Spirit Care 101

As I google "spirit care 101" this blog comes up first.  This tells  me there is not much google payment for the words "spirit care 101" what does that say overall? hmmmm

Yesterday I spent the afternoon back in the academic halls of Emmanuel College.  I love that school. It is seminary for the United Church of Canada and where I took the masters degree that I now hold. I was there because I am feeling a desire to further my studies since finding the work of Dr. Christina Puchalski . I have been engaged with the personal support worker program since January 2015 only to be one of the unfortunate people cast out on the sidewalk with the closing of Everest College and now wait to see what is next for me with this program.  While I wait I work as a casual employee of a nursing company going in and doing light housekeeping for infirm and shut-in adults.  I am learning so much about our Canadian system of caring for people.

Most recently there was an article in the UC Observer focusing on Spiritual but Secular talking about the need of people to find meaning in their lives.  This article partners, for me, with the need to bridge gaps in our human development. I am seeking desire and find little burning desire in my gut these days because, at times, I feel defeated as to where I should be in life. Traditionally, at my age many are thinking of retiring or at least looking to cash in their investments and traveling.  But in this new environment of more people reaching 100 and 50 becoming the new 40 I find myself hungry to further discover what work needs to be done. It is when I focus on this study, grief, loss, finding meaning that the inferno in my belly fires up once again.

As I work more and more with the grief groups I find people trying to find meaning in their life. Grief does not simply follow the death of a loved one, it follows everyday life and challenges with daily living. Aging adults, children going to school, teens seeking post-secondary education, young adults looking for work, empty-nesters and any walking/talking human being faces grief and loss in life. What is "normal" anymore and how can a person find meaning in life?

Finding meaning is not a destination it is a journey.  Meaning is experienced and developed over time.  Dr. Puchalski's book A Time for Listening and Caring she points out right in the forward how "real care doesn't begin with costly procedures but with simple gifts of affection.  As living beings, we all wish for happiness and seek to avoid suffering."  By looking at this statement the work I do begins with the activities of daily living, simply trying to put one foot in front of the other.

Working with the oldest-olds I hear such wonderful stories.  Most recently I was providing respite care in home.  I was working around the kitchen and she asked me to water the shamrock! I was commenting how it is a beautiful plant and she told me it belonged to her grandmother! Further she told me her grandmother died at 103 in 1974!  I said to her, "if this plant could tell its story".  She further went on to tell me about a table that is in the house that was the local tavern table where the men would gather to play cards or checkers and have a pint and again I think about the tales it could tell.

The butterfly on the wire speaks to me about the way life cycles.  This beautiful plant adorned with a butterfly is witness that life never ends, but simply continues to ebb and flow.  Through life and death the spirit of all things moves in and out of the energy fields around us.  Finding meaning is finding a way to interact with this energy and faithfully wonder if all those we have loved in our past and future are very real in the spirit world.  Is that the new normal? Is that spiritual in a secular environment?  I don't know.  I know what I believe and how I get through my own days and it gives me hope and meaning to feel my mom and my dad and my brother and others who have died and are no longer present in this human existence.  I like to believe that there is a world of spiritual existence beyond what my consciousness can comprehend and a place where I will better connect when I shed the human vessel.  I have faith in the spirit and live in the secular.  A place of limbo wondering what is next.  Will the shamrock continue to bloom? Can I help others find their own spiritual home?  Is the path to meaning paved with human partnerships as I find simple affection?  Wholeness is holy and is more significant when realizing it is not the cure of physical illness but the understanding of the human spirit.

In the deep freeze of your winter emotions....

Spirit Care 101 is my brain child and upon searching it out online there appears to be few others who are using the phrase.  To care for your own spirit is uplifting and will nurture the most important relationship in your life.

I have said before and continue to quote Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist who said, "We are not human beings having (trying to understand) a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."  So by honouring your spirit you honour that which is most sacred, caring for yourself. Being in relationship with yourself is important.  Understanding yourself is key to living a well balanced and caring life.

As you walk the path of your own life and travel through the deep freeze of your own emotions you will ebb and flow in your spiritual awareness.  We are seasonal beings here in Canada traveling through cold temperatures and changing times.  We travel with Mother Nature as she protects that which is her own.  Withdrawing into the darkness of winter the very sap of each plant to envelope it in the warmth of the earth.  Trees look dead but we know they are sleeping, resting and refreshing themselves to burst forth in the spring.  We as human kind trust in this phenomena, this evolution of our home and our planet.  We never doubt that spring will come the question often simply is "when?"

So why when we are emotionally in the dark, in the winter of our lives do we lose hope that spring will come?  This is a time when we are most vulnerable to spiritual growth and a time of change in the very fabric of our being.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see - Theodore Roethke

Barbara Brown Taylor in her book "Learning to walk in the dark" talks about how the dark is a frightening place where few dare to enter.  However, she notes on page 112 how going into the darkness of a cave physically taught her that the darkness of her own mind can be physically over come when one takes the body someplace dark.  As she enters the "wild" cave she says, "The idea scared me, which made it a good opportunity to practice courage."  It takes courage to go into the darkness of our grief, loss and pain.  It takes courage to be vulnerable and let others see we are in pain.  It takes courage to admit to self you are scared.  However, realize when the ego bonds with the fear of the spirit and the brokenness in life spiritual growth is paramount.

Only she [he] who is ready to question, to think for self, will find the truth.  To understand the currents of the river, one who wished to know the truth must enter the river! - Nisargadatta, Indian mystic, born 1897

Come journey with me ..... take the first step, dip your toe in the water ... and take the plunge!

en*theos

en + theos. Two little Greek words. Put ‘em together and you’ve got enthusiasm—or "God within"—the secret sauce to authentic awesomeness.

Can we find the divine within ourselves?  Can we look inward and not outward for that which we may call "god"?  When we do not like ourselves very  much how can we look within for the very depth of spirit that we seek to save us?  I don't know.

Family day weekend a time when family is promoted and family is the focus.  Did you spend time with your family or are you one of the  many that struggle with this concept?  I saw both  my children and love them both deeply.  They are both adults now with their own lives and good news.  Family day has brought for my family a wonderful announcement and hope for the future.  For me though I struggle trying to find something, anything that feels  hopeful in my own life.  I grieve something and have a great sense of loss but cannot seem to put my finger on it.  Do you ever feel that way?  A darkness that is so imposing and yet like the proverbial monster in the closet or under the bed the sensation is palatable but the monster is not tangible.  One cannot put a finger to it, other than to know it is there haunting you every single day.

The grief workshops I manage and run teach me I am not alone.  They teach me how to look into the eyes of another and see their pain, fear and struggle.  Together in a group setting we share our most darkest moments and honour that which is scaring us.  The fear of being alone and finding no one really cares.  The recent announcement of a colony on Mars, a one way ticket for colonization on a planet that is so far away you can be assured you will not return to earth.  You sacrifice your existence here on earth for this mission and yet the supreme court is the decision maker for those suffering and struggling with illness are requesting the same thing; a one way ticket out of here.

How do you deal with the desire for a one way ticket anywhere?  How do you find en*theos?  I don't know ... all I know is I am not alone in this quest and seek others to walk this lonely road with me.  Join me through a workshop, through email correspondence or a  message on Facebook.  You are not alone and neither am I ... Family Day shows me that physically but emotionally I still struggle.

I just do not give up ... that is my one way ticket ... a ticket on the "keep trying" locomotive. 

citing:  https://www.entheos.com/Fierce-Love/entheos 

Fierce Love: Healing Ourselves and the World

with Ian Lawton + 25 Experts

March 9-13, 2015

The world feels overwhelming right now. It needs an injection of fierce love. Let's gather a collection of fierce love warriors who are making a difference in the world and know how to inspire all of us to heal ourselves and heal the world.

The Hundred-Foot Journey ...

"Maybe brakes break for a reason" he says.  She says, "What do you mean?"

This morning I indulged in a PPV movie and lazed while I watched.  What an indulgence to take Saturday morning and watch a movie.  This movie is a delightful combination of culture and the intertwining of relationships and spirit.  The growing of love and care for another while feasting, and I mean literally, on the food we need to be the best we can be.

I have discovered I love to cook and have shared that with many of my friends and family. Most are likely sick of hearing it.  But that being said I have come to realize how we have strayed from the very essence of feeding ourselves.  Feeding our soul in all the ways possible; spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally and our need for food is imperative to wholeness, furthering our connection to the holy. If we are healed and whole we are holy! What does it mean to feed our sacred and spiritual self?

I have come to understand one of the most important rules for my life is to be watchful every minute of every day.  Find the goodness in all life has to offer and reach out to touch it.  Taste it and add our own spices to make it our own.  I am unique in a way that no other creature, plant, animal or person is like me.  I am the creation of the universe which has evolved to this very millisecond as I put fingers to keys.  I am different than I was a minute ago and will change as I type this blog.  The spice I add to my own life is to stretch and reach for the mystery and welcome it into my soul.

I am passionate and hungry to keep peeling back the layers.  Life is such that when the brakes fail maybe there is a reason to be broken down in this place.  In this space. In this time.  Maybe brakes break for a reason because life is saying stop and see what you can build here.  See who you can meet. Take this time to spice up an otherwise boring journey of pavement and concrete.  Smell the spice of life.  It is understood there are four basic or recognized tastes:  sweet, sour, salty and bitter and we taste these with different parts of our tongue.  How about if we tasted life this way?  Opening doors to all kinds of experience and allowing the passion to flow.  Face the bitterness in your life, taste it and then let it go.  Savour the sweet, giggle at the sour and be the salt of the earth.  All possibilities for every soul.

This two hours this morning has enriched my life with a darling movie of which made me cry at the end.  The complex cultural explosion and the mellowing of people gives me hope as this romantic and yet poignant realization leaves me wondering what stones I have left un-turned and where I neglected to spice up my life.

"This is the beast with 1,000 mouths needing to be fed twice a day."  Can you meet that task?  Are you up to the responsibility for your own existence and happiness to change your taste and explore new food for life?  Are you ready to love unexpectedly and accept the previously thought unacceptable?  

"Maybe brakes break for a reason." Make every broken brake count! 

The Hundred-Foot Journey

Holding on... do you listen?

As I am learning to listen to my own heart, soul and spirit I wonder how long I have been avoiding doing so.  I often listen with intent but is it with the right intent?  Am I looking to argue with my own heart, challenge my own soul, and let my ego control my very spirit?

This morning I awoke about 20 minutes before the alarm was to go off.  I could see the clock and it read "6:12 am" and I was happy to know I had a few more minutes before I needed to get up.  I had been in bed since ten last night so it was not that I was lacking sleep nor was it because I wanted to snooze longer I was happy because it gave  me time to reflect in the darkness.

I could hear the clock my brother made me ticking in the darkness.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.... with each passing tick I knew the end was near.  The end of my slumber and a need to face the day was almost upon me.  I waited.  I opened my eyes into the darkness and could see just a little light around the pulled drapes.  The pre-dawn glow in the distance of the upcoming day.  The sun would rise again as it always does.  Today is no different.  I may be different but the day would dawn like it has for millions of years.  Solstice is past and the light of the days will get longer each day as we evolve into spring.

I anticipated the alarm and listened and watched.  The LED of the clock moved on from 6:12 to 6:20 to 6:28.  Then it was time.

Time to rise and shine with the sun.  Time to get out of bed and no longer anticipate the end of the night but to celebrate the beginning of the day.  Time to move on with the evolution of my life and to let the universe shine through my existence.  Time to get up, get going and start another day.

Do you weigh yourself down in the endings in your life?  Do you steep yourself in the fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of beginnings and the newness of each day that you dread the coming of the clock to read 6:30 knowing the alarm will break the silence bring in the world and open up your vulnerability.

I am in transition all the time.  I am changing and ebbing and flowing with the tide of the universe.  I can fight against it or I can flow with it and float on my own choices.  I am the universe manifesting through a human nervous system and becoming self-aware (Deepak Chopra) I am "unbounded and free" to be all that I can be.  The key is dealing with my endings, losses, grief and overcoming any fear of the unknown.

The clock with strike 6:30 AM whether I want it to or not ... I can welcome the day kicking and screaming or I can welcome the day embracing the potential and possibility it offers.  I can welcome the growing light in my life or I can live in the darkness of my endings.

I choose life!  Do you?

Do you just BELIEVE?

Very early yesterday morning before the dawn was breaking I was laying awake listening to the breathing of my 4 year old grandson.  He had been sleeping since 6 pm the night before after coming home from daycare/junior kindie totally soaked from winter play and exhausted from a day with his friends.  He fell asleep in the car as I ran errands and when I finally got home I wondered if I could simply let him sleep through.  Often we awaken a child and then are curious to know why they are cranky.  It is in the awakening we make the mistake.

He was soundly sleeping still and it had been 11 solid hours.  He needed his rest I had no doubt. Within a bit he began to stir and I stayed very quiet.  He called out into the darkness "Gramma?" and I responded.  He simply said, "I just wanted to be sure you are here."

"I am" I said.  He then lay quietly in the dark and I could hear a gentle whispering and all I could make out was a little "Amen".  Then he was quiet again.  I didn't ask about it.

Later that morning after we had got up, ate some breakfast made of toast, homemade jelly, a bit of popcorn made the old-fashioned way, on the stovetop with butter and a stainless steel pan, coloured a picture and watched a little tv he wanted pancakes.  I don't stock milk in my fridge so I suggested we go for a walk to the local Timmy's I would get a coffee and a carton of milk and we could return and make pancakes.  We set out.

The distance to the Timmy's covered with adult legs would take 5 - 7 minutes if one sauntered but with little 4 year old legs it took us about 20 - 25 minutes as he played and sang to himself, asked many questions and doddled along.  It was life giving for me, as always.  He picked up and carried dirty snow packed from the throwback of the plow and talked to these balls of snow like they were old friends.  When we arrived at Timmy's he set the most recent find outside the door to wait for us to come back out.

As we entered the first door I was alerted to a flash of red in my peripheral vision.  It was a jolly old elf seated with a Timmy's cup in front of him joyfully ho-ho-hoing to those around him.  I stopped and tapped my grandson on his shoulder and said, "Look!"  His eyes got big and he stopped dead in his tracks, looked up at me and said, "SAAAANTA!"  And we entered the coffee shop!

Immediately Santa locked eyes with my grandson and beckoned him over.  My grandson slowly responded.  Santa shook his hand and said "Good Morning!" and my grandson stood and stared.  This was a real, authentic Santa even for me.  One with true whiskers that were his own, unruly and grey. He had a twinkle in his eye that I had  never seen before and my grandson asked to sit on his lap.  He pensively said, "are you dry?" and I laughed.  Santa had a big day ahead and didn't want to begin it with a wet lap.  So we tested out the snowpants for remnants of the icy walk and determined he was dry enough to snuggle in between Santa's knees for a hug and stand leaning on his thigh.

"What do you want for Christmas?" Santa asks.  "A transformer!" says  my grandson.  Santa holds his belly and with a jolly roll of laughter says loudly so everyone can hear, "...and I don't suppose you mean an electrical component!"

Just then we hear a tee hee and a giggle and up comes Mrs. C all dressed in Disney best.  Minnie mouse ears and a beautiful diamond bow for a watch.  She is dressed all in red with bells on her ankles.  My grandson is totally enthralled in this moment in time.

As I gently pulled him from this scene like hot fudge that has landed on cold ice cream we back away from the table as Mrs. C reminds Santa they must go, others are waiting.  He waves to my grandson and he and I head for the counter.  Hunter still has his mouth slightly open trying to comprehend how he was so lucky to find Santa in the local Timmy's.  I get my coffee the milk for the pancakes and we head out the other door.

In leaving by the other door I am nudged that the beloved snow ball is at the other door.  Thinking this grand experience would leave that memory in the dust we begin to walk.  All of a sudden Hunter stops and says, "Gramma, my snow ball!" and I suggest he leave it for another little boy to find and play with and he is content with that.

In my own lack of faith lately I am nudged as we walk to ask Hunter about his prayer.  "I heard you praying this morning, who were you talking to?"

"God" he says.

"Oh I ask, and what were you praying for?"

"I was asking God to give me good dreams." he answers.

"Oh" and I add, skeptically, "You think God helps your dreams?"

He simply says, "Yup" and carries on walking with his three Timbits in a bag, kicking the snow and climbing the next giant snow pile.

Hmmm I think is it really that simple?  Just knowing or believing in my four year old heart that this God Hunter is talking about can take on the role of giving me good dreams?

Where does the magic go?  When we are children we are so easily faithful to what we are told and simply just believe. Then the world gets a hold on us and beats us up, tears down our faith, scraps our dreams, deals us life's hard lessons only to beat out of us the very faith that there is an essence to believing.  Not in any one god, or the supernatural of a being, or in fairy tales or Santa Claus but in the essence that belief, in itself, and how there is good someplace that helps us with our dreams.  Whether we call it god, synergy, energy, light, love or soul have this faith to believe in the very essence of the good of all existence is the hope of tomorrow.


In the pre-dawn prayer of a trusting little boy I rediscovered what it is to simply believe as I do every year at this time.  I find it in the hokey romantic movies, re-visiting a dollar store tree, the extended hours of darkness and in the very faith in the magic of a child's faith.  Find your inner child again, find that moment in time when your dreams were shattered, rewind just a tad and bask in the blind faith of your four year old heart.


Sweet dreams my friends ... sweet dreams!




Josh Groban BELIEVE from Polar Express

Deepest darkness and its merits...

This is so true and especially poignant when the knowing what Robin says comes from within the self, hearing his truth.  Whether his smile was fake or real he struggled and so do I and many others I know.  The tough part is to say it out loud and to own it.  Some say "fake it till you make it" others say "believe it to achieve it" but I say, "until you honour it, face it and work with it" nothing else real can happen.  Take those moments of depression and bouts of melancholy and look them square in the eye.  Nurture the real feelings of them and shed light into those dark spots.  Authenticate the feelings so you can begin to peel back the layers of avoidance and live your own authentic reality.  I AM who I AM ... the burning desire that never is consumed ... the fire that never goes out.  Some days positive and some days not.. the truth is in identifying which you are dealing with today and wear it proudly!

I struggle every day with a reason to continue.  I love my life, my children,  my grandchildren and my passion is to help others but the depths of my own personal journey has shattered my reasons to believe in anything.  So each day I search anew for a shoot of life and something I can grasp to keep myself going.  I own this.  I realize it is within me to feel this way and believing otherwise is the lie. Believing it will go away with enough positive thinking or that it is simply a bad day that will be better tomorrow is also nonsense.  I face it as a reality of  my life.

I look and I find reasons.  I take the time to hear my sorrowful heart and nurture it where it is at. Addictions are not a cure, I know that for a fact, nor do they make it go away.  It simply is what it is.

I AM that I AM and I momentarily watch over this I AM-ness ... a level of consciousness that is necessary in order to keep going.  You can keep going too.  You can do this too.  You can invite yourself to partner with that which is your worst enemy and feel good.  Remember the old saying, "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer".  Bring this demon/enemy to bed with you and love it away.

Your shoot will come each day and that is all you need to worry about today.... is today!  

Blessings and love from my brokenness to yours