Starr was a wonderful dog. Starr lived with Linda and Tim, and their children, Billy and Christie. Starr loved each of them, and the family was blessed to have her with them for seventeen years.
Starr began having really bad health problems. It was painful for the family to watch.
One day, as she was being bathed, Starr’s beautiful black fur began coming out in clumps.
Starr could barely move, so Tim took her to the vet. When the vet recommended putting Starr to sleep, Tim went back home to get Linda. The vet administered a shot, allowing Starr to pass peacefully in Linda’s arms in just a few seconds.
Oh, how Linda cried!
But Linda says she remembers well what happened next, “As I left the room, I went out into the lobby where a woman unsuccessfully tried to keep her dog from jumping all over me. I went down on my knees, hugging and petting that dog. I told the owner how much I needed that then. It was a beautiful experience that can still move me to tears all these years later.”
Separated from her husband, adjusting to parenting her son alone, nervous about finances, especially now missing the support of her mother, she went for a hypnotherapy session.
“Do you have a piece of jewelry from your mom?” the therapist asked.
She told the therapist, “Strange you should ask. I have my mom’s turquoise ring, but in the recent chaos of life, I have not been able to find it.”
During the session, a memory related to the ring surfaced. She had been suffering with a ligament issue in her thumb. It was not healing. She put her mother’s ring on, and within one day, her thumb was healed. She knew the ring would show up and everything would be OK…
Later that evening, she sent a photo to the therapist, with this message, “Look what I found!”
Life is wonderFULL. Some days and some times of our lives are definitely more full than others.
Today is the one year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s transition. I’ve written about her passing in Musings from an Estate Sale, and spoken about it in Celebrations of Life, a talk given at Unity by the Lakeshore the morning after the final day of the estate sale.
One week ago today, I had the honor of giving the eulogy for John’s Aunt Nor.
Yesterday, I sat with my beloved sister as she supported their sweet cat, Sally, in crossing the Rainbow Bridge.
As much as I try to not write so much about life and death, it is life after death keeps calling my fingers to the keyboard.
You may appreciate a reminder of our seeing the boat named Miss Ellie on the highway as we drove home from the first Basham Family Reunion without John’s mom with us in body. Miss Ellie is the nickname given to my mother-in-law by another of her daughters-in-law, Cindy.
This morning, I opened my email to a Quotation for the day from David Bloyd. “Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.” According to David, the author of this quotation found on marcandangel.com, is unknown. Known or unknown, the writer has spoken a powerful reality.
A bit before noon yesterday I drove my sister and her precious kitty companion to the vet. Janis’ husband, Larry, was working. The regular vet was on vacation, but they had someone filling in. The vet who saw us was a young woman. As she was in that room with us, her own story came out. One month ago, she had to put her dog down. She had loved that dog for ten years. She, too, had waited so long the injection had to go into the heart. She fought her tears, gave us hugs, and shared her own tender experiences, Janis and I agreed Sally’s needing support to complete her transition may have been as much about that tender-hearted vet as it was about Sally and the two of us.
The threads of our lives are connected…. We can appreciate that truth.
Sally had come to my brother-in-law’s art studio over 16 years earlier. Sally’s ears and tail were bare of hair—having been sheered by frostbite. We can endure painful experiences in life. A month of Larry’s consistent and compassionate feeding resulted in this former feral’s finally coming inside where it was warm. Sally became a studio cat, and she has been a studio cat since that day…. Not one time during the next decade and a half did an open door or window tempt her away from her place of warmth and love. She had been there and done that!
Today, I will ride my bike to yoga class in the autumn sun.
You can appreciate the truth. As J.K. Rowling wrote in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, “The ones who love us never really leave us, you can always find them in here.”
When her brother passed unexpectedly, she went to the cemetery to offer prayers. Her children were meeting her there. She got some flowers and picked up some small stones to bring to the grave. The office gave her a map to find the section, but she had no idea where the specific grave was.
No one was around, and she got lost. A man in work clothes approached and offered help—pointing out to her that each grave had a number carved into the corner.
She easily followed the path to a freshly dug hole.
At that point, she looked up and saw her children approaching in their car. She waved to them, and motioned to her brother’s grave.
Turning to thank the man for his help, there was no sight of him! She saw no mode of transportation—no sign of the man’s having been there at all. Nothing…
Closing her eyes, she thanked God for sending that angel.
Miracles happen. She (and WE) can appreciate each reminder of that gift, and all of the angelic-helpers we all have!
If you have a Sacred Story you would like to have shared, please send email to debra@scs-matters.com.
Her heart was heavy as she was driving to her parents’ house with her infant son. Her first family photos were going to be without her husband and her daughter.
She had given birth to twins a few months earlier, but her daughter had only lived three-and-a-half days.
Current family tension resulted in her husband’s not attending the wedding of her brother.
She was thinking about what it would be like to have all four of them in the car on the way to—anywhere.
She suddenly realized that Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds had come on the radio. That is the song they had all four of their heartbeats put to….
Don’t worry about a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing’ don’t worry about a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright
No doubt you have heard the phrase be careful what you ask for. The idea is that you will get it. This truth has so clearly come to me this week, I see myself as an unwitting mystic, and I am mostly grateful. (LOL)
I have a family member who has not demonstrated good money managing skills. He recently inherited a sum of money rather large for his standard of life. Within a couple of weeks, many thousands of dollars were gone. Mostly, he was able to justify the spending choices he made, such as paying delinquent debts. However, undeniably still financially vulnerable moving forward, he agreed to go to a financial counselor at a local bank to create a workable life plan. I offered to go with him. That happened. I left the bank with three hundred dollars (cash) to hang on to for him for an upcoming trip.
Three days later, he called asking me for some of that money.
“What do you need the money for?” I asked. I agreed what he was asking funds for was a legitimate expense, but based on the meeting at the bank, I also knew he had earned some money two days previously. “You did a job two days ago. Where is that money?”
“I bought an exercise bike. I have wanted one for a long time.” His response set off a reaction in me. I was launched into a conditioned pattern: I expressed my disappointment in his choice and clarified what he had agreed to. He also launched into a conditioned pattern: He justified his behavior and claimed his freedom to choose.
The light went on!
This interaction was perfect given my soul’s intention: I choose to trust life. I choose to see others as capable. I choose to remember we learn by what works and by what does not work. I choose to love, forgive, and enhance my awareness. The conditioned life is not Divine Love!
The previous night I had heard Mary Reed, author of Unwitting Mystic, speak about the history of our conditioned life. We have all lived in fear. We have all tried to control other people’s behavior under the guise of protecting them. Mary lifts up the true nature of unconditional love. She said the most significant question each of us makes is whether or not we are willing to move beyond the conditioning so we can enjoy that.
It cannot be that one individual can become enlightened and nothing else be changed. I know we are all a part of the collective. My consciousness matters. A few hours before his phone call asking for the money, I had written in my journal about my own willingness to release conditioning and live unconditional love.
This encounter with him about the money worked perfectly as a test to my willingness. Could I in these circumstances honor my own experience without focus on him and what he did? With some breathing, and some clarifying of my own sacred intention, that soon was happening.
I sent him a text message: “I apologize for expressing disagreement with your choices for your life. It really is not any of my business. I appreciate the opportunity to more deeply choose to live in unconditional love…”
Even so, my mind ruminated about these events before finding a landing place more free of judgment of both of us.
In her talk, Mary gave an example of how fear and judgment and anger and blame and frustration function like a thread between us that gets all wound up. As we move around, telling others about the events of our lives, we are bound up in ancient conflict energy. She says you can earnestly go within and own everything you feel and get to a place of forgiveness of yourself (the way you have seen things, and your actions). As you bask in this forgiveness of yourself, that thread of conflict energy begins to fall away from you. As it falls away from you, it must also fall away from the other because you are not feeding this conditioned state.
Mary has spent time with the Dalai Lama. If you would be blessed by listening, you will find her story very riveting. After taking 97 prescription pills in a suicide attempt and waking up two days later, Mary surrendered her ego. She has lived some pretty intense experiences on her road to mysticism. Appreciating my own gentler path of reading and studying and learning from others experiences…
“I am always doing that which I cannot do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.”
~ Pablo Picasso
Some days—more than others—you are aware how connected we all are.
My dear friends/colleagues and I are experiencing palpable loss and questioning around changes with regards to massage therapy services provided by our local hospice organization. We value these therapies. The massage therapist was the one person on her hospice care team who knew when my mother-in-law had begun her active transition in October of 2015. The nurse was caught off guard, but Marjie was not.
As my heart finds relief through my fingers on the keyboard, a lot is happening.
Carol is driving three hours to check on her son. He has experienced alcohol addiction, and has not been going to work or answering his phone.
Claudia is doing her best to support herself and her husband, Wayne, as they deal with the day-to-day experiences of his Alzheimer’s.
Another friend is navigating misunderstanding and fears around her psychosis-like symptoms, most likely related to a kundalini awakening.
During my inner time this morning, holding all of this in my heart, I asked, “What is real about all of this, and what would Spirit have us know?”
We may claim that something means little to us when, in fact it means a great deal. The situation needs to be handled with care. This is the time to call upon Honesty for aid!
Faeries Oracle Card
# 40 Honesty
Reminds us not only to be clear in what we say and do, but also to act and speak with compassion and tact. Dishonesty, even in the name of tact, is not helpful.
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How does this situation get redeemed? I can barely hold it in my heart, it is so painful. Knowing how valuable Marjie’s massage therapy was for John’s mom; seeing the loss, but knowing it is important to not activate the drama triangle.
Thoughts of the Old Testament story about Joseph and the coat of many colors pops into mind. Joseph’s brothers, smitten with jealousy, sold him into slavery. Years later, desperate to buy grain, the brothers come face-to-face with Joseph. Joseph is now second in command to the Pharaoh, and in charge of the supplies. The brothers feared for their lives! But, Joseph was not vindictive. He was conscious of the bigger picture. The proof of Joseph’s world view is demonstrated by him telling his brothers, “You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.”
Zen Osho Tarot
Knight of Water
Trust
When we take trust to the level of the quantum leap, we don’t make any elaborate plans or preparations… No, we just jump, with hardly a thought of what happens next.
Trust life. With trust, something immense opens up.
You are not deceived; there is nothing that can be taken away from you… You cannot lose your real treasure.
~~~~
I have wondered before if this is about offering massage therapy house calls for critically/chronically ill as private pay. This might just be a step away from dependency on insurance. For sure, the insurance industry has been problematic for our society. It has not been financially good for doctors. It has not been mentally good for patients who have lost touch with self-responsibility as an employer paid premiums and an insurance company paid charges. Might this current chaos have a good long-term outcome, as with Joseph all those years ago?
What would spirit have us know about all of that?
Angelic Messenger Cards
# 39 Cooperation
A Nourishment Card
Cooperation between your feelings and your body create physical health and feelings of happiness and fulfillment. Cooperation among your feelings, your body, and your spirit give you the ability to experience the grace of God as love and to interpret the energy of love as the guidance you seek. The spiritual energy of love is arising from the divine Presence and raises you to the status of inspired mortal and wise healer of other living things.
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I don’t know how everything is going to unfold in all of these situations. We do know we can choose how we view LIFE. For example, Abraham Hicks’ take on Alzheimer’s. Listening to that may bless you, too.
In the meantime, remember the truth: We truly are, as Ram Dass says, all just walking each other home.
Feeling somewhat desperate, trying to decide if she should sign the lease without others being committed to sharing the space, she blurted out, “I believe in me!”
Just as she did, she saw a wadded up garment on the side of the road. The previous week, she had found a pair of golf shorts—in her husband’s size, still with the tags on them, on the side of the road.
Parking her bike, she flipped the garment over, and saw the words: Just Do It!
(Excerpted from Surrender the Fear, Beyond Mastery Newsletter. Used by permission.)
