Evolving Traditions — Keeping the Spark Alive

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Once upon a time, when my daughter was a wee lassie, I spent a few evenings bent over the sewing machine, stitching together little bags from colourful scraps. Twenty-four bags to mark the journey of Advent for her, a cherished tradition from my childhood in Switzerland that I wanted to pass on. The bags were then filled with “pretty little things” as she would call them, and sometimes a treat (dried mango, chocolate, some nuts). Oh, how she loved this daily gift and preparation toward Christmas! It suited her 4-year old self quite perfectly. Read more

She did it!

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In my home country – Switzerland – on All Soul’s Day – we wander to the cemeteries, and honor the dead. The cemeteries in the small mountain villages are alive with young and old, visiting their loved ones who have travelled on.

This year my grandmother died. I spent a week with her, just before she passed. It was a holy week, I will cherish it for always.
And tonight some words arise as I sit here in Canada, visiting my grandmother on this All Soul’s Day with my thoughts, memories and the heart that knows no distance. May your loved ones who have crossed the threshold join you this season when the veil is thin, the moon just a slice.

She did it

A strong heart, beating for over 840,960,000 breaths,
A sparkle of soul, finding the glisten of humor for over a century,
A keen caring mind, ready for wit and reflection for over one thousand two hundred months,
A heart so merry and kind, pouring out generous love for over a century.

A life full of friendship, tended relations, enfolded in a hearth she helped build,
A long life, complete with grace, hardship, pain and blessings,
Choosing over and over again to surrender to what is,
To see the gift hidden in the furrows of human turmoil.

Hands soft and gentle, reaching out in caress till an hour before departure.
A person ready to leave her earthly garment, so very ready.
But how, when there is no sickness and no accident?
How do you get out of a body, an old and fading body, but one with a strong beating heart?

We ponder together. We laugh and we wonder.
A puzzlement not met before.
We wait. Chat. Sing. Touch.
We rest together in the precious lit up moments of an unknown threshold.

And then. She does it.
A nap turns into a change of breath,
A depth of slumber like no other,
Turns into a release of breath.

She did it!
The first words that come to me as I hear of her death.
She did it. She crossed the threshold, over to the other side of the veil.
She left her body behind, she climbed out and on.

Her heart, her over one hundred year old heart stopped beating,
And freed her soul to travel on.
Bless her heart. It was a grand one.
A truly grand mother was she.

_______________________________

My grandmother had a deep abiding love for Mother Mary. I sang this Ave Maria (by Gounod) at her funeral and share the recording here in the spirit of my grandmother and this all soul’s day.

Ave Maria – sung for my grandmother – August 2019 >>

Living and Being Lived Beyond My Self

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I had a long chat with my mum this Sunday and am left with a buoyed sense of being held that lingers on into the afternoon, into the evening. As I stand at the kitchen counter, chopping veggies for supper I notice this “heldness” and my thoughts go to the many who don’t have a mama in this earthly form anymore, be this through death or other separation. They don’t have this person in their lives who has known them since little, since in-the-belly times, who has seen them and helped them grow up through the many stages, stumbles, ages, rejoices. One day I too won’t have her to call, to hear her voice any more. That time will come for all of us.

Arising from this reflection, I pour this sense of “heldness” over to those without mother, over to you. It belongs to all. It is not mine to keep, whether it flows from my mother, from our relationship, or not. This heldness is everyone’s birthright, and those of us in the blessed place and space to receive it directly, may we share it out and around so that it touches all those sons and daughters who miss their mamas, to all who don’t feel understood, supported by their parents, to all those who have left their elders far behind on a different continent or worldview. Read more

Eternal Spring Cleaning

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My 99-year old grandma continues to inspire me. Ten years ago, when she was still nimble on her feet and energized in her body, she decided to close up her city apartment, sort through all her belongings and move to a home for aged people a few city blocks away. She downsized everything to fit in her new one-room abode. She wanted to do this before she had to. So that she could save someone else having to move her. So that she could take care of her accumulated stuff, clear house and deal with it all herself.

She continues to this day. On an ongoing basis, she clears her things — clothes, photos, this and that. Emptying, sifting, letting go. Emptying, emptying.

I was laughing with her today over the phone, “Soon you’ll be down to nothing!” I say. “I know”, she replies. I just don’t need this stuff anymore. You know, when you’re my age, really, when will I get round to wearing a jacket I still haven’t worn? My sense of time has changed. Now when I look ahead, I ask myself, will I wear this or need that in the next year or so? And if not, well, I really don’t need it around anymore.”

When she dies, we will have very little, if anything to deal with at the level of objects. We will be freed to feel her passing, our loss, her life, our grief, without the burden of stuff. She already gave me the wooden statue of Mary my granddad carved 20 years ago. My daughter has already received the lovely jewelry she coveted. My mum already has the photos of my grandma’s childhood, precious to her. And so on…

My grandma doesn’t wait for change. She senses it and acts. She is connected with the future, with whisperings of what is to come. I find this so refreshing. And rare. Don’t most of us wait to get shoved into our next iteration? We wait till we have to, and in the case of our death, often leave behind crazy amounts of stuff for our loved ones to pour through, sift, sort and organize?

She matches this external clearing with her internal process. In our weekly calls we chat about her death as casually as about the weather. We talk about how she’d love to die, as many of us, peacefully in her sleep. I visualize this with her. We talk about how ready she is. She finds herself gradually pulling back from daily affairs, news, books etc. And simultaneously she is so here, alert and present. She cares and is interested in the current happenings of our lives. She loves my daughter so fully and is interested in her well-being, she who lives and breaths at the other end of the life spectrum.

So, I take my grandma’s ways and let them inspire me. I share them today to inspire you. How can we listen to the future, not with angst or as an escape from our Now, but with a leaning toward and welcoming of what is to come? Carving ourselves out to make space for the new, the next. Emptying and spring cleaning for the Eternity we are all enfolded in, and on our way toward. Not leaving that job, which is each of our’s to do, to someone else.

Thank you Grandma, for your modelling of a way to age and spring clean with your eyes wide open. I gladly follow these footsteps of yours.

Impressions from the Swiss Land…

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As we near the end of our visit to my Swiss childhood home, I am filled with impressions, indents and enrichments to senses and self.
 
I gather some of them up here, in part to share with you as a thank you for all the times I get to travel vicariously through your reports, dear friends; in part so that they pop up again in the memory function some day in the future to re-member.
 
New Year’s eve, thousands are gathered in front of the Muenster, the cathedral in the old town of Basel. Up on the cathedral balcony trombone players grace the crowds with their music, as we sing along to the old hymns. Ten minutes before midnight, they stop playing and are replaced by the church bells ringing out the old year. The bells chime non-stop till midnight, and as the clock strikes twelve, they are replaced by lighter bells ringing in the new year. This transition of ringing out the old and ringing in the new year, flooded in an orange-pink light, with young and old huddled against the suddenly brewing wind and rain storm, followed by half an hour of fireworks lighting up the city sky offers a wonderful collective experience of transiting, of releasing the old and welcoming the new.
 
My grandmother’s hands – small, dainty and strong simultaneously. The skin softened, the nails still so pretty. She, 99 years old in a month, as fiesty as ever, humour-filled and giving, tender, a twinkle in her eye, slowly releasing from this embodied existence and yet still so here. She reaches over to take my hands in hers. I do the same. Often. The touch, so precious, so fleeting. Time passes for all of us. I love her with all my heart.
 
Cobblestones under my feet – in every town and city, offering satisfying grip to the boots under my feet. They wind up narrow alleyways and cover generous squares. Each stone a little square, together a street. History held in the littlest to the biggest. How long has each lain there? What all has passed over them?
 
The bread, oh my God, the bread… after over 20 years of wheat-free eating with only the very rare exception, I give in. Resistance is futile. The crust, the dough… Nothing more to say. I’ll get back on track soon, but for now… 😉
 
Family. Familiar faces, habits, expressions, jokes, quirks, cares and concerns, crazy-making knots and delightful encounters, new inquiries and discoveries. These people, these roots, this closeness, and gaps between where I have come from and who I am now… Discombobulated at times and comforted too. Love over time, forever. The bonds are visceral and strong.
 
Friends too, especially one soul-sister – thank you, B, for the ways we weave our connection across distance and time.
 
The very particular smell of green grass, cow manure, fresh mountain air. Always a keeper in my mind. Could be bottled up for a veritable Swiss whiff in the future should I miss my mountain home here.
 
Walking every day, over fields and trails, amidst mountains and valleys so near and dear to my soul. I can’t get enough of it, could walk all day, every day, taking it in, inhaling the views, the feel of it all. Encountering Mary statutes tucked in rock walls, chapels built in her honour, offering a moment to pause and say hello to her Presence. How I love Her sprinkled across this landscape, concrete reminders of her holy Self.
 
Church bells. My favorite time keeper. Each village has their own. Sometimes in a city, numerous ones will ring together, from one tower to another, blending into a great Sound, stopping those who listen in their tracks, to note, to pause, to remember, to re-commit to whatever it is that is the guiding Force in their lives, or simply to revel in their glorious big sound.
 
Thousands gathered in meditative prayer in the city of Basel, singing Taize songs, one merging into another, filling the dried up spaces within and without. Replenishing and offering soul solace.
 
A few more impressions before I go… The shopkeepers are so kind and thoughtful. Thank you, lovely shopkeepers. Switzerland is getting more and more built up, with practical, ugly, square apartment blocks, covering the original old houses, a true hodge-podge of style and aesthetics. People in my home town still say ‘Gruezi’ as you pass by them on the street, a habit I cherish. This afternoon I finally made it to the nearby ski hill, in the worst conditions… no visibility, ice, grass patches… it was so bad it was funny. After bragging for years about the awesome Swiss skiing, my daughter laughed alongside me as we skidded down determinedly. She fortunately had enjoyed some of the awesome version of skiing earlier during our stay. I waited too long.
 
And now, last night before returning to our Canadian home… bittersweet every time. Thank you, Life.

I gather some of them up here, in part to share with you as a thank you for all the times I get to travel vicariously through your reports, dear friends; in part so that they pop up again in the memory function some day in the future to re-member.

New Year’s eve, thousands are gathered in front of the Muenster, the cathedral in the old town of Basel. Up on the cathedral balcony trombone players grace the crowds with their music, as we sing along to the old hymns. Ten minutes before midnight, they stop playing and are replaced by the church bells ringing out the old year. The bells chime non-stop till midnight, and as the clock strikes twelve, they are replaced by lighter bells ringing in the new year. This transition of ringing out the old and ringing in the new year, flooded in an orange-pink light, with young and old huddled against the suddenly brewing wind and rain storm, followed by half an hour of fireworks lighting up the city sky offers a wonderful collective experience of transiting, of releasing the old and welcoming the new.

My grandmother’s hands – small, dainty and strong simultaneously. The skin softened, the nails still so pretty. She, 99 years old in a month, as fiesty as ever, humour-filled and giving, tender, a twinkle in her eye, slowly releasing from this embodied existence and yet still so here. She reaches over to take my hands in hers. I do the same. Often. The touch, so precious, so fleeting. Time passes for all of us. I love her with all my heart.

Cobblestones under my feet – in every town and city, offering satisfying grip to the boots under my feet. They wind up narrow alleyways and cover generous squares. Each stone a little square, together a street. History held in the littlest to the biggest. How long has each lain there? What all has passed over them?

The bread, oh my God, the bread… after over 20 years of wheat-free eating with only the very rare exception, I give in. Resistance is futile. The crust, the dough… Nothing more to say. I’ll get back on track soon, but for now… 😉

Family. Familiar faces, habits, expressions, jokes, quirks, cares and concerns, crazy-making knots and delightful encounters, new inquiries and discoveries. These people, these roots, this closeness, and gaps between where I have come from and who I am now… Discombobulated at times and comforted too. Love over time, forever. The bonds are visceral and strong.

Friends too, especially one soul-sister – thank you, B, for the ways we weave our connection across distance and time.

The very particular smell of green grass, cow manure, fresh mountain air. Always a keeper in my mind. Could be bottled up for a veritable Swiss whiff in the future should I miss my mountain home here.

Walking every day, over fields and trails, amidst mountains and valleys so near and dear to my soul. I can’t get enough of it, could walk all day, every day, taking it in, inhaling the views, the feel of it all. Encountering Mary statutes tucked in rock walls, chapels built in her honour, offering a moment to pause and say hello to her Presence. How I love Her sprinkled across this landscape, concrete reminders of her holy Self.

Church bells. My favorite time keeper. Each village has their own. Sometimes in a city, numerous ones will ring together, from one tower to another, blending into a great Sound, stopping those who listen in their tracks, to note, to pause, to remember, to re-commit to whatever it is that is the guiding Force in their lives, or simply to revel in their glorious big sound.

Thousands gathered in meditative prayer in the city of Basel, singing Taize songs, one merging into another, filling the dried up spaces within and without. Replenishing and offering soul solace.

A few more impressions before I go… The shopkeepers are so kind and thoughtful. Thank you, lovely shopkeepers. Switzerland is getting more and more built up, with practical, ugly, square apartment blocks, covering the original old houses, a true hodge-podge of style and aesthetics. People in my home town still say ‘Gruezi’ as you pass by them on the street, a habit I cherish. This afternoon I finally made it to the nearby ski hill, in the worst conditions… no visibility, ice, grass patches… it was so bad it was funny. After bragging for years about the awesome Swiss skiing, my daughter laughed alongside me as we skidded down determinedly. She fortunately had enjoyed some of the awesome version of skiing earlier during our stay. I waited too long.

And now, last night before returning to our Canadian home… bittersweet every time. Thank you, Life.

Renewing Culture – Keep, Chuck or Recycle?

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Last week in our parenting course, one set of questions we reflected on as we consider where we come from and what we pass on to our children was:

“What do we include and bring along from our past?

What do we choose to release and discard?

And what do we transform?

In short: keep, chuck or recycle?

My lovely neighbor, Sally, sent me this photo from our community’s recent day of the dead celebration. As I sit with the many lights on the grave sites, the lineages that have come before us lie there, still. Their efforts ripple on, we carry them on within us.

Then I look at the photos of course participants’ children: wide-eyed, open, core-goodness yet unhindered. Their future in formation.

What do we as a culture pass on to our children? What chain reactions in our lineages are ready to die off, be done with, healed and laid to rest?

What can we do, within ourselves and between one another, to truly lay our dead to rest, by consciously facing and choosing what we inherit, rather than continuing an unquestioned hand-me-down version of humanity through generations?

May the light our ancestors shone, continue to guide us.

May any trauma they felt and died stuck with, be healed through us.

May we forge a new future, together.

Love Takes Many Forms ~ As Does Parenting

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Often our love for our children expresses itself in hugs, in yes’s and “for sure’s”. In “let’s do just what you wish and want”, in following our little (or big) one’s lead, beck and call.

And sometimes love expresses itself in clear direction, in no’s, in putting your foot down and saying “not beyond here”. In obstructing a desire. In negating a wish.

The yes’s are usually the easier way to go. Love pours out naturally that way, and comes right back at us. With smiles and happiness, with thank you’s and contentment.

The no’s can be hard to deliver. We want our children to be happy right now. We also want them to like us, right now too. We like being their immediate heroes and heroines. We love seeing joy erupt in them. It is hard to see disappointment or hear downright “I hate you’s” coming out of their eyes, skin and words.

But no’s – if sourced from the Stillness at your centre, if coming from love and creativity rather than trigger and reaction – those no’s are just as sacred, just as loving as the yes’s coming from that same place and state within ourselves. Just as loving.

Consider this:

It’s a cold morning, minus 7 degrees celsius (that’s 19.5 fahrenheit). Girl gets dressed in her usual garb: jeans, sneakers, cute shirt, with hoodie ‘in case’ it gets cold. And specifically: no hat, no gloves, no winter boots, no winter coat, merrily and obliviously attired for a regular day at school.

Dad sees the unfolding mismatch between dress and outside temperatures, and puts his foot down, “Either you get dressed warmly, or you don’t go to school”. Distress ensues. Some dialogue too, but mainly distress and, “You don’t get me, you don’t listen to me, I’ll be fine!”

Dad stays firm, calm, loving. Doesn’t budge on the condition and knows he is not going to be the popular parent today. He takes a deep breath and stays the course.

Girl comes downstairs, holding out wrist warmers. “Can I wear these instead of gloves?” Hmmm, what will dad do now? Here’s a chance to appease her if he gives in. It will make her feel heard, offer a sense of compromise. He considers. He is tempted for a moment. The whole energy would relax, things would slide back to their usual amicability. But she had frostbite last winter. Her fingers get cold fast. He leans into the deeper recesses of his father-love and again holds the line.

Another explosion ensues, and the announcement: “You never listen to me!”

Finally both get out the door, dad and girl, dressed for the minus 7 celsius, silent girl, dad with a nod to mum, “I know she can’t stand me right now, but I love her too much to let her freeze or risk getting sick. She’ll be OK. and I’m OK too – I’m OK being the ‘bad’ guy for her to stay warm. I love her.”

There it is – another form of love.

A key distinction between conditions, boundaries and non-negotiables being ‘extensions of love’ versus ‘unnecessary’ force is where they come from. If they are based on fearful projections, desire for power or senseless discipline, they are not love in action.

The discernment of where a ‘no’ originates from is one of the ongoing practices of parenthood.

Choosing love over and over again, and being willing to go all the way with the choice so that it stands regardless of the forms it takes, regardless of whether popularity and ease ensue, or not: that is the love our children need from us in order to grow well and in health.

photo credit: Gregory Colbert – Ashes and Snow

On this Day of the Dead

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In my weekly phone chat with my 98-year old grandma this morning, we spoke about this and that, and with it being the Day of the Dead here in Canada (in Switzerland where she lives, they celebrate All Saints Day tomorrow), we also spoke of death, of dying, of our shared love for graveyards and for visiting friends and loved ones who have passed the threshold.

I told her about the possibility of keeping a loved one’s body at home for three days after they die – to wash, to embalm, to love and release, recently inspired by a Facebook friend’s incredibly moving account of such an experience. She liked that idea. She is one of those people least afraid of dying in my circle. She has always had a friendly relationship with the end of our physical life and stands firmly in the felt-sense that there is a Beyond in which we continue.

We reminisce shared visits to her husband’s grave in Zurich – my nono. I talk about how her great granddaughter, 5-year old A., used to love wandering through the cemeteries in Switzerland to visit the graves, to ask questions, to lay flowers on the beds of fellow humans we had just met there and then.

She says she would like to sit and visit more with others who have died, to say farewell, as they leave regularly in the home she lives in.

I speak to her of the Day of the Dead celebration here in the valley – how we gather at the community-owned cemetery, candles burning on all the mounds and graves and altars, and a huge fire lit with flames reaching up to the moon.  And how we gather in procession, singing ‘dona nobis pacem’ and ‘may the circle be unbroken’. She likes that too, is so open and present to the ways of staying close to the dead, to death.

And so we share across the ocean our moments and reflections on death, on being with death, on dying.

I hang up with gratitude for her alive embodied self as well as for her willing-to-release spirited self. A charming, resilient, joking, tender, wise soul she is.

In this photo she and I are walking in the yard of my childhood, looking for slugs and upon finding them, chucking them into the stream. It sits on my desk. I talk to her about this too, and she laughs, remembering how the slugs still found their way back to the lettuces.

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Life. Death. The mystery of their interwoveness continues to mystify me. And: such chats with my grandma fill me with comfort and confidence.

To all you who have passed on from this embodied existence – all you friends, loved ones and inspiring ones I knew of but never met – you make what lies beyond a friendlier place, as you track on ahead. Blessings upon your onward journeys. I salute you today especially.

Fire and moon stretching toward one another. The veil thin, the light strong.

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One of many lights during the procession at the Day of the Dead celebration this year at the Dumont Creek Cemetery.
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Weaving Threads of Care and Love Across the Planet

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These past couple of days my mother-heart stretched again some more. It seems this is and will be a lifelong stretch. What struck me today is how visceral it is above all else. My mind was calm. My emotions too. What was in movement, where I was noticing the stretching happening, was at the layer of sensation in my body, literally as if cells were being asked to make room for more, to release, to grow my trust in this Life, to love and to let go.

And now throughout the day as my daughter wanders off into the high mountains for four days with a 40lb backpack, a new circle of friends and an extraordinary teacher as part of her wilderness school experience, it is my body that keeps sensing into her adventure… that holds her both close and far, regardless of whether my actual thoughts are with her or not. I focus on what lies before me, I enjoy the day, and simultaneously I sense expansion off into that wilderness, with her, the heart-cell-awareness ongoing.

Similarly, when she went on her first 10-day trip earlier this summer, flying on her own away from home across the great continent of Canada to stay with her aunt’s family… That day of travel, aware of her flight across plains, hills and mountains to the city of Montreal, my heart felt stretched like an accordion. It wasn’t unpleasant, although it took a bit of getting used to. My accordion-heart stayed that way for 10 days, spread over the continent before it folded back together as she neared home and walked in the door with a big grin on her face. I remember thinking of all the accordion-hearts stretched across the globe at any moment in time… threads of care, of prayer, of connection.

I watch this visceral stretching today and note with wonder the glimpse, embodied, of how interconnected we all truly are. We may notice it in much deeper fullness and clarity with loved ones, especially with our children. But doesn’t it just point to what is there under the surface anyways, all ways?
Think of those days when you cannot place sadness due to your own personal life, but you feel it seeping in under your skin, passing through, perhaps on behalf of others? You shed tears and they may be yours or they may belong to someone you will never meet.

Or the times you look at a view, or hug a friend, and sense that you are doing so for one departed from their body – lending him or her your eyes, your arms for a moment?

Or that delightful experience when you witness someone dancing or singing or doing something you would have loved to do more of, had you more time, a few parallel lives to dedicate to the many loves of this living… and then you see a friend or someone you don’t even know, doing just that and doing it so well and so beautifully and something in you relaxes, because even if it is not you doing it, it is happening, that movement, that song, that stroke of paint on canvas is happening.

These and other moments give us insights into the transpersonal nature of our humanity. The ways we are both in ourselves and beyond ourselves. We are distinct, unique, and we are undeniably connected and interwoven.

This is where my body-heart-stretch leads me today in my experience, reflections and awareness-coasting every once in a while over the mountains as I love my girl and wish her well, so well.

Sending love to all the mother-hearts and father-hearts and caring-hearts that weave threads of care and love across the planet. May those who are truly alone today, be touched by these threads, for they belong to all of us.