Wild, Like a Wood Sorrell Bloom On the Forest Floor

I discovered a precious gift today. It bubbled up out of the memories of my childhood experience of emotional and physical abandonment by my well-intentioned, but oh so young, parents. My mother passed away on August 30th, and I have been immersed in the process of releasing and healing the past. This process includes lots of memories, and lots of choices about what to remember, what to treasure, and what to release and leave in the years gone by.

Oh, the anguish from walking the path of a solitary child, an unattached existence, wild, like a wood sorrel bloom timid on the silent forest floor. And now, to know its transformation into a deep appreciation for this life, led and fed, by a power and a love greater than any parent could have ever given me.

From a renewed look through years distant from those days this gift rose up. The gift--a perspective, cultivated and honed from a lifetime of walking without the closeness, the unconditional love of family. The gift—a deep appreciation for the solitude, un-enmeshed from the emotional dysfunction of the family I was born into. The gift—I now have the wisdom, temperament, and strength to hold my sister as she agonizes through the pain of the immediate family members crashing against each other.

I embrace this capacity born out of the wound as a precious gift.

When A Mother Dies

Iona Lucille Wirth Kudlacek
(November 5, 1933-August 30, 2013)

The inevitable spinning of the wheel of life has come around to the time of my mother’s death. I am surprised at how much grief and forgiveness I feel in my heart because we spent very little time together as adults. Our relationship was filled with pain and misunderstandings.
The memories that are flooding my awareness are the subtle sensations of being in my mother’s presence, the scent of her body, the sensation of the grounded bones of her German ancestry, large and strong. The goodness of my mother’s presence is gifting me with childhood memories of spending time on the earth, gathering earth’s bounty and taking it to our kitchen, preparing, canning, cooking, and creating nourishment from nature’s bounty. I am remembering her smile and the way she laughed when she thought something was funny. I see her large, fleshy hands, her large fingers busy with home-crafting.
I am forgetting the bitterness and the cruelty that spilled out in misguided coping moments from both of us. She suffered a great deal as women will do. And I forgive her. My once bad mother has become something of a wonder woman, my perspective forever changed, born out of the distance of time and the maturity of understanding. My mother loved flowers and gardening and she will always be standing in her garden surrounded by the beauty, the peace, and the calm that certainly fed her soul in hard times. She did her best with what she knew and had to work with. I feel a freedom in loving her in her death that I never knew while she walked the earth.
In saying good-by I am given the gifts we both never knew she had given me.

Through The Grieving Process: What to Say

Through the Grieving Process:

Everyone grieves differently, but maybe this list will prove helpful to you next time someone close to you has a tragedy and you aren’t sure what to do or say.
1. When you see me, ask how I am. A simple “How are you doing?” or “How are you holding up?” works wonders. It shows that you care, and it gives me the freedom to respond with a simple “Fine, thanks,” if I don’t want to talk about it—or to give more detail if I do.
2. Pay attention to the mood I’m in. I’ve come to realize that I have three different ways of handling grief:
• Sometimes I want to talk through it.
• Sometimes I want to get my mind off of it for a while.
• And sometimes I just want to be alone.
The best friends are good at noticing which mode I’m operating in at any given moment. If they aren’t sure, they ask. “Would you like to talk about it, or would you prefer a distraction?” “Would you like to get out? Or do you need some space right now?” These are wonderful questions.
3. Let me decide what I need in the moment. At times, I’ve said I wanted to get my mind off of my grief, only to have someone say to me, “No, you need to talk about this to work through it. Avoidance isn’t healthy.” That doesn’t help me. Yes, I will talk through this at some point, but this may not be the right time for me, and you might not be the person I choose to talk through it with. (I might choose a therapist, family member, or pastor, for instance. Please don’t take it personally.) Remember, everyone grieves differently, and only I know what I need at any given moment.
4. If I want to talk, let me talk. Don’t worry about saying the right things; there aren’t any magic words you can say to make me feel better, and we both know it. Just listen. You don’t need to say anything at all beyond “I’m sorry.”
5. Don’t try to fix it. I don’t want to hear about how she’s in a better place. I don’t want to hear about how “God called home an angel,” or how it’s good she’s not suffering, or how she’ll live on in our hearts. I already know these things, and I might say them myself, but when you say them, it feels a bit like you’re trying to cheer me up and stop me from grieving. Right now, I need to grieve, so let me grieve.
6. If I don’t want to talk about it, you can help by being a distraction. When I’m in distraction mode, it isn’t the right time to ask for details about what happened, how the funeral went, or what she was like, even if you’re insanely curious. Right now, I want to make jokes, go for a walk, watch a movie, or something else. Don’t treat me like I’m fragile, and don’t worry if my mood seems to shift a lot. I might laugh one minute and cry the next. It’s okay. I’m glad you’re with me, and I still don’t want to talk about the other stuff. Not right now.
7. If I want to be alone, let me be alone. Don’t take it personally; it’s not about you. I just need some space to process my grief. Don’t try to cheer me up. That only makes me feel worse. Let me know you’re intentionally giving me space and that you’re available when I want to call on you—that lets me know you’re not just abandoning me—but then leave. Let me have the time and space I need, without my having to worry about what you are thinking.
8. Don’t tell me you “know how it feels.” You don’t. You can’t know how it feels to be me right now because you’re not me. One of my best friends also just lost his mom to a similar neurological disease, but even he doesn’t know exactly how I feel, and I don’t know exactly how he felt. We’re different people, our moms were different people, and our experiences of grief are different.
What is appropriate is to relate: “I’m so sorry. My mom died years ago and I still cry when I think about her.” That tells me that you understand that this is difficult, but that you don’t necessarily think your grief was equivalent to my grief. If you’ve never had a serious loss, just say something like, “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now,” and follow it up with letting me know you’re here for me.
9. Instead of asking if there’s anything you can do, offer something specific.In the past, I’ve been guilty of asking people, “Is there anything I can do?” But I’m discovering I don’t like it much when people ask me, because I really don’t know what to tell them.
I know, when people say this, they just want me to know that they care and that I can call upon them. But when my friend from many states away asks me what she can do, I don’t know what to tell her. She can’t bring my mom back. She can’t take away my grief. She can’t make it all better. And when I’m already feeling emotionally overwhelmed, it’s easy for her well-intentioned question to come across to me like, “Knowing you’re sad makes me feel helpless. I don’t like feeling helpless, so I’m now transferring the burden to you to find something I can do so that I’ll feel less helpless, or so that you’ll say there’s nothing I can do and I can feel better and know that I’ve done my duty.”
That might sound strange, but I’m amazed at how often I find myself, as a grieving person, having to comfort other people for their feelings of helplessness and discomfort surrounding my grief. It’s okay that you don’t know what to say or do. I don’t expect you to. And if you can’t think of anything you could do in this situation, there’s probably not anything. It’s okay to just be a good listener. I’d rather not be tasked with the responsibility of finding something for you to do.
On the other hand, if you can think of something specific I might need, it’s great to offer that: “Can I bring you dinner?” “Can I finish that project for you so you can spend more time with your family?” “Would you like to get out for a while for coffee or drinks?” I appreciate the offer, and I might take you up on it. Just be sure not to pressure me or be offended if I decline.
10. Understand that this is a slow, difficult, often confusing journey.Sometimes, I might seem very inconsistent in what I want. As I write this, I’m feeling fine. That’s no guarantee I’ll be feeling fine ten minutes from now. The day after my mother died, I poured myself into work like nothing was wrong. Today, I’m taking the day off to be alone. Months from now, when you’ve forgotten this post, I may still be grieving and have times when it seems like more than I can bear—but feel awkward bringing it up for fear of being a downer.
Don’t assume everything is fine just because I seem to be my usual cheerful self, and don’t assume I’m not fine if I say I really am. Sometimes, grief comes in waves.
The grieving process is a weird thing. But if you are comfortable enough to let me grieve in my own way, you can make it much easier for me to do what I need to do and keep moving forward. And that is one of the marks of a true friend.

A Pearl on a String

Ahead of me standing in line at Target this morning was an older woman, small, gray-haired, and soft-spoken. I stepped closer to her and observed that she was standing in the long line to buy a single loaf of bread. So, I warmly commented, “You’re standing in line to buy a single loaf of bread.” “ Yes”, she kindly replied, “This is the only store that sells thinly sliced bread for his sandwiches.” “Oh, really?” I replied with interest. “Yes, I’ve been married for 47 years, and he has lung cancer. So, I get him what he likes.” Our conversation continued as she shared a bit of her life caring for her ill husband. “God, only gives us what we can handle,” She says as she raises her eyes to the sky, and pleads, “Turn it down lord.” I tell her I don’t agree with that belief anymore. I tell her I believe there are things in life that can be too much for a person to handle or cope with, and when this is the case the person might numb out or find a way to tune out their overwhelming difficulty. She turns to me and says, “Talking with someone like you makes me feel better, and helps me to carry on.” My heart just opened and tears began to pool in my eyes. I raised my arm to embrace her. Right there, standing in line at Target, we embraced each other , our hearts wide open. A moment, like a pearl on a string, precious beyond anything going on around us. And here I thought I was shopping for a new bathing suit, but now I know that Life brought me to Target for Its own reasons .

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Ernest Holmes on Emma Curtis Hopkins: "What she did was almost like a wind, or a breeze."

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Holmes on Mysticism 7-9-1957

I knew Emma Curtis Hopkins. I did take her course. Anyone who would say he "studied with" Emma Curtis Hopkins would be misstating the fact. No one ever "studied with" her that I know of. You went and she talked for an hour and you left and you went again and this happened 12 times and that was it. I know I bought the course at that time and was more familiar with the then than now but it wasn't the ideas but the consciousness she imparted that you did get. It was a very definite Impartation in what she did from what she said. At times it you might be familiar with what is called a "psychic breeze", like something alive and animated.

Emma Curtis Hopkins when I studied with her about 1922 was nearly 80 years old I believe. She was a very stately old dame. She wore a long dress and I never saw her without a hat. They say she was never without one, why I don't know. I went to the door and was announced, a beautiful place, a hotel apartment in the old Iroquois Hotel in New York.

I entered and she made a stiff little bow, with her head and motioned me to a chair and she sat down and began to talk. It was about 10 minutes before I said to myself, "this is the first lesson", which it was and she talked for an hour, and when she got through, she got up and made a little bow and walked out. The first four times I went, I didn't know whether she knew who I was, of course I was much younger then and it bothered me a little. This was 35 years ago.

2-Now about the fourth or fifth time the old gal loosened up and I used to stay after that and have long conversations with her. She turned out to be very witty and cheerful and sweet and lovable. She was telling me one time about a fellow named Burrnell who was a student of hers. She had a convention in Chicago and he came in and he was an absolutist he came in screening, "I am God." She said," there, there, Edwin, it's all right for you to play you are God but don't be so noisy about it." She was a very sweet character.

Now it is what you felt and not what she said. She showed me the only instance of mysticism that I know about that enables us to tie the mystical concept with the way we use the principal.

I presume that may have been because she was in the early days associated with Mrs. Eddy and was the editor of her first publication but left because of the Star-Chamber performances, so she told me. She was a very profound student of the spiritual classics of the ancients, this is all real.

How I Became the Whole in the Donut

Imagine a giant donut shape with the “whole” in the center of the donut filled with “me”, a vast beingness occupying the center of a circumference of energy. This vision came to me while sitting in meditation during a church service on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t in this container, I was the actual center of this container, peaceful, calm, and centered. Suddenly, this donut-shaped container around me began filling up with thoughts and feelings that had no reference to my immediate experience. This led me to the conclusion that these thoughts and feelings were not exactly my own, or had originated within me. I had entered the building that morning at peace, calm, centered and clear of any residual thoughts or feelings from the past. These thoughts and feelings from my environment felt foreign as if they didn’t quite fit with my internal experience of who I was or what I was doing.
I felt myself being drawn into these mixed feelings and thoughts; a swirling and twirling sensation that confused me; I became disoriented. I experienced a wide variety of emotions: first, anxiety, then sorrow, next frustration, some passing anger, a deep resentment, humiliation, and then again confusion. I had been floating peacefully in calm waters when the waters began to churn; I began to sink into the surrounding mix of fluid thoughts and emotion. A still small Presence within guided my attention back to the center of that donut-shaped container, back to that still place of grace I had known just moments before. Internally I shifted to the center, looked around with the inner eye and watched, with detachment, all of the feelings and thoughts that did not “belong” to me swirling all around in the donut space around me. I felt and knew a clarity, a deep understanding of the confusion I often experience in other situations as being this phenomenon of being the center of a container that held all that is around and within my environment.
Ernest Holmes, a new thought spiritual leader from the early 1900s says:
Telepathy is the act of reading subjective thought, or of receiving conscious thought without audible words being spoken. But there must be a mental tuning in, so to speak, just as there must be in radio. We are surrounded by all sorts of vibrations, and if we wish to catch any of them distinctly, we must tune in; but there is a great deal of interference, and we do not always get the messages clearly. We often get the wrong ones, and sometimes many of the vibrations come together and seem to be nothing but a lot of noises, without any particular reason for being. It is only when the instrument is properly adjusted to some individual vibration that a clear message may be received. (Science of Mind, Pg 240)
There is much more to be said about the phenomenon of telepathy. In some ways this is how my thoughts and your thoughts become our thoughts. We enter the kingdom and are One, individuated, yet One in the container that is One container.