Do you remember your high school graduation? Or college? Or receiving your Masters Degree or your Doctorate or any one of the many varieties of certificates of completion? Along with the memory of all the work and hours of study come memories of favorite teachers who provided support and motivation, best friends who understood the challenges and the achievements, extracurricular activities that contributed to the fun of those years and helped us develop our talents and strengths. And at each milestone, there were celebrations created to bring together family members and friends and to commemorate the accomplishments and look forward together to the spacious future. 

This is the year when my granddaughter graduates from high school.  I love the other word for graduation, the one we use less often - commencement.  "Graduation" suggests a moving upward and a completion of studies and it's a very fine word for the occasion.  "Commencement," on the other hand, sounds auspicious.  It's full of the unknown. It is a beginning, a stepping into dreams, creating what has never been before for each one of us who stands at this place, in this moment. It's impossible to imagine where the road will take us but we begin anyway.  Just like those who have gone before her, I know my granddaughter is ready to take on the world that waits for her!

“When I heal I am not healed alone.” – ACIM, lesson 137

      Last night’s conversation with my friend, Rick, in Washington still lingers in my morning thoughts.  Old friends can fill in the spaces without needing to recreate the plot line; the narrative continues unbroken.  Rick and I talked about healing in its many connotations and nuances.  A common thread connects our conversation with Thomas Merton, with Richard Rohr’s second half of life knowing, with Rumi and Hafiz and Krishnamurti, with Thich Nhat Hahn, with the Anunciation, with modern quantum science and with numerous other ways of expresssing truth.  This morning the outer world beyond my windows is shrouded in fog and clouds. Inside, the sun rising on expanded awareness can be summarized thusly:

     “What is a miracle but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not?  The light         in one awakens it in all.  And when you see it in your brother, you are remembering for everyone.”             – ACIM, text, chapter 21

We knew it as children: “this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine” and “I’ve got the joy, love, peace, down in my heart”.  We are compelled in this age of fear and disillusionment and separation to dust off the memory, to let it shine for everyone, that we may resume an ancient, hopeful, truth-filled story; a remembering for each other.

For me, constant stirrings in the background, many conversations and “chance meetings” are culminating in a return and renewal of gathering together to share our wisdom and perspectives.  Beginning in July, I’ll facilitate “Common Threads.”

                               Common Threads – a spiritual look at many traditions
       I invite neighbors and friends to come together to renew and refresh and remember. 

• To knock at the door and to seek
• To bring questions that open us to possibilities 
  
• Meeting the second Saturday of each month, 2-4 pm in Hot Springs, SD
• beginning Saturday, July 12, 2015 
• Contact me for details at 360-393-0872

Many blessings to you as you reconnect to your own traditions and knowing, finding common threads. 

The birthday project, a year of remembering, came to a long pause in the time between Easter and Mother’s Day.  I had lots of memories swirling and I was trying to grasp them and find the words to honor and pay tribute to people I have loved and who have passed on into their next life.

It began in mid-April when my friend, Tim Standing Soldier, died at age 54.  To have known and to have been befriended by this remarkable young man is an honor I cherish. Tim left behind a devoted wife and a beautiful daughter, siblings, nephews, nieces, aunties and uncles, many, many friends. Wherever he went, whatever he did, Tim acted in integrity and with conviction, having a wisdom far beyond his years.  I believe Tim’s message to me and my way to honor him is to live as he did, speaking up for rightness and goodness across the blurry divisions of race, culture, sex, age, and all inequities. To Tim those divisions were artificial and insignificant. What mattered is the prompting of the heart. I know that I have many more of Tim’s teachings yet to decipher as I remember and sit with those memories and let my actions flow from there into the world.

And, once again, Mother’s Day gives us a chance to remember and honor our mothers and to look forward with our daughters and granddaughters. My mother had a stroke on Mother’s Day weekend in 2008.  She tried valiantly to recover use of her left arm and leg. Thankfully, her speech and memory were not affected and she remained in good spirits throughout the summer. But her husband, her son, her brothers, her parents and many relatives and friends were waiting for her and she began to move closer to them in late August and early September.  I spent every day and most nights with her until her death on September 17.   At dawn, as I was crooning “heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee” to her, she passed peacefully with a tender smile and a clasping of my hand.  I have so many memories that are enriched and enlivened as I watch our old family movies that highlight the events beginning with my childhood and moving forward in time to include my children.  As the years pass for me, I feel better able to understand the heartaches and struggles –and the joys - that my mother experienced and to know her as a woman as strong and as vulnerable as I am, because of her.  As I tucked her into bed one night, she reached up and touched my face, saying, “Do you know how much I really love you?” I’m learning, Mom, I’m still learning.