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."
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."
posted by Nora | 2:25 PM
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