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In the past four months I feel that I have become friends with this beach. I walk it often, camera in hand. It is my sacred honour to capture not only the evident beauty of this place, but also often overlooked beauty. I try to find a way to tell a beautiful story even of that which would seem otherwise – death, loss.
The beach is different every day – tides, the coming and going of ocean life such as crabs and seaweed, the plants on the shore cycling through the micro seasons, sun rise, sun set, bright sun, rain, clouds, blue sky. I have sunset pictures from many days, shot within a 20 foot span, and each is different.
Often I walk with camera in one hand and a bag in the other picking up the debris left behind by other visitors. While this stretch of beach is only modestly visited by people, our presence is obvious in the garbage left behind. I’ve picked bags of cans, alcohol bottles, a deck of playing cards scattered across the seaweed, plastic, broken items and a myriad of other human made stuff. Toys in good condition found in the sand such as children’s shovels and the odd ball I leave on a log for future visitors.
This evening I went to sit with the geese. The place where the little stream flows into the ocean is their gathering spot for the night. I’ve been here with them many times and they seem to accept my presence. I know it is a risk tonight, though. The police have been coming to clear people off the beach the last month or so.
The beach is different every day – tides, the coming and going of ocean life such as crabs and seaweed, the plants on the shore cycling through the micro seasons, sun rise, sun set, bright sun, rain, clouds, blue sky. I have sunset pictures from many days, shot within a 20 foot span, and each is different.
Often I walk with camera in one hand and a bag in the other picking up the debris left behind by other visitors. While this stretch of beach is only modestly visited by people, our presence is obvious in the garbage left behind. I’ve picked bags of cans, alcohol bottles, a deck of playing cards scattered across the seaweed, plastic, broken items and a myriad of other human made stuff. Toys in good condition found in the sand such as children’s shovels and the odd ball I leave on a log for future visitors.
This evening I went to sit with the geese. The place where the little stream flows into the ocean is their gathering spot for the night. I’ve been here with them many times and they seem to accept my presence. I know it is a risk tonight, though. The police have been coming to clear people off the beach the last month or so.
As I sit, I take a few pictures of the geese with the colourful sky of the sunset behind them. Oddly, I can sense the trees behind me beckoning me to step into the hollow under their branches, surrounded by tall grasses and Queen Annes’s Lace. I make my way back, find yet a new way to see the sunset and take a few pictures. The hollow draws me back deeper.
There’s a single stock of Queen Anne’s Lace back here behind the overhang of branches. The dappled light of yellow and orange sky that peeks through the leaves makes for a stunning silhouette. As I capture this, I notice the geese shift as one and start to move away. I wonder what has disturbed them and make myself very still. Voices. I quietly shut off my camera, reach for my phone, silence and darken it. Two uniformed male RCMP appear on the foot of the trail, I can see them from below the overhanging foliage. I watch as they look around and move onto the beach. They stop not 20 feet away, directly in front of where I squat. I can hear them talking. I draw in my energy and make myself invisible.
A beautiful peace holds me, as if the beach community, the plants and the place, have wrapped me in a bubble of calm. Geese flying overhead to land further down the shore, away from the intruders, sound particularly clear and loud as they call. I feel as if I am breathing in rhythm with the tree, with the energy that surrounds me, my breathe blending with the pulse of the land.
There’s a single stock of Queen Anne’s Lace back here behind the overhang of branches. The dappled light of yellow and orange sky that peeks through the leaves makes for a stunning silhouette. As I capture this, I notice the geese shift as one and start to move away. I wonder what has disturbed them and make myself very still. Voices. I quietly shut off my camera, reach for my phone, silence and darken it. Two uniformed male RCMP appear on the foot of the trail, I can see them from below the overhanging foliage. I watch as they look around and move onto the beach. They stop not 20 feet away, directly in front of where I squat. I can hear them talking. I draw in my energy and make myself invisible.
A beautiful peace holds me, as if the beach community, the plants and the place, have wrapped me in a bubble of calm. Geese flying overhead to land further down the shore, away from the intruders, sound particularly clear and loud as they call. I feel as if I am breathing in rhythm with the tree, with the energy that surrounds me, my breathe blending with the pulse of the land.
The police are so close to me, can they really not know I’m here? I wonder. I am dressed in a red and black plaid shirt over a red dress. My skin is pale. Not exactly camoflage. But they make no indication that they see me. When they look around it’s as if their gaze just slides past this place. I can hear snippets of the stories they are sharing but try not to listen. From those bits, I know I don’t want to hear this. I reset my intention for invisibility. I feel cloaked by the energy around me.
After about 20 minutes, still squatting, my legs and feet begin to cramp. Slowly I stand enough to ease my backside onto the log behind me, watching to see if the movement attracts the attention of the two on the beach. The rustling in the bushes behind me from a night creature moving through the brush seems loud to me. They seem to notice neither. I settle on the log. Another 20 minutes goes by.
Most often when they come, the police walk the beach. I wonder why these two just stand in this spot and for so long. Perhaps they figure that by now no one will be here on the beach so they’re simply enjoying a pause. Finally they turn, wondering out loud where the trail marker is. It’s 10 feet to my left. I still myself further as they pass right by me, pause at the marker for one last look and head up the path. I wait another five minutes before I move, taking a few more photos from this vantage before making my way through the growth and back to the open beach.
The geese calmly return to their favorite spot as I return to mine. We greet each other silently and then return to our own thoughts, mine of gratitude for this place. Now it is getting dark. I head up the unmarked trail behind me, pausing at the top to check if anyone is there, then make my way home, enjoying the summer night.
After about 20 minutes, still squatting, my legs and feet begin to cramp. Slowly I stand enough to ease my backside onto the log behind me, watching to see if the movement attracts the attention of the two on the beach. The rustling in the bushes behind me from a night creature moving through the brush seems loud to me. They seem to notice neither. I settle on the log. Another 20 minutes goes by.
Most often when they come, the police walk the beach. I wonder why these two just stand in this spot and for so long. Perhaps they figure that by now no one will be here on the beach so they’re simply enjoying a pause. Finally they turn, wondering out loud where the trail marker is. It’s 10 feet to my left. I still myself further as they pass right by me, pause at the marker for one last look and head up the path. I wait another five minutes before I move, taking a few more photos from this vantage before making my way through the growth and back to the open beach.
The geese calmly return to their favorite spot as I return to mine. We greet each other silently and then return to our own thoughts, mine of gratitude for this place. Now it is getting dark. I head up the unmarked trail behind me, pausing at the top to check if anyone is there, then make my way home, enjoying the summer night.
Join my Virtual Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail.
#beach #geese #canadagoose #queenanneslace #spiritual #invisible #gratitude #beachlife #beachwalk #sunset
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When I was in elementary school, probably grade1, I remember an assignment where we were asked to draw a city scene, draw a picture in any case. Mine was a cityscape and I had drawn a picture I was so proud of. And was devastated when the teacher returned my art work with exes through it. See I had drawn an image from a few years previous when my family had traveled to Japan and so the street signs, the building signs, I had drawn were vertical and with Japanese kana and the teacher did not recognize that as being a valid proper sign and so she had marked them as wrong.
I have talked to other people who had experiences as children where teachers had marked pictures wrong because their grass was purple or their sky was orange and of course everyone knows that grass is supposed to be green and skies blue.
One thing I have learned from living, from being out in the world, is that that is not exclusively true. We have narrowed our vision. Here where I'm living now, I have really been able to observe the micro seasons as they pass. I have seen the lawn go from green to yellow and then white from dandelions and then back to yellow with buttercups. And then after the buttercups purple from clovers and low lying plants with tiny tiny purple flowers.
Sitting at the beach I've seen the sky transform from blue to orange to yellow. I’ve seen it purple, sometimes all of those at once.
A trip to the local farm market reveals that carrots and beets come in colours ranging from red to orange to yellow to purple. Even kale comes in different shades of green and purple. And I remember one time making mashed potatoes from purple potatoes and my family thought that I had dyed them.
We have narrowed our focus, creating mono cultures of ourselves and of our foods and of our environment. And I am reminded of the sayings that there are people of the book and people of the land but that Creator's first writings were the ones of the land in all of its rich diversity.
When the settlers first came to North America they did not recognize, and therefore didn't see, Indigenous methods of land management, which are a co-creative process between the plants, animals, the lands, and the people who live on the lands. Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer provides a beautiful description of this co-creative process.
I have talked to other people who had experiences as children where teachers had marked pictures wrong because their grass was purple or their sky was orange and of course everyone knows that grass is supposed to be green and skies blue.
One thing I have learned from living, from being out in the world, is that that is not exclusively true. We have narrowed our vision. Here where I'm living now, I have really been able to observe the micro seasons as they pass. I have seen the lawn go from green to yellow and then white from dandelions and then back to yellow with buttercups. And then after the buttercups purple from clovers and low lying plants with tiny tiny purple flowers.
Sitting at the beach I've seen the sky transform from blue to orange to yellow. I’ve seen it purple, sometimes all of those at once.
A trip to the local farm market reveals that carrots and beets come in colours ranging from red to orange to yellow to purple. Even kale comes in different shades of green and purple. And I remember one time making mashed potatoes from purple potatoes and my family thought that I had dyed them.
We have narrowed our focus, creating mono cultures of ourselves and of our foods and of our environment. And I am reminded of the sayings that there are people of the book and people of the land but that Creator's first writings were the ones of the land in all of its rich diversity.
When the settlers first came to North America they did not recognize, and therefore didn't see, Indigenous methods of land management, which are a co-creative process between the plants, animals, the lands, and the people who live on the lands. Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer provides a beautiful description of this co-creative process.
I think about this when I think about the Wet’suwet’en and others who defend land against so-called economic development. Economics is about household management. The way colonizers have, and continue to approach the economy in this country is to preference one group of people's household management over another. For a company to come onto land and say this is needed "for the economy" is disingenuous. The land already is an economy, one that functions in a holistic way that includes, but doesn't centralize, humans. Exploitation of land is not economic prosperity, it is a disregard for the economy that already exists. It is willful blindness to the households that currently live on and with that place. It is to say my household is more important than yours. It is a failure to see the true diversity of the world and to recognize as valid something other than our mono-economics.
I am saddened for the children whose creativity was curtailed by narrow-visioned teachers. Those children who continued to draw orange skies and purple grass enrich our lives and see both the beauty and the possibility of this world. And those people who defend co-creative economics that maintains the land for all creatures and species in a way that all can thrive can teach us a better way to live. May it be so.
~
Join my Virtual Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail.
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I’m out in the garden talking to Keith on the phone. Hands in the dirt, gently teasing the weeds out to get as much root as possible. This small garden has provided all sorts of abundance. Metaphors, stories, surprise at the exquisite beauty of zucchini flowers reaching out from under broad leaves to find the morning sun. Oh, and fresh peas, a taste of raspberries and anticipation for vine ripened tomatoes promised by the plethora of flowers on the vines.
There is a familiarity to this, like the memory of a forgotten time. A body memory that runs deep in my being.
*
In an odd way the pandemic had sent me into exile in reverse. In leaving my home, I have landed back in the garden. Here, where I’ve come to live with my father-in-law, I have re-learned the beauty of dirty hands and the meditation of weeding.
I grew up with backyard gardens and pretty traditional -- in the modern western concept of middle class colonial tradition -- family structure. We lived in a single family neighbourhood where most dads went to work and most moms worked at home keeping house and raising kids. Outside jobs the women held tended to be secondary to the men's jobs. Pretty much everyone had a backyard food garden.
My family were not great gardeners. We spent too much time away in the summer, camping and travelling in our truck and camper. None-the-less I grew up with fresh snow peas, beans and swiss chard. In my memory those were the things that seemed to thrive. I remember that beans were so prolific we would freeze them for the winter. We snapped the stem end and pulled off any stringyness, my mom scalded them quickly in boiling water and then dumped them into a cold bath. Once patted dry in clean tea towels, we’d bundle them into serving sizes in plastic baggies for freezing. Provisions for winter.
As an adult I moved away from the suburbs. My husband and I raised our son in a highrise apartment in the city. I haven't tended a garden for 40 years.
Recently, reading one of many emerging articles about the body's microbiome, the author noted that one of the modern losses to our gut health is our clean, indoor environments. We no longer get exposed to beautiful soil microbes. And now with the pandemic we are also encouraged to wash our hands more than ever, use hand-wash if water and soap are not available and to wipe down our houses frequently with chemical washes. While I understand the impetus for this in this moment, I also wonder if the extra sterility ultimately will make us less naturally able to fight a virus like corona. Dirt helps boost our immune system. I wash my hands when returning from the grocery store then put them in the soil of the garden.
The garden here is small and planted in raised beds. But it is enough to get the experience of dirty hands as I gently tease weeds out while chatting with my friend Keith on the phone. One of the beds was planted by the neighbours who thought it might be a project for their daughters during isolation. Truth be told I rarely see the daughters there and the tending leans toward watering. There are plenty of weeds to keep me busy while Keith and I muse about the world, our hopes and our place in those hopes, as we collectively, around the world, shift into post pandemic.
And here in the garden is where I was able to articulate my growing recognition about my role in the moment as someone called to a path of spiritual healing. It is to embrace this time of stepping into the role of caregiver, nurturer, an intimate symbol of the Feminine Divine and a role I pushed against for many years. Now, like Mother Earth, I am called to offer myself and my gifts to the world.
One of the paradoxes of the path of energy healing or shamanic work, much like any spiritual work, is there comes a moment when the next step in connecting more expansively is to focus inward. I, like everyone, have wounds received from my life, family, culture and choices. This inward journey leads to deeper personal healing. And it is in this moment that I have landed here, in exile in the garden with responsibility to care for my father-in-law who, at 89 and a widow for 9 years is also experiencing the ravages of cognitive decline. There have been times when I was out in the community working for justice and finding solutions to homelessness. I helped start, and ran for many years, a large community ministry in my urban neighbourhood. Now my world has become smaller, my focus caring for this person. Suddenly I am keeping house and home in a way that I never did for my own husband and child. I was the one who worked outside the home. It was my spouse who did day-to-day child-raising and all of the laundry. Raised in the 70s, I learned that women's roles were not valued and I scorned them. Yet the work of healing is the work of nurture and here I am, given this time now to nourish my role as nurturer.
I have never had a good relationship with my father-in-law. It wasn't bad, just superficial, not really a relationship in any meaningful way. He had been a distant father, wrapped in alcoholism. He's been dry for most of the time I've known him, but not healed.
I recognize that this time of building something with him, offering him the care of good food and companionship, brings healing to the whole family. My call of the moment to healing the world is to begin with myself and to care for Bill. As I build a different role and relationship with him, I bring deeper healing to the whole family line forward and backward.
My world, narrowed to this small suburban house, this moment, is what I need to focus myself, to bring healing to the family and our relationships and ultimately create new ripples of love that emanate out, sending that healing into the world. The garden is bringing me there.
Blessed be,
~
Join my Virtual Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail.
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With beach access cut off by the closure of the park, I walked instead along the freeway feeling put out to be forced to this route. I longed for the beach on this beautiful night.
I caught the flicker first and then the whirring sound. Gentling my energy, I stepped quietly back against the chain link fence. The vibration of the hummingbird hovering above me sent a shiver up my back.
Over the past few weeks hummingbirds have been showing up to me. The first time while I was on a video call, my attention caught as one flitted outside the window, gone as soon as I registered it. I had not seen hummingbirds in our yard before that nor have I since. It’s presence pulled me to joy and wonder.
Subsequently I started noticing hummingbirds in different places, from flower bushes on the way to the market to illustrations in facebook posts. When this happens, it's good to pay attention. I did.
And then walking beside the freeway this beauty called to and lingered with me as the sun set. I sent out a gentle message asking permission to take her picture. And she alighted on the wire above my head.
Hummingbirds speak to us about perseverance and flexibility. They are tiny and light, yet migrate great distances. They can fly forward and backwards, modelling flexibility. In this case, also, I was drawn into patience as I waited quietly and joyfully.
I am aware I would have missed this moment had I actually been on the beach.
Thank you hummingbird.
I caught the flicker first and then the whirring sound. Gentling my energy, I stepped quietly back against the chain link fence. The vibration of the hummingbird hovering above me sent a shiver up my back.
Over the past few weeks hummingbirds have been showing up to me. The first time while I was on a video call, my attention caught as one flitted outside the window, gone as soon as I registered it. I had not seen hummingbirds in our yard before that nor have I since. It’s presence pulled me to joy and wonder.
Subsequently I started noticing hummingbirds in different places, from flower bushes on the way to the market to illustrations in facebook posts. When this happens, it's good to pay attention. I did.
And then walking beside the freeway this beauty called to and lingered with me as the sun set. I sent out a gentle message asking permission to take her picture. And she alighted on the wire above my head.
Hummingbirds speak to us about perseverance and flexibility. They are tiny and light, yet migrate great distances. They can fly forward and backwards, modelling flexibility. In this case, also, I was drawn into patience as I waited quietly and joyfully.
I am aware I would have missed this moment had I actually been on the beach.
Thank you hummingbird.
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even the winged one
finally lands, lays head down on sand
released now to soar
#eulogyforaseagull #seagull #beachwalk #beachlife #peacearchbeach
#soar #death #blessing @kimikokarpoff
finally lands, lays head down on sand
released now to soar
#eulogyforaseagull #seagull #beachwalk #beachlife #peacearchbeach
#soar #death #blessing @kimikokarpoff
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Rain drops on Ginko Biloba leaves on the Kumano Kodo trail.
We sit in circles. It is an image that echoes the outward ripples caused by a drop of water. A spread of quenching. This circle gathered in a place that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Familiar – a church hall, tables pushed to the sides, chairs set around a small centre table set with a cloth and a candle. Unfamiliar – this is a Kyodan, a church in Japan, the language around me, although familiar in some ways is one I don’t speak, the culture too. There are 27 gathered today, all women with the exception of one of the ministers. They have come for an experiential introduction to Healing Pathway. My good friend and colleague Rev. Yoko Kihara has organized this. She is the drop of water.
It’s the ripples that I’m thinking about. The way each raindrop sends a circle of vibration, the feel of the water washing over me as the swell hits.
A water drop, so beautiful, can be raindrop or tear. Nine months ago Yoko and I were in Japan on an amazing journey. The healing circle was only the start of it, but an apt beginning to a time of deep engagement. One of the realities of that trip was that Yoko believed it would be her last trip to Japan, land of her birth. As we journeyed we were aware, always, that she was living with cancer. Determined to LIVE with cancer to the very end. She had opted to end all invasive and harsh treatments which would prolong her life, but not cure her. She said that quality of life was more important than quantity.
Yoko seemed amazingly well in Japan. I wonder if the connection to the place, the land, the language, helped energize her. Three of the days we walked the rigorous Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route, carrying packs on the mountainous trails. This had been a dream Yoko held since reading the work of Japanese philosopher Kumagusu Minaka as a young university student. Only a few days did she seem to need extra rest. Most days she went full-bore, which anyone who knows her will tell you is how she lived in general.
Lived (heart skip.) I hardly even want to say what is true here. As full of life as Yoko was in Japan, after we arrived home her energy steadily waned. It’s been almost a month now since she shifted, more than that by the time you are reading this. I was blessed to be there with her and her family moments after she took her last breath and her spirit was still palpably present in the room. Many hundreds of people gathered in person and on-line to celebrate her life and mourn her death at a service on February 29. Rev Etsuo Toya from the congregation where we ran the Healing Circle was one of three of Yoko’s friends and colleagues who came from Japan for the service.
Before coming to Canada 15 years ago, Yoko was a minister with the United Church of Christ in Japan. She maintained close ties with that church and many of her colleagues, including writing regular reflections on ministry in Canada and various ministries of the United Church of Canada. One of those reflections was on the Healing Pathway.
It’s the ripples that I’m thinking about. The way each raindrop sends a circle of vibration, the feel of the water washing over me as the swell hits.
A water drop, so beautiful, can be raindrop or tear. Nine months ago Yoko and I were in Japan on an amazing journey. The healing circle was only the start of it, but an apt beginning to a time of deep engagement. One of the realities of that trip was that Yoko believed it would be her last trip to Japan, land of her birth. As we journeyed we were aware, always, that she was living with cancer. Determined to LIVE with cancer to the very end. She had opted to end all invasive and harsh treatments which would prolong her life, but not cure her. She said that quality of life was more important than quantity.
Yoko seemed amazingly well in Japan. I wonder if the connection to the place, the land, the language, helped energize her. Three of the days we walked the rigorous Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route, carrying packs on the mountainous trails. This had been a dream Yoko held since reading the work of Japanese philosopher Kumagusu Minaka as a young university student. Only a few days did she seem to need extra rest. Most days she went full-bore, which anyone who knows her will tell you is how she lived in general.
Lived (heart skip.) I hardly even want to say what is true here. As full of life as Yoko was in Japan, after we arrived home her energy steadily waned. It’s been almost a month now since she shifted, more than that by the time you are reading this. I was blessed to be there with her and her family moments after she took her last breath and her spirit was still palpably present in the room. Many hundreds of people gathered in person and on-line to celebrate her life and mourn her death at a service on February 29. Rev Etsuo Toya from the congregation where we ran the Healing Circle was one of three of Yoko’s friends and colleagues who came from Japan for the service.
Before coming to Canada 15 years ago, Yoko was a minister with the United Church of Christ in Japan. She maintained close ties with that church and many of her colleagues, including writing regular reflections on ministry in Canada and various ministries of the United Church of Canada. One of those reflections was on the Healing Pathway.
View of Japan's tallest torii (gate) at the Kumano Hongu Taisha shrine, from the trail. The gate is 33.9 meters tall.
Japan has ancient roots in energy healing. My grandfather, for example, practised the Samurai healing art of Seiki (sei - living, ki - life force energy). However, some of those ancient traditions are seen as outside of Christian practice. Yoko’s article about Christian energy healing was received with some curiosity.
This trip had taken many years to come to fruition. Five years ago Yoko asked me to come to Japan with her to teach energy healing. But then life intervened with the illness and death of my spouse and Yoko’s own health concerns. Every year I held space and May 2019 that space opened.
We arrived in Japan on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday afternoon we were gathered in the church hall to engage in Healing Pathway together. I facilitated, Yoko translated. Prior to coming to Japan I had prepared a brief handout about Healing Pathway as a way of introduction. Yoko felt that an introduction would encourage people to participate. And although Rev. Toya-san had been concerned that few people would attend, she assured him that however many it was, it would be enough. We set chairs for 15 and added more as more people arrived.
I set the space and lit the candle, gathering us to begin.
As a check-in Yoko asked each person to introduce themselves and share their experience or curiosity about energy healing and what drew them to attend. Some people had participated in yoga, Qi gong or mindfulness meditation rooted in Buddhism. Many people spoke of mothers and grandmothers using their hands to sooth the pain of headaches, stomachaches or childhood scrapes and injuries. A few had worked in care homes, hospices and other healthcare settings and knew the value and healing properties of human connection through touch.
A few expressed hesitation or even nervousness. Unbeknownst to me, the Christ candle so familiar to Christians in Canada was not common in Japan and for some evoked something from a cult. This was me tripping over cultural difference. Yet they stayed, open to participate in Christ’s healing.
This trip had taken many years to come to fruition. Five years ago Yoko asked me to come to Japan with her to teach energy healing. But then life intervened with the illness and death of my spouse and Yoko’s own health concerns. Every year I held space and May 2019 that space opened.
We arrived in Japan on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday afternoon we were gathered in the church hall to engage in Healing Pathway together. I facilitated, Yoko translated. Prior to coming to Japan I had prepared a brief handout about Healing Pathway as a way of introduction. Yoko felt that an introduction would encourage people to participate. And although Rev. Toya-san had been concerned that few people would attend, she assured him that however many it was, it would be enough. We set chairs for 15 and added more as more people arrived.
I set the space and lit the candle, gathering us to begin.
As a check-in Yoko asked each person to introduce themselves and share their experience or curiosity about energy healing and what drew them to attend. Some people had participated in yoga, Qi gong or mindfulness meditation rooted in Buddhism. Many people spoke of mothers and grandmothers using their hands to sooth the pain of headaches, stomachaches or childhood scrapes and injuries. A few had worked in care homes, hospices and other healthcare settings and knew the value and healing properties of human connection through touch.
A few expressed hesitation or even nervousness. Unbeknownst to me, the Christ candle so familiar to Christians in Canada was not common in Japan and for some evoked something from a cult. This was me tripping over cultural difference. Yet they stayed, open to participate in Christ’s healing.
Yoko and I had decided on the Heart of Christ meditation. Here that sense of water rippling was a blessing to me. Although I could not understand the words spoken in Japanese, I could feel the resonance as we connected our hearts, collectively raising our vibration through the Divine. We offered beautiful healing energy to each other through soaking prayer, sharing resonance by placing our hands gently on the shoulders of a person sitting in a chair. Each person both received and offered. We finished with full body balance on ourselves, running energy into our own major joints and chakra points with our hands, starting with the feet and working up.
Checking out, people talked about the warmth and energy flowing through their whole body. Some expressed their feeling of connection, of the energy going down to the earth, of feeling grounded. One person talked of their experience of seeing light during the meditation. We heard of bodies warming as circulation improved and the wash of peacefulness that people felt. One person spoke of her own cancer and her husband’s diagnosis and how she could feel her anxiety release as the peace washed over her. Even the ones who had been cautious gratefully shared the deep-felt healing they experienced.
Checking out, people talked about the warmth and energy flowing through their whole body. Some expressed their feeling of connection, of the energy going down to the earth, of feeling grounded. One person talked of their experience of seeing light during the meditation. We heard of bodies warming as circulation improved and the wash of peacefulness that people felt. One person spoke of her own cancer and her husband’s diagnosis and how she could feel her anxiety release as the peace washed over her. Even the ones who had been cautious gratefully shared the deep-felt healing they experienced.
Yoko (left) and I in Japan.
One month after Yoko’s service, the world has shifted as everyone goes into seclusion and bans have been placed on travel and in-person gathering. Yet these conditions do not stop the ripples, in fact underscore the power of taking this potent ministry into the world and spreading it through the hands of many. At her memorial service, her friend and colleague Rev Yoshiki Nakamura from Tokyo spoke of the gift of healing that we shared not only in Tokyo, also in Wakayama, Osaka, Niigata and Sado Island, and Fukushima.
The image of the drop of water connotes many things – the quenching of rain, the catharsis of tears, the ripples of someone whose life of service touched so many. The generosity of this final trip to her motherland was emblematic of Yoko’s whole life and ministry. Yoko’s memory washes through me, a warmth that gladdens and heals me, filling me with gratitude. Thank you, my beloved friend.
During this time of social isolation, I am offering Virtual Healing Circles with Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Find information for joining a circle here , send me an e-mail or check out my healing page.
The image of the drop of water connotes many things – the quenching of rain, the catharsis of tears, the ripples of someone whose life of service touched so many. The generosity of this final trip to her motherland was emblematic of Yoko’s whole life and ministry. Yoko’s memory washes through me, a warmth that gladdens and heals me, filling me with gratitude. Thank you, my beloved friend.
During this time of social isolation, I am offering Virtual Healing Circles with Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Find information for joining a circle here , send me an e-mail or check out my healing page.
- Published on
Bridal Falls, BC
I want to say a word about connection.
Skin touches skin,
plug goes into socket,
and energy flows.
It’s that flow we long for;
roots draw water, leaves reach
for the sun. And we reach for
each other, streaming sparks as
your finger tips brush my face. And the current
we see only through the wonders
of lights and music and this screen.
We’d miss it if it were gone.
Trees roots transmit wisdom.
Tap in. Can you hear?
Are your lights on? Can you feel me
here drawing circles on your palm?
Oh, and that word I wanted to say,
I bet you already know. Because we are
connected, you and me, our roots entwined.
Together, we complete the circuit.
Skin touches skin,
plug goes into socket,
and energy flows.
It’s that flow we long for;
roots draw water, leaves reach
for the sun. And we reach for
each other, streaming sparks as
your finger tips brush my face. And the current
we see only through the wonders
of lights and music and this screen.
We’d miss it if it were gone.
Trees roots transmit wisdom.
Tap in. Can you hear?
Are your lights on? Can you feel me
here drawing circles on your palm?
Oh, and that word I wanted to say,
I bet you already know. Because we are
connected, you and me, our roots entwined.
Together, we complete the circuit.
- Published on
My body is craving everything. Coffee, comfort food, tender physical skin-to-skin touch, energetic connection.
I wonder which one is real.
What is available is coffee and I savour the dark brew. Some moments coffee feels spiritual. A warm, softly bitter connection to all that is life-giving — water, sunshine, soil, human hands. The buzz responds to my longing, makes my skin tingle.
We tell stories as if they have a beginning, a middle and an end. But there is always something before the beginning and something after the end. Even the Bible starts with "In a beginning," leaving it open for other moments to also claim that space.
My story begins before me, before my parents, before even their parents. As Joni Mitchell noted,
We are stardust
We are billion year old carbon
We are golden
There are moments when I feel golden and moments when I feel like carbon. Before it is compressed into diamonds. Certainly I don’t feel like anyone’s best friend.
The beauty is that although I am alone I am aware that I am connected to everything. And while I have moments of acute loneliness, it’s really only physical and emotional, not spiritual. And I’m never bored, just restless in my sense that I am failing to connect — to others, to my highest self, the dots.
I’m not sure how we humans have so spectacularly failed at the one thing God — or Divine or Life Force or however the core of Oneness shows up for you — created that is so quintessentially human. Relationship. By that I mean connection. Moving from tribe to metropolis has created more fracturing, it would seem. There are more of us and more ways to network. But those are so often shallow and tinged by fear and competition. For sure there were problems with tribes. But let’s not get sidetracked onto that path.
I am the first to acknowledge that my cravings are largely my own doing. I am so afraid of missteps or ambush or something, that I hide behind a guard. My golden can’t shine through. When it does shine I can feel it and I feel ALIVE! And so I am working on building up my inner strength so I don’t need that guard. It’s slow work, but powerful and enlightening.
I suspect I’m not alone, it’s not unique to me. So I share this just to say, if this resonates with you, you are not alone either. And, You Are Golden!
- Published on
I came to the river knowing that the season would be over. Still I brought the picking bucket, just in case. As expected, these bushes are long done. I’d last picked weeks ago, before my birthday.
The ducks are here, quietly going about their paddle. Because I have been focussed on the blackberry banks, I hadn’t noticed right away. It’s as if they're ok with my presence as long as I don’t look at them. I can see subtle shifts to attention as soon as I spot them even though I have simply turned my head and have made no sound. It’s as if they sense me looking.
I had not anticipated that the bees would still be flying in and out of the flowers. They seem bigger, plumper this late in the season.
It’s not actually quiet here, I realize. Airplanes fly overhead, North Road is right there to my left. Despite today being Labour Day there is a lot of traffic going by.
The ducks are here, quietly going about their paddle. Because I have been focussed on the blackberry banks, I hadn’t noticed right away. It’s as if they're ok with my presence as long as I don’t look at them. I can see subtle shifts to attention as soon as I spot them even though I have simply turned my head and have made no sound. It’s as if they sense me looking.
I had not anticipated that the bees would still be flying in and out of the flowers. They seem bigger, plumper this late in the season.
It’s not actually quiet here, I realize. Airplanes fly overhead, North Road is right there to my left. Despite today being Labour Day there is a lot of traffic going by.
The first day I came down here this year I saw a big, beautiful dragonfly. It’s the only one I’ve seen in all my years of coming here. It felt like a gift and, looking back, a symbol of this moment of shift.
Between that moment and this I realized that I had come to the other side of something. I saw it like a vision. I was standing at the base of a hill, the mouth of a small valley. Having been for two years in a different place, a liminal space, I just stood there, listening, smelling, observing. The scent was a curious blend of dry ground and vegetation. Not unfamiliar, yet I had not been exactly here before. Ahead, not a clear path, but a definite way. What is this place?
Remembering the lesson of wayfinding (thanks Dan Hines) I turned around to see where I’ve come from. Behind me stretched a broad desert. I recognized it as the place I’ve been for the past two years. Liminal space; time between what is and what is next. And stretching across the desert a row of lotus flowers, a lush path of stepping stones.
I thought back to a previous vision I’d had, one of looking out into a barren desert that I needed to cross. Each time I took a step forward a lotus flower would bloom to receive my foot. Lotus are water plants. So this path of watery abundance had walked me across the desert. Here I was now on the other side. With this realization, I knew it was time for me to move forward to a new path, step into a new moment.
I have now given notice that I would be leaving the communications work at the Centre for Christian Studies which has also escorted me across the liminal space. After Paul died, I didn’t know what I would be doing. This position has offered me a creative and supportive place. I never imagined leaving after such a short time, but here I am. Despite being sad to say good-bye to this place I love and a great collegial team, it feels right. I will be done here before winter comes.
Between that moment and this I realized that I had come to the other side of something. I saw it like a vision. I was standing at the base of a hill, the mouth of a small valley. Having been for two years in a different place, a liminal space, I just stood there, listening, smelling, observing. The scent was a curious blend of dry ground and vegetation. Not unfamiliar, yet I had not been exactly here before. Ahead, not a clear path, but a definite way. What is this place?
Remembering the lesson of wayfinding (thanks Dan Hines) I turned around to see where I’ve come from. Behind me stretched a broad desert. I recognized it as the place I’ve been for the past two years. Liminal space; time between what is and what is next. And stretching across the desert a row of lotus flowers, a lush path of stepping stones.
I thought back to a previous vision I’d had, one of looking out into a barren desert that I needed to cross. Each time I took a step forward a lotus flower would bloom to receive my foot. Lotus are water plants. So this path of watery abundance had walked me across the desert. Here I was now on the other side. With this realization, I knew it was time for me to move forward to a new path, step into a new moment.
I have now given notice that I would be leaving the communications work at the Centre for Christian Studies which has also escorted me across the liminal space. After Paul died, I didn’t know what I would be doing. This position has offered me a creative and supportive place. I never imagined leaving after such a short time, but here I am. Despite being sad to say good-bye to this place I love and a great collegial team, it feels right. I will be done here before winter comes.
I hold such gratitude. While it was shitty to watch my husband suffer and die, today life is again full and abundant. Do I experience loneliness? Yes, at times aching and visceral. And I have deepening and accepting friendships. Times of doubt? Absolutely. But not deep doubt. Deep down I trust the moment, trust the Divine, trust even failures, which teach me what things in me need healing and what actually matters. I have learned things that are important to me, and that are important for me to nurture in myself like compassion, kindness, joy.
The way into the hills is obscured. But I step forward sure in the continuing unfolding.
Here at the river I’ve lost track of time. I usually only come to this place when the blackberries are ripe for picking. But the fruits of this place are still here for me now. Thanks be to God. The longer I sit quietly, the more I notice. Tiny dragonflies, a bead of water on a blade of grass, my own need to be here.
I’m having a hard time leaving, even though I know it’s time to go. Much like the time I’ve spent with CCS, it has nourished me. And I know this place will still be here, just as the connections at CCS won’t be severed, simply shifted. As I gather my things and stand up to leave, amazingly another large dragonfly glides by.
The way into the hills is obscured. But I step forward sure in the continuing unfolding.
Here at the river I’ve lost track of time. I usually only come to this place when the blackberries are ripe for picking. But the fruits of this place are still here for me now. Thanks be to God. The longer I sit quietly, the more I notice. Tiny dragonflies, a bead of water on a blade of grass, my own need to be here.
I’m having a hard time leaving, even though I know it’s time to go. Much like the time I’ve spent with CCS, it has nourished me. And I know this place will still be here, just as the connections at CCS won’t be severed, simply shifted. As I gather my things and stand up to leave, amazingly another large dragonfly glides by.
- Published on
As I step into the river, my body becomes like the water, fluid and languid.
The river has changed again. Of course I have too, my edges also worn by the streams of life. I have to find a new way to enter. I suspect people find that with me too. A spot where the currents aren't too deep and swift. A place to ease in, get your footing first.
I hadn't been thinking about how it smells here. But realized as soon as I arrived how much it is part of the whole experience. I breath deep, filling my soul with the familiar blend of water and plant loam.
In my continued quest to get one good shot of the bees in the flowers I wander over to the bank down aways. And once again God shows me something amazing that I didn't anticipate. Turning my head to look at the flowers I am caught by the spectacular sight of a brilliant dragonfly perched on a stem of grass. Amazing.
The blackberry season has only started and I go home with only a taste of what will emerge over the next few weeks. Every season, year after year, this place fills me.
Thanks be to God.
The river has changed again. Of course I have too, my edges also worn by the streams of life. I have to find a new way to enter. I suspect people find that with me too. A spot where the currents aren't too deep and swift. A place to ease in, get your footing first.
I hadn't been thinking about how it smells here. But realized as soon as I arrived how much it is part of the whole experience. I breath deep, filling my soul with the familiar blend of water and plant loam.
In my continued quest to get one good shot of the bees in the flowers I wander over to the bank down aways. And once again God shows me something amazing that I didn't anticipate. Turning my head to look at the flowers I am caught by the spectacular sight of a brilliant dragonfly perched on a stem of grass. Amazing.
The blackberry season has only started and I go home with only a taste of what will emerge over the next few weeks. Every season, year after year, this place fills me.
Thanks be to God.
