Grief Lessons

Bedroom Door, Santa Fe, NM

As I began to write my blog this week, the story of the break-up of my first marriage, the subject of my last blog, came tumbling out. I knew I wanted to write about grief and this was certainly about grief so I just surrendered to the process. What came up were some interesting insights -- about myself and some of the life lessons that come with grief.

It was in the fall of 1984. My first husband had recently moved out of our Santa Fe apartment and I was coping as best I could. Still working, still breathing. Suddenly, I awoke one night with intense abdominal cramps. At first I thought it might be my period, but abandoned this notion when I began to vomit and the diarrhea hit. A violent purging ensued which continued into the wee hours of the morning. I remember being so disoriented at times I didn't know whether to be on the toilet or at the sink. When everything inside was out, I collapsed into my double bed, formerly OUR BED, and slept an empty sleep.

The next morning I could barely get up, let alone navigate the stairs to the kitchen --- or to the telephone, had it occurred to me to use it. I felt completely alone and helpless. I cried. Buckets. I had been holding it together, being strong, being brave. The sudden illness and helplessness cracked me open.

The bodily purging, ostensibly due to food poisoning, was, I understand now, part of my reaction to the loss. From a symbolic viewpoint, I was not able to digest the reality of my eleven-year marriage being over. At the same time, through the purging, I released it.  Grief is a time when the body and emotions are so clearly intertwined. The emotions are so heightened, they cannot be ignored; but if you do ignore them, as I tend to do, the body will bring them to the forefront in a way that demands our attention.

When my wits returned, and my strength, I realized that there were friends I could call for help. I even called one to confirm it. This act required a major readjustment in my thinking and a subtle shift in the nature of my friendships. I had never had to reach out to a friend like that before. There had always been my husband and my family. But now my husband was gone and my family was on the other side of the county. Any person who has lost a life partner will, at some point, have to address this essential social need and reach out to create a new safety net. It is important to seek help from others and to not suffer alone. One's thinking during grief is not always reliable. Grief leads us to do strange and sometime dangerous things. Social connection is essential to one's health, even one's survival.

After the food poisoning, I began to lose weight. I was training for a marathon at the time, so that might have been part of it. But grief, I am sure, took it to another level. Some people react to grief with loss of energy and inability to do anything, becoming a recluse and sleeping; others get hyper-busy. That was my route. Both are ways of escaping from the incomprehensibility of the loss. You can either go off line, or become so active there is no time to think. Either gives the griever time to get some distance from the loss, to allow it to seep in.

I trained all fall and into early December, when I flew down to Phoenix to run in the Phoenix marathon. It is an easy race, if a marathon can ever be described as easy, because it is mostly down hill. I was in top physical shape at the time, better trained than for either of the two other marathons I had run. I made, however, a strategic mistake that greatly impacted what happened. 

I had arranged for my husband, now living in Phoenix, to pick me up at the airport and drive me to the motel where I would spend the night before the race. On the ride we spoke of mundane things. Careful. It was so strange to know him so well and not at all. He stopped at a street-fair to pick up a present for his new sweetie. It was kitschy, not something to my taste, and I wondered at who this woman was and who he had become. Next we went to his new apartment. He showed me around then told me SHE was going to be moving in. "Huh?" When my husband had moved out of our home, we had talked about it as a "trial separation." Some trial! "He's no longer mine," I reminded myself, "I have no say." I said nothing.

I didn't eat that night, skipping the usual carbohydrate loading of the marathon runner. I couldn't face going out to a restaurant alone. Nor did I eat the next morning before the race. As arranged, my husband picked me up and drove me to the starting line. I could have taken the transport bus an hour earlier. It would have taken me to the start without having to see my husband again, without remembering the past -- all the times we gone to other races together. When he offered me the ride, it seemed logical, more convenient . . . more cared for. Oh how the newly singly miss that care, that convenience of the other.

Last Race - Sandia Peak, NM 1985

I started the race at a 7-minute-a-mile pace. It was downhill all the way-- unfortunately not in the way I had hoped. It was downhill in energy, in emotion, in self-belief, and in heart. Each mile, I ran slower and slower. Mile after mile -- a nightmare in slow motion, people passing me, the end farther and farther away. When I finally did straggle across the finish line, I was just happy to have it all over. My time was disappointing, slower than either of my previous marathons. But I didn't think about that until I was back on the plane flying home. Then I beat myself up for wasting three months of training. How could I have been so stupid? Grief made me stupid!

Actually, grief was making me a little smarter. It was showing me my habit of discounting my feelings and the costs of that disregard. Grief was teaching me to be selfish, in a good way.  It was forcing me to be more respectful of my feelings. Otherwise they would get out of control.

That Christmas I went to my second Sufi Workshop, this time in New York City. I stayed at my sister's apartment, an easy walk to the workshop space at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Greenwich Village. Although no longer training for a marathon, I now weighed in at 111 pounds. 111 pounds on a 5’8” frame. It felt quite wonderful, actually. I was light and ethereal -- perfect for spiritual work. Having grown up with a mother hyper-vigilant about weight, my new detachment from food felt gloriously empowering. And power was something I seriously lacked.

One evening, about halfway through the ten-day workshop, Adnan, our teacher, played a recording of one of his talks on fasting. We had been chanting for about forty-five minutes prior to this tape and were all very high. The idea of fasting ignited me. I could do this. Oh, I could so easily do this! I mentioned my plan to a more experienced Sufi student. He looked at me curiously and then suggested that I consult the teacher. Up I went to Adnan and said, somewhat shyly, "I'm thinking about fasting." He gave me a long hard stare and then said, "Don't fast." I interpreted this as: You are already there. YOU don't need to fast. That felt good. So I didn't fast. I was a good student, used to following directions. But I was tempted. Each time I ate something, I thought, "I could easily go without."

A small part of my mind was in observer mode, probably the result of the Sufi workshop. An insight arose inside. Suddenly, I understood the seductive and most dangerous aspect of anorexia. Low weight suppresses the natural appetite and also gives an amazing almost euphoric feeling of empowerment. Probably it's chemical. Certainly our cultural adoration of thinness plays into the mix. I felt a kinship to all those anorexic teenage girls who felt so out of control in their lives that not eating became their last line of resistance. It's a slippery slope, an internal feedback loop that, if left unchecked, will eventually kill you. That was not what I want. I started to eat again with the intention of gaining weight.

A few months later and a few pounds heavier, I did go on a fast. I was not trying to kill myself. But I was certainly drawn to the edges of experience. Perhaps it came from a desire to escape the grief through a more intense sensation. Have you ever noticed that you can't really feel two pains at the same time? If you have a toothache and you stub your toe, for a while the toothache goes away. I once read about a mountain climber who said he climbed in order to quiet the demons inside. The demands of the trek required such intense survival focus there was no room for negative thoughts.

The first thing I discovered about fasting is that it is not compatible with running. No fuel = no energy. I could not keep up with my runner buddies. The second thing I discovered is that it's really difficult to stay warm when you have no body fat.

The weekend of my fast I decided to go to a spiritual retreat at the Hanuman Temple in Taos. Steven and Andrea Levine -- famous experts on conscious dying, who were completely unknown to me at the time -- were giving the workshop. I was going because I had an important decision to make about a job I had been offered as a counselor at a mental hospital. It would involve moving to another town, away from my friends. The institutional feel of the hospital seemed ghastly. Also it would mean not going to Sufi camp in summer, something I had been looking forward to since the Christmas workshop. In the past I would discuss such big decisions with my husband. Now it was all up to me. I thought the weekend retreat would help me get clear. Logic dictated I take the job. It would advance my career and was good money. I had been out of a job for several months. But the Sufi work had begun to change me and I was starting to listen to my heart.

The first night in Taos I was ok, since I had just started my fast. By the second night I was having trouble staying warm. It was March and still pretty frosty at night with snow on the ground. I had learned from a previous experience that when I get to a certain chill level, no amount of blanketing would help. I needed to bring the body temperature back up artificially. So I got up from my sleeping bag and took a long hot shower. After about fifteen minutes, my core temperature had risen enough that I was able to sleep. At dawn, I was cold again. I got up quietly so as not disturb the other sleepers and went into the empty temple room. It was peaceful and serene in there with a huge statue of Hanuman, the monkey god, beaming down on me. I sat and breathed, in and out, listening to the delicate sounds of the waking morning. Soon I was clear that I would not take the hospital job -- a job I had struggled three months to land. I couldn't. I wouldn't. My body recoiled at the idea. No. I would stay in Santa Fe, get a temp job and go to summer camp. That was as far ahead as I could think. The weekend workshop, all about compassion, had fulfilled its promise.

Later that day, we were instructed in an eating meditation. Each of us was given a single raisin to slowly and mindfully eat. I can't begin to describe the impact of that raisin on my tongue -- a tongue that had not tasted food in three days. After exploring the wrinkled texture for a few moments, I slowly bit in. Sweetness engulfed my mouth in a cascade of flavor. As I slowly began to chew, a soft stickiness spread throughout my mouth, catching on the surface of my teeth, and giving my tongue delightful moments of renewed sensation as it dislodged the clinging fragments. Fasting had made eating new and rich.

Sept. 1984

Grief has some similarities with fasting. Everything seems more intense and at the same time less real. It is as though you are observing reality from a different dimension or plane. You feel more sensitive, more vulnerable; and you feel a need to protect yourself from overstimulation. If you can get past the judgment about how awful it feels, the discomforts and the desires for something else, if you can stop thinking about how great it was before and how empty it is now and may be in the future, if you can just allow and observe and experience everything, from moment to moment -- there can be amazing, mind-blowing revelations. You can discover a whole new landscape, new feeling, and new life inside and out. 

Grief is a hero's journey. Like Orpheus, you go into the underworld, into the shadow and the dark, to retrieve what is lost. You think it is the person who has died or gone away, but in reality it is yourself.

Blessings,

Michelle
Secrets of Life and Death

What Comes Next?

I can't recall a time in my life when I did not believe in some kind of afterlife. Certainly my visualization of what that life after death might entail has changed over the years, but the certainty of my continuation has never wavered.

Although raised a Catholic with all its flowery imagery of heaven, I had a questioning mind, the result of growing up with a non-believing father and somewhat heretical mother. I outgrew this early religious training when I hit puberty, the age so many of us decide to leave the fold. This abandonment of Catholic dogma, however, did not strip me of a spiritual compass.

It was my mother who first introduced me to the IChing, the Tarot and a more esoteric view of existence. Each New Year's eve, she would pull out her dog-eared copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes book of changes and invite us to cast ancient chinese coins (purchased in Chinatown) to glimpse a picture of the coming year. Part of this yearly ritual was to review the previous year's predictions and analyze its accuracy. Little did I know at the time that I was being trained in a form of channeling, in tapping into that ethereal essence that guides all who choose to listen.

In my twenties she gave me my first Tarot deck, the Visconti-Saforza deck, the earliest surviving tarot deck. She told me that it was best to receive your deck as a gift. It certainly cost less. But possibly in the gifting she was also passing on some of her Picean energy. To this day, I rely on both the Tarot and the IChing for guidance when I am confused or uncertain.

My early esoteric training was amplified in the 70's by an exploration of mind-altering plants and the books of Carlos Castaneda. Psychotropics have a way of putting you in touch with the tenuousness of everyday reality. Castenada's descriptions of alternate worlds ignited the imagination and complimented my first-hand experience. I still recall a most vivid impression of dissolving into vibration. I was vibration and so was everything else. It took considerable mental effort to remanifest on the physical plain.

At this same time, I was also in active pursuit of a Ph.D. in sociology. It was through this study that I was exposed to the underside of the scientific method and the mathematical tools that prop it up. I discovered how results might be manipulated by the way questions are asked, the numbers shared, and the interpretations made. To be sure, sociology is one of the softest of sciences and particularly susceptible to manipulation. But once you know how the numbers work and what they mean, you can find flaws in even the hardest of sciences. At the same time, sociology revealed to me the very underpinnings of society and the way knowledge works. Knowledge is socially managed and as much a product of publicity as scientific tests. One need only look at the current "debate" over global warming to see the truthfulness of this.

As I matured, plant-induced states of mind were replaced with spiritual ones. At a Sufi camp in New Mexico, I discovered the mind expanding possibilities of slow movement, dancing, singing, drumming, whirling and chanting. Essential to the success of these practices was a clean body devoid of cigarettes, caffeine, alcohol, psychedelics, chocolate and even food. Yes, fasting was part of the regime and it certainly enhanced the spiritual states. It does make one wonder how much of this mysticism is chemical and therefore reducible to scientific facts. But what do these facts really mean? That certain stimulants excite left brain functioning? That in order to tap into other realms we need to quiet the left brain chatter? That the right brain is the doorway into exalted states and is easily overruled by its left brain brother? You bring the science, I'll bring the interpretation.

In spite of its flaws and susceptibility to manipulation, I do not dismiss science or the scientific method. I am just more careful about its claims. Like a recent one about a study that shows organic foods have no more nutritional value than the conventionally grown. It all depends on how you define "nutrition" doesn't it? The scientific method is just one way of looking at the world. It can be very reliable when applied with rigor and uninfluenced by monetary interests and preferred outcomes.

It was not until I was facing the death of my father that I directly addressed the question of the afterlife. While preparing my talk for his memorial, my partner gave me a taped recording of a talk by Kubler-Ross. I knew only that she was a medical doctor who pioneered death studies. Her tape talked about various aspects of death, but what I recall are two stories that I found utterly convincing about the existence of an afterlife.

One involved a woman in a car accident somewhere in Europe. I imagine the Alps, on some winding two lane road through the mountains. As a result of her accident the woman left her body and traveled up the long line of stopped traffic listening in on the conversations of people delayed by her accident. They were, as you would expect, complaining about the delay. The farther she traveled the more disgusted she became with life and the people in it. She was just about ready to surrender to her death when she heard the voice of one woman saying to her companion that there must have been a terrible accident and she hoped the people involved were all right. These words touched the heart of the disembodied woman. She made a note of the license plate and returned to her body. Much later, when she recovered, she researched the license plate of the car and discovered the name and address of the compassionate woman. She wrote to that woman and thanked her for saving her life and her faith in humanity.

The second one involved another car accident, this time in Arizona. A good Samaritan witnessed the accident and went over to the wreck to see if there was anything he could do. The young woman, a Navajo, asked the man to please take a message to her mother on the reservation. She told him the name and said, "Tell her I am alright and that Tommy is here with me." The woman did not survive her injuries. The man, compelled by this death bed request, traveled to the reservation and tracked down this Navajo woman. Not an easy task, I assure you having lived there myself. When he found the mother he delivered her daughter's message. The woman was at once both sad and elated. It turns out that Tommy, a cousin, had recently died himself, on the very same day the young woman had been killed in the accident. The only way she could have know about Billy is if she actually saw him on the other side.

These stories were my first encounter with near death experience (NDE). There are other, much more convincing NDE stories, ones that have external and unbiased corroboration like the story of the sneaker on the ledge. So I have become even more comfortable with my belief in a continued existence after death. What I have been less clear about is how this afterlife would manifest. Having tasted the exalted states of divine unity, I am not so attached to this individual ego -- a force that can cause so much damage to my equanimity. I am open to the idea of death being a dissolution of my spirit into a vast sea of intelligence where I am but a single droplet joined with many. What I find more difficult to accept is the notion of communities of disembodied spirits living in homes and hanging out with each other as is described in The Destiny of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton. I suppose I hoped for something more rarefied and less mundane. I am heartened by the suggestion that this may be only one level of existence after death and that there may be many other levels.

Even as I am attracted to the esoteric, I am also cautious. I do not like to be duped any more than the next person. So I am proceeding with a curious but critical mind into this next phase of my mystical journey -- a series of a free teleconference calls: The Mystery and Magic of Life and Death. There will be many opportunities to explore this very questions of what comes next.

Hierophant and the Ego

The hierophant card of the Tarot was the subject of a recent discussion I had with a friend, a Sufi dance teacher. She said she always draws a blank when it appears in a reading. Historically, the card refers to a traditional religious leader. It certainly did not fit with any idea she had of herself or her dance work.

A student of hers, an anthropologist, offered an intriguing interpretation of the card: the hierophant as the giver of blessings or benedictions. Benediction, in old sense of the word, suggests a dual motion of ascending prayers and descending blessings. Up and down, up and down between heaven and earth, a lot like breathing, only a celestial breathing. The hierophant, in this view, is the instrument or intermediary of the heavenly blessing or heavenly breath. While a much more dynamic vision of the card, I had some reservations. Below are my musings as addressed to my friend (with editing).

In the William Blake tarot deck, the hierophant is called Religion. It recognizes the human need for spirituality and warns against the rationalization or codification of spirit through organized systems of religion. Blake had no great love for organized religion. In the Sufi work (according to the work of Sufi Master, Adnan Sarhan), the dance must always come from the moment. As long as you stay in the moment, the energy of spirit flows. The hierophant card can be seen as a warning against "the ego,” the ever lurking enemy of the moment. As soon as one thinks of oneself as "something special," i.e. “religious leader,” the moment vanishes into intellect and ego.

It can be dangerous to see oneself as a mediator or intermediary between your students and heaven. It is really a very traditional view -- that ordinary people cannot connect to the sacred or divine except through the intercession of a priest or spiritual leader. People do not need a mediator because heaven is inside, not outside and above. We do not need an intermediary to the divine because we all are part of the divine.

When a teacher is in the flow of spirit and students are in the vicinity of that energy, their own spirits are entrained. That is the dynamic of the Sufi work as I understand it. When in the moment, one vibrates at a higher frequency. That vibration stimulates or induces a similar vibration in the others. Like plucking a guitar string, the near-by strings also begin to vibrate. The stronger your vibration, the greater the effect. Eventually the students learn to vibrate on their own and thus access their own spirit. Of course the vibration is always stronger when surrounded by the vibration of others flowing in the moment. This is doubly true when near to someone strong in the practice of being in the moment.

The trick and warning of the hierophant is to be a teacher and yet not fall prey to the ego of teacher. Yes, all of the things you must do as teacher are true, like holding the space and making people feel safe and stepping in and taking action when someone falls out of the space, or disrupts the space. So it is necessary to acknowledge your self as a leader or teacher. At the same time, it is heady to be in the front, having people attending to your every word and action. The ego lurks.

In a way we are all teachers. We teach each other important lessons every time we come together (as in The Celestine Prophecy). Being conscious of being teacher is essential, but in an active way, in the verb sense of "I am teaching" as opposed to "I am THE TEACHER." As teacher, which in itself is an active noun, one enters the energy field of teacher, which included space holding and wide attention. Teaching in this way can bring you into another level of consciousness. You attention is alert, you are totally focused and aware, but the focus is outward or, perhaps to put it better, your “inside” expands to encompass the outer boundaries of your group. The group becomes your body and you are the brain or maybe the heart of that body. There can be no thought of the future or past. You must be totally in the moment, feeling through every sense and responding to each moment through intuition or what Adnan calls “intelligence.”

When I am facilitating a grief group or doing a screening/discussion of my films, I connect with the essence of the goddess Demeter -- mother goddess, all encompassing, watchful, loving, insuring her children are safe and growing. When I think of her, I connect to the love part of teaching. As long as I am in that love and in the doing, I can keep the ego trap of the hierophant at bay.

The Art of Being Present

At a screening of my film, Caring for Dying: the art of being present, there was a discussion on, well, the art of being present. When asked how one goes about "being present," the people in my audience had no ready answers. Yet, when I asked them to take a moment and check in with themselves, they quietly closed their eyes and looked inside. Perhaps they thought I was asking for something more esoteric. But no, being present is as simple as checking in with your self. Take a moment to look inside, feel your body, observe your feelings.

The problem is, we forget to do it. We don’t check in. We’re too busy, too worried, too uncomfortable and maybe too afraid. Afraid? Yes, I think so. Ever notice how uncomfortable people are with long silences or with having too much time on their hands? Don’t you take a book or magazine along when you expect to wait somewhere? We are afraid to look inside, afraid of what we might find, of what we are really feeling. That we really hate what we are doing, or we’ve screwed up or wasted our lives, or we are bored with our partner, tired of our children, unsure where we’re headed and we’re angry, pissed, sad, or just plain unhappy. Whoa, let’s not go there! Turn on the TV, call someone on your cell phone, clean the refrigerator. The irony is that there is really no fear in the present. There is no judgment, no shame, no blame. There is just -- presence. However (and there always is a however) to get there you might have to tamp down a lot of negative mind-noise first, a lot of internal ugly, judgmental monologue.

Eckart Tolle, the guru of the "present" and author of The New Earth and The Power of the Now, calls that mean, negative internal voice “the ego.” This is not the positive ego of “self esteem” fame, but closer to that “Whew, that guy’s got one big ego!” kind of ego. And, while we’re pointing a finger, be aware that we all have big egos, only they rarely make us feel big and important. Mostly they tear us down. And if they do build us up, tomorrow it will be down. Bet you that guy with the “big ego” is constantly being blasted by his, that’s why he’s so desperate to convince you and everyone else what a hotshot he is.

I like Tolle’s use of the term “ego” because it is the same word my Sufi teacher uses to refer to the “negative self.” -- the self that tries to sabotage all my efforts to hang out with my spiritual self. I already know a lot about this ego self. It’s what makes us worry about how we appear to others or how we measure up to some internalized value system of achievement. It is the voice that makes us uneasy and stressed. A low level hum of disquiet, “What did I forget?” “Please don’t let me screw this up!” “Oh God, I can’t believe I did that!” We run from this voice by staying busy, watching TV, drinking, eating or doing drugs -- anything to numb or dull the voice. But it never really goes away. It’s always in the background nipping at our heels.

The only real escape from the ego is to see it for what it is, to name it, recognize it and in doing so, to enter the moment. It’s my ego that’s making me feel bummed about the funding grant I didn't get for my film (that I didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of getting any way.) Hi, Ego! Sounds easy. It is and it’s not. The ego is very strong, wily, willful beast that will not give up without a fight. The ego wants to be in control. I like this idea of an ego beast. The ego as something separate from ourselves. Years ago when I was working on my Ph.D thesis and getting booted out of my first teaching job I drew a picture of this snarling monster riding on my back. This was long before Sufi or Eckhart Tolle. I already knew inside what the ego was. I just didn't know how to get rid of it. I didn't know about the present.

Staying in the present takes concentration and discipline. The ego is always there slipping in thoughts about the past or future, worrisome thoughts about what you should really be doing or what you forgot to do. Each time the ego throws in these thoughts you have to pull away, stop the train and return to the emptiness of no thought. That is basically the essence of meditation. Of course it’s difficult to focus on nothing, so typically you focus on something like the breath or a mantra or a visual image. It takes practice. It takes the will to do it especially when you're feeling awful and would rather eat some ice cream.

There are other doors to the present – really any activity that puts you wholly in the moment of here and now, will do. Playing a musical instrument can do it. Dancing does it for me as long as I can stay away from the thought that other people are looking at me and maybe I should change what I’m doing because I’ve been doing the same stupid move for the last ten minutes. Opps, just lost my footing. Mountain climbers enjoy this focus because a momentary lapse could mean death. Nothing like a strong motivator. Unfortunately, we can’t run off to the mountain every time we need to check in with our self. And we really should do that a lot -- every time we feel stressed, or stuck or anxious or sad. Because those are all signs of ego intrusion. That’s why I like using the breath. It’s so portable.

The Breath is always there. Waiting for the bus? Breathe in, watch where the breath goes. Stumped on the next sentence for your funding proposal? Send the breath to various parts of the body. Notice how each area of the body feels. Had an argument with your partner? Play with the breath. Breathe in for five counts, hold for five counts, breathe out for five counts, hold for five counts and repeat. Lots you can do with your breath. Breathe until the mind empties and the heart and stomach feel calm. Enjoy the peace.

One more suggestion -- keep reading books, watching movies, talking to friends, writing blogs that encourage and remind you to stay present.