It's my birth day today.
When I was little I remember asking my mother if there was a party in heaven when we died because we were born back.
It made perfect sense to me that it happened that way. We die there when we are born here and there is a celebration of our emergence here on this plane. It is a celebration of the transition.
When we transition out, and go to the next place do THEY have a celebration of our emergence there?
My mother said I was a strange child. But it still makes perfect sense. When we are born here, do they mourn our passing from there or do they celebrate?
Why can't we imagine celebrations at both ends, on both sides of the veil?
When my Grandmother passed in England, I saw her, beautiful, radiant, floating and free.
I had decided on the spur of the moment that Friday to fly to CA to be with my mother. I said to my husband, " think I'll fly to CA for the weekend. I feel like I need to be with my mom." I bought the ticket and went.
My Grandmother was 96. A good age. She hadn't been well the last few years, but nothing really wrong either. My aunt in the UK called my mother that evening and said Nan didn't seem to be doing well. We spent the evening talking about her, laughing over memories of visits. I love my Nan deeply and she has been a huge part of my life even though we were at a distance. We would spend summers in the UK when I was a child.
In the morning my mother and I were having coffee in the kitchen. It was maybe 9:30am. I quite suddenly felt a huge fatigue wash over me and I said to my mother, "I'm going to lay down for a bit." NOT my usual thing to do.
I laid down and within moments saw my Grandmother floating before me, barefoot, hair loose, face radiant and upturned. Her arms were spread. She was wearing a while nightgown with lavender smocking and tiny lavender flowers. She looked beautiful and free. She didn't say anything to me but was in a rapture, face upturned as she floated up in a bath of radiant light.
The phone rang. I woke instantly. My mother came in and said "Nan has passed."
I said, "I know! I just saw her! She's beautiful!"
So, do we celebrate that release, that movement and change or do we mourn their passing from us?
And so my question still sits with me 49 years later. Why do we celebrate the arrival and mourn the passing? Why not celebrate the transition both ends and both ways.
I've heard it said it's so much harder to be born than it is to die. And from what I've witnessed, it's true. A friend passed quickly from one sharp pain. A sudden heart attack. His wife was sobbing and he showed up behind her, that very evening, hours after crossing, and was doing a little dance.
He said "If I'd known it was this easy, I would have done it a long time ago!"
I said "It's too soon to joke!" and he winked at me! Bold as anything. He was fine.
The moment of our crossing-I think it's already chosen. I think we should live every day full out, celebrate that we are here, in this moment, to live to learn to laugh, and when we meet that moment when we cross into the next story, we greet it like the train pulling into the station. "Here I go!" Celebrate everything. Always. Laugh out loud.
I want to go, arms wide open. I want to go in the right moment, I don't want to rush it mind you, I love being alive, and I want to feel free now, then and free to meet it with my eyes open and my heart open. What could be better than that?
My husband's grandmother, in a little village in Italy, took her bath one Sunday and called all the family and said "I'm dying today. Come and see me." She dressed in her best clothes, laid on the bed, paid court, said her good byes, and that evening crossed in her sleep. That's the way to meet it-knowing that train is coming! It's ok. Say your hellos every day, say your good byes every day.
The Tibetans turn their tea cup over as if it's their last. And in the morning when they are alive again, they say thanks for THIS DAY as if it is their only day to live.
What if we only had this day? Just this one. You woke up this morinng in this place, and there is only today. What would you do, who would you talk to, how would you spend your time? What's important? Today is all there is.
The very best thing we can do to help someone when they are transitioning, is to free them of the burdens held in the emotional body, today. Free ourselves. Lighten up. Church's call it absolution. Forgiveness. Telling the secrets. Lightening ourselves and them. Dialog. Listen. Speak. Clear. Shamanic hospice work is about just that. It is witnessing, and it is freeling them. We are all minister's to each other.
Our limbic brain is the gatekeeper of our emotional pain as well as our emotional brilliance. We can be brilliant when we free ourselves. And if we don't let it go, it does hang to our luminous selves like so much dense energy, weighing us down.
Lighten yourself now. Lighten your loved ones now, so can live as light, and not wait 'til death's door to find the light next.
Talk! Forgive! Understand. Say thank you. Observe what they are demonstrating and what you are demonstrating to others. Witness. And move on!
Life is a lived on an edge. I think of riding a bicycle. You can certainly ride along on a beautiful sunny road, head up and with a small basket in front of you. You can see that it is easy to balance, to look about you, to move forward.
And then imagine you are riding that bike with your arms and back saddled with huge piles of stuff. Imagine others handing you parcels that you strap on. Imagine it! You can still move forward but at greater and greater cost. Notice where your head is as you look at that picture of yourself riding that burdened bicycle. But still you go on, taking all that with you to some destination that's up ahead.
Now imagine riding uphill with all that...
Now imagine that the weather changes and it is pelting down rain...wind...a hurricane...
When do we let it go? Is it worth holding on to all that stuff? And yet we do. We continue to hold it, to carry it. It takes significant life force energy to move forward with all that. And yet we do.
I think it's because we don't believe we can put it down.
It's up to us. Changing our mind and putting it down is all there is.
Imagine it. Imagine that you, riding the bicycle starts to shake off the backpack and the saddlebags. The packages and containers falling off. Maybe she had a pile on her head too. Watch it fall off. And watch how she changes. Posture. Breathing. Eyes. Speed.
That basket in front, that small basket, put in it only what is important and necessary. What do you choose to put in that basket. Just notice.
God has given us a great vehicle to move through this life - our body. Walk on the earth with your two feet and give thanks. Yes, thank you. Eyes up. Head back. LAUGH outloud even if you have to pretend with HO HO HO HA HA HA HEE HEE HEE
Do it today and always! Today is my birthday and I want YOU to laugh!