a result of damaged nerve pathways which limit the types of responses one has toward traumatic or even just any powerful experiences.

The blessing: to at the very least, know one is experiencing multidimensional awareness. And to at most, have profound gratitude to God, to the Christ, to Kenny’s Soul, to my strength and endurance to emerge from the most powerful era of my life to date, whole and acutely aware of the deep and no-turning-back learning, releasing, healing, blessings that have been and continue to be bestowed upon me.

I can truly say I am more conscious of both my strengths and my weaknesses than ever before. I can truly say the lessons are more tender than ever before, mainly because I am spending more time in my observer consciousness, watching how I respond to situations and circumstances. And in midstream, I’m more willing to try on new behaviors that I could not even imagine myself doing before.

Most profound is my willingness to come into the loving, even when there may be friction, maybe an insult here and there, maybe a jealousy coming my way or projecting out from me. In the last year I have consciously brought the loving to some challenging relationships in my life. And that loving has changed these relationships dramatically. With one of them, I no longer see the other person as trying to control me. With another, I forgive their lashing out at me for unexplainable reasons. Yet another was transformed by consciously coming into the loving whenever I felt left out or jealous. Compassion works wonders also. It’s really a special kind of loving where our consciousness moves into the oneness and understands the other person’s predicament or their response or their weakness. Our heart goes out (at it were and perhaps more than figuratively) and in that oneness we embrace who they really are, who we all really are: Spiritual Beings having a human experience.

I am blessed beyond words. My husband died, my life opened up in ways heretofore unimaginably positive. I experience more joy, fulfillment and neutrality than I could have wished for before his illness and transition. Our nine months of complete and utter devotion to his living as long as he possibly could, my complete and utter surrender to my role in his life, and the prayer that emanated from our depths paved the way for miracles of awareness and enlightenment and prepared me for the greatest awakening of my life.

Kenny even found his way into my father’s consciousness. In messages since his passing, he told me my relationship with my father was getting closer. That my dad was nearby working with me like Kenny was working with me. This opened a huge space in my heart for the loving compassion that my father deserved. Having seen mortal combat in World War II, he came back a broken man. Now they would call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Then their only tool was pity. Much like my nerve pathways were blocked, I imagine his were also. So demonstrating affection toward his daughter was probably out of the question. All these decades since he died, in my own way I have abandoned my father, much like I thought he had abandoned me when he went off to war and came back two years later unrecognizable to my two-year old self.

These realizations are blessed with healing and upliftment. I think of my father today and instead of stoic resignation of my loss, I extend affection and love and softness with an embrace of acceptance and tenderness. And I feel that coming from him wherever he is today. Here’s a piece from Kenny’s messages that reflects this part of my story:

5/20/12
Kenny can you help me contact Daddy tonight?
Sweetie Carol, he’s right here blowing you kisses on your birthday. He wants you to know you can contact him directly whenever you want to and he’s loving you and the work you did this weekend. He will care for your little one. He will show you how to love her and dissolve all the misunderstandings about your body. He will bring you healing in your dreams and open up a new way of loving yourself like never before in this lifetime. He says you are loved because you are divine and oh so precious to him. You are our sweetie Baby! Together along with Cherish, we will fill you with the loving energy of your father here and in heaven such that you are so very fulfilled. God Bless You, We Love You, Peace be Still.

The blessing: I’m still here to record these miracles. I’m still here to experience more joy and more fulfillment, and even more happiness as I move forward in my life. I’m still here to keep activating my ministry every day, keep realizing more and more of its power. And when it’s my time to leave this planet for the last time, may there be a smile on my face, Light in my eyes, and a prayer in my heart to reach up into my High Form and meet those Angels Kenny told me about who will gladly welcome my Soul into the Heart of God.

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It’s been Two Years since Kenny Passed into Spirit

June 6, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Bliss, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, Somatic Therapy, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

I wrote to his sisters on the exact second anniversary and recounted some more of Kenny’s antics trying to get my attention. Showing up on my screen saver just about every time I walked into the office after being away from my desk, either playing on the Jersey shore with his nephews or looking down at his “funny” feet. He loved to take pictures of his own feet, whether they were in those attention-getting five-finger shoes or bare, they fascinated him. Moving the little clay ducks around, souvenirs from the family’s beloved Island House. And as if that weren’t enough, that day I walked into my bedroom where the computer was on, and he was smiling and waving at me. Mind you, there are hundreds of photos on this screen saver.

They wrote back with their own family stories that made them smile. To this day they are great story-tellers and beloved by friends and extended family. Being an only child myself and missing my extended family, most of whom had long gone, when I was with them, I was warmed to be included in the fun and hilarity.

There were five kids. And there was always a lot of fun and pranks and just spontaneous occurrences that made everyone howl. I recall two they told me about Kenny; the birthday when his grandma had baked his favorite coconut cake, and when he blew out the candles, coconut was jettisoned all over the table. And the time as a little boy, he swiped some powdered sugar donuts off the bread truck, ran under the house to eat them, and when the bread man saw the donuts missing, he and their mom gathered all the kids and asked everyone present if any of them had taken the donuts. Of course Kenny said no, but the entire front of his shirt was covered in powdered sugar. He had to fess up and never really lived it down—the subject of many family story-telling sessions over the years!

We can assist a person out of their grief by curing them with joy.

Joy isn’t something where you say, “Okay, let’s have joy,” although that can work. It’s more about accessing enough joy inside so that it starts trickling out. Joy bubbles up and can make the body move and transform, and that’s extremely important. Some people can’t handle joy. It’s too electrifying and can keep them awake. It’s like a sugar rush.

You may miss someone who has departed, but you also have the joy that you knew them and were able to spend time with them. I have great joy for what my parents taught me and that they were my parents. I miss them but have no grief, because they taught me what they knew. I would have grief if I didn’t use what they gave to me, but I use it.

John-Roger
(From: Living the Spiritual Principles of Health and Well-Being by John-Roger, DSS with Paul Kaye, p. 157)

I’m beginning to experience joy. Looking back at a life full of achievement and creativity, I engaged in activities that would bring a person joy and I created things that would bring a person joy. But the nerve pathways to actually allow the experience of those things as joy were not entirely available. Therefore I misinterpreted those experiences as something like “work” or “satisfaction,” but certainly nothing like joy. And set in my expression was a deep sadness evident in my eyes and even if one doesn’t “see” auras, one would sense the eons of grief surrounding my countenance over incomplete relationships and unfulfilling experiences.

Always open to learning, always looking for the next awareness, always seeking to meld with the Creator, even when the pathways were clogged, this consciousness, this daughter of the Divine is beginning to experience joy. It’s not like joy wasn’t always present. It’s that I was not interpreting my experiences as joyful. Thank God for how the Spirit has always been ready to receive me. Thank God for the thousands of ways John-Roger has made the teachings available to us. If I couldn’t get it through a seminar, maybe I’d get it in a Discourse. If not there, one of his books, and if not that, an experience that hurtled me into the next level of awareness under the protection and guidance of the consciousness that ushers us into the Heart of God. Insight Trainings, University of Santa Monica’s Masters Program in Spiritual Psychology, Peace Theological Seminary’s Spiritual Science program. Initiations, aura balances, innerphasings, thirty years of working on the staff of the Seminary. The body of work that one man propelled into being during my lifetime such that a community of thousands of students said yes, we want to support your ministry, J-R, and we will carry out the work to the best of our abilities is no less than awesome.

The teachings of the Spiritual Heart are always available. And the learnings go on until the day we die and beyond. My life has been rich with “life-savers” in that when I could only learn the hard way, my consciousness endured and won out and continues to win. J-R has often said, look for the pony in the pile of poop. It’s got to be in there somewhere. In other words, every challenge offers a learning opportunity.

Today I heard myself saying I’ve lived a blessed life full of service and learning. Not that I was always learning, there were many and long, tedious intervals of stubbornness, inability to perceive the good, nagging judgments, and an oh-so-serious outlook on just about everything. But today the next thing I uttered was, “Lord, I’ve done so much, experienced so much grace, love, acceptance, beauty, and understanding that I’m ready to go any time now. I almost believe this and as I write, it comes clearer that since Kenny’s illness I’ve been sliding into the most uplifting era of my life, and if that means lifting off this planet, then so be it. And if it means there’s more to do here, sure as my lucky stars (nah, not luck, more like blessings), I’m once again in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.

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