Living and Loving
Contains sacred stories
Sacred Stories
Her father called from California, but she missed his call.
He was wishing her a Happy Valentine’s Day.
Later that day, he had a stroke.
When he passed away, she was so grateful she had missed his call that day.
She still has his loving voice mail message!
Sacred Stories
He had passed just two weeks earlier.
He flashed into her mind so many times.
She opened the drawer to see the small green ceramic bowl he had gifted her.
There in the center of the bowl was his message:
I love you!
Sacred Stories
She and her husband found this bear at a rock shop in Canada and they both fell in love with it.
His passing was such a shock…. and loss.
They had divorced, remaining devoted.
Making arrangements with the funeral home, she stopped at a shop. The first thing she saw was this heart.
“It felt like he was sending BIG LOVE today….”
Sacred Stories
Looking down at the jigsaw puzzle she had been working on over the past couple of days, she saw a face near the base of the mountain, and heard in her head, “The hills are alive.”
Immediately she thought of a dear friend with a gorgeous singing voice. That song was her friend’s favorite.
“Alexa, play Sound of Music: The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music.”
As the music began, she and her husband said at the same exact time, “That is B_ _ _ _ _!”
She had a quick wondering if it might be anniversary energy since her friend had been hospitalized with acute pancreatitis last year about this time. She contracted Covid-19 while in the hospital and passed in April.
A couple hours later, she received a text from B_ _ _ _ _’s daughter — requesting urgent prayers for herself and their son at the news her former husband had died in his sleep during the night!
The following morning as she checked in with B_ _ _ _ _’s daughter by text, she mentioned the hills are alive puzzle experience.
“Do you know when your mom went into the hospital?” she asked. “I wondered if it was anniversary energy.”
B_ _ _ _ _’s daughter sent a text message back, “OMG, it is!!! Yesterday was the day she went to ER.”
If you have had experiences of the continuity of consciousness, please share those. Tell everyone the hills are alive….
Sacred Stories
Her father had recently passed, out in California. It was so hard. She was stuck on the other side of the country.
She sent a message to a friend. “My dad’s memorial is at 4:00 today, out in California.”
“Of course, grateful you know you can bilocate to be there in your heart,” her friend responded. “At that time, set your intention, go within and BE THERE.”
“Absolutely right!” she shot back.
“Do you have a piece of jewelry of his?” her friend queried.
“No,” she answered.
Her friend continued, “It was a bit odd to me that a man mentioned jewelry. Do YOU have a meaningful piece of jewelry?”
“Yes.”
“What is that?”
“Mom’s engagement ring… from him!”
Sacred Stories
Her writing that day during the poetry writing group time was a blog post. In that post, she quoted from An Eschatological Laundry List by Sheldon Kopp.
The subtitle is A Partial Register of the 927 (or was it 928?) Eternal Truths.
When she finished reading her blog post, another of the women in the group grew quiet, began counting in her head, and then shared, “In 1977 my brother sent me a saying …. I do not even remember the saying now…. I thought the term ‘eschatological laundry list’ was something he had just made up…. I had no idea there was an actual list.”
Whatever the saying sent and received in 1977, obviously he had wanted his sister to know about the laundry list!
Sacred Stories
She saw a friend’s Facebook post about his dog, Bassie, passing.
She has several favorite quotations about dog’s passing, and she most often shares a very special one from The Dharma of Dogs, but she sent this one:
You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.
~ Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
Her friend responded:
Thank you, this is how I experience it now. Very special things are happening in my life right now. The great contact is becoming more and more noticeable. It is a special time for me.
And my dog, who is my soulmate, is called Sioux.
Sacred Stories
Out on the golf cart, they stopped to see friends. It was clear the friends were just heading out for a bike ride, so the visit was brief.
“How is Davey?” the inquiry about a mutual friend who had taken a fall off his steps a few days earlier.
“He bruised up his knee, and he has a bruise on his cheek. You know, there is no handrail on those steps. We have been out dumpster-diving looking for parts to put one together, but no luck,” came the reply.
The bike route had a destination: to see if the Meyer lemon tree was still giving fruit. A good shake of the tree yielded one very nice lemon!
Rounding the corner, there on the grass was a handrail! (People put unwanted or unneeded stuff out to be shared or taken by the trash pickup.)
Sacred Stories
Near the end of the Zoom class, a man who had lived in India shared a great epic in which Arjuna, approaching the battlefield, saw that he would have to fight against some of his family, friends, and teachers. Questioning his role as a warrior, Arjuna put down his weapons.
Lord Krishna tells him, “If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin. … Therefore, get up with a determination to fight, O Arjuna.”
Krishna helped Arjuna see that both the creation and the destruction are sacred.
At the conclusion of his retelling of the epic, a woman held up a book so all in the class could see the cover.
Excitedly pointing to Arjuna’s imagine she said, “I bought The Gita: For Children by Roopa Pai just today!”
The Gita for Children contains this very epic the man had shared with the class….