Final Crossing

To be blessed in death, one must learn to live.
To be blessed in life, one must learn to die.
—medieval prayer

I have been reading an amazing book that arrived in my mailbox this week.
Author Scott Eberle has created an amazing look at end-of-life, a new, fresh look,
not like the loads of books that line my shelves on the same subject.

Final Crossing~Learning to Die in Order to Live is on the top of my "you have got to read this book list" ~for those of you that are interested in Death and Dying that is. And its for anyone that understands that death is a part of life; that countless cultures around the world since the beginning of time have embraced some form of death rite in life as a right of passage. Death is rebirth. Heal and be healed. Forget old wounds. Embrace the possibilites of a new day, a new perspective, a new chance.

Scott shares his personal vulnerabilities and his journey in this life that brought him to present day. I will write a true review when I am done, but wanted to at least share this book title and web site as soon as I could. Scott has quite the story to share, and the fact he has done so with such honesty, such truth of his past...invokes a truth we all know, we all have a past, and all those days brought us to be the wonder of the person we are now.

Check it out at www.thefinalcrossing.com

Samhain gathering for women.

These are not my words, but they speak my heart. I have never heard this turning of the wheel so eloquently described. If you are able to attend, do so. Anji is an incredible Priestess, and I assure you the women will all seek a transformative weekend.

Samhain...Is pronounced Sow-en...Not sam hain...Sow en... and remember this is truly a sacred time of year, our new year, a time of communing with our beloved ancestors and to set new terms for our reality, a new year of new goals and dreams. Honor this time and honor your self.

Samhain, "Summer's End," the Celtic New Year, the Blood Harvest, Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead... Death - a constant source of mystery and intrigue that beckons us to journey beyond the comfort of our five senses and into the realm of the shadow.

In the twilight-dusk of the year, the stillness of Wintertime approaches. The days grow shorter -- and the nights deeper. We come together with intent, to pay heed to ancient whispers, voices that urge us to prepare for the cold, and the long nights to come. Over head, the Blood Moon waxes to Full while the Earth drowses in Her first stages of sleep. In the flickering candlelight, by the warmth of the fire, together we slip into a space of darkness, and there find the embrace of the shadow. With a sigh of relief we submit to the ebb and the flow of Her, fearlessly traveling between the worlds as warriors, poets, priests and priestesses, welcoming the chance to dream, to reflect and connect, and to find the beauty in this season of death.

>From the safety of the Tribe, held lovingly in the womb of the underworld, we gaze upward to the velvet sky, then into the fire, and finally into the dark glass and beyond ourselves, calling forth the Queen of the Night, She who has many names. With no memory of the past and no vision of the future we are truly at rest and content to be -- just be.

Join us as we gather around the community fire to rid ourselves forever of that which is no longer of use. We receive messages in the darkness that will allow us to experience Samhain in a profound and moving way and use the knowledge we gain to change our lives. We carry the flame of the Goddess with us, back to our own hearths.

Gaia's Womb invites you to join us for an Earth Traditions event, an adults only day of study, and an evening of serious and fully transformational ritual.
RSVP You Won't Want to Miss This Event!!

We've been hard at work planning a spectacular journey into this most sacred of seasons. Put this on your calendar now! Please let us know at Angie@GaiasWomb.com if you are interested in attending so that we can be sure to adequately prepare for everyone. Registrations and room reservations will be taken on a first come basis.

The cost is $75.00 for the day/evening event, which includes our traditional welcome discussion, an afternoon workshop, a special evening Feast, and a late night ritual.
Overnight, indoor lodging with breakfast is an additional $55.00 per person. ($130.00 total per person)

Go to: http://www.GaiasWomb.com/event-nov06.htm for further details, guidelines, and to register]

A Letter from Melissa.

For those of us working in the realm of End-of-Life, we are often gifted with writings of those we are in community with as we midwife crossings.

As I have been on this journey, the last year I have been gifted with a sister in my community to support me, as I her. We have helped with resumes, school decisions, writing projects and the delicious love of the seasons and treasures of the Goddess.
Melissa is one of the few women that I have felt a true connection with in my new community. She became a Hospice volunteer after caring for her elderly mother until her crossing a year ago. In this past month, her father crossed over, midwifed by the loving presence of Melissa. Melissa who is now wiser, more gentle, caring for her personal energy and knowing her inner strength that are different to her than when she cared for her mother.

It's with her permission I share her story of her final days with her father.
Here is her letter of her fathers crossing..

Dear Ones~

Dad completed his earthly journey this morning at 11:25 a.m. I was alone with him in his quiet, peaceful bedroom. He had a fever and I was gently washing his face with a soft, cool, baby washcloth. I said a blessing aloud over him and placed my hand lightly over his heart. Several light breaths later, he was gone.

The Hospice Home Health Aide that had assisted dad with his personal care several times per week was able to arrive and help Neil, Stella, and I with bathing dad from the top of his head to the tip of his battered old toes, massaging him with lavendar essential oil scented body cream, and then dressing him in his favorite outfit of faded old Levi jeans, a red plaid Eddie Bauer shirt that he adored, and his worn-down sheepskin slippers. We played a C.D. that we had made from some of his favorite songs we downloaded from the web; i.e. Jo Stafford's "I'll Be Seeing You" (his favorite love song for mom that we had played at her memorial service), "Dock of the Bay", "Wichita Lineman", and "King of theRoad".

I tucked a black and white photo of he and mom's wedding picture into his shirt pocket for a finishing touch!

My brother (being a sheriff) knows the undertaker of the funeral home we chose, and he helped to wrap dad in the sheets, put him in the body bag, and then assist in transporting him downstairs.

I am proud of the way Neil, Stella, and I worked together to assure the best setting/support for dad to make his final journey. We have worked well together, each offering the special strengths that we each possess.

The very large retirement center where he has lived for 3 years also surprised me with their warmth, genuine concern, and love/enjoyment of dad. The staff bent over backwards to help us - and many of the residents that he had befriended approached us in the hallways, called, or stopped by to see him.

Tonight we are all exhausted, and of course there are many details to take care of now. I am his designated Power of Attorney, so will need to attend to a number of financial scenarios. We also need to sort through and pack up his apartment. And the biggest challenge at the moment is to find an appropriate and loving home for his beloved Maine Coone/Manx cat, "Max".

Dad requested no memorial service of any kind. He simply wants to be cremated and have his ashes scattered where we released mom's several years ago - off the cliff at a beautiful county park campground outside of Port Angeles that sits on the Strait of Juan De Fuca, right across from Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Neil, Stella, and I plan to pack up his apartment and head on back to Port Townsend at the end of this month to accomplish this together. It will feel good to have this kind of closure. Dad would have celebrated his 82nd birthday next Wednesday.

I cannot express the gratitude I feel at being able to be present, assist, and witness both of my parent's final days. It is hard to explain. Yesterday when the dear, young Samoan housekeeper who was responsible for cleaning dad's apartment every week stopped by to dump the trash, I told her that dad was near death. I asked her how eldercare and dying is handled in her culture. Her eyes got very big and she described, in her broken English, how elders are always respected and cared for within the family home. She shook her head and said, "We would NEVER put them in the places that you have here!"

I know this is not always possible (after all, we chose to move my mother into a small adult family home for the last two weeks of her life because my father and I simply could not address her increasing demands), but I have learned that it can almost always be a possibility if hospice is involved and other family members and friends are willing to step forward. I am seeing how everyone may be blessed and enriched by it. My motto these past days has truly been, "It takes a village."

The next few weeks will be very busy, but I am relieved that I can take my time and process all of this in my own way. I can see how I have done it "differently" this time, in terms of personal care of my body/mind/spirit, than I did with mom. It feels great. And empowering.

Thank you all for your love, prayers, rituals, and support~

Melissa

Lessons from Candles.

I recently attended an amazing four day weekend with some incredible, diverse, open, absolutely devouted, dedicating to learning and sharing folks all walking the path in some aspect or another of End-of-Life. Through our time together, we built relationships and delighted as occasional "ah ha" moments peppered our time together.

One of our experiences was co-creating a community altar to our beloved Dead and as we placed items in the altar we shared short ditties about what or who and even how these gifts came to be there then, ready to be charged on the altar during our time together.
After placing our items we then went around the circle and lit candles in honor or mention of our ancestors or beloved dead. Some saw their ancestors, some reflected silently, some cried softly. Some told stories that made us laugh. We all sang and danced and welcomed the energy and spirit to our work together thay was ahead of us.
We danced, and sang and danced some more, as each of the candles became colorful puddles of wax, there was one candle that just wanted to hold on..so we kept singing and dancing and ...well, as the saying goes, hindsight is golden.

My beloved teacher Jerri Lyons www.finalpassages.org shared her thoughts with us after we had all returned home to mundainia. I asked her permission to include her post in my blog, and she has said she is happy to share this wisdom with who ever it is meant to be recieved by. So here is her post:

"I want to share my thoughts on the candle that continued to burn during our altar sharing ceremony. This was not at all planned, but the very same thing happened at our last seminar. One candle continued to burn for some time after all the others had gone out. (It wasn't mine at the spring seminar).

At the last seminar we were all dancing and singing while each candle burned and extinguished. When the last candle kept burning I began to feel the discomfort of some in the group and wondered what I should do, but kept checking in with my inner guidance for an answer. I wasn't aware at that time of any Native American customs or any other things to base a decision on. I just kept getting the same answer, to keep dancing and release anyone who wished to leave. (This candle burned much longer than the one in our seminar).

When I did a meditation on this later, the information I received was that this exercise was to show us the uncertainty of death. When we are in the waiting period for someone to take their leave, we only know that it will happen in time, but we don't know when that final moment will arrive. Each person, as in family members, friends and care givers of the one who is dying will respond differently. Some may begin to feel impatient, some may be at peace, some will want to stay with the dying person so that others may leave, some will leave to take care of themselves, some will experience a suffering, some will choose to sing, some will pray, some will just be witnessing with an open mind and heart and a whole myriad of other emotions and feelings may occur as well."

Pour it out for me.

For anyone that has heard the buzzword "Life List" I am thrilled to share I have finally checked one of the top items off of my Life List. Self explanitory as it seems, our Life Lists can change just as our interests do. Fifteen years ago the number one item on my list for the last three years would not have been "Meet, connect and train with Jerri Lyons, "rebirther of the modern Death Midwife movement." As of last week, that one finally got the big strike through. Jerri Lyons is founder of Final
Passages www.finalpassages.org and is truly a gift to the planet and the hundreds and hundreds of families and individuals she has assisted and educated. She is the queen of empowerment and doing it yourself. She advocates knowing your rights under the law and practicing your rights under the law. She is the Goddess of Blessed Passage, the divine one who invokes reclaiming that which we only recently gave away ~ home funerals.
It was an amazing weekend, in an amazing sanctuary of a retreat space, Mamaland. Through our time together, we shared our experiences, our questions, our answers, poured out our hearts and cried our tears. We also laughed until we cried and collected lots of resource materials. Before we ate we sang the Reclaiming Collective's wwww.reclaiming.org food blessing chant that my tribe and community sing together before ever feast...

"Our hands will work for peace and justice
Our hands will work to heal the land
Gather round the harvest table
Let us feast and bless the land."

I always love how intimate of an experience a long weekend can be. I feel so gifted, so blessed, so fullfilled from all that each person there had to offer. My heart opened wide and the wisdom of all present poured in. I hear the chorus ofthat other Reclaiming song dancing in my head

"pour it out for me,
pour it out for me,
everything you send me
I will drink"

I have a full and glad heart. Full of love, new relationships and knowledge. Glad that finally, number one on my Life List is finally crossed off ~ meeting and learning with Jerri Lyons, honored, respected, deserving, Rebirther of the Modern Death Midwife Movement. Blessed Be.