My Little Auntie: A Model for Us All (1918-2012)

My little auntie died in my arms just after dinner Monday night and we will be burying her today  . . .  This October, she would have been  94 years old. . . 

Every Morning this week, I have awakened with my eyes filled with tears of Grat

I had the privelege of taking care of my little auntie after retiring from my private practice as a clinical psychologist. I am her oldest nephew and the son of her sister, Gertrude. I was confirmed at what was then St. Andrews in 1960 and was very close to my aunt when I was growing up. Below are my recollections which will be used for her service. I have asked to have the presiding priest use it, and he has agreed to do so. I can't say it without becoming overcome with tears of gratitude and loss.

Barbara was upbeat, inspired and inspiring and led an active life. She never complained, ever, no matter how bent over and how much it was a struggle for her to shuffle along with her walker.  She was always delighted by the sky, saying, "look at that awesome sky," whether gray or blue, stormy or clear, it was always awesome to her. She loved animals. Every dog was "my favorite friend" and a "handsome four-legged wonder."

Despite her impaired short-term memory due to dementia, she somehow played bridge with her lifelong friends most of whom are no longer with us. On her daily walks, she greeted everyone, not by name, of course, but with her infectious smile.  Up until 3 years ago when she turned 90, she walked all through her neighborhood which included the area of Wilmington known as 4o Acres as well as Rockford Park and the Brandywine from the wooden bridge near her home to the Market Street Bridge. She would tell people how she had been all over the world, and she had. Her trips involved birding, and hiking or biking between hotels, hostels, or camp sites. She was hiking in Cuba just days before Castro took over. She would say how the guide would get news daily about Castro's progress so that the group she was with flew out in time. She was in Tennamin Square in China when the commotion started and the guide told the group to stand still close to a nearby wall as shots fired.  Just moments earlier, she was so pleased when a 10-year-old Chinese boy approached her, asking, "May I walk with you? I want to practice my English." Then, it broke her heart when a guard suddenly grabbed the boy by he arm and whisked him away. She was also fond of relating how she had the smallest camel to ride when on safari in the Sahara Desert. She would delightedly recount how, at the end of each day, her camel was eager to be fed and would dart in ahead of all the larger camels.

She hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, doing sections during her vacations and weekends off from the DuPont Experimental Station. Of course, she hiked the trail only when she wasn't sailing on her sailboat out of Northeast River Yacht club or traveling abroad. She was an outstanding athlete with trophies in tennis, golf, bowling. She won the Irene DuPont classic golf tournament 3 years in a row, and the third year came from behind.

Above all, even when weakened and  only able to walk with someone pulling her walker, and hunched over from the severe osteoporosis, she demonstrated what only  so few among achieve: unconditional-no-matter-what-happens happiness. Rain or shine, barely able to move or at the peak of her athletic ability, she was always happy. A rainy day was a "good day. It was a good day for reading, or good day for a jigsaw puzzle" or just "a good day to be lazy."

What was said by the angel Clarence in the Frank Capra film classic, It's a Wonderful Life applies to Barbara's life, leaving out the masculine pronoun, "Each person's life touches so many other lives. When she isn't around. she leaves an awful hole . . .". She was loved and will be missed by all those who knew her well or only on her daily walks  and she will be welcomed by those who knew har who have preceded her and have been waiting for her to come Home. , including her beloved younger sister, Gertrude, my mother, and her younger brother, Hank.

Often, as she admired the clouds, Barbara used to say, "When I was a little girl, I pictured myself jumping from cloud to cloud, As Wordsworth wrote, "Trailing clouds of glory do we come from God who is our home" and now, dear Barbara,  traililig clouds of glory do you return to God who is your home . . .

Drop the Story & Flap Your Wings

I just returned from a weekend in the Adirondacks with my friend Ron who has a house there. The Mayan elders taught me how God talks to us all the time through nature. Of course, God is not restricted to communicating through nature. God talks to us through everything, even through our technological world: our computers, cars, TV shows, movies, radio shows, etc. Over the three days, deer, blue heron, red squirrel, hawk, and hummingbird crossed my path and my friend's. Each had some 

quality I could apply to my life situation and they each had something relevant to say about the circumstances in my friend's life. We could each draw upon the gentleness o deer, the self-reliance and sturdy patience of  of blue heron, the non-aggressiveness yet resourceful protectiveness of red squirrel, the infinite joy of hummingbird, and the recognition that they all come to us courtesy of hawk—the messenger of Great Spirit, God. 

In a New Earth, Ekhart Tolle uses the example of what two ducks do after they have a fight. "They separate, go off, and flap their wings, releasing the stored up energy, and then float on peacefully as if nothing had happened.

"If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story making. This would probably be the duck's story. "I don't believe what he just did. He came to within five inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I'll never trust him again. Next time, he'll try something else just to annoy me. I'm sure he's plotting something already. But I'm not going to stand for this. I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget. And on and on the mind spins its tales, still talking about it days, months, or years later. 

"As far as the body is concerned, the fight is still  continuing. . . . this is how most humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. The mind and the mind-made me and my story keep it going. We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen. Our duck's lesson is this: flap your wings, which translates as let go of the story and return to the only place of power, the present moment?"

• Consider how much we keep our upsets alive by the stories we tell ourselves about the events in our lives. Rather than keep reviewing and thereby continuing to stress ourselves, we can try flapping our wings with the mantra of compassion. Picture the person who upsets you, and silently say to him or her, "I know in my heart, you would have done differently if you really could have done differently, but you couldn't (not yet anyway) so you didn't."

Choosing Transparency

 On this day of Good Friday, I think back to what came to me in the predawn hours of Easter Morning last year. I awoke with the thought that was revealed to me 11 years earlier regarding my impaired vision. "When I can see through the eyes of God with total love and no fear, my vision will become clear."  Over the years, I have fashioned it into an affirmation of gratitude, acting as if it has happened. "Thank You, Divine Beloved, that I AM now seeing everything clearly both the spiritual and the material, through your eyes with total love, no anger and no fear, and my vision is completely clear." Opening my eyes, I gazed expectantly into the darkness surrounding my bed. I then thought of the example of Christ on the cross. My prayer-affirmation became: "Thank You, Divine Beloved, that I AM now seeing everything clearly both the spiritual and the material, through your eyes with total love, no anger and no fear as Christ did His persecutors from the cross, and my vision is completely clear because my Christ vision is here." How can we do this? By remembering who we really are, which means, we affirm our spirit- or love-based identity. 

As we choose the transparency of a spirit-based identity, we replace the solidity of a body-based identity. We let stressful external events pass through us.

Consider the following from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. My thoughts are in brackets.

Interviewer: "how do we stop negativity from arising and how do we get rid of it once it is there?"

ET. . . . "Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure but as a helpful signal that is telling you, 'Wake up! Get out of your mind! Be present!' . . .

. . . "As an alternative to dropping a negative reaction, you can make it disappear by imagining yourself becoming transparent to the external cause of the reaction. I recommend that you practice it with little, even trivial things at first. Let's say that you are sitting quietly at home. Suddenly, there's the penetrating sound of a car alarm from across the street. Irritation arises. What is the purpose of the irritation? {Is it really necessary for me to be upset about this irritation?] None whatsoever. Why did you create it? You didn't. The mind did. It was totally automatic. Totally unconscious. Why did the mind create it? Because it [the mind] holds the unconscious belief that its resistance, which you experience as negativity or unhappiness in some form, will somehow dissolve the undesirable condition. This, of course, is delusion. The resistance that it creates, the irritation or anger in this  case,  is far more disturbing than the original cause that i is trying to dissolve. All this can be transformed into spiritual practice. Feel yourself becoming transparent as it were, without the solidity of a material body. Now allow the noise, or whatever causes the negative reaction, to pass right through you. It is no longer hitting a solid wall inside you. As I said, practice with little things first: the car alarm, the dog barking, the children screaming, the traffic jam. Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that SHOULD not be happening, let everything pass through you. Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you, offering no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power, not in someone else's. Nor are you run by your [reactive, automatic stimulus-response-based or conditioned] mind. Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake, or the loss of all your possessions, your resistance mechanism is the same."

Stress Relief For A New Era: Transparent Trophy Revised

 I was just honored for achievement in high school and college basketball by being inducted into The Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association's Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2012. So much is coming together. Signs abound. There is the transparency of my award and its shape as a kind of clear glass tower pointing to heaven. All this suggest to me a kind of concretization of a higher consciousness emerging in and around me and all of us paying attention.  The photo of me having my picture taken by a woman was the one the newspaper chose to publish. It was a photo within a photo, like a dream within a dream. It struck me as very unusual and seemed somehow significant. There is  the implicit higher consciousness of the unseen photographer. The photographer is  witnessing a scene of the opposites of male and female facing each other respectfully. There is a amicable air of equality and mutual respect. . Many spiritual writers are suggesting that a new balance between the male and female principles is being sought after 2000 years of male-dominated attitudes.  It could be said that I am being seen through a feminine lens. It is time for all of us to see the world through nurturing, maternal eyes. We might say the paternal perspective in terms of the masculine emphasis on domination has polluted our planet.  I excitedly have a sense of my vision quest leading to a kind of deeper and more elevated or enlightened perspective. It is both a preparation for the upcoming trip to Abadiania, Brazil to see the healer John of God and my ongoing quest for true vision. 

The following is from the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle with my thoughts interspersed and set off in brackets. 

"In the sea most life forms don't survive for more than a  few minutes.  The human form turns to dust pretty quickly too. And when it is gone it is as if it never was. Is that tragic or cruel? Death of a form is tragic only if we forget consciousness is God essence expressing Itself in form. But you don't really know that until you realize your God essence as pure consciousness. If a fish  is born in your aquarium and you call it John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his family history and 2 minutes later he gets eaten by another fish, that's tragic. But it's only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none. You got hold of a fraction of a dynamic process, a molecular dance, and made a separate identity out of it.

"Consciousness takes on the disguise of form . . .until it . . . loses itself in those forms. In present day humans, consciousness is completely identified with its disguise [physical and mental forms]. This is how it is today, Consciousness only knows itself as form and therefore lives in fear of annihilation of its physical and psychological form. This is the egoic mind . .. where dysfunction sets in . . .this is part of Lila [Hindu concept], the divine game. [The Kabbalah's creation story tells us that the Creator, the Endless Light creates a Vessel to receive Its Light. The Vessel pushes back the Light, and wham! The Big Bang occurs as the Vessel shatters into all the souls that will ever exist, and the Light goes into hiding. A cosmic hide and seek game begins].

"Finally the pressure of suffering . . .created by this apparent dysfunction forces consciousness to disidentify with form and awakens it from form and its dream of form. It regains self-consciousness but at a much deeper level than when it lost [or appeared to lose] self-consciousness.

Prodigal Son

"This process is explained by Jesus in the parable of the lost son [Prodigal Son] who leaves his Father's home, squanders his wealth, becomes destitute, and is then forced by his suffering to return home.

When he does, his father loves him more than before.  The son's state is the same as it was before yet not the same. It has an added dimension of depth. The parable describes the journey from unconscious perfection [wholeness] through apparent imperfection  and apparent evil to conscious perfection [wholeness].

"Can you now see the deeper and wider significance of becoming present as the watcher of your mind?

[So, what is the benefit  of learning to disidentify from endlessly-thinking mind by watching it? A respite. Inner peace. At the very least, we gain relief from the internal pressure created by our thoughts as we step out of the ongoing stream and observe it] Watching the mind withdraws consciousness from mind forms [thoughts and images that endlessly arise and pass away]. Consciousness then becomes the witness or watcher or pure enlightened consciousness beyond form. This consciousness beyond form becomes stronger and the mental forms from which consciousness has been withdrawn becomes  weaker. 

The Larger Significance of Watching the Mind

"When we talk about watching the mind, we are personalizing an event that is truly of cosmic proportions. Through you [us] consciousness is awakening out of its dream of identification with  form  and withdrawing from form. This foreshasows but is alredy part of an event that is still in the distant future as far as chronological time is concerned. The event is called the end of the world.

When consciousness frees itself from physical and mental forms it becomes what we may call pure or enlightened consciousness or presence. . . . This has already happened in a few individuals.  it seems destined to happen soon on a much larger scale. There is no guarantee it will happen. Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness, identified with their mind and run by theri mind [physical and psychological forms]. If they do not free themselves in time [free themselves from identifying with the time-bound mind and sense of self, i.e., mental form] they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing violence, confusion, illness despair, and madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off you will go down with it. 

The collective egoic mind is the most dangerous entity to ever inhabit this planet.

"What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged? Already, for most humans, the only respite is to occasionally reveert to a level [of consciousness] below thought, Everyone does this every night during sleep. But this also happens to some extent  during sex, alcohol and other drugs that suppress excessive mind activity.

"If it weren't for alcohol, tranquilizers, anti-depressants as well as illegal drugs, all of which are consumed in vast quantities, the insanity of the human mind would become more glaringly obvious than it is already. Deprived of their drugs, a large part of humanity would become a danger to self and others. These drugs, of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their widespread use only delays the breakdown of old mind structures and the emergence of higher consciousness. [These mind structures or mental constructs are epitomized by the angry vengeful male deity depicted in the Old Testament (a projection of the ego and its mechanisms of defense, i.e., the mind and its workings)  which has extended into  2000 years of patriarchy, of male-dominated society, with its emphasis on the judgmental, constantly evaluating mind and linear logic seeking to control, dominate, manipulate and use nature. And, this mode of consciousness is cut off from the feminine characterized by compassion, softness, non-judgment and a recognition of our interdependence with all of life on this planet]. While some may gain relief from the daily torture inflicted on them by their minds, they are prevented from generating enough conscous presence to rise above thought and so find true liberation. 

Only Option is Going on to the  Next Stage 

"Falling back to a level of consciousness below mind,  the pre-thinking level of our ancestors and plants  is not an option for us. There's no way back. If the human race is to go on, it must go on to the next stage.[In this stage we realize that a fear-based consciousness helped create the world we see and a consciousness that realizes we are all one and that we are spiritual beings in bodies can help us all at this time in human history. This is what I learned from the Mayan Shamans regarding the shift of consciousness taking place in the space of time they call the End of Time. we could say, in line with Tolle, we stop seeing ourselves as time-bound minds with bodies, and, instead, realize we are eternal beings, consciousness, in physical forms that fade, decay, bloom and pass away while, we recognize in the timeless lyrics of  George Gershwin, "our love is here to stay" and love is who we are. Love is the stuff, the energy of which the spirit is made. Only our bodies are like the Rockies which may tumble and Gibraltar which may crumble, "they're only made of clay." ] 

Consciousness Creating A New World

Below is another insight that I've been led to in my quest to heal my eyesight as those in Brazil did. For those of you following my blogs on My Vision Quest, you may recall that when I went to Brazil to see the healer/medium John of God, I learned of 4 individuals whose eyesight was restored and, in two instances their optic nerves were not functioning at all. They were not seeing by way of the usual mechanism of the eye. Consider what the following excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now say about who we are and the power of our consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle: "Highly conscious beings who are aware of their connectedness with the Source and with each other inhabit a world that to you would appear as a heavenly realm. And yet, all worlds are ultimately one. Our collective human world is largely created through the level of consciousness we call mind. Even within the collective human world there are vast differences, many different sub-worlds depending on the perceivers or creators of their respective worlds. Since all worlds are interconnected, when collective hhuman consciousness becomes transformed, nature and the animal kingdom will reflect their transformation. Hence the statement in the Bible that in the coming age, the lion shall lie down with the lamb. This points to the possibility of a completely different order of reality.

""The world as it appears to us now is largely a reflection of the egoic mind. Fear being an unavoidable consequence of egoic delusion, it is a world dominated by fear. Just as the images in a dream are symbols of inner states and feelings, so our collective reality is largely a symbolic expression of fear and of the heavy layers of negativity that have accumulated in the collective human psyche. We are not separate from our world, so when the majority of humans become free of egoic delusion [that we are primarily bodies, not primarily spirits with a thin veil we call a body], this inner change will affect all creation. You will literally inhabit a new world. It is a shift in planetary consciousness."

Our Consciousness Creates Our World

Below is another insight that I've been led to in my quest to heal my eyesight as those in Brazil did. For those of you following my blogs on My Vision Quest, you may recall that when I went to Brazil to see the healer/medium John of God, I learned of 4 individuals whose eyesight was restored and, in two instances their optic nerves were not functioning at all. They were not seeing by way of the usual mechanism of the eye. Consider what the following excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now say about who we are and the power of our consciousness.

• Interviewer's first Question: "We believe in death and that's why the body dies, right?"
Eckhart Tolle: "The body does not die because you believe in death. The body exists or seems to because you believe in death. Body and death are part of the same illusion created by the egoic mode of consciousness which has no awareness of the source of life and sees itself as separate and constantly under threat."

Interviewer's nextt Question: "Why does an animal have a body? It doesn't believe in death."
Eckhart Tolle: "There's no world out there. We create what we see so animals appear to die, etc."

"One of the greatest insights that has come out of modern physics is that of the unity of the observer and the observed. The person conducting the experiment, the observing consciousness, cannot be separated from the observed phenomena, and a different way of looking causes the observed phenomena to behave differently.

"If you believe in separation and the struggle for survival then you see that belief reflected all around you and your perceptions are governed by fear. You inhabit a world of death and of bodies fighting, killing, and devouring each other. Nothing is what it seems to be. The world you see and create with the egoic mind may seem to be a very imperfect place even a vale of tears. But whatever you perceive is only a kind of symbol like an image in a dream. It is how your consciousness interprets and interacts with the molecular energy dance of the universe. This energy is the raw material of so-called physical reality. You see it in terms of bodies and birth and death or as a struggle for survival.

An infinite number of completely different interpretations, of completely different worlds, is possible and in fact exists. All depending on the perceiving consciousness. The being is the focal point of consciousness and every such focal point creates its own world although all those worlds are interconnected. There's a human world, an ant world, a dolphin world, and so on. There are countless beings whose consciousness frequency is so different from yours that you are probably unaware of their existence as they are of yours.

Ten Years Later: A Spiritual View of 9/11/01

A Native American Perspective on the Evil of 9/11/01 [The following is excerpted from A Matter of Love www.thespacebetweenstars.com] If everything comes from the Divine, then why not evil? Can the Darkness somehow serve the Light? Are the calamities of life spiritual gifts? Is it that we can make some use of the tragedy, find a silver lining in the cloud? Or, is there a silver lining there already? Can what is unspeakably horrible from one point of view be something that is beneficial from another perspective? Just days after the World Trade Center attack, I was e-mailed a copy of a statement by Jean Reddeman of the Mohican Nation. Her Native American name is Wasaki Emani Wi, which means Strong Walking Woman. Among her people, she is considered a seer, which I believe means that she is a prophet and a clairvoyant. She indicated that the tragedy had been predicted by the elders of her tribal nation many years ago. They foresaw a “massive spiritual exodus.” The elders saw that many “advanced souls” were going to sacrifice their lives to help shift the values and consciousness of not only America but the world from a materialistic focus to a spiritual one. Jean indicated that the elders believed that this immense sacrifice would not have happened if America had already made the shift to the spiritual values of love, compassion, and peace. She went on to say that the elders “had predicted that great good will come after this tragedy especially if people recognize the teachings of the event and if they honor those who died during the tragedy.” In speaking of those who died in the tragedy, Jean said that these “very evolved souls will be helping the major shift that the world so sorely needs.” She claimed that, “They came into this lifetime to give us this gift, the gift of their lives and of their love so that the world would change to a better place.” She emphasized that: “We must honor them, we must go forward. We must listen to their messages from the heavens.” According to Jean, the role of women is especially important in moving on to implement the change needed. Jean quoted an old Mohican Proverb: A nation is not lost as long as the women’s hearts are still high. Only when the women’s hearts are on the ground—then all is finished, and the nation dies. The women are the life carriers. Jean proclaimed that women must, in effect, access the depths of their heart, and this will enable men to find what she calls “their original strength.” She specified that this is not the strength resulting from economic, political and military power but is from “spiritual strength.” The world needs this “nurturing energy.” And she goes on to emphasize the importance of this energy: We cannot go on with wars; we will all die, if we do. We have to see in the middle of the pain and chaos the greater lessons.We must thank them [those who died at the hands of the terrorists] from the bottom of our hearts, with incredible love, for they are great people. We have to share this moment so that together we can go to this new consciousness, the female energy that is so much needed at this time. From my perspective, we need to see through our heart with the eyes of love and compassion as we look at the areas of the world where terrorism breeds so freely. The deprivation and despair of such harsh living conditions like those in the Middle East are a fertile breeding ground for suicide bombers. Future bombers are living at the level of the reptile as they struggle to survive such harsh conditions. Dropping care packages and not just bombs in Afghanistan and later in Iraq was a small step in the direction of addressing the underlying deprivation.