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Dancing with Death

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,

Bring Back the Black Armband!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Ragamuffins.JPG
Orphans with black armbands to mourn their mother F.M. Brown 1865

 

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e88mz-b4kaY

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?

I Honor My Mother

Lurley Katherine Wentworth
April 15, 1931 – February 1, 2012

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:
https://cynthiawinton-henry.com/d-words-depressiondementia/

The Speed of Dying

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Curves: How to play with me.

I have been on a big learning curve. It is not straightforward to integrate paypal on a wordpress blog. So, in the quiet of the night, Hew, my Happiness engineer shifted my blog to a wordpress website. This upgrade makes it possible to put a paypal button here, just to the right.

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.

Mercy Me! Gargoyle Body Wisdom

A 1st century BC Hellenistic gargoyle represen...
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.

Look at the lists below and
Circle gargoyle emotions you’ve embraced.
Underline emotions that you feel, but often resist or try to change.
Star emotions that are unfamiliar, unknown or need support.

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

Freedom
Bossed around
Controlled
Imposed upon
Imprisoned
Inhibited
Invaded
Forced
Manipulated
Obligated
Over-controlled
Over-ruled
Powerless
Pressured
Restricted
Suffocated
Trapped

Trust
Cynical
Guarded
Skeptical
Suspicious
Untrusted
Untrusting

Love/Connection/Importance
Abandoned
Alone
Brushed off
Confused
Disapproved of
Discouraged
Ignored
Insignificant
Invisible
Left out
Lonely
Misunderstood
Neglected
Rejected
Uncared about
Unheard
Unknown
Unimportant
Uninformed
Unloved
Unsupported
Unwanted

Justice/Truth
Accused
Blamed
Cheated
Disbelieved
Falsely accused
Guilt-tripped
Interrogated
Judged
Lied about
Lied to
Misled
Punished
Robbed

Safety
Abused
Afraid
Attacked
Defensive
Frightened
Insecure
Intimidated
Over-protected
Scared
Terrified
Threatened
Under-protected
Unsafe
Violated

Give yourself credit for all the gargoyles you’ve encountered. The more you receive mercy and love for them, the more magical life becomes.

Question: The Way of Wisdom and Mystery initiates us through raw human emotional energies. What tricks or skill do you use? What is your favorite body wisdom secret for coping with everyday stresses?

If you didn’t receive the pdf about the crazy secret, let me know…I’ll send it.

P.S. Thanks to those of you who are ready to subscribe to the Mystic Tech Journey starting in February. I am working out the online logistics for all this. I’ll be in touch soon!


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