A Year in Spirit

April 27, 2011

Today is  Ulf’s 1st anniversary.  Last year, on his birthday,  he took his final exit from this stage.  A brief hospital stay and infection preceded his premature exit but the timing was right for him since he had reached the point of needing more focused caregiving.  He expressly did not want to go down that road, so in this instance, I think Ulf was very much in charge of his decision to not linger.

After this day last year, I wrote about the mystery of where Ulf was and what was he experiencing.  We had shared so much that it was frustrating not to, in some way, share this experience with him.  Since I currently inhabit a three dimensional world of separate objects, it presented a challenge.  So I looked for signs that he was indeed able to communicate in some form, such as the photo of a full moon shaped like a heart.  There were other instances that I wrote about that were gentle, sweet and surprising.  Of course, I have no idea if my interpretation is correct but as long as it brings a smile and a feeling of a loving connection, it needs no explanation.  To me, it’s just another way of continuing to share our present moment where there is no separation.  Each instance is like receiving the gift of a lovely rose.

Our culture has defined death in a variety of ways, usually somber.  Ulf and I have been on a spiritual  journey for many years.  He joined my openness to life and it’s probabilities.  Because he had a more formal and structured upbringing,  I guess he was ready to open a few of his own doors. So whenever discussions like ‘death’ arose, we saw it as just another adventure into the unknown and not as a scary movie. We viewed our bodies as a limited vessel of a larger energy to which we are connected. The concept of the ‘greater energy’, however it’s framed, is open to our imagination.   The more startling revelations are well chronicled.  I prefer the less dramatic form of just being present.

The year I chronicled in the blog spoke to Ulf’s growing awareness of this larger energy he often called God, even though he was puzzled about something he couldn’t see.   So when the time came for him to exit one of his open doors, I’m certain there was no fear in him.  The last day he was at home, he kept saying, “I have to go home” and even started walking up the sidewalk before I caught him.  It’s as if his body could no longer contain this energy flowing through him that he was compelled to cheerfully share with others.  He was like a raindrop yearning to return to the ocean.

My experience of traveling the long, curvy, unmarked road to dementia with Ulf reinforced for me the idea that planning and good intentions don’t create the future we think we want.   Eckhart Tolle’s books about being in the present moment, The Sedona Method and years of study of A Course in Miracles that teaches us there is another way of being in the world, were valuable road maps that helped shift our perception of our experience.

The last several weeks, I have revisited our journey’s beginning to now, often with tears.  Our story began after Ulf was tested and found to have neurological deficits and an MRI revealed multiple small strokes.  None of these indicators manifested physically.  Ulf was trim and in good condition.  About 4 months later, while doing a computer search,  I discovered a condition called Obstructive Sleep Apnea.   I immediately called the Arizona University to inquire if they had a sleep lab.  They not only had a lab, but had begun a study with Stanford University on sleep apnea and diminished neurological capacity.  After I described Ulf’s symptoms, they immediately wanted to test him for their study.  The test results confirmed that Ulf definitely had  sleep apnea, which meant for years he had reduced oxygen to his brain every night.  If sharing Ulf’s experience could help even one person, he would say, “Mission Accomplished!”

Ulf had so successfully compensated for his loss of cognitive abilities that no one, not even doctors, picked up on these considerable changes in his brain. The misguided belief that OSA is the result of being overweight is shortsighted. Even children can have this condition. Upon receiving treatment, Ulf’s condition stabilized for several years but the damage had been done, so he gradually began to decline.  Even now, the medical profession has not made the connection between dementia and sleep apnea since there has only been 10 years of research.  The research connecting OSA with a heart condition began as early as the 60′s. Upon diagnosis, the heart is immediately examined but not the brain!  Given the rise in dementia diagnosis, you’d think it would be more on the medical radar screen….easy treatment, no pills.  Hey, maybe that’s why!  No pills to sell!

While time was gradually becoming irrelevant to Ulf,  I was  running to catch up. By realizing we access that greater energy right here, now, I discovered there was no place to go.  As Ulf settled more into his present moment, I joined him there.  I shared these precious moments in this blog during Ulf’s last year.  It was often a creative venture for both of us that was captured in a gentle light.  Life is never what we expect but we can choose to bring laughter and lightness of being to any situation.   Ulf has been an incredible teacher and is still teaching me:  Lessons in Love from Spirit.

Ulf’s Precious Moments

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To read some of  Ulf’s precious moments, scroll down and click on Older Entries or click on any of these titles: God Who?, Christmas Time, Forgiveness, What is Death?, It’s About Love.    It will touch your heart!

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To read my new blog:  BEV’S JOURNEY CONTINUES…..
CLICK ON:      http://www.beverlyhamilton.com

The Light of Love

As I ponder the ideas of peeking behind the clouds, exploring holographic universes, staying in the present moment, I playfully explored this thought.  What if a little cell in our body had an epiphany experience and the  world as this cell had known it, dramatically changed as the millions of other surrounding cells come into view?  In awe and a bit of panic the cell cries out, “Who am I and where am I?”  A thunderous voice says, “You are one millionth of a gall bladder.”   The cell murmurs,  “Finally,  everything makes sense!”

Every thought is a point of view, even those hidden behind the clouds.  We can see ourselves as a little dot or part of the whole of whatever universe we think we inhabit.  Points of view are just that,  filtering our encoded information into a thought or action.  We place judgments on different emotions, such as happy, sad, angry, depressed, jubilant,  and identify these as “good” and “bad”.  Unraveling all this can be very complicated, creating more confusion by trying to capture and hang on to the good feelings and experiences,  only to have it shift to a negative experience.  How unreliable is that!  We think we’ve failed yet once again to “get it”.

The very first lessons in the Course (acim.org) address this.  “These thoughts do not mean anything.  Begin by noting the thoughts that cross your mind.” “You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called “good” or “bad.”   None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them.”   I suggest this can be treated simply by lifting the window blinds to let in light.

Another lesson in the Course is titled:   “I feel the Love of God within me now.  There is a light in the world you cannot perceive.” “Yet you have eyes to see it.  It is there for you to look upon.  It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight.  To feel the love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence….”

In listening to Ulf speak of love with such simplicity and innocence, it is very evident he allowed the light to shine through his thoughts.  He also had the strong urge to share that energy he called love or God with others, in a very gentle manner. This does not mean he avoided negative thoughts.  They just did not define him.   In saying this,  I am expressing a point of view that there is something called love or awareness of an expanded experience underneath our thought stream.   As I allow myself to experience thoughts without judgment, and just sit in awareness of what is in the moment, it does bring a sense of peace to me.  Nothing dramatic.   As the shadow thoughts slowly cease to attract our attention, we can then observe the light reflected in our life.

As I listened, yet once again, to the recorded tapes of Ulf speaking, one I included in the post, Love Speaks, I’m reminded of what an incredible journey we experienced together.  Practicing being with whatever is, gave me strength and insight.  Love brought the lightness of being.

There was a full moon when Ulf passed.  On the third moon anniversary,  I took photos, that to my surprise included  a heart shaped moon.  One of many “surprises”.    So on this, the sixth moon, I took photos as the moon drifted behind a thin layer of clouds.  It so spoke to my last post, Behind the Clouds, where we find the light.  This lovely light is always shining behind our thin layers of thoughts.

Behind the Clouds

Life for me has been serendipitous.  Some of my most powerful lessons have emerged when least expected, as the luxury of this self imposed retreat has shown me.  Grief was expected and the added books on my shelf  clearly indicate wanting to learn more about this new experience that is occurring.  I have witnessed some of the stages such as how the invisible stress can manifest physically in the body and the multitude of  unexpected emotions.

What has surprised me is how the experience of losing the presence of someone very close and dear has  uncorked what has become stale wine representing a lifetime of unwept tears.  It’s as if I’ve spent my life preparing a feast  that is hidden somewhere in the clouds of my forgetfulness.  How tidy is that!  This invisible ‘feast’ manifests itself in all kinds of emotions like apathy, grief, fear, guilt, anger, etc.    This ‘feast’ becomes the ‘food’ of  our psyche.  Some call it the ego, others call it the ‘pain body’ and some, our unconscious mind.   However, until we recognize this misguided energy has no sustenance, we cannot release our attachment to it.  To ignore it, delays the opportunity to stop recycling the past, which is  a part of our human conditioning.

The book The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, suggests that  developing the skill of accepting and releasing emotions leads to emotional freedom.  Ulf and I attended several of the first seminars while living in Sedona. However, it often  takes the catalyst of a jarring emotional experience to let the genie out of the bottle and become aware that we’ve been nibbling at this feast all our life.  What we are not aware of is the fact that this ‘feast’, which has been stored in our minds, has decayed and is indigestible.  We have isolated this emotional feast from the creative cycle, making it stagnant.  We often feel the preponderance of this trapped energy and reach in the medicine cabinet for relief.

Initiating the process of freeing this energy seems difficult because we have identified with what we have created. Because it somehow defines us, we keep  resuscitating these emotions with the many stories of our life.  If we take an honest look at what we’ve been trying to preserve,  we probably think we would starve to death.

All of these emotions and subsequent stories supporting them are spawned in the feeding ground of our fear. A Course in Miracles says there are really only two emotions:  love and fear.  We have used our imagination to create many seemingly different delicacies to disguise fear.  We have done the same thing with what we think of as ‘love’.  Often we have used the word ‘love’,  to mask our fear of abandonment, among other things.  These interpretations  occur in our dualistic reality where everything has an opposite.  The Course also says, “Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter.  It must begin with your thoughts, and then extend outward.  It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.”  By casually observing and freeing our decaying symbols of fear, whenever they arise, we shift our perception and experience of Love, which has no opposite.

So, as you can see, peering into our cloud of forgetfulness is not for the timid.  The desire for peace is the beginning of transforming this toxic waste, containing the ingredients of fear, into a nurturing abundance of energy we can then truthfully call Love.  We can do this with simple awareness. When one of our ‘delicacies’ enters our consciousness, ready for consumption, we can then recognize it as the imprisoned teardrops of our past, and allow them to fall as raindrops and nurture whatever they touch.  Each time we do this, moment by moment, the cloud vaporizes and becomes part of the cycle of life again.

Ulf has provided me with this incredible opportunity to transform my clouds to raindrops of love instead of tears from the past.  As I said, it’s a moment by moment process.  Ulf, I’m so grateful to you for being that gentle, yet persistent catalyst for me to continue learning from our experience.  I have a sense we may even be sharing the same classroom.  As sometimes occurs when the clouds release their bounty, a rainbow appears from behind the clouds.  How about getting together at recess on that ‘playground under the rainbow’!

Copyright 2010 Bev Hamilton

Love Speaks

Several weeks in August were defined primarily by  feeling disconnected from my spirit.  It was a time in which my ego smugly reminded me I am a body and provided proof with little infections, antibiotics, and threats of yucky procedures. It also included questioning whether I could have done something different to change the outcome with Ulf.   Like I’ve done with all the emotions that have surfaced as a result of the loss of Ulf’s loving presence, I just flowed with it even though it was very disquieting and uncomfortable.  This too shall pass, and it did.

We all have experienced loss through out our lives whether it be a loved one,  body or brain function or non-physical things such as lost hope or  unfulfilled dreams.  Any thought of loss confirms our sense of being incomplete.  It’s  an inevitable part of the uncertainly and impermanence of this reality.  To the extent we recognize change as the creative process allowing for growth, we can avoid the pain and suffering that comes from the fear and resistance to what is.  We can not control what is occurring at any moment in our life but we can chose how we perceive and respond to it.   The awareness of this ability can change our experience to one of love and peace instead of fear and loss.  Love says we are complete and whole.  That philosophy was  the core of my journey with Ulf.

I’m reminded how much Ulf taught me about being in the present moment.  As I peel away the contracted layers of my ego’s protective system, I am again becoming aware of the energy that flows through my body facilitating a more expansive and loving experience in which there is no loss.

Ulf & Bev

In a strange and compelling way, this past year, that anyone would call the most challenging, has also been one of unparalleled intimacy for Ulf and I.  The quiet acceptance of ‘what is’ strips away the external noise of the ‘what if’s’.  In the nakedness of that realization, our soul is revealed to us in the most simple ways.  Ulf was able to express aspects of himself he had never felt comfortable doing before.  This new found expression was exhilarating for him. He sought ways of experiencing this within the context of his limited abilities because as he said so often, he had to share this energy with others so it would grow larger.

It never occurred to me to tape Ulf talking about his view of life from this new perspective that I was writing about in this blog, which he was unaware I was doing.  My friend Judy Whitson  send me a computer recorder  for just such a purpose.  It had lots of little buttons and since my brain wasn’t functioning at the tech level, the few attempts at doing this I thought were erased or had no value, so I put it away.  That is until last month when a ‘voice’ in my head told me to find it and plug it into the computer, which I skeptically did.  To my great surprise, I discovered about 40 minutes of hearing Ulf’s lovely voice expressing feelings directly from the heart.  The catalyst for some of these discussions was a book a friend had written and sent to us.  She wrote of the same concepts that were shared in A Course in Miracles, Unity Daily Word, Eckhart Tolle, the Peace book and others, that resonated with Ulf.  He had no interest in the little device, so didn’t know he was being recorded.

Little did I know recording Ulf’s voice would be impossible in a little over 3 months when he developed a lethal infection during a brief hospital stay.  Given his mentally contracting world, this swift transition was probably his own guided choice.

By the way,  I was approached by someone in publishing who thinks this blog should be a book!  I signed with an agent  and with the assistance of an editor, Doris Lora, the book proposal has been completed and sent to New York.  Who knows what’s next!  If it’s accepted,  I made a request for a CD of Ulf’s recordings to be included with the book.

I want to share one of the shorter segments so you can hear Ulf speak:

Click Here to Listen –> When Love Speaks

Copyright 2010 Beverly Hamilton

Gifts from the Heart

It was a full moon three months ago on the 27th, Ulf’s ‘birthday’, when I was ‘told’ to take another route home.  I was quite puzzled until I took a turn and a huge moon  was right in front of me.  Ulf liked to talk about the moon and always noticed it’s changes,  so as I followed the moon all the way home, there was no doubt in my mind it was Ulf’s way of saying,   “Hi, Bev, I’m still around”.  So I became attentive of other coincidences that occurred.

One day a doe came into the space between the house and the fenced rose garden.  The house is elevated over a golf course with magnificent views of the valley and mountains.  Ulf loved the sense of peace this setting provided.  In a light handed manner,  I thought I’d practice communicating with Ulf.  Since he loved animals, maybe his energy could manifest through the deer.  So I became very still and focused on sending energy from my heart to the deer.  To my surprise, the doe froze in her tracks, looking in my direction, and stayed in that position for over thirty minutes. I imagined stroking her, much like Ulf stroked his ‘love’ bear. Since I was in the house and not totally visible, I even walked away to refill my tea.  When I returned, she was still there.  She eventually turned and quietly walked away.  Since then she has brought her two fawns to visit.  They all even sat down and curled up and took a rest.  They felt very peaceful and safe.  Yesterday morning,  I opened the blinds to see her sleeping, her head resting on her leg.  She probably was there for hours.  Whenever she shows up, I think of Ulf.

Several weeks ago I opened to the files in my Appleworks program.  When I did, I saw  one titled ”Best Wife”.  I hadn’t noticed it before so I opened it and discovered a lovely note that I included in a blog.  Ulf quit using his computer about 4 or 5 years ago, so my curiosity was aroused.  The next day I opened the program to see if there were any more and the program crashed!  I took the computer to the Apple Store but they couldn’t open it so they installed an upgrade.  When I arrived home and opened my computer, I discovered more lovely things Ulf had written on his old computer but never printed out. That transferred info came up with the upgrade. Someone once said,  ‘there are no accidents’!  This is one that was shared at Ulf’s memorial luncheon.  It’s a message for all of us.

BEVERLY

TAKE A LOOK AND FEEL THE ENERGY. GOD WILL BE WITH YOU                            ALL DAY AND LONGER IF ASKED. HE IS AVAILABLE AS LONG AS YOU KEEP AN OPEN HEART!!       Today is the day to see life with great GRATITUDE. Anytime you need support   I will be there for you.  I may need to train myself a bit but My INTENTION is to be “THERE” FOR YOU.

LOVE     YOUR HUSBAND                   ULF

Yesterday, I visited our community donations library.  The book,  On Life and Death, written by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,  jumped out at me.  I have heard of her for years but never read her books.  She discusses all the questions I’ve been asking.   She has researched for years  over 20,000 incidences of people around the world dying or having ‘near death’ experiences.  She writes, “Every day people die all over the world. Yet in a society that is able to send a man to the moon and bring him back, we have never put any effort into the definition of human death.  Isn’t that peculiar?”  As I wrote earlier, these are exactly my sentiments.  She also states unequivocally, she has learned there is no ‘death’.  I also agree with that.  Like other books that I’m ‘guided’ to pick up since Ulf left,  each one brings just what I need to ‘hear’ in my present moment.

My friend Judy gave me a recorder for me to tape Ulf talking, then  download in the computer.  I tried using it a few times, but gave up on learning anything new and put it away, thinking I had probably erased whatever had been recorded.  Last week,  while sitting and reading, I was ‘told’ to get the recorder and plug it into the computer.  I wasn’t sure I even knew where it was but found it and plugged it in.  There was about 40 minutes of the most precious conversations with Ulf  I could ever hope to have!   It so touches my heart to hear his voice.  He is still teaching me to live in the present moment where   miracles show us we are all connected always.  A Course in Miracles says, “Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity.”

On this 3rd month anniversary since Ulf’s ‘birthday’,  there was another full moon.  I went outside and saw a beautiful moon in a clear sky.  I took these photos and much to my surprise, received yet another gift from the heart!  It’s Ulf  saying,  “Hi”  again!

The full Moon

Ulf's moon---5 seconds later

Opening to Love

Science, whether exploring the expanses of the universe or the micro world of atoms, has always fascinated me, especially when the evidence says nothing we see is solid.  We are surrounded by clusters of invisible microbes that take on the physical manifestation of form.  These forms, including our bodies, are energetic fields all interconnected, that appear in a time and space continuum  as separate.  Gravity determines the shape and function of these forms.  Edgar Mitchell, the Apollo 14 physicist-astronaut, had an epiphany returning to Earth from space.  He saw everything in the universe as interconnected and created the Noetic Science Foundation for further exploration.

Considering all this ability to determine the nature of matter, I’m left perplexed, certainly as our culture views it,  that the nature of death remains such a mystery.  We cloak it in mythology, fantasy and folklore.  Even those who proclaim to have ‘been there’ or can speak to the ‘dearly departed’, are treated as fringe folks, not to be taken seriously.  We treat the phenomenon of extraterrestrials in much the same way.  However, I thought it very interesting that the Vatican announced that even if aliens landed, it wouldn’t change the church’s doctrine.  Wow!  Do they know something we don’t know.  Religion also has a corner on the market for its interpretation of death and what happens to us when we leave our physical bodies.  Any belief system, including science, that is set in stone with a vested interest in it remaining so, is not open to new ways of seeing.

There are those whose curiosity about death has led them to explore, through personal experience,  an awareness, such as Ed experienced that is not measurable at this time.  This awareness of seeing things differently is what Ulf experienced for several years as his ‘thinking’ brain gave way to other probabilities.  I see him as an explorer who dared to shift his way of seeing the world as the very fabric of how he perceived himself was stripped away.  As he told our friend, Bill Whitson, “I am not the person I used to be.”

The loss of how we have identified ourselves, whether through change of external circumstances or physically determined causes, is very frightening.   Ulf was frustrated and often expressed that frustration.  However, having become acquainted with the writings of Eckhart Tolle about living in the present moment, which is timeless, and A Course Miracles that says that we are Spirit, Ulf was able to open to that part of himself that we cover with mental activity.  His opening to his Spirit is what this blog  is about.

In my experience, the opening to love is evidenced in the dispelling of fear and the absence of thought from our busy minds.   In those moments when that occurs, there is an awareness of connection to something we cannot see,  at least not with our eyes.  That is also what Ulf experienced.  He called it God’s energy.  It was very tangible to him.  Much more than words or time of day.

Lately, as I have had questions about “Where are you, Ulf” to wondering why that is still a mystery, I’ve become aware of my own emotional ups and downs. His absence and  the empty space, has led me to explore how those emotions, surfacing at this time, represent the fear, worry and constant attention that prevented me from examining the part of my heart that was closed.  That’s what fear does.  It closes our heart.  Love opens it.  I felt like I had a heart valve that opened and closed depending on the circumstances.  Isn’t that what we do?  Let life determine whether we love or not and who.  That is called projection. I call it ‘turning the lights out’ or ‘death’.

Long ago, we planted seeds that, depending on what we feared or felt safe with, bloomed later in life to mirror back to us what we planted.  However, we forgot they were our seeds.  The Course describes this as the ‘obstacles to Peace’.   So, as I emerge from one cocoon after the next (I must be surrounded by invisible butterflies!),  I feel more peaceful.  There is an  experience of expansion as the thoughts and emotions that we felt kept us safe, but closed our heart,  are gently viewed as energy that needs to be released and reconnected to  our spirit.  It’s what we’re here to do.  This defines our expedition into time and space.

The universe that science is currently exploring has not reached the inner universe of our  spirit, which I define as the awareness of who we are and where Ulf’s spirit now resides.   He has no need of a heart valve that opens and closes.  That’s what us mortals have installed as part of our survival equipment.  We don’t need high-powered telescopes to discover our inner world.  We just need to befriend and release fear moment by moment and allow the light to flow over the darkness.  This is possible now.  We don’t have to wait for science to catch up.  How exciting!  We can solve the mystery of ‘death’ by letting the light of love shine through our hearts and dissolve the myth of separation.

Copyright 2010 Beverly Hamilton

The Butterfly Way

There were times when I would wake up, ease into the living room and check the weather by looking out over the mountain range.  My response on seeing the hills covered in a heavy mist, bringing a hush to the valley, was “Yes!”  I would hurry to the kitchen, make tea and toast, pick up a book, set up the bed tray and return to bed.  It gave me a wonderful, ‘snuggly’ feeling.  I call it cocooning.

I read, cried, meditated and in general, got to know myself again.  It had been a while since I could focus within for any length of time.  What a luxury to not pay attention to time, shut the world out and open to the space within.  How had I changed on this journey?  Who was the ‘I’ who had participated with Ulf in his ‘present moment’?  The things that used to delight me, like visiting with friends or dinners full of conversation and laughter, alone time, were no longer a part of my landscape.  Aspects of my previous identity no longer existed in this experience.  I was also learning about parts of myself that had not been fully expressed before Ulf took this detour out of time.  Through Ulf’s eyes I began to notice the finer, more subtle aspects of nature.  Strangers became friends, if even for a moment.  Time blurred as the necessity of staying in the moment became our reality.  How I had perceived this reality began to shift as the force of energy that flowed in this new way, swept our past away.

So as I sat on the bed, this timeless feeling returned in the midst of tending to the many details since Ulf left.  In bringing images of him to my mind, there was confusion.  The person I knew for years also went through changes.   We think there is some ‘constant’ in what we’ve known from our past but in attempting to retrieve those memories, we find that it is a moving kaleidoscope of images.  I’ve become accustomed to the experience of his presence in the form of the energy we often shared, not just toward each other, but a mutual sharing of an energy.  In my mind, I sense the gentle, peaceful person he had been, minus any struggle or confusion. He is whole. This describes my current ‘present moment’ when I think of Ulf or God.

I just discovered this note from Ulf in my computer:

The 17th of May 2005

Just a moment of thought for you, my Dearest Bev!

As I walked this morning I had my conversation with God.

As I walked home You came with me and I thought of all
the wonderful actions, thoughtfulness, kindness that I and
so many others receive from you daily.

YOU ARE THE BEST WIFE ANY MAN EVER HAD!!!

LOVE
“YOU KNOW WHO!!!!
THE COUNT
(Ulf was born a Swedish Count)

The sun is shining daily now and the mist has faded.  I’m aware of asking, even in making simple decisions, which is the easiest one.  Not that one decision is more valid than the next but it’s the exercise in awareness that I’m not alone.  When I feel alone, it’s my focus that has changed. The energy of unity is  within us, we don’t have to go looking for it or wonder where it went.

Butterflies emerge from their cocoon and so have I!  That wonderful feeling of ‘Lightness of Being’  occurs in that transformation.  I call stopping to smell the flowers, the ‘Butterfly Way’.

Over the Rainbow

Experience has a way of making me honest.  It’s one thing to talk about other dimensions, holographic universes,  energy fields, near death experiences, and ‘we’re not a body’.  It’s another thing when someone you have been close to daily for many years, no longer occupies a space you can see or where you can reach out and touch their hand.  That condition has been labeled ‘Death’, a word that long ago ceased to have a negative or fearful meaning for me.

In 1964, I was in Vail, Colorado and instead of skiing, I chose to sit in a restaurant not yet open for business and write.  Since the subject that came to mind was ‘death’, I put ‘death’ across the table and said, “Ok, you can skip the Pearly Gates part, I’ve heard that one.  Who are you?”

In part, Death said, “Smile on me.  Be comfortable in my presence.  Know my form in life.  Your rejection of me saddens, for your rejection is not of me, but life.  Ask the questions of life in quest of me.  Answer these and step closer to my wisdom.  Only, you don’t acknowledge who I am. You’ve given me a name to represent all the fears in the dark corners of your ignorance.  See me in the mirror of your perception and we become one.”

Three days later, after experiencing sharp pain,  I had my malignant kidney removed and was told I could possibly die.  In ICU, I remembered what I had written and had my mother bring it to me.  I knew then it wasn’t about ‘dying’, but ‘living’.  I lived.

Leaving my body seems like just another adventure to me.  However, Ulf leaving his body has given me a much different perspective of that experience.  I want to know how and where he is.  It’s like being left in a void of not ‘knowing’. I think it’s much easier having the experience than wondering what’s happening to someone you love.  I can better understand the tendency to wrap this ‘unknown’ in religious mythology and weave countless stories fantasizing the probabilities, sometimes fearful.

It’s also very lonely.  I’m more aware of how many people are alone walking the grocery aisles.  Their obvious loneliness never got my full attention.  Ulf saw it and responded.  He saw these souls feeling their loss of a loved one as their eyes glazed over countless options for food that no longer held any interest.  He would gently approach them and offer help or a kind word.  As in ‘day care’ where he extended his energy to the people trapped in wheel chairs and for a moment, they didn’t feel alone.  I miss Ulf,  ‘pimples’ and all.

Yes, that’s what happens in special relationships.  You identify your body with another body.  It is the human condition.  The ace card of the ego. However, I also have a card up my sleeve.  It is the energy I feel much of the time that makes me want to connect with others and laugh.  When I “remember not to laugh” I know I have lost the connection to my Source. I’ve unplugged the light. It’s not energy concocted to override the sadness, but allowing my body to serve another purpose.  It is my choice.

It also gives me comfort at this time, to personify that energy connection with Ulf.  There’s a lot I don’t know or even pretend to know but one thing for sure, Ulf is happy and as the Course says, “I’m not a body. I am free.  I am as God created me.”  That is true in or out of the body.  It’s not an exclusive domain of those no longer occupying  their body.   So Ulf, let’s meet at that playground where our free Souls go to play.  I think it’s somewhere over the rainbow!

Copyright 2010 Beverly Hamilton

Beyond All Idols

Every morning since Ulf’s ‘birthday’, I am in that blurry space  between waking and sleeping, when the thought, ‘he’s gone’, jolts me awake.   That thought opens a feeling of grief which is intense but not long lasting.  I began to bring a certain awareness to that feeling.  Ulf and I learned about this technique using the Sedona Method, which addresses any emotion, whether it’s one of fear, anger, anxiety etc.  As I paid attention, I noticed that this emotion was attached to my present loss, but resonated throughout my past.  It already existed before Ulf  ‘left’.  This was an already well established emotion I was projecting onto my current situation.  We forget or are not aware, there is a cellular encoding of our emotional memory that is always searching for expression.  Freedom from that bondage is what Jill Bolte Taylor, the brain researcher who had a stroke, expressed so graphically in her TED presentation.

What was generating this response?  Was  Ulf  my ‘idol’  that I thought would complete me but is no longer ‘present’?  These holes within our psyche that we use people and objects to fill for completion is central to the idea of separation from the wholeness of who we really are.  Earlier, as Ulf was ‘leaving’, I was writing about the ‘dots’, which represent physical form of any kind that blocks, deflects and distorts  the light, like a lampshade.  Some of the dots even attempt to unplug the lamp!  I think idols are dots to which we have attached emotional significance.  Whether it’s a person, money, food, religion, etc.  these are symbols of our projected emptiness, without which we feel incomplete.

As I was pondering these thoughts, I asked Ulf’s spirit to guide me.  I reached for the Course, which was in front of me and aimlessly opened to the chapter, “Beyond All Idols”.  These words immediately caught my eye:  “Behind the search for every idol lies the yearning for completion.  Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited.  To seek a special person or a thing to add to you to make yourself complete, can only mean that you believe some form is missing.  And by finding this, you will achieve completion in a form you like.  This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look beyond it, to the source of the belief that you are incomplete.  It is the idea that you are alone and separated off from what is whole.”

The word ‘forgiveness’ filled my very being.  I realized my desire to ‘forgive’ myself and Ulf for any misplaced energy that spoke to our incompleteness.  In those areas we thought the other completed us, is the shadow that blocks the light of God from our awareness and speaks of separation.  There are no dots or idols where Ulf is now.  I would not have my thought of being made ‘incomplete’ by his ‘leaving’, keep us separate, and keep him trapped in my mind, as a ‘false’ idol.  As I did when he ‘lost’ his memory and I joined him in his ‘present moment’,  I now want to join him with the thought of being ‘whole’.

A Course in Miracles further states, “The light has come and replaced the darkness,” (idols and dots).  The light in you is all I would see, Ulf.  I am so grateful for this journey without distance, we continue to share.

Copyright 2010 Beverly Hamilton