Honoring the Ancestors on All Souls Day
We live in a world that presses headlong into the future, hell-bent on progress and gain, never looking back. But this is the time of year to halt the harried forward push, to pause and reflect on the lives that came before. On All Souls Day we remember the departed …
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In the Company of Angels
Like the pattern of a snowflake or the imprint of a fingertip, what makes life so beautiful is that every single being is unique. We could say that too about our arrival into this world, that each delivery at birth is unique. So it resonates true for the way we …
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Change Like the Wind
It is amazing how the death of a loved one puts everything so swiftly, so suddenly— snap— into perspective. Death is like a chiropractic adjustment where your entire world, just like that, aligns true. People say that following the death of a beloved, you see them everywhere around you. I …
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Aloneness is Next to Godliness: Bedside with My Mother
When you spend time alone, which most of us do most of the time these days, there are two ways to go. First you could feel shuttered in, landlocked, overcome by a feeling of lack. This is an isolated feeling, like a solitary tree in the meadow. Or when alone, …
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Into Thin Air: Bedside with My Mother
For those of us on the path of a contemplative practice, it is a gift to witness the dying. For two hours, or two days or– as the case may be– weeks on end it is possible to witness a person, together with their entire lifetime and karmic history dissolve …
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On Hallowed Ground: Bedside with My Mother
The death room is hallowed ground. Each time I enter mom’s room, it is like entering a cavern, a sanctum, where one of the oldest rites of passage known to mankind takes place. It bears its own silence, similar to the hush of the meditation hall, but netherward, below ground, …
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In the Morning a Fall Day
How is it that death can be so exquisite? Really this time of year is hallucinogenic. The October sky brilliant a lazuli lapis blue. Maple trees turn a fire engine red. And the big pumpkin in the pumpkin patch glistens brilliant with morning dew. This is a hallowed season, a …
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On the Threshold: Bedside with My Mother
As I arrive at the small room where my mother has been bedridden for eight days, I pause in the doorway and peer in to catch the day’s first glimpse of her. It is a moment filled with expectation, a kind of existential awe and… trepidation. What state will she …
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Saying Goodbye: from Surya Little
This morning, as my feet trod the dirt and rocks in the arroyo along the back side of our home—our dog Haro trotted ahead. We were surrounded by tall trees and the peace of silence. As my prayers echo through me, saying my last goodbyes to my beloved mother-in-law, Suz. …
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A Kind of Vision Quest: Bedside with My Mother
Sitting with my dying mother is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. The only thing that comes closest is the 4 days I spent without food or water in the Arizona desert on a vision quest. This passage is equally grueling and exhausting, a test of faith and …
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