I feel dead people!

"Life is real

Life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal.

"Dust thou art, to dust returneth"

Was not spoken of the soul."

There are more people dead than there are people alive on the planet today!

Great minds, paupers, kings, mothers and murderers, all gone on to inhabit the next life. And one day we too will join them. Where are they do you think? Many imagine multiple worlds in order that the next might not suffer from overpopulation!

I know people who see dead people. Trustworthy individuals who get messages to pass along and others that seem to make no real sense at all. There are so many opinions and beliefs about the afterlife that it really comes down to your personal experience what you choose to believe.

When we do talk of death I believe it is only of the physical, what we see with our eyes. And we are so much more than that. If you have ever looked on a dead thing, be it an animal, a flower or a human being, you know that what you see is just a shell; a shadow of its former self with the essence of life force gone somewhere else. 

As the poet Longfellow says the soul does not turn to dust.

When I feel in my heart the presence of someone lost to me in the physical, they are as real as they have ever been. This is not uncommon. My friend Robert speaks of his deceased father in the present tense. In meditation we turn inward to experience the vast field of possibility, our connection with the infinite. There it is in our very being as if a portal opens to the other worlds. This is our connection to all life including our beloved in the next. We are never separate except by choosing to think that way. We create and demolish our very own personal blocks to our divinity and to love. Open up today to connection in whatever form your meditation takes; a walk in nature, painting, listening to music, journaling, day dreaming, creating a collage of your loved one. Feed your soul connection and know that you are never alone and you are loved just as you are. Then go forth and love unconditionally and in earnest while you still have time in the physical world!

Talking about death won't kill you!

I have heard people say as a positive conclusion to a list of physical ailments or complaints "Oh well, it beats the alternative!" To which people respond with agreement, acknowledging that whatever we may be experiencing, we are still alive and that is always preferable to being dead! After all death is the ultimate fear, the unknowable and the great void, the end...that's all she wrote!  Shakespeare's Hamlet contemplated "to be and not to be" concluding that there may not be peace even in the permanent sleep of death. How can we know so lets not go there, what's the point?

I was browsing a book at my library the other day, intriguingly entitled "Talking about death won't kill you," just my kind of book by the way. I like to tackle ideas that others throw up their eyes at and have little time for. The author Virginia Morris, a woman after my own heart as we would say in Ireland, was putting forward the idea that talking about death has many overlooked benefits. It can help us appreciate life more fully for one thing, it can help friends and families appreciate the relationships we enjoy more deeply and also can help immensely when the inevitability of loss visits our lives.

My father broached the subject of his demise to me years ago when he was making his will. I kept the discussion brief, adding I didn't want to imagine that day. This is a very natural response and I know I am not alone in my feelings. But I wish I'd been able to say how much I loved him and how unthinkable it was to no longer have him in my life. I wish we could have held each other and acknowledged that love and continued our discussion to its conclusion in awareness of the reality of that eventuality.

So many of us run from emotion - from being real and authentic and we miss out. I really feal our lives would be richer if we could simply allow our selves to be real. Emotion and discomfort just like all things come to pass and not to stay...we will not be swallowed in the slough of despond forever..in fact if we go there we can come out more quickly instead of skirting along the edges indefinitely.  Its all about living fearlessly. All my life I have worked at releasing the fears that restrict my experience of life. I am still determined! So who wants to talk about death?

In the quiet moments...

Lately my life has taken a slower pace. Its the time of the year when in America we turn to Thanksgiving. Yes this involves turkey and friends and travel and the tensions and joys of family. I spent the last two weekends celebrating with my husbands family so the coming break will be quiet and I hope a time to rest. For this I am thankful.
My life has taken a slower pace because work is slow and I am having to use my time creatively without remuneration except of the most personal nature. My own family are caught in the morass of the dismal Irish economy crisis. Every day the news is full of doom and gloom with no hope of a light at the end of the tunnel for years to come. Where can we turn at times like these when optimism is all but quenched?
Help wanted? Apply within! We must look to ourselves for the truth of our experience.
It is our own thinking that has the power to darken our world according to John ODonohue.

"Search and you will find the diamond-thought of light. Know that you are not alone and that the darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes to find the one gift your life requires hidden within this night corner."

He seems to be saying there are gifts in times like these that without them we would never discover. Depths and strengths unexplored. Overlooked blessings that if we can pull our eyes away from the external, await our appreciation. Look for them in life's simple quiet moments. This poem by Irish poet Seamus Heaney illustrates, in quiet moments with his mother, the sacred found in the mundane. Turn your eyes from the world this Thanksgiving and find your abundant blessings of love, strength and insight within. Then shine it for all to see, it is the greatest gift you can give to your loved ones and to yourself.
Have a blessed and joyous Thanksgiving!


In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives--
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.