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Nobody dies

This past week I was privileged to connect two of my favorite women whose sons both died in the prime of their lives. But it was not loss alone that reached nearly 3,000 miles to open dialogue between them, it was the fact that both young men found ways to communicate with their mothers after death.

Below is a series of letters begun by Pat, who lives in upstate New York.

Hello Karen,

Since my son, Doug, died at age 17, I associate feathers with his spirit. No matter where I am, a feather appears. Only yesterday I was working cutting hostas, got all done, put my tools away, shut the shed door, looked down at my autumn joy plant, and on top lay the littlest fluffy feather. Strange how they always show up when I am not thinking about them. Or maybe I want them to show up. I am hoping you have some answers for me. Am I a nut case?  Love pat

Dear Pat,

There is a whole world of sensitive people out there, who can be called nut cases if you like, but I would choose kinder more appropriate words  to describe the eternal  bonding between a mother and her son.  I believe what you experience is fairly common, but folks have no place to talk about it.

I remember feeling distraught about this ‘gift’ of mine, when I was meditating, maybe 35 years ago, while sitting under a tree in Seattle. In my mind, I said, ‘Am I just nuts or are you really there? I need to know because it’s no fun being so different.’ I got up to make my way back to see a client and saw a penny shining from the ground in a way that got my attention. I picked it up knowing it was a sign. After that I saw a penny every time I had a client, and if the penny dropped from my hands or rolled away so I couldn’t get it again, they would cancel. At some point that stopped. Just didn’t need the proof anymore, I guess.

I forwarded your email to my friend Dicksie who lives in Arizona and asked her to write you. She also lost a son, only he leaves dimes in her path. Lucky you for having the comfort of that connection.  Karen

Hi Pat.

You don’t know me, but I am a friend of Karen’s. She shared your email about the feathers because if you’re a “nut case,” so am I.  I lost my son 16 years ago – and for me, its dimes.  I’m not sure how it started, but when he was still with me, I once found three dimes in one day and something good happened – can’t even remember now – but from then on, I declared them as good luck.  When I found one, I’d throw it in my car to help keep me safe, or stick it in a windowsill, that type of thing.  After my son died, his wife gave me a little box with three dimes in it.  When she was cleaning out his truck, she found them.  She said she knew he’d thrown them in there because of me.

Since then, I find them at the weirdest times in the weirdest places – and I know they are a message from him, just saying “Hi Mom!”  I have told friends and relatives about this – and then they started finding them too and would write or call and tell me about their “dime experiences.”  I was visiting family in Utah once and told my two nieces about it.  They were both silent and I was sure they were thinking “poor Dicksie.”  Then my one niece, who had gotten in the back seat, looked down at the floor and there was a dime!  That made believers out of them.  My other niece wrote me a card a couple of months later – said she had been really depressed, had been out mowing her lawn and found two dimes!

So, I don’t care if I am a nut case, it makes me feel good when I find one – and it makes me feel good that others find them and call me or write me to tell me about it. Enjoy your feathers.  It is a lovely way to stay in touch!    Dicksie

A final note from Henry Miller:

Of course you don’t die

Nobody dies

Death doesn’t exist

You only reach a new level of vision

A new realm of consciousness

A new unknown world

 

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The Gift

He couldn’t stay in his body, the pain was too great. It was Joe’s leaving time, but my mother couldn’t let him go.

I was in Oregon, gathering car keys, handbag and notebook. It was a racing-out-the-door morning, my thoughts intent on teaching and the forty-five minute drive between my house in the Columbia River Gorge and Marylhurst University. Photographs of my New York family were ensconced above the fireplace, mingled with decorative candles and a ticking clock.

Did I have everything? I thought so. Just one more pass through the living room to make sure. Then I saw it, Joe’s photo glowing with light, a sure-fire way for the unseen reality to get my attention. I stopped. Everything coming to an abrupt halt as I picked up his picture, dropped to the sofa and closed my eyes. Acceleration and tension drained from my body. I softened and exhaled. Joe was in the hospital in upstate New York but his spirit was there with me.

“I need you to talk to your mother,” he said, hovering in my vision. “Help her to let me go. I want to die before my birthday, but she has to release me first. I need to hear her say it out loud. I need to know that it’s alright to go. Ask her to tell me, then ask her to open the closet and begin giving away my things.”

My chest filled with the light and energy of his message, his words floating around my cells like weightless sand. Then he was gone.

That memory, nearly twenty years old, drifted through my thoughts as I sat at the dinner table listening to Julio describe a week-end with his family.

“When I speak about my art,” he says, spooning brown rice next to carne asada, “it’s as if they can’t hear me. I show them my paintings in The Art Detour brochure and they say nothing, their expressions are blank. Yet I feel disapproval because I am not working in the way they think I should be.”

Julio comes from a family of laborers and field workers who strive to keep their pockets full, their personal dreams diminished by a harsh reality.

“They have no frame of reference for it,” I tell him. “Art is a foreign world.”

A deep well of sadness lingers in Julio’s eyes, a longing for an acceptance that can not be given, a longing I’m familiar with.

I remembered replacing Joe’s photo on the mantel, wondering how I could bring such news to my mother.

“This is my daughter, Karen,” she’d tell her friends. “She is a free spirit.” And later, behind closed doors: “When are you going to get a real job?”

Intuitive work didn’t show up for my family. When I spoke of visions or predictive dreams, my words were met with confusion, talk of brain tumors and lingering looks of concern. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth closed and a sensitive nature to myself.

I called that evening, knowing what a difficult time mother was having, though she rarely showed vulnerability. I hedged, not knowing how to bring up the topic but needn’t have. Near the close of conversation, she surprised me:

“Do you get anything for me?”

“What do you mean, get anything?”

“You know, psychically.”

I was silent. Joe had openly ridiculed my gifts and yet come to me for help.

“Yes,” I told her. “I do have things to share.”

She listened respectfully as I closed my eyes,  a vision of Joe’s pain-filled body hovering in my awareness.

“He wants to go before his birthday, but your love is holding him here. He wants you to let him leave.”

“I can do that,” she whispered, her voice private and internal. “I’ll tell him today. And there’s a young man from the firehouse that would fit one of his coats. I know Joe would like him to have it.”

I hung up, aware of the healing that had taken place. A warm sense of gratitude washed over me, like some long awaited rain in the desert.

Joe was born on April 8, 1920, and died on April 3, 1993.

I reached for mother’s hand as we stood in the funeral home reception line, hushed pieces of conversation passing between us.

“What made you ask for my vision during our phone call? You’ve never done that before.

“Just a feeling,” she answered. “It’s not that I don’t respect your work, sweetheart, it’s that I’ve never understood it. How could I? My life has been full of children, bookkeeping, salesmen, running a restaurant and hotel. How could I know anything of what you do?”

Julio looked up from his plate,  bringing me back from my reverie. “I wish I had my family’s support. It would make such a difference.”

“Give them time,” I smiled. “How could they know anything of what you do? How could they conceive of the gift you’ve been given? A talent that takes you to the core of yourself, allowing you to heal and shine in ways they never imagined. And when you succeed, and you will, you’ll be doing it for all of them, for all the men and women in your bloodline who never knew the joys of freedom.”

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Money From God

“Our life drawing model canceled,” Norma told me. “If you know of anyone, please let me know.”

My mind drifted to an old Mexican man who often biked past my window, a tattered sombrero shading a weathered face, sandal wrapped feet laboring against an uphill grade. I’d watched him sorting discarded bottles and pop cans with callused hands.

“I think I know just the person,” I told her. “An old man whose face is full of character, strength and ancestry.”

“Perfect! Find him and let me know. If he can pose for three hours we’ll pay him $100.”

It was two weeks before I saw the old man again. Temperatures of 106 kept me inside, hiding behind drawn curtains but I continued thinking about him and what $100 would mean to a man who made his entire income collecting bottles and cans.

Then one morning riding my bike from the health club, I spotted him. Excited, I pulled over and used the only Spanish I know. “Senor.  Hola.  I have work for you, dinero.”

He looked at me as he poured the remaining liquid from a beer bottle he’d found beneath a pepper tree.

“Do you speak any English?
He shook his head. I put my hand over my heart.

“My name is Karen, Karen. And you?”

“Raul”

“Raul, I have work for you, dinero.”

He studied me like I was an exotic bird that had perched on the redwood rail that divided us.

This is not going well.  I held up my hand.

“Wait, don’t go.”

I dug in my gym bag, found my phone and dialed Julio. I needed an interpreter. No luck. A recording. I snapped it shut.

I smiled, motioning toward the health club.

The Ojai Valley Athletic Club is one of the finest in the world, intimidating even me, but bless his heart, Raul trailed in after me, never missing a beat. Jose, the manager of the café was seated in clear view. I went over.

“Jose, this is Raul. He speaks no English and I speak no Spanish. Would you do me a kindness and talk to him on my behalf?”

Jose was sorting morning receipts, white clothes accenting black hair and dark eyes.

“What do you want me to tell him?”  He silently took in Raul’s appearance without apparent judgment.

I placed my gym bag on the table and plopped down next to him, relieved.

“Tell him there’s a group of people who would like to paint him. And that if he can hold still and pose for three hours that he could make $100. Of course, it would not be three hours straight. There would be breaks for walking and stretching.”

Jose looked at me. “I’ll pose for $100. Use me!”

“Thank you, no. It’s his face I want.”

Jose is a handsome man but his essence is not unusual.  There is something in Raul that is primitive and raw, a face untouched by civilization.

Jose studies me for awhile, then translates my words.

“Why would anyone want to paint me?” Raul asked.

“You have a strong face,” I say. “Hermosa.”

Because I didn’t know the date, I had Raul write his address on a napkin, telling him I’d be in touch when I knew details.

I returned home excited. Got on the computer and shot off an email.

Re: Model for Life Drawing:

Success. I have found the Mexican man, spoken with him and he is willing. Let me know your next open date and I’ll pick him up and bring him over.

Reply: Re: Model for Life Drawing:

We don’t need him anymore. We found someone else to fill in. Thanks anyway.

Thanks anyway? But I gave him my word. I promised him income and got his hopes up.

For two days I pondered the situation. Finally deciding to pay him from my own pocket.

In this town people pay $100 for lunch and think nothing of it. But to this man it could mean much needed groceries or health care. I hedged. But I’m not working and my resources are getting low. Maybe I’ll just offer him $20 or $30. Why would I give him $100?

Because you gave your word and oddly, it feels like the right thing to do. It really does seem the right thing.

Maybe $60, how about $60?

When Julio came home I explained my dilemma, asking if he’d drive with me to speak with Raul.

“I’m thinking of giving him the full fee anyway.” I confessed.  “It just feels right.”

“Oh Karen, that would mean so much.”

The certainty and tenderness of Julio’s reply erased doubt, convincing me to go ahead.

When we arrived Raul was in front of his house talking with a neighbor. Julio lowered the car window, explained the situation and told him I was going to pay him anyway.

Raul refused, shaking his head. Words passed between them I couldn’t understand.

“Tell him it’s important to take it,” I said.  Raul hesitated, then came to the driver’s window speaking again to Julio.

“What did he say?”  I asked.

He said he would take it because it was money from God.

I smiled. “Yes, Raul, that’s exactly what it is. It’s money from God.”

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It will grow

Image

I have no one to blame but myself.

Susan Miller’s Astrology forecast for Sag said: The new eclipse on June 5th will help you see yourself in a completely new light, so much so that you may be moved to change the way you wear your hair, dress or even change your name.

I wish I could point a finger at Astrology or some errant brain wave that zapped my grey matter while I slept, but I can not. Taking responsibility for ones actions is not all its cracked up to be. I miss the less conscious days when I pointed a finger and said, You, You, You!

This is what happened. I entered the realm of the hairdresser, which is one of the worst things I can subject myself to.  Every decade or so I tend to forget what is best for me, believing the same experience will yield a different result. This tendency to deny my best interests shows up in other parts of  life as well, like believing I can trust the invitation on the face of the makeup artist in Macy’s and not come away looking like Tammy Faye Bakker on a bad night. Or like listening to my mother who loved convincing me that the miracles of pharmacology could override a lifelong tendency toward seasickness.

“No dear, you will not become deathly ill crossing the English Channel on a cruise ship and spend hours with your head in the toilet praying for a life flight helicopter, while I dance in my prom dress with one of the ship’s escorts. Not this time.”

But I digress. I told myself it was safe to go to the hairdresser because ALL I wanted was for her to show me how to wear long hair. I wanted a few new tricks with barrettes and bobby pins.

You’re completely safe, I told myself. This won’t be like the time you were touring with Tears of Joy Theater and stopped in Montana to get a perm, then had to finish the tour wearing a headscarf.

When that woman asked how tight I wanted the curl, I’d said, “Make it last.”  Wrong answer!  A touch of Henna and I came away looking like a stand in for Ronald McDonald.  No, this appointment will be fine because I’m older, wiser and in control.

I entered the salon with confidence. The hairdresser was young, (okay, almost everybody is younger than I am these days) capable and cute. We talked. I explained. “No, I did not want her to wash and trim my hair, just show me some options like a friend might do.”

That was going fairly well until she began talking about my face as a picture and my hair as the frame.

Apparently, my picture was not looking so great in the frame because she longed to layer, shape and trim.  She wrinkled her nose, holding the length of my hair at a distance, like one might evaluate a trout past its due date at the fish market. That was the moment she hooked me.

Of course, I needed more than styling options. What was I thinking? I needed much much more. I felt suddenly at risk. Yes, I definitely needed a new frame for my picture and the banishing of my seaweed ends. She was here to save me from myself by producing a fully modern, acceptable version of the woman I had been only moments before.

And so I did it.

She shampooed, cut, layered, thinned, blew my hair dry over a circular brush, showed me how to use a curling iron, then straightened and mouseed each lock until I was the spitting image of …………her.  A thirty year old woman with a hairstyle I would never want.

I thought of my sister who’d come home with an awful cut not long ago and the comment her daughter had made. “Mommy, I think the lady who cuts your hair thinks about other things while she’s at work.”

This woman was not thinking about other things, it was I who vacated myself.

So I thanked her, wrote out the check, got on my bike and pedaled home, immediately showering in the hope of finding some semblance of myself below.

Toweling my hair in the mirror, I said what I always say when devastated by a bad hair decision.

It will grow.

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Aqua Abstravanganza

 

It was 8.30 in the morning under a cloudless California sky, when I waded into the shallow end at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club swimming pool, determined to try every exercise class offered, at least once. This one was called Aqua Abstravaganza, which I hoped would supplement lap swimming.

Warm water pooled around my waist as I greeted those who’d already arrived, noticing their hats, eye glasses and tee-shirts worn to ward off the coming of another sultry day. A woman with flowing grey hair smiled in my direction, introducing herself. The others followed, offering kindness and extended hands. Being greeted with such gracious acceptance is part of what I love about coming to this club. It’s an extension of the grace, beauty and specialness that is Ojai. Unfortunately, I forgot their names minutes after being introduced, my aging memory as short as my eyelash.

A young woman from a dark-skinned, dark-haired country told me this was her second class.

“I’ve come back because I love the teacher’s humor,” she confides, her cinnamon eyes catching rays of light from the water. She radiates health and youth, her long hair carefully braided and tucked out of the way. She’s attentive and eager for the class to begin.

The others are older, much older, being called by the grace and support water allows the elderly. The instructor, Debora, appeared in snug black pants and grey top, brown hair cascading around her shoulders. She too extends a hand. “Oh, you’re new. Welcome!”

This group has obviously been together a long time, as a kind of social club.

“Okay class,” Debora begins, “we’re starting today by running in place, so bring those knees up.”

A birdlike woman peering beneath the twilled rim of a khaki hat pays no attention, preferring to visit with her friend instead.

“Did you watch that reality show last night? Well I did and that man never should have won. They count on people not calling in but I’ll tell you what. I did call in because I think the judges are crooked. It’s just not fair. Anyone can see he was not the most talented. It was the singer, she was the best and then the girl with the dancing dog.”

Obviously an urgent conversation, much more important than the matter of moving about in water.

A series of jumping jacks propelled me near another huddled couple.

“So how was your trip to Thailand? We really missed you here. Did you know that Peggy broke her foot? Yes, she did, but is recovering nicely. Said she’d try and make it today. They have her in a walking boot. One just never knows, does one?”

At 9 o’clock, (yes, I was counting the minutes) the instructor suggested we venture into the deep end. Frankly, I was completely surprised anyone noticed the request. But move they did, like a great water-bound pod of visiting couples. At this point the exotic beauty with the braided hair leapt from the pool, grabbed her towel, a splashed copy of the New York Times and darted toward the changing room, clearly late for something.

The men were in the deep end doing just as much talking as the women.

“Are you having trouble with this kick, Bob?” The instructor asked. “Bob?

Bob are you with us?”

Bob looked up as if coming out of trance. “What kick?”

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Respect

the-queenMy mother, Verse, is 93. She came to Oregon to visit for the last time when she was 88. I remember pushing her to the counter of the airlines ticket desk in a wheel-chair, while she dug in her oversized purse to find her passport. She was always smiling and eager to visit. She loved telling the adventure stories that lived behind each passport stamp gathered from around the world.

My mother is an amazing woman, so bright she skipped two grades in high school, graduating at age fifteen. She was academically gifted, but suffered from a painful childhood. As a girl, her mother explained that there was no such thing as love, and demonstrated by abandoning her in every way possible. She learned love from her father, but he left both the marriage and his daughter at an early age.

She sang in a big band before she met my dad, then left to manage a successful restaurant and motel. No, she did not manage it; she owned, lived and breathed it every moment of our growing up years, putting her dreams of studying law or medicine aside. My mother gave birth to three girls and two boys. All, without exception, worked in the restaurant below. It was a thriving business full of constant coming and going. It was the place to watch the World Series on the small screen television angled above the bar. It was a businessman’s lunch table, and the destination for every club and civic organization in town. The restaurant had the elegance to house wedding receptions and the warmth to invite family diners to return on a weekly basis. The travel-weary were given a warm welcome and the factory crowd brought their brotherhood to the bar. The romantic played the jukebox and danced, while teens drank cherry cokes and competed on the bowling machine.

I was her middle child, with a sister and brother older, and a sister and brother younger. I worked in the restaurant for years before going off to a Vermont Boarding School. During that time, I watched my mother make sure the meats being delivered were of the highest quality, the breads taken to the table were freshly baked, and the portions were plentiful and appealing. After a long day of work, she and I would sit at a small out-of-the-way table, her tiny shoes trailing built-up oven grease from the kitchen floor, her hands clutching volumes of receipts to be counted, her face drained of vitality and charm.

I don’t want this life for you, she would tell me. Go away from this place. Be more than this.

When she was finally freed of obligation to family, business, marriage and striving, she found her wings and began to explore. At eighty years of age, her gypsy blood bubbled to the surface.  With nothing to lose she decided to give herself as many adventures as possible. She tore across raging water on a jet ski in California, rode camels in Egypt, visited the Great Wall of China, flew across Antarctica, soared in a hot air balloon, took a safari in Africa, floated the Amazon river, and was the oldest woman ever to go hand gliding in New Zealand.  When we crossed the British channel, she was in the ballroom dancing in her new prom dress, while I stayed below, blue in the face from motion sickness. I think your mother is stronger than you are, the maid volunteered.

She waits in the airport wheelchair, beautifully dressed, her attitude full of determination and intention, but the clerk will not look at her. She addresses me instead. My mother does not exist for her. She is just an old woman to be patronized and called, Honey and Sweetie. Her passport is handed back quickly without a glance in her direction, its wealth of stories left untold. I watch my mother’s face fall as her existence is publically diminished.

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The Choosing

car-repair

We’re traveling to Los Angeles next week in a new car. A car we have not yet found or bought. The pressure is on. This car is for me, a gift from my husband, but I’m having trouble choosing it, because I’m in an identity crisis.

The therapist in me is stepping back. The seer is closing her eyes. The healer is storing her remedies on the back shelves in the pantry. People still walk though my door. I extend my hand, my heart and my spirit, but I can feel this identity slipping away. She is halfway through the door marked leaving. I can still see her face, the strength in her shoulders and the courage in her stance, but soon, very soon, she will be a shadow. The door will close and she’ll live only in memory. Those were good years, rewarding, exhausting, and sleepless. Open arms defined me, bountiful and willing.

What a difficult time to choose a car, because a car is a reflection of Self. It’s meant to hold me as I move too fast through time and space, arriving at unknown destinations again and again.

My passion has turned to writing. My expression craves storytelling and connection. This is not the performance art of the past, where I stood costumed and elevated to be witnessed and heard. No. This is a private deep excavation of self and soul which leads, encounters, uncovers and continues. This new self does not want to transform pain by receiving, holding and mothering. No. She wants to sit in her nightgown with a cup of steaming tea, wrap her hands around the rim, and watch soothing vapors rise in scents of chamomile or ginger. She wants to cozy up, put her arm around you and say, Let me tell you a story. Let me help you laugh, let me give you perspective. Come away with me, escape. Come back when you are centered, restored and renewed. Courage lies in listening.

That’s the self that’s rising from the core. She is easy and old, with nothing to prove. There is no expectation, just allowing and being. She wants to go in and in, until she finds that precious and revealing wave of truth, then ride it like a wild-haired senior surfer.

So, help me out here. What kind of car does she drive?