Archive for Death and Dying

Through Carol’s Eyes?

August 20, 2019 · Filed under Baby boomers, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Graceful Aging, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing, Uncategorized · Tagged , ,

I haven’t entered anything into Kenny’s blog since 2013 when I began serious editing of my book, Through Kenny’s Eyes, A Magnificent Journey from Illness to Ecstasy. But here I am having just completed 37 years on staff at Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy, embarking on the next phase of my journey here on this eartth and being encouraged by my friends to pick up this incredible tool for spiritual awareness and enlightenment–writing from that place in me that is you, where we are all one in our loving, in compassion and understanding and in our enthusiasm for God’s plan. Here we are on this plane of existance only to recognize that we are Souls having a human experience just so we can travel right back into the Heart of God–directly, in harmony with what is, and as a blessed emanation from God. How incredible–what a journey!

So I have another book bubbling: After Work and Husband–When Not to Retire. Funny title, funny, ironic life experience, these last nine years since Kenny passed. And many of you have heard I’m sure that many PTS facilitators have conducted the Joyful Transitions class in the US and Australia. And I’ve facilitated it myself about 5 times along with four evenings of “Conversations on Death and Dying, A Spiritual Look into Leaving this World in LA, London and Brighton.” So lots of activities thanks to sweet Kenny’s leaving us with his profound legacy of awakening to where he knew he was going.

I’m hoping the email address you used for this wordpress blog is still the same, and that you’ll get this article. Also send Light if you will to the website I’m developing called caroljonescounseling.com on Go Daddy. That site will share my experience and skills in ministerial counseling especially with those who are grieving. And of course it will have a section on Through Kenny’s Eyes and I will continue this blog there as well. I’m still loving you all–even more than nine years ago. Please do share back in the comment section so I know you’re out there, and let me know what subjects you’d like to see from me. That will help me respond to you through the next article. And any feedback or suggestions are always welcome as I embark on this uncharted territory–writing articles again, learning to create a website, setting up a counseling practice, exercising, eating well, doing spiritual exercises, having fun, and traversing all the levels of consciousness I can with awareness, unconditional love and compassion for myself and all of us.

Lastly, if you haven’t watched the HeartReach presentation we did on July 30, here’s the link. It was a heart-opening experience for us all.

WATCH THE RECORDING HERE

With loving for us all,
Carol

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Year Three Gone By

April 9, 2013 · Filed under At Home, Baby boomers, Burzynski, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, Medical Procedure, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing · Tagged , , , , , ,

My friends,

Book publishing is a slow process, at this point, mostly waiting, waiting for connections to be made, for responses from those connections, for the next inspiration. Sample chapters have gone to one agent who said he could not pitch this book to a major publishing house because I don’t have a substantial following, you my dear friends, not withstanding.

Now connecting to another agent to see if we can make some inroads to Hay House. Asking for your Light and love for the highest good of all concerned.

In the meantime, I have been encouraged by my beloved Kenny’s soul to continue to write. So here I am again. I’m going to start with a photograph that in earth terms has no explanation.

The little ducks are about 2” long each and the crosses are about 7” long. See how the crosses are perfectly aligned parallel to each other on the wooden surface and the ducks are all facing one direction? I did not place them in these positions. And no one else was in my room when I noticed how specifically they were placed. My only explanation is that Kenny somehow moved these objects to get my attention. *

Crosses & Ducks

Crosses & Ducks

So on January 11, 2013, when I discovered this little tableau, I wrote my question to Kenny. Remember, the way I access these messages is through wri—I don’t seem to be able to focus verbally or visually. So putting my hand to the task seems to keep me focused enough to get the message.

“Dearest Kenny,

Did you move the ducks and the crosses?”

“–Ahem—who else my Cutie Pie!”

“Why?”

He wanted to talk to me, to let me know I was putting out a certain kind of negativity that may be blocking my next steps. He said he would protect me and guide me through clearing. It was a very short message, but important in that it is bringing me deeper awareness of my consciousness.

I haven’t written in a long time, probably since the summer when I was immersed in polishing and categorizing and organizing and finalizing the sample chapters. And I noticed that my awarenesses aren’t as deep as they were when I was writing. The writing itself opened channels into the depths of my patterns, my awakening heart, and my unraveling. Profound is not a profound enough word to describe the unfolding that took place one paragraph after another. I long for more something—what is it that I long for?

The place within my consciousness where there is bliss, where there is fresh discovery, where wisdom resides and peace is present. Where all there is is the outpouring. I think at this moment I am describing the state of God Consciousness, Self Realization, and Oneness. To be present moment to moment while God showers me with mercy and unconditional love, to know what is taking place, to sit quietly still while my vision of God dances before my eyes.

It occurs to me that for the first time in my entire life, with no hesitation in any thoughts or feelings, that I am praying to my own consciousness that we place God first in all we do, all we think, all we feel, and all we imagine and wish for.

With my particular numerological life path of cooperation, solid foundation and perfection, routed in the earthbound even numbers of 2, 4, & 6, it has always been difficult to put God before all else. At once the concept asks me to give up control (as if I had any at all ever!) and I thought set aside my aspirations, my wishes and my dreams. That somehow God would find my countenance only worthy of isolation, spinsterhood, and deprivation. That nowhere in my wildest dreams would God agree with any of my dreams, for I must have needed to be punished for any and all past crimes against my soul and therefore against God.

Surely I have revealed enough in past articles for you to understand where all that unworthiness comes from. So today with my understanding of God as benevolent, kind, and unconditional, I practice self-forgiveness for any judgments I have held against myself for past indiscretions and transgressions. And I realize that God only sees me as an innocent child, completely lovable and tender, learning as I put one foot in front of the other. That there is nothing for God to forgive.

I did not die when Kenny died. I have much more to live for, to learn about, and to practice—especially placing God first in my life as I live each day in its glorious unfolding. Apparently he was done on this earthly plane, but I am not.

Which leads me to how to live each day in the heart of God. What would I do, I ask myself? Whatever it is, I do with a consciousness of serving. Serving at work, serving in my interactions with friends, family, and coworkers. Serving as I contemplate discovering new relationships. To emerge from the cocoon of a child-born need to be shown I am loved, to giving love, serving, sharing, and taking care as the fruits of my impulse to belong.

The whole being emerges content in the serving, peaceful in the relating, completely free to share delight and compassion, joy and even silliness. The whole being spontaneously touches with hugs, comforting pats and caring, giggles when it’s funny and belly laughs when it’s hilarious, which it is more often than ever now.

From our Hospice Chaplain just 17 days before Kenny passed into Spirit:

“Dear Kenny,

I wanted to write you to affirm your wisdom and good humor and sureness of life in the spirit. I also wanted you to know that all the love that you share with your loved ones will only increase, though they may not be able to see you in the form they are used to seeing you in.

You have everything you need. Your words are a testament to that. The only thing I would suggest is that you and Carol (or anyone else who will) agree on some touchstone symbol of connection (a particular bird, butterfly, etc) that you can send them when you are in your next cycle. This may sound crazy and may or may not be compatible with your beliefs. Most families were certain I was crazy when I suggested this, but then they would call me and say: “You’re not going to believe what just happened!” We would laugh together about the wonderful gift of “coincidence” of timing or electrical “impossibility” that had just occurred…or the cardinal that wouldn’t fly away, though only 2-3 feet away…the butterfly that landed on some loved one’s nose!! So I offer this to you in the hopes that the ongoingness of life somehow fits into your life view. It is not intended to diminish any part of your full spiritual potential…it is just a love tap from the other side that brings comfort to those of us left on this side. You write beautifully and I imagine that your writing will continue in some special way. Clearly you have written beautifully on the hearts of your sisters. You have Karen, your Mom and Dad, Gramma and Gacky waiting for you with open arms whenever you are ready to graduate this part of your journey. I send you thanks for reminding me what I sometimes forget, which you obviously have known all along: “Have fun with your life!” Back atcha. Well done, Kenny. Your birthing will be glorious.”

Today I immerse myself in the passion for God even more after having seen the movie, Les Mirerables. Even though the story is sad and it brought tears of compassion to my eyes, it also brought tears of joy and connection and recognition that God is real. In the beginning of the movie the priest says to Valjean, “I saved your life for God.” At the end of the movie, Lemaire eloquently utters, “To love someone is to see the face of God.”

So from beginning to end, my heart was open, receiving of the most beautiful melodies, lyrics, costumes, scenery, production, all of it without a smidgeon of hesitation, reservation, withholding. How glorious it is to receive with the purity of an open heart. Everything is blessed. Everything is bliss!

March 30 marked three years since Kenny’s passing. Here’s to his soul, his memory, his talent, and his ability to bring us joy and exampleship as he blazed his trail to God.

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Awake Unto Love

August 29, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing, Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , ,

My friends,

The book, all 55 chapters plus your messages of encouragement, J-R and John’s counseling, and Kenny’s posthumous messages have gone to my editor and we are in communications about sending sample chapters to an agent. This is exciting. We’re actually taking steps to bring this work out to those who are looking for a spiritual perspective on dying, death, and caregiving. Light to all the next steps is so much appreciated. And loving you all!

In December of 2011, a year and nine months after Kenny passed, he said: Hey Honey, do me a favor and take the noose off your neck. You’ve already hung yourself many times and it’s not necessary this lifetime. I love you too much to not tell you that. In fact, I watched you do it once and couldn’t get you down in time, and that set up the whole karmic dynamic of those thirty-five lifetimes.
Love you, K

Throughout these 29 months since Kenny passed, I have mulled over the regrets I had about how stuck my mind said we were many times. Stuck in our “miasm” I called it. In my loneliness I found myself thinking what it could have been like if we had broken out in a different way. What if we came to our senses (our hearts’ desire for oneness really) sooner and we’d had more time to nurture our relationship instead of freeze in it out of fear of losing each other? What if we’d realized there was a way through our addictions that would liberate each of us and bring us closer, bring us to be allies earlier, marching toward the cause of realizing we were already one with each other. All it takes is the willingness to shift one’s gaze, but only last week I learned that that shift can take eons to materialize.

I was deep in one of the last processes in the Consciousness Health and Healing intensive five-day lab last week—it was focused on awakening unto love. Even though the focus was to move upward in the consciousness—to come to a place of unconditional love, I was almost pressed to express these regrets. Then remembering that kneeling in prayer can activate healing, letting go, and humility, I got down on my knees and forgave myself out loud for the judgments I had been placing on myself and Kenny by regretting our “stuckness.” Somehow the kneeling really moved me and what I sensed, after sensing the same awareness many times before but not as deeply or profoundly as on this day, was that Kenny’s and my karma together was complete. I must have heard this from every cell of my body and throughout all systems on all levels because I began to sob in recognition that the pattern was dissolved. I had the uncanny sense that Kenny was right there kneeling with me—there was such a fullness in my heart. It was a complex experience of recognition, sadness, relief, joy and profound gratitude.

The message went on to say that any carrying forward of our relationship is by choice and not driven by past actions. That we are to be of service together through the book and any other way it shows up to help mankind become more aware of the joys and excitement and peace in the dying process. Along with the natural human expression of loss and all the raw and normal emotions I have shared with you. That our karmic path together went back many lifetimes (those thirty-five in fact when we had assisted each other in dying and maybe the hundred more in which we’d played some important role in each other’s lives), and that’s why it took such a dramatic event for us to unlock the pattern and end it once and for all. Of all the ways Kenny could have taken leave of this world or of just me, the way he did it was perfect according to the karma we’d been playing out. How awesome, my newfound freedom in the gift Kenny gave me of his leaving,

To look at the leaving from the highest perspective I can, it was perfectly orchestrated to move us into oneness instantaneously. To help me shift my consciousness from “What about me?” to “What can I do to assist you, my Beloved?” And since we both were doing the best we could at any given moment in our life together here on earth, a surprise ending that wasn’t such a surprise was perfect. We had time to begin to live our relationship as we had always hoped. He had time to forgive his judgments and begin to do good things for himself, and gradually embrace his path with all his heart, mind, and Soul.  But not so much time that might have threatened the deep heart-centered healing that we both were experiencing. There was no time for negativity, no time for worrying, no time for irritation or short tempers; only actions in service, words of praise, encouragement and love, moments of oneness, each one more deeply experienced than the last, and finally the moment he left, for the first time I heard myself telling him it was actually OK to leave.

Having a loved one die is meant to be profound. It’s meant to shake us up, to have us review our life and come into acceptance. Come into forgiveness. Come into compassion and empathy. Come into unconditional loving for ourselves, our loved ones, and hopefully everyone and everything else—all circumstances and situations, every creed, race and color. And every moment we come to these cornerstone realizations, we enter into the Kingdom of God. Not that it isn’t always there/here, because it is. Only that we awake unto it. Awake unto Love.

If you wish to comment on this post, please do so in the field provided or email me directly at carol.jones43@yahoo.com

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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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Standing in for God

March 24, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, Somatic Therapy, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing · Tagged , , , , , ,

For the last several weeks, as I began to realize I was nearing the concluding chapters of this book, I ran into what would normally be called a “writer’s block.” I thought about what I would write, I consulted my therapist on what I would write, I gathered comments from readers, and I worked on it in my Consciousness Health and Healing class. I certainly had gathered enough material to write. But alas, I continued to tinker around with, well, it was all important content, but still it wasn’t the ending content.

After weeks of pondering, feeling guilty and looking at the calendar seeing that time was running out on my self-imposed June first draft submission date, today it dawned on me that there might be something that needs to be cleared or discovered before I could launch into finishing this wildly revealing account in a life, in our life.

OK, a little history—in my last therapy session, even though together we have moved mountains (or healed nerve pathways at least), we still hadn’t touched upon what I experienced as blocks in my pelvic area. I was still devoid of sensation from the heart chakra down when my therapist would ask where in my body I felt such-and-such. So she suggested that this week I might put my hands on my belly, imagining it was Kenny with his powerful healing touch, much like he did in life when he put his hand on my chest or would hold me in silent embrace.

Today I opened the journal where I write to Kenny and he writes back through my hand. I asked: “Kenny, can you help me get started writing about myself to conclude the book?”

He said: “Remember my hand on your abdomen! Do it now, my sweetie.”

Dutifully I did what he said. I put both kind of chilled hands on my belly and waited until they warmed up. Then I put one hand on my chest with the other still on my belly. I heard Kenny say: “Now I AM standing in for God.”

I burst into sobs of gratitude for the synergy, for the all-encompassing love, for the listening and the sharing. For experiencing myself as connected through all the realms of Light right up into the God Source, through my darling Spirit of Kenny. How I am becoming in my own eyes, a Divine Being having a human experience. All this through his healing hands. You see, the consciousness doesn’t care if an image is taking place in the physical or the imagination. One way or another it reaches in to experience it fully. Amazing!

As I was thanking Kenny for this deep connection, I again heard him say (and the hearing is really intuiting through writing), “Carol dear, my heroine there on earth, sometimes thick and hard to reach, but when I finally get through you always open your heart to me in the most innocent ways. Have I told you lately your tears are so endearing to me. Come, my Sweetie, rest in my arms where we are one with God the Comforter. And in that I began to write this chapter.

I had dinner with my dear friend, Georgea, a few days ago and I recounted the phrase, “Standing in for God.” I first heard it coined by Diana, MSIA minister and Circle of Light visitor during Kenny’s last days. I wrote about it in previous chapters. I was so moved by her description of sitting in our room holding the Spiritual Light that night Kenny woke me up in the middle of the night to say goodbye. He wouldn’t pass until at least a week later, but Diana held and held throughout the night until dawn when she needed to leave for work. Georgea suggested what a wonderful title for a book or a chapter in this book. I thought, yes, but I’d already written about it at least a couple of times. Little did I know it would blossom into this chapter, while Kenny stands in for God 24/7 now, probably not just for me but for whomever he agreed to watch over. His family, his friends who resonated with his passions, the flora and fauna here at MSIA headquarters, and wherever he is assigned.

How does this chapter draw me closer to finishing the book? How about being my own awestruck witness to the myriad ways grief emerges and submerges. Let’s go there for a moment.

Grief struck early, before the diagnosis when Kenny uttered that telling phrase, “Maybe I should just kill myself.”

Then as his illness progressed, it permeated every day, underneath the daily activity of his treatment regimen. Underneath my unwillingness to face what he knew way before I knew.

Then finally “agreeing” by default that hospice was the best choice.

Through those first months when I felt like I would never fill the hole left by Kenny’s passing from this world.

Through many months of moving in and out, up and down, sadness, gratitude, and some feelings of joy as I anticipate the future, and especially as I review the opportunities for growth and upliftment that I have been given through who we both are in Spirit—magnificent Divine Beings having agreed to love each other throughout eternity. Having loosened the shackles of karma, the purity of Divine Love with absolutely no karmic ties left in the hard realms of the physical, emotional, mental levels is at hand. What reigns supreme are gratitude and wonder, love and acceptance. And with all that comes a deeper understanding of my own process of awakening than I’ve ever experienced before.

I am blessed. I am loved. I experience peace in the stillness.

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Poem on the Nature of Loving Down Here and Up There

March 24, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, Somatic Therapy, Surviving Spouse, trauma healing · Tagged , , , , , ,

My dear friends,

I have so much to be grateful for. My by-weekly somatic EMDR sessions with my dear, smart, compassionate, skillful therapist, my Consciousness Health and Healing class at the University of Santa Monica, my spiritual studies over the decades through MSIA, my work at MSIA headquarter, and my own steadfast devotion to know myself as one with God, the brightness coming through from my Soul, and my dear family and friends who have unerringly stood by me not only through these last several momentous years, but throughout my quest for greater Spirit in my life. This poem came through in a USM class while responding to the prompt to access intuition through poetry. While it uses words of the world in describing the levels of consciousness here on earth as “here” and the levels of consciousness of Spirit as “there,” it is only a way to speak about how we experience loving. Really there is no here and there, but there is a continuum of which at any moment we may be aware or not. The secret is in precipitation–the prayer to bring down from Spirit that which can be manifest in this world. The last couple of phrases acknowledge this spiritual law.

Poem on the Nature of Loving Down Here and Up There

I asked for the Angel, Cherish at my back.
To help redirect me when I start to look behind me
When I see no other option but to withhold my loving
When I cannot even feel any loving.

Cherish stands tall pointing forward
Where there are no locked-in memories
Where there is only forgiveness and forgetting
Where I know I am Divine.

When I cannot see you for all the shadows of myself
I put between us
Cherish points up where we are united in the oneness
Where the Light is so bright, there are no shadows.

Down here in the magnetism of the reflected world,
I know not of High Forms or God’s Heart.
I am merely surviving the self-made war
between the you that is in me and the me that succumbed to despising us.

Here is where Cherish reigns, my Angel at the Gate
His arms envelop me in all surrounding embrace
Where indeed my High form and Your High form come into view
And together we all three travel into the Heart of God.

Such is the truth
Of why we are separate here and together there.
My darling Angel would say,
“Bring down from Heaven that which can be manifest in this world.”

And Peace and Love and Forgiveness and Tenderness and Healing
And all the Good things of the Soul shall prevail on Earth.
Baruch Bashan
The Blessings Already Are.

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On Contacting Kenny’s Soul

March 15, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Surviving Spouse · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kenny in his 30's & how he might look now in Spirit

My dear loyal readers,
I ask that you give me your honest thoughts about this article. I intend for it to go into the book, and if there’s anything I can add or subtract regarding its authenticity and disclosure, please respond.

PART OF THE FORWARD

I prayed a lot that Kenny would come to me with messages of wisdom, compassion, loving, and comforting. There were months when my grief was so heavy on my heart and my awareness, that all I could do was recount the pain of my experiences.

Then about seven months after Kenny passed, for the first time since he passed, I put my hand to paper with the intention of contacting Kenny’s Soul. Here’s what he said: 

On October 11, 2010, six months and 12 days after he ascended, Ken told me:
“I’m with you more deeply now than ever before.
I have let go of everything in the way.
Come to me that way and uncover your own depth of loving.
 Let go……” 

I had been encouraged by my dear friend, Saivahni, who believed in my skill as a “mental clairvoyant.” What’s that, I asked. It’s when intuition comes through the mental level of consciousness. The challenge—what is a message from the high realms? And what’s just one of my thoughts?

This prayer by John-Roger, found in the Spiritual Exercises CD Packet, Disc 2, Excerpt 17, has stayed with me through many years of study:
As we reach up to our high form, we ask to be surrounded with the Light of the Christ. We ask for fulfillment and protection and only that only which is the highest good of all concerned be brought forward.  And we ask for this, Father, with love and understanding. So be it.

What struck me so deeply was the notion of reaching up and contemplating the magnificence of my High Form. With my innate visual focus, I could see myself reaching. I could see my High Form. I could see my High Form surrounded by the Light of the Christ. I could fill myself with the truth that if I ask, the Christ will fill not only me but any gap in experience or information I may need to fulfill my destiny. If I reach up, the Christ will meet me at the point of my action. How amazing is that! Imagine being met by the Christed Light and watching it complete your work, the work you contracted to do and learn, the work that you agreed to give unto the world. You’ll see later in this book when this Christ Action was so very important to Kenny’s and my very existence as we skated over thin ice during those more than memorable days of treatment in Houston.

And today, as I reach up to my High Form where all high forms are one, under the protection of the Light of the Christ, I ask to be a clear channel for messages from Kenny’s Soul. More than these words, I have a powerful reference from all the years of the teachings of the Mystical Traveler, that where my high form resides really is a realm of God consciousness, all knowing, peace and infinite love, where God has a place and a space for everyone and everything. Where all information, eons of history, and the wisdom schools and the ancient teachings exist, waiting for us to open our consciousness to receive of their glory.

Doubt creeps in from time to time as to my real abilities, but then I read back over the messages from Kenny, and I know they did not come from my mind or my own creativity. I am convinced they came from that place way high in my consciousness where I am one with all there is. And all there is includes the Christ, the Mystical Traveler, God, my High Self, your High Self, all the Masters of Light that work with us, and so many more conscious beings including Kenny’s Soul.

So while we could argue about just who’s speaking through these messages, I am declaring they  have value in their words of wisdom, unconditional loving, compassion, joy, and so much more of the Soul’s influence on us mortal beings here on Earth.

So my message to you, whether or not you believe there is such a thing as communication with our higher levels of consciousness, or with those Souls who have dropped their bodies and gone on to higher realms of existence, I invite you to take from these messages the learnings and the healing that are available by applying the information to your own life. Remember Kenny said there is a blessing for each reader on every page. And if you must dismiss the messages as frivolous ramblings of a grieving widow, that’s fine with me. Wherever you think they came from, know they have moved my consciousness through my memories, my experiences, and my learnings with grace and the unshakable inner knowing that I am in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. If I learn nothing else from the experiences recounted in this book, I have learned and continue to learn one of the challenging secrets of Soul Transcendence, that the only place to be is right here, right now! All things are possible here and now. Nothing can be changed about the past, and both wishing we could change the past and ranging out to the future keep us from experiencing Spirit right here and now, where all healing of memories exists, where all evolvement lies in wait. I don’t always remember to be in this truth, but I’m still a work in progress.

Please comment below or write directly to me at carol.jones43@yahoo.com.

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Sacred Crossings: The Night Kenny Left his Body for the Last Time

February 13, 2012 · Filed under Baby boomers, Cancer Therapies, Conscious Dying, Consciousness, Death and Dying, Grief, Grieving, Hospice, Karma, memorial, Surviving Spouse · Tagged , , , , ,

In earlier chapters, I described what I dared put to paper about the night Kenny died. Today, 20-some months later, a bit of training as a hospice volunteer, and having witnessed the death of another loved one in my life, I can brave more recall, more important parts that may be valuable to you as the reader, that are certainly more available to my creative hand.

I didn’t know then that I could give him some comfort by closing his eyes during those last few hours of labored breathing when he couldn’t communicate. I didn’t realize I could continue to moisten his mouth. The hospice nurse left in kind of a hurry with no such instructions for me. I didn’t know they would leave us at such an auspicious moment.

So when Kenny took his final breath, his eyes were wide open as well as his mouth. I tried to close his eyes, but they flipped back open twice. Those incredible deep blue eyes that I so often sank into for love and comfort. That I so often admired and could see into his vulnerability, his true loving and his powerful oneness with God.

While I could cover his body and arms with the sheet, I couldn’t cover his face and I also couldn’t look at it after my attempt to close his eyes. It was too haunting to me—At that time I’d rather have remembered his eyes when they inhabited his Soul, his life here on earth.

So his body lay there while some friends gathered with me in the room. We called the mortuary, because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. They were to come in a few hours. In the meantime, we told stories, laughed and cried and waited. And everyone present, of course, took my lead and didn’t look at Kenny’s body either.

Aside from those haunting memories, I do remember something really important:

Soon John-Roger had his aide, Zeus call to ask where “the body was being taken.” I told him which mortuary and that was the end of the conversation.

Just a few days ago, Kevin and I were looking at photographs of Kenny as a young man and I found myself recounting that phone call. In a burst of recognition, as Kevin held my hand and stayed with me in his empathy and love, I went from laughing at the photo of Kenny doing some funny antic, to tears of understanding and gratitude. I realized once again how blessed we are to be under the protection of the Mystical Traveler Consciousness, that part of us that guides our way back to the Heart of God. For I knew that John-Roger’s call was about checking in on Ken’s body to see if his Soul was on its way to the proper dimension in Spirit—to help it along if needed. So many times in years gone by when J-R was counseling MSIA students in the presence of many of us, and the subject of a loved one having already passed over came up, I would hear J-R say, “I’ve got him (or her). He’s OK. He’s where he should be.” And as I listened, I would well up with tears of gratitude, and I sensed so many others witnessing the counseling, did the same. Thank God the Traveler chose us. Thank God we chose back. Thank God our loved ones, even if they are not actively studying in MSIA, just by being connected to us devotees, are protected as ones of his own.

Back to what I didn’t know, but know better now: I could have closed his eyes so they would stay moist and more comfortable. And after he passed, if they were open again, I could have laid a clean cloth over them to help them stay closed. And I could have rolled a towel under his chin to help his mouth stay closed. I could have done a lot of things to honor his body, the Temple of his Soul, for as long as three days if I wanted to (legally). I didn’t know this. I actually kept a lot of information away from myself because I didn’t want to face his dying. For as long as he was alive, even as he got weaker and weaker, day by day, in my mind he was not dying. He would not be dying until he actually took his last breath. So I didn’t ask, I didn’t read much, and what I did read I forgot immediately. The only bit of compassionate education from the particular hospice agency we were assigned came from the doctor who one night only a few days before Kenny passed, told me I could stop counting liquids in and liquids out. That I should just focus on being with Kenny. Thankfully there was that much.

Only later when I was with my cousins supporting them as Cousin Nicky was passing, did I begin to get some education that mattered from the Hospice agency assigned to them. They instructed on meds, on bathing and changing, on when it was time to say our last goodbyes and so much more. Their loving, compassionate manner made all the difference. Their loving, compassionate manner gave me a measure of what was missing from the agency assigned to Kenny and me. Thankfully we had our MSIA ministers, our Circle of Light, our incredibly service-minded housemates. We were blessed beyond measure. Remember my talking about Circle of Light minister, Diana? She recounted her experience with us as “standing in for God.” And that’s how I experienced my presence at Nicky’s side.

I am blessed to be in a position to help others, having experienced the death of my husband in such a complex way. And to have the gift of awareness that allows me to grow from the experience, to awaken the parts of me that were afraid and unwilling to see. In tenderness for the lost part of me that I am gradually finding and surrounding with love, compassion, and forgiveness.

So now in my memories, whenever I may picture those last hours of Kenny’s life, I also remember the long moment just days before he passed, when he took my face in his hands, and held his gaze on my eyes in silent communion for a very long time. The world stood waiting outside our little bubble—it could have waited forever as I soaked in the loving we shared. It shall always remain a Divine Soul-to-Soul moment when time stood still, when nothing else mattered, when his death was imminent but yet so far away.

Bringing compassionate awareness to end of life issues is one of my passions now. Thus this blog and thus the compilation of the book. Wish me well! And I send my love to all of you who over the months have devotedly supported my efforts to bring myself into a greater Light focus around death and to bring this subject, however raw the accounts, to the Light of Spirit.

P.S. Today I attended a volunteer meeting of Hospice Partners of Southern California. A woman named Olivia did a presentation on “Sacred Crossings.” She calls herself a Death Midwife and helps families create a sacred experience for themselves of caring for a loved one’s body after death. I don’t necessarily advocate her business or her methods, but the subject is certainly worth exploring ahead of time so families can make educated decisions about the disposition of their loved ones’ remains.

Please do “like” this article, make a comment, share your experiences, however you are moved to do so. Or write to me directly at carol.jones43@yahoo.com. Baruch Bashan. The blessings already are!

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