May is the month we officially honor mothers. Personally, I look back with gratitude at the women who came before me. I was blessed with a loving mother and strong grandmothers. Their cultures differed, but their struggles and strengths were similar.
Gramma and Grandpa Rojas, 1940’s
Gramma Rose, born as the daughter of a doctor in Mexico, expected a life of social status and privilege. Instead, she was orphaned young, moved to Colorado and developed fortitude living in cramped quarters with her older brother’s family. Her character was further honed through a stressful marriage to my grandfather and the six children that followed.
Nana Betty was born in Illinois, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. Her romantic, roaring 20’s exuberance led to a teenage marriage to handsome, dark-haired Ed, my grandfather. At sixteen, she gave birth to my mother, Gloria, followed by the birth of my Uncle Eddy the next year. By the time she was twenty, the Great Depression had cast darkness across the nation. Burdened with two children and a husband struggling to keep food on the table, her girlish dreams had turned into harsh realities.
Nana Betty Bennett
Ultimately, after World War II, both women encouraged their husbands to leave their respective states and follow the dream of California. Neither knew what might lay ahead in the Golden State, but they had the courage to sell off their belongings and head West for a better life.
I once asked my Gramma Rose how she and Grandpa had the courage to leave their family and friends in Colorado. She shrugged and said with a smile, “Loco.”
Nana told me her mother cried and cried when the family had stopped by for a last goodbye before driving toward Highway 66.
“Why are you crying?” Nana asked.
Her mother replied, “Because I’ll never see you again.”
At the time, Nana thought her mother was being ridiculous. But, as it turned out, her mother was right. There were phone calls, but never another time together. Never another hug or shared meal.
Nana Betty and Gramma Rose have both been gone over twenty years now. Yet, I can hear them in my mind, recall poignant and bittersweet conversations. They are just two of the countless generations of women before me who carried on despite dashed dreams the best they could, with the opportunities that came their way.
This meditation is dedicated to them and to all the mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and on and on and on……
Healing the Feminine Ancestral Soul will also be available in the Sleep Meditations Page.
Several weeks ago, Spirit nudged me to create a meditation for people dealing with grief. At the time, I wondered if it was a portent for things to come. Of course, grief is part of the human experience. Loving deeply delivers greatest joy, but also greatest loss when a loved one dies. At this point in life, I am no stranger to grief. I’ve walked the path of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” as described in Psalm 23, most memorably when my mother died, and later, my husband. Both greatly loved, both greatly missed.
For me, grief is something to acknowledge and experience. It’s a time to slow down and allow feeling to bubble up and flow out, sometimes in tears, sometimes in closet cleaning or long, long walks. The relationship mourned is not really over, but transformed. With my mother, I ultimately came to feel how much of her lives on in me–my style, my voice pattern, my love for music and family, my ready smile. Gratitude replaced grief.
Grief for my husband took a different route, as it seems we maintain a relationship of sorts as he has simply gone from physical to non-physical. We aren’t in a day-to-day marriage any longer. No more, “what do you want to eat? What should we do tonight?” But rather, he is still around when I really need him, but most of the time now, we’re leading our post-marriage lives. Me, still on planet earth, he in another dimension. But when I am in a crisis, he makes his presence known, usually through music or the sudden appearance of coins.
Two weeks ago, grief came calling to my family as my older daughter, Sara lost her father-in-law, Gary. He’d gone into sudden decline, entered the hospital to hopefully get stronger, but instead, passed away. I’d been following the unfolding drama through long-distance communications with Sara. The afternoon Gary was breathing his last breaths, I found a shiny penny sitting on top of my car. How strange, I thought. How did that get there?
A couple hours later, I received the message that Gary had passed. Though not surprised, I still felt the reverberating shock wave of emotion of the family gathered around his bed. Gary had been a strong, much beloved center of his family. Greatly loved, now to be greatly missed.
When I returned to my car, a bright shiny dime sat in the passenger’s seat. The penny, the dime. Now I got it. My husband makes his presence known when I need him….Truly, love never dies.
The Relief from Grief Meditation is my humble offering for those dealing with the pangs of loss. Hopefully, those who listen will feel their spirits lifted and find their way ever so steadily to joy and appreciation for the love they have known.
As we in the US approach a highly contentious national election, it’s more important than ever that Lightworkers unite in sending peace and high frequency vibration into the world. In his monthly energy update for November (delivered a few days early), Lee Harris offers wise advice and insights into the coming days. Seek internal peace in the midst of external chaos. Generate offerings of peace to a frightened, angry world.
Our words and actions send a wave of energy that reverberate far beyond our understanding. Frankly, it’s my opinion much of the violent weather we’re experiencing is a reflection of the collective anger Americans are projecting. The spread of the covid-19 is a metaphor for the energetic influence we all have on each other.
Fear and illness are contagious. But so is faith, hope, and love. Which do you want to catch? Which do you want to pass on? There’s always a choice. Choose wisely.
I encourage Lightworkers, Prayer Warriors, Empaths, Meditators and all such folk to consciously spend time in the coming days projecting the highest vibrations of love and reconciliation across the land. We CAN make a difference.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13
