death

Listen deeply to others

Listen deeply to others and encourage
their aspirations
by word, by deed, or in deep silence.
Live in a way that draws peace, beauty,
harmony, and justice
toward others and all of creation.
Become an ambassador of peace
through loving service.

The day I saw all things in God and God in all things

As Mechtild of Magdeburg said, "The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw -- and knew I saw -- all things in God and God in all things."  Everything else suddenly fell into perspective in the light of this awareness.  In time, I was to discover that once Life had found me, once Love had taken me by the hand, there was no way I could stop the inner pilgrimage.  . . .  There was no turning back. . . . To choose Life with deep conviction and commitment is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves, our families, our global neighbors, as well as the planet and ourselves.

Awakening is an ongoing journey

Awakening is an ongoing journey.  To begin to see and to turn our lives around is only the beginning. . . . This road humbles us and gives us strength to repent, to ask forgiveness, to simplify and discard all that is not Life-giving, and to abandon ourselves into Love’s hands. . . .

I’ve learned to love and to trust the Mystery not needing to know the future.  I no longer take Grace for granted -- it is pure gift. . . . My essential course of action is simply to be in the Eternal Now, ready to follow the small, still voice heard in the Silence.

October 2008 (Vol. XXI, No. 9)

"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"

Every Blessing, dear friends. As summer dies into autumn, we can feel new energy, new life. For life is eternal ... how could it be otherwise? There is a universal continuity, an infinite and ever-flowing consciousness that we forget at our birth and return to at our physical death, where we pass into the Realm of Love. This Love is present to and with us throughout our lives. As young children, we naturally live in both the earthly and heavenly realms until the material world with its wondrous possibilities and myriad distractions becomes the norm.

Blessed are those who learn to see beyond the Veil, who communicate with the angels and lovingly co-create with the community of those who have entered true Life! As we die to all that is not life-giving here and now, we more easily make the transition when Love calls to us.

The their last breath

Forest of Peace prayer card

With their last breath
those we love do not say good-bye --
for love is timeless.
Instead, they leave us a solemn promise
that when they are finally at rest
they will continue to be present to us
whenever they are called upon.
Let us fear not, nor grieve beyond letting go
the departure of those we have greatly loved,
for in the Tree of Life their roots and our own
are forever intertwined.

Go into your grief

Carl Jung

Go into your grief, for there,
your soul will grow.

Death is but a return

Vasant Lad

Death is but a return
to your original Source.

To die gracefully

Clyde Reid

To die gracefully is to live fully.

I could die in peace, I think if the world was beautiful

Wendell Berry Jayber Crow

Her eyes filled with tears, but she said quietly, "I could die in peace, I think, if the world was beautiful. To know it's being ruined is hard."

Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to say them. I saw that I was not going to talk without crying, and so I cried.

She looked at me and held out her hand. She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world, and it covered me all over with light.

After death comes birth and a new beginning

Heyoka Merrifield Eyes of Wisdom, Book I

Grandmother spoke. "For eighty winters I have lived among you and now the World of Spirit is calling me to the other side. As winter brings to a close each cycle of seasons, so death brings to a close the cycle of our lives. I have loved all of you as my children and you must remember, after winter comes spring; also, after death comes birth and a new beginning.

Death is transformation and it occurs constantly

Miguel Ruiz Beyond Fear

Death is transformation and it occurs constantly. Every moment that has passed is death. Each moment gives us the opportunity to live in the present. The past does not exist. The future has yet to come. I am dying all the time. I am adapting to every change in life. I die every day because I am not attached to what happened a moment ago, I let it go, and this makes me free. When we surrender to death, we live only in the moment.

Death has the potential to deepen the bonds of love

Henri Nouwen Becoming the Beloved

The death of those whom we love and who love us opens up the possibility of a new, more radical communion, a new intimacy, a new belonging to each other. If love is stronger than death, then death has the potential to deepen and strengthen the bonds of love.

It is only when we have died that our spirits can completely reveal themselves. The spirit of love, once freed from our mortal bodies. will blow where it will, even when few will hear its coming and going.

When death takes you across the river

John Squadra

All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.

If physical death is the price that I must pay

Martin Luther King, Jr.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free
my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death
of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

I began to face death

Sogyal Rinpoche The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

I began to face death and its implications very young. I could never have imagined then how many kinds of death there were to follow, one heaped upon another. The death that was the tragic loss of my country, Tibet, after the Chinese occupation. The death that is exile. The death of losing everything my family and I possessed ... for we had been among the wealthiest and most famous in Tibet.

Death is not an end

Allan Hamilton The Scalpel and the Soul

For me, as a physician, there is no surer evidence that something glorious and wonderful lies beyond our mortal existence. Death is not an end. It is a new beginning. It entails a magnificent reunion with God and all the wonderful souls that we've ever loved or will love. This is our destination when we pass over. Dying is not the end but rather a shift to a fresh form of life, a new and glorious manifestation of ourselves. In this regard, death would seem to be just another dramatic transition in a continuing cycle, similar tin quality to birth. We jettison our mortal shell as we pass from one life form and consciousness to another, more wondrous than the latter.

To live and die without regret

Milarepa

My religions is to live and die
without regret.

Do not fear your death

Mechtild of Magdeburg

Do not fear your death. For when that moment arrives, I will draw my breath and your soul will come to Me like a needle to a magnet.

I think that when I die

Ursula K. Le Guin The Other Wind

I think that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed

I was a bride married to amazement

Mary Oliver

When it is over,
I want to say:
all my life I was a bride
married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking
the world in my arms.

 

Death is not an end

For me, as a physician, there is no surer evidence that something glorious and wonderful lies beyond our mortal existence. Death is not an end. It is a new beginning. It entails a magnificent reunion with God and all the wonderful souls that we've ever loved or will love. This is our destination when we pass over. Dying is not the end but rather a shift to a fresh form of life, a new and glorious manifestation of ourselves. In this regard, death would seem to be just another dramatic transition in a continuing cycle, similar tin quality to birth. We jettison our mortal shell as we pass from one life form and consciousness to another, more wondrous than the latter.

Death is transformation and it occurs constantly

Death is transformation and it occurs constantly. Every moment that has passed is death. Each moment gives us the opportunity to live in the present. The past does not exist. The future has yet to come. I am dying all the time. I am adapting to every change in life. I die every day because I am not attached to what happened a moment ago, I let it go, and this makes me free. When we surrender to death, we live only in the moment.

I began to face death

I began to face death and its implications very young. I could never have imagined then how many kinds of death there were to follow, one heaped upon another. The death that was the tragic loss of my country, Tibet, after the Chinese occupation. The death that is exile. The death of losing everything my family and I possessed ... for we had been among the wealthiest and most famous in Tibet.

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