She bore grief from trauma throughout her life. I knew her grief in utero and always knew it was more than one person should bear.

Now, I want to honor her and honor myself. That is why I am grateful for the question that came out of the blue. “What will make my grieving holy?”

I do not want to grieve her grief. I want to remember HER. Her losses were like a disability. Should I remember a person for their challenges? No. She is ever so much more.

She is light and warm, lively and smart. She is gracious and deeply connected to the dance of life. She laughs and gives you the “raspberries” to convey dislikes. She lets you know what she thinks when you ask. She takes fabric in her hands and fashions it with patience and love. She is cheerful. She cooks, cleans and cares for those around her. She listens and shares wisdom. She travels with eyes wide open.

Now, each day I wonder, what will make my grieving holy?

Teaching in Minnesota yesterday I led a ritual connected to the tree of life. I brought her name written on a slip of paper. I brought a piece of unfinished pansy embroidery. I moved into the center of the spiral of branches to the call of drum and fiddle. The night, the candle light, the beauty of branches gave me a form. Grief moved me in the beauty of loss.

It was holy.

Thank  you for your condolences. You are a spiral of beings, a DNA-Dancing Network of Artfulness. If I visualize my relationships as a vertical spiral, looking from above, we appear close together rather than scattered far and wide. This comforts my heart.

We are not alone. Isn’t it curious that Together is “To Get Her.”  One friend said to me, “Now we are each other’s mothers.”

How do you relate to a mother who has departed? Please comment. Thank you as well for your provocative comments about ways to grieve.

Mom died two weeks ago.  I am watery. I’ve had two small home memorials and continue to find ways to make grief holy. Ritual grounds me.

Today I bought a skull on a staff. It was an impulse buy. I was on my way to get a black armband embroidered with Lurley Katherine Wentworth at Eclipse Alterations (perfect name). I walked by a shop and a woman was holding it. I couldn’t resist.

I fantasized about taking the skull staff to Minnesota this weekend for High Play: InterPlay and Ritual to lean on. Will I be able to lead, guide and dance in a state of grieving? I’ll report next week. Fortunately, I will be surrounded by friends in the spiral dance.

Meanwhile, I need to postpone the launch of Mystic Tech community sharing until March. I lost my hard drive. Can you believe it?  Death slows things down. I’m on divine time and mystery has me by the heart.

Are you interested in a community of mystics engaged in deep imagination body wisdom and creativity? Click here to see more.

See the side bar to the right. Scroll through the Mystic Tech members to see the levels of participation. March 1st will be the new subscription date. You can pay by paypal or send me a check.

If you have already indicated interest I’ll email you. If you don’t hear from me let me know and share any feedback about interests or desires as I move forward. Your wisdom is invaluable.

In the dance of life, death, and great love,

I wish I had a black arm band, a sign to say I am in mourning.
I went online but can’t find any at Amazon.
Except police. They can get cheap bands online and so can teams who lose a member.
I discovered that “Black Arm Band” is a group of Australia’s premier indigenous musicians.

When I visited the Aboriginal embassy outside the parliament of Australia’s capital, Canberra, a 40-year-old occupy” movement, I saw people who know grief.

My friend Martin, a doctor, once attended an Aboriginal “Sorry Camp.”  He joined a patient’s family in the desert outside of town the night of her death. Under the dark sky people wept and wept, held in each other’s laps saying, “Sorry. Sorry.” There was food and bodies that rhythmically bumped shoulder to shoulder. This was what their grieving body wanted.

My body needs to recognize the profound loss of a loved one. Mostly, I am doing this alone, yet glad that I don’t live in 18th century England.

“By the 19th century, mourning behaviour in England had developed into a complex set of rules, particularly among the upper classes. Women bore the greatest burden of these customs. They involved wearing heavy, concealing, black clothing, and the use of heavy veils of black crêpe…”widow’s weeds” (from the Old English “Waed” meaning “garment”).

… There was special mourning jewelry, often made of jet and with the hair of the deceased in a locket or brooch…Widows were expected to wear special clothes to indicate that they were in mourning for up to four years after the death, although a widow could choose to wear such attire for the rest of her life. …  In general, servants wore black armbands when there had been a death in the household.

One blogger says “The fashion for heavy mourning was drastically reduced after the Great War.  So many individuals died that just about everyone was in mourning for someone. By 1918 a whole new attitude had developed and this was hastened even further by the Second World War.”

The world had so much mourning that people couldn’t handle that much black? My husband, a hospice chaplain, said, “Maybe if all the women had worn black there wouldn’t have been a second world war.”

Death, the great teacher, is invisible on our streets, in our cafe’s and schools. So, I am considering a black arm band thanks to my good friend and muse Sharon Pavelda, a death midwife and persona known as Mortina DeKay, the merry mortician who asks, “What if the reaper isn’t grim?” She agrees that we need a sign that death has us by the sleeve.

If I find a black arm band I might just wear it until it falls off. How do you move in the world when death leads?

Lurley Katherine Wentworth

Lurley Katherine Wentworth passed away peacefully at age 80, after a ten year journey with Alzheimer’s disease. Her loving partner of thirty years George Allison, daughters Cynthia Winton-Henry and Valerie Miller accompanied her to the end. She is also survived by son Daniel Winton, granddaughters Katie Winton-Henry, Leah Miller, Marina Miller, cousin Sherry Hansen and numerous cousins in Colorado and Washington State.

Lurley was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon, grew up in Colorado and Washington State. She moved to Southern California in 1953 where she married Harold Winton. Lurley was a manager for Pacific Telephone Company in the Los Angeles area and enjoyed early retirement. She relocated to Lake Elsinore in 2002.

Lurley and George traveled to Europe, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and throughout the US. Together they researched and wrote a book of her Wentworth family ancestry which is rooted in 11th Century England, early Colonial America and the18th Century Swabian German immigration to Hungary.

Warm, fun-loving, spunky, smart and loving, she will be remembered as a dancer on roller skates, gifted seamstress and exceptional cook. Her keen wit, ready smile and the ever present laughter in her voice will be missed by all who knew and loved her.

View a tribute to Lurley and her journey with Alzheimer’s at:
http://cynthiawinton-henry.com/d-words-depressiondementia/

My mother is taking her time.
Death is in no rush.
I sit by her bed counting last breaths.
44 per minute.
Normal is 15.
63,340 breaths yesterday.
Today?
Breathing is the last thing she will forget to do.
Patient. Patient. Patient.

I flew home from Australia and went directly to The Green Tree Villa in Southern California. My family has gathered. We are letting go of Mom.

Is that how angels work? You try to sort out how everything is supposed to work and then the right “happiness engineer” gives you an upgrade to more energy and capacity?

Of course, everything has its cost.

A number of you have indicated readiness to join the Mystic Tech journey. I am excited! My next step is to “doodle” you to find monthly small group meeting times to enable live conversations around the monthly practices.

Each month I will send participants a set of emails, pdfs, and youtubes created just for you. If you only want these resources, join me at the 15.00 dollar level. (Unsubscribe anytime). I will mention them on this blog as well in case you only want one.

February: Moving forward– We Claim How We Know Things
Attune to body wisdom. Attend to time, space, energy, and effort. Claim and share your foundational technologies. Join a small group to meditate, share writing, art and music, and practice each month.

March: Gifted & Sensitive Bodies
Understand and play with energy, yours & others. Appreciate and claim how you get information from others, the planet, the stars. Know your choices as you manage information that isn’t yours.

April: Healing Ways: The Four Paths
Choose the easiest healing routes for different needs. Surgery is rarely a bodywise choice. Learn why to play and pray is the best homeopathic remedy. Gather wisdom on suffering.

May and June: Divining Purpose
Gain clarity about day-to-day purpose. Differentiate between the forces of gifts, calls, and inner and outer guidance. Learn about the seasons of purpose. Do you have more than one? Learn why it is perfectly fine not to articulate one’s purpose.

July: High Play
Why Rituals Change the World. Why They Need to be Simple. Five Rituals that I Love.

August: Nature Mystics–The Body and the Tree of Life
Meditations on the world tree, the rivers, fires, and airs in and around your body. Drawing strength, tuning in, and taking wisdom from Earth.

September: Courage to Love–The Book of Initiations
Life initiates us. Those who are fortunate experience highs and lows. Learn how to honor your initiations. What is the difference between healing and getting initiated? What does divine wisdom reveal about your journey. What is easier?

October: Sacred Story Keepers: Why & How to Share Key Stories
What experiences impact us? Are they “ordinary” or extraordinary moments? How might we build our stories back into wisdom sharing?

November: Muses, Hags, Saints, and Wizards: Wisdom Figures
Opening to our guides, seen and unseen. Introduce guides we journey with and who care for us.

December: Mystic Tech Retreat in the Desert

You can now subscribe as a pioneering member of Mystic Tech. Check out the subscription button to the right.

Mystic Tech Member: $15/month: Tools, Tutorials, Insights Giving you
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practice, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.

Body and Soul Member: $49/month Full participation includes personal coaching giving you
• Personal Coaching via email, Skype, or in person (Normally $85 per session).
• Access your primary movement pattern in a FEBI session.
• Reserved room @ Dec. 2012 New Mexico retreat!
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

Art and Wisdom Members: $29/month giving you
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording.
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

Ask me questions in the comments. I need your feedback.

Image via Wikipedia

Now that I understand this one, crazy body technology, knowing that I don’t have to physically integrate my higher, big-bodied self with my little, ordinary self, I ask, what, then, is their physical relationship?

In my study of shamanic practice and observing the ongoing disasters of high-profile spiritual and not-s0-spiritual people, I realize that the human capacity for big bodied high play is not required to translate to being a full time evolved, wonderful, or gorgeous person.

Our big-bodied, creative, artistic, ritualistic journeying is a resource given to gather ideas, mercy, and wisdom for everyday life. Though I feel a bit addicted to my bigness, ordinary life is taking on more magic and beauty. I don’t have to “go big” as much. (Alternatively, I think many people need to open their wings and do some flapping!)

Could there be something beyond integration and mastery of the subtle skills of being human? Within me is both the saint and the gargoyle. Perhaps, they just want to interplay.

I love gargoyle’s atop cathedrals. Artists clue in to the sense that the Highest of the High hosts a crazed and google-eyed humanity. Weird humility brings texture to life.

I have gargoyle moments everyday. I believe that my bodyspirit is beautifully designed to access higher and lower emotions: those of gargoyles and those of  saints. Every emotion is purposeful. To resist emotion makes the wheel on my mental desktop spin.

Don’t get stuck. Truth wants communication. Fortunately, I don’t have to be a pain in the neck with my instinctual emotions. The best way to play with truth is to make art!

That’s why I am taking on a new spiritual practice: I’ll make a few gargoyle faces everyday. Hold them tight enough to make an impression on myself. Release and detach. This works perfectly with shape and stillness in a three-step process.

• Play out the gargoyles in a minute or so.

• Detach. Shake it out.

• Shower the gargoyley self in a mercy bath with love from the higher self in a hug, a nap, a sit in the sun, a beam from above.

One rule. Don’t drop a gargoyle on another person’s head. They need mercy, too.

As a mystic-in-making, I listen through my senses. I embrace emotion to acclimate and open my heart to being human. This helps free me from overwhelm.

As I embrace and honor my heart, I discover experiences still hidden that cause me to spin, like fear of death, for instance. Thank goodness the artists keep pointing it all out. There are gargoyles everywhere.

Know Thy Gargoyle:  Here is an interesting exercise. You might need to print this out to do it at some point.

Dignity Respect Self Worth
Ashamed
Beaten down
Cut down
Criticized
Dehumanized
Disrespected
Embarrassed
Humiliated
Inferior
Insulted
Invalidated
Labeled
Lectured to
Mocked
Offended
Put down
Resentful
Ridiculed
Stereotyped
Teased
Underestimated
Worthless

Related articles

• Where gargoyles come from (johndcook.com)

Please join my online Zipcast Meeting, Mystic Tech: 1 Crazy Secret, a live visual presentation to see if we can play on the web.

It’s today Tue, Jan 10 2012 at 5:00 PM pst. Password: mystic tech or try http://www.slideshare.net/cynthiawh/meeting

“The Mystic Way: One Thing Not To Integrate,” is a single body wisdom practice that changes the game plan for personal and group life. It shifts how to get to love and is so simple you’ll wonder why it’s been so secret. (Perhaps because the body’s been on the back burner.)

Those who attend the webinar receive a free gift, “The Heart Mic,” a depiction of my favorite way to communicate through time and space.

In 2012 I’m setting off across the landscape of embodied mysticism. My aim is to strengthen the heart of personal and collective mysticism, to sing love into and out of life, practice mercy, and share wisdom, insights and practices.

What is Mystic Tech?  Mystic– one engaged with the Mystery of Life.   Tech– tools to navigate life’s great mysteries.

Where is life taking you? 2012 is a time of great opening. Some of us are artists, activists, spiritual leaders or wanderers. If it is true that the time of the lone wolf is over then how do we move forward as leaders and listeners to life’s mysteries?

Do you seek the “next level” where body wisdom and life deepen further in synchronous, spontaneous, soulful wisdom? Would you like to travel the wisdom path with a few others? Would you like small guide books to help you and others develop efficiency of energy, clarity of vision, and courage to love this new day? Would you like to create, play, and rest more?

“If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go with a group.” African parable

The Mystic Tech route offers

1. Monthly live tutorials
2. weekly practices on youtube, emails, pdf’s.
3. bi monthly practice and writing groups
4. 1 on 1 coaching

Here’s the landscape. At the bottom see how to play.

January: Gather the travelers
Consider your own journey with mystery. Who travels with you? I’ll be signing people up for the blog and sharing on a January 10th zipcast at 5pm pst 1 Crazy Secret That Changes Everything: What Not To Integrate. (let me know in the comments below and I’ll register you and send you the link!)  I’ll be blogging on mystical stuff going on with me as I step into this form of leadership.

February: Moving forward– Claiming How We Know Things
Attune to body wisdom. Attend to time, space, energy, and effort. Claim and share your foundational technologies. Join a small group to meditate, share writing, art and music, and practice each month.

March: Gifted & Sensitive Bodies
Understand and play with energy, yours & others. Appreciate and claim how you get information from others, the planet, the stars. Know your choices as you manage information that isn’t yours.

April: The Healing Ways: Four Paths
Choose the easiest healing routes for different needs. Surgery is rarely the bodywise choice. Learn why play is the best homeopathic remedy. Gather wisdom on suffering.

May and June: Divining Purpose
Gain clarity about day-to-day purpose. Differentiate between the forces of gifts, calls, and inner and outer guidance. Learn about the seasons of purpose. Do you have more than one? Learn why it is perfectly fine not to articulate one’s purpose.

July: High Play
Why Rituals Change the World. Why They Need to be Simple. Five Rituals that I Love.

August: Nature Mystics–The Body and the Tree of Life
Meditations on the world tree, the rivers, fires, and airs in and around your body. Drawing strength, tuning in, and taking wisdom from Earth.

September: Courage to Love–The Book of Initiations
Life initiates us. Those who are fortunate experience highs and lows. Learn how to honor your initiations. What is the difference between healing and getting initiated? What does divine wisdom reveal about your journey. What is easier?

October: Sacred Story Keepers: Why & How to Share Key Stories
What experiences impact us? Are they “ordinary” or extraordinary moments? How might we build our stories back into wisdom sharing?

November: Muses, Hags, Saints, and Wizards: Wisdom Figures
Opening to our guides, seen and unseen. Introduce guides we journey with and who care for us.

December: Mystic Tech Retreat in the Desert

How to participate? Play at the right level for you by registering for any monthly webinar offered throughout the year or becoming a pioneering member of Mystic Tech with the right amount of connection for you.

I’ll sign you up and walk with you as a

Mystic Tech Member: $15/month: Tools, Tutorials, Insights Giving you
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practice, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.

Body and Soul Member: $49/month Full participation includes personal coaching giving you
• Personal Coaching via email, Skype, or in person (Normally $85 per session).
• Access your primary movement pattern in a FEBI session.
• Reserved room @ Dec. 2012 New Mexico retreat!
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

Art and Wisdom Members: $29/month giving you
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording.
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

SPECIAL DEALS!
Join by January 25^t and get my early bird tool,“Meet the Mystics In and Around U: Five far out minutes  to mystify you.”

Interested in the early December retreat? Save money by paying over time. Add $20 a month to any membership level to get the December retreat tuition at a reduced rate: $240/normally $300. (Does not include room and board.) Voila! Your tuition is paid off by the time December rolls around.

How to Register. Mystic Tech is a project of Body Wisdom, Inc.  Call in your registration to 510-465-2797 at 2273 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94612. or email info@interplay.org.

I will guarantee you a refund or change of level at any time. Contact me at Cynthia@interplay.org with any questions or if I can make someone more clear.

Need more embodied connection?
Come play wherever I am (I’ll keep you posted). I have a limited number of Skype or in person appts. each month. Make an appt. at cynthia@interplay.org.

Anyone can attend the December 2012 Mystic Tech retreat. Let me know if you are interested.

Thank heaven for being the mystic you are!

Related articles

• Will you help launch Mystic Tech in the New Year? (cynthiawinton-henry.com)
• Why it takes good taste to be a mystic… (cynthiawinton-henry.com)

What is Mystic Tech?  Mystic– one engaged with the Mystery of Life.   Tech– tools to navigate life’s great mysteries found online.

Where is life taking you? It is a time of great opening. Some of us are artists, activists, spiritual leaders or wanderers. If it is true that the time of the lone wolf is over then how do we move forward as leaders and listeners to life’s mysteries?

If you seek the “next level” where body wisdom and life deepen in synchronous, spontaneous, soulful wisdom, would you like to travel the wisdom path with a few others? Would you like small guide books to help you and others develop efficiency of energy, clarity of vision, and courage to love this new day? Would you like to create, play, and rest more?

The Mystic Tech Path offers community, friendship and support through

1. Monthly live tutorials
2. weekly reflections and practice through youtube, emails, pdf’s.
3. Monthly practice and writing groups
4. 1 on 1 coaching

What if we shared our journey as mystics to

Gather
Consider your own journey with mystery. Who travels with you? I’ll be signing people up for the blog and sharing on a January 10th zipcast at 5pm pst 1 Crazy Secret That Changes Everything: What Not To Integrate. (let me know in the comments below and I’ll register you and send you the link!)  I’ll be blogging on mystical stuff going on with me as I step into this form of leadership.

Claim How We Know Things
Attune to body wisdom. Attend to time, space, energy, and effort. Claim and share your foundational technologies. Join a small group to meditate, share writing, art and music, and practice each month.

Honor Ancest-Tree: Known and Unknown.
Touch and claim the tree of lineage, both genealogical and spiritual. Acknowledge source and sorrow in our roots. Meditate on the connections of memory and mystery.

Support Gifted & Sensitive Bodies
Understand and play with energy, yours & others. Appreciate and claim how you get information from others, the planet, the stars. Know your choices as you manage information that isn’t yours.

Recognize the Four Paths of Healing
Choose the easiest healing routes for different needs. Surgery is rarely the bodywise choice. Learn why play is the best homeopathic remedy. Gather wisdom on suffering.

Divining Purpose
Gain clarity about day-to-day purpose. Differentiate between the forces of gifts, calls, and inner and outer guidance. Learn about the seasons of purpose. Do you have more than one? Learn why it is perfectly fine not to articulate one’s purpose.

Imagine High Play: What Ritual Is Needed?
Why Rituals Change the World. Why They Need to be Simple. Five Rituals that I Love.

Claim the Nature Mystic–The Body/ The Tree of Life
Meditations on the world tree, the rivers, fires, and airs in and around your body. Draw strength, Tune in. Take wisdom from Earth.

Celebrate the Courage to Love–The Initiations
Life initiates us. Those who are fortunate experience highs and lows must learn how to honor initiations. What is the difference between healing and an initiation? What does wisdom reveal about your journey?

Become Sacred Story Keepers: Why & How to Share Key Stories
What experiences impact us? Are they “ordinary” or extraordinary moments? How might we build stories back into wisdom sharing?

Research our Muses, Hags, Saints, and Wizards: Wisdom Figures
Opening to guides, seen and unseen. Introduce guides we journey with and who care for us.

Come Together: December: Mystic Tech Retreat

How to participate? Play at the right level for you by registering for any monthly webinar offered throughout the year or becoming a pioneering member of Mystic Tech with the right amount of connection for you.

I’ll sign you up and walk with you as a

Mystic Tech Member: $15/month: Tools, Tutorials, Insights Give you
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practice, youtubes, and songs to open the heart.

Body and Soul Member: $49/month Full participation includes personal coaching giving you
• Personal Coaching via email, Skype, or in person (Normally $85 per session).
• Access your primary movement pattern in a FEBI session.
• Reserved room @ Dec. 2012 New Mexico retreat!
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Small guide books, noticing practices, youtubes, and songs to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to share and witness the mysteries of the heart through writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

Art and Wisdom Members: $29/month giving you
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording.
• Small guide books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to share and witness the mysteries of the heart through writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

SPECIAL DEAL!
Interested in the early December retreat? Save money by paying over time. Add $20 a month to any membership level and get the December retreat tuition at a reduced rate: $240/normally $300. (Does not include room and board.) Voila! Your tuition is paid off by the time December rolls around.

How to Register. Register for any group level on the blog using paypal. Or, send checks to Cynthia Winton-Henry at 339 Broadway #215 Alameda, CA 94501.

I guarantee refunds or changes of level at any time. Contact Cynthia@interplay.org with questions or for clarification..

Need embodied connection?
Come play wherever I am (I’ll keep you posted). I also have a limited number of Skype or in person appts. each month. Ask for an appt. at cynthia@interplay.org.

Anyone can attend the December 2012 Mystic Tech retreat. Let me know if you are interested.

Thank heaven for being the mystic you are!

Related article

• Why it takes good taste to be a mystic… (cynthiawinton-henry.com)

Image by o admirador secreto via Flickr

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old