Category: embodiment

My Prancing Doe

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“When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure“– Unknown

“Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality” – Emily Dickinson

Mother tiptoed away in the dark and drowsy wee hours of the morning when most are enveloped in slumber. Sleeping a rare sleep, one so deep and luxurious, I fought waking like a Grizzly Bear might fight to extend her winter’s hibernation.

What had began as a faint irritation far off in the distance; the ring tone of the phone gradually became louder and more insistent. Failing to reach the phone in time, I hit “redial” and was connected to Research Medical Center’s stroke unit in Kansas City. Mother was in Cardiac Arrest; the nightshift docs were giving CPR. They wanted to know my wishes, should they continue?

Fighting my desire to sink back into the depths of night and trying to kick start my thinking brain, the first words I could muster, with lots of pauses in between, were “Well … Hmmm … She has a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order)…” Their response: “Do you want us to stop the CPR then?” Me: “Hmmm …..well …., she has a DNR so ummm, … Yes, I guess you should stop.”

There was not even a full minute to mull over or think through the ramifications of this decision, not a second to grasp or to cling. A decision was needed that very moment; it could not be undone and would change everything. Mom had tiptoed away after a stroke four days earlier. She had been playing the piano.

The day after the funeral, I visited mom’s grave. As I started down the lane to the family plot, I noticed a young deer literally dancing, a young prancing doe dancing as if to a lovely melody.

Mind you, I know Mount Moriah cemetery. I’ve been there for funerals and each year to commemorate Memorial Day with mother; decorating the graves of family members on both sides from her stash of colorful plastic flowers. I had never seen a deer in all my years there.

I knew immediately this dancing playful deer was my mother’s spirit, now set free. Mother was showing me her spirit – joyful and boundless, free from her paralyzed by stroke and pain-filled body.

Another ‘sign’ from mom came once I had arrived back in Tucson and started back to work. Quite extraordinarily, in broad daylight, a mother javelina and her baby curled up and sleeping for hours with their noses pressed against my office window.

My mother’s death unfolded perfectly, for her and for me. Given the chance, I would not rewrite this memory. It’s a perfect memory of my mother’s perfect life song.

By Holly Baker

Copy Watches

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More than 15 years ago, I worked for about a month as a technical consultant at a petrochemical plant in Singapore. I was filling in for a colleague who had been working there for over a year straight and he needed a little time off to take care of some family business. While I was there, I had a number of incredible and amazing experiences. One of the oddest, besides eating chicken feet, durian fruit and grilled stingray on a banana leaf ‘plate’, was learning about an entire subtext of ‘copy watches’. These weren’t knock-off watches that you could possibly mistake for the original; they were obvious fakes that bore the label of the high-end manufacturer. The watch I purchased, for about $20 US, might have approximated the quality of a Timex with a faux-leather band, but the logo on the watch face clearly said Rolex. The street-hawkers weren’t pretending that they were selling Rolex watches, they were very clear with their cries, “Copy Watch, Copy Watch, Copy Watch…”

So, why would anyone buy a knock-off that wasn’t even a believable knock-off? For me, it was a memory aide that connected me to this place that was on the one hand incredibly familiar, and on the other hand inconceivably foreign. For some, I imagine it was a way to thumb their noses at the economic aristocracy that felt compelled to flash their legitimate high-end watches and such. Singapore was such a cultural mixed bag. For me, my copy watch also served as a reminder of what is true, beautiful and powerful, and what is facade, imaginary, sheep-like behavior, or simply made up.

I was handed a book this week. Really, I was handed a book this week to pass on to someone else. It wasn’t meant for me. (Ha Ha!) That book, The Crossroads of Should and Must by Elle Luna, is a stunning, playful reminder that we continuously get to choose between following the crowd, doing what is respectable, or concurring with the ever-present shoulds and ought-tos, and actually acting on that deepest creative desire of our essential being. Even when we don’t choose, we choose by not choosing. I’ve always hated that part, because every time I try to shirk my responsibility for myself, it sticks like gum on the bottom of my sandals on a hot day.

Last night we began our 10-week foray into Mary Morrissey’s Prosperity Plus II materials. For those of you who have participated in this activity before, you know it isn’t actually about collecting money for the center, or the dreaded “T” word — tithing. I won’t lie and say that tithing is not a component of the class, because it is. From the very first video Mary talks about conducting your own experiment of tithing, just for the duration of the class, to find out if choosing to share of your financial abundance increases your general, and specific, experience of abundance in your life. For many participants, it does. It is not too late to join the class. Just call or e-mail the office and we can order class materials for you. The full set of materials, 10 CDs and workbook, is priced at $50. If you have taken the class before and simply want a blank workbook to use in retaking the class, we can order that for you for $15.

So what does this have to do with copy watches? We can attempt to be a copy of someone else, try to blend in with the crowd, pretend to be invisible or inconsequential, or we can recognize our own gifts, desires and talents and be seen as the unique and magnificent expressions that are known by our own names. Scary, I know, and yet, I believe it is a game worth playing.

To act is to modify the shape of the world — Jean-Paul Sartre

During the month of April, we continue to talk about discovery, creation and re-creation. With the energies of the holidays of Easter and Passover upon us, why not make use of this inherently creative time to break out from your own bondage into freedom, and enjoy your own resurrection?

by Rev Janis Farmer

It’s Good To Be Queen

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As part of my job I frequently visit kids in custody at the Juvenile Detention Center. To soften the impact of the stark institution, the administration lets kids paint murals on the walls and memorialize their educational achievements with painted handprints. There are also many inspirational quotes on the walls of those long hallways. One quote blazes in iridescent gold paint and I look at it on each visit. It says: Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is just passing time. Vision with action can change the world! Lately this quote reminds me that my choices, too, create my experience of life.
In Victoria Castle’s workshop, she described two ways people tend to deal with their problems. Some people jump into action and busily do, do, do things to address issues while others take a passive and reflective approach to their problems. So, as in the quote above, some people just pass time by inefficient action and others just live in their heads and daydream. I happen to be the type of person who defaults to dreaming away inside my head, not effectively handling things. Victoria taught us a technique that works for both types of people. We can effectively address problems by managing our “state”, our internal response to circumstances. We can be in our bodies, breathe and remember our purpose and choose to be unaffected by outside conditions. Our state is where our sovereignty lies.
Likewise, in her Sunday message last week, Reverend Janis pointed out the importance of conscious choices. She said it is our responsibility is to pick what we want to experience or risk getting the default result based on race tendency of the Collective Unconscious. So, for example, we are not at the mercy of inherited health tendencies. We decide. If we pick and do not like the result we are free to pick again. To consciously choose is to exercise freedom and sovereignty in our lives.
I recognize my challenge is to get out of my head, to stop being passive and to exercise my freedom by making conscious choices and manifesting my desires. I get to be the sovereign of my own life. As a former people-pleaser, I had to learn that being sovereign means acting on my values, beliefs and intuition without seeking permission or approval from the outside world. To be sovereign is to be Self-reliant. In his book, Spiritual Liberation, Michael Beckwith said: “We are, each of us, kings and queens sitting on the throne of consciousness ruling our lives.” As I exercise my faith in Spirit I no longer feel fear about making decisions and acting on them. There are no limits to what is possible in God, but Spirit can only act through me. I must couple my vision with action if I want to change my world, and then ‘the’ world.

by Leah Hamilton

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