BAGGAGE CLAIM

I’m building a wall that I don’t want to build

A stockade ‘round my heart and soul

All because those before you filled

My life then left a gaping hole.

You pay the price of baggage carried

On and off throughout my years.

Some cast off and deeply buried,

Some I keep to tote my fears

Of failure, guilt, abandonment, 

Which pull me down and hold me back.

These fears are much like bricks and mortar

Weighing down my heavy sack. 

I’ve always had the tools I need

To ward off enemies unknown

Always ready to defend

By erecting walls of stone

Impossible to penetrate!

They kept me sound

They kept me safe!

They also sheltered me from love.

I’ve paid the price of seeming brave.

It’s time to cast those things aside

That I no longer need because

Not only do they weigh too much,

They sheltered me from what life WAS.

My life is very different now

How wrong of me to utilize

This defense when I’ve no cause

To doubt your word or your advice.

I feel exposed as I toss out

The huge amounts of sand and stone…

Afraid to be wounded without my “shield,” 

I await the pain as I stand alone. 

Only to find that the pain doesn’t come!

I tentatively discover

That warmth and tenderness surround

Me as I start to now uncover

The parts of me I’ve saved for you,

The one who taught me it’s okay

To be myself and share my truth

Knowing you’ll meet me halfway

With respect and courtesy.

I learn life is a paradox.

Tear down the walls with kindness and

  Build gates of love, not walls of rocks. 

from "One Heart's Journey: Lyrics of an Imperfect Life"

We Are All Lost Until We Are Found...Losing Immy

Tonight I was walking Immy and Joey in the tiny artist colony of Tubac, Arizona. As we headed up the gravel road to the Montessori School I stopped to take a photo of the cranberry colored monsoon sky. In that very moment a cottontail rabbit sprang from the nearby bushes and Immy took off like a rocket after it, the leash flew from my hand, catching me totally off guard.  

Joey and I raced after her, but she was going 45 MPH and we were going maybe 8 MPH. She was absolutely nowhere to be seen as we came to the crest of the sloped gravel drive. A giant field, the frontage road on one side of it with Highway 19 just beyond. My mind was taking me to crazy places. I called her name over and over. Almost crying. "Hey Immy, Good Girl Come On! Let's go home!"  I whistled, the same whistle I would whistle to bring Jack home. No luck. She was nowhere to be found. 

Joey and I then ran as fast as we could all the way home to get the car.  Of course dusk was upon us. It was getting so dark already. I left the patio door open in the event she came home of her own accord. I grabbed my flashlight, stopped to post a Lost Dog post on my Facebook Page and the Tubac Barrio and Surrounding Area pages. I tried to post on the local Lost and Found Pet pages but was I a member? No of course not. I was never going to lose a dog. My hands were shaking so badly and between that and Spellchecker I was about insane already.  We took off in the car on the DARK roads of Tubac. Immy is dark! The roads are dark! My mind, still taking me to terrible places. 

We drove back up to the area where we last saw her. I drove all over the schoolyard, the nearby acreage. I climbed into the deep rocky ditches and the water-filled arroyo with my flashlight. Calling her calling her. Meanwhile the huge trucks are bearing down on the nearby highway. 

"Dear God, not the highway."  She is smart but I do believe she would walk right out in front of a car despite my years of trying to teach her otherwise.  

Then the train.  Whoo Whoo!   OMG. The railroad tracks! The train! Just 1/4 mile away on the other side of the village from the highway. I start hyperventilating. Crying. Driving slowly on all the streets of town, crying her name out. I had no whistle left. To the Frontage Road for 1/2 mile. I refused to consider the highway option.  It had claimed enough canine lives since I moved here so I tried to believe that statistically she was safe.  : / 

I was getting more and more upset. Hyperventilating.  Three times I came back to the house to see if she was there, but no Immy.  Each time I got more upset than the last time. A third drive through all the streets of town. I realized how upset I was getting; sick with it really. 

"Stop." I say. "Where's your faith? God's got this." 

God. The angels. Jack. Anyone else? I asked for help from all of them. 

I started to imagine her walking along the side street with her leash dangling behind her, waiting for me to find her walking along, ever so nonchalantly.
A song popped into my head and I started singing. 

🎶"There she was just a walkin down the street singin do wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo..." 🎶

I turned a corner, got nervous again. Those tears, that fear is so persistent! 

But so's the tune. 

"She looked good, looked fine..... "🎶

"God's got this. He knows what he's doing."
The tears, the fears still trying to get through. My imagination, trying to get the best of me.   

".... and I nearly lost my mind."🎶

We're all lost until we're found

Then I remember my pendulum. I had not dowsed in many years.
It was in the console of my car.  I pulled it out.
No, it said, she's not at the highway. No, she's nowhere near the railroad. Not there. No, not there. She was in the village limits. She was within the 9 square blocks of our quiet little village.
She was safe. She wasn't dead or injured.
🎶"..do wa diddy diddy dum diddy do..."🎶
Around and around the town I went. Visiting all the nooks and crannies.
Coming back along towards our house, I'm crying again!
OMG what if someone finds her and uses her for dog fight bait!  OMG!
Stop.
"Dear God protect her. If she doesn't ever come home, take care of her. Please."
Crying.
"I promise I'll never use my phone again on our walks if you only bring her back."
Entering the Bargaining Stage of Grief now.
Waah!
Stop.
"Get into your faith Kate. It's life. Whatever happens will happen."
I thought of Jack's excerpt from Book 3, Return from Rainbow Bridge...

Whatever happens there's a reason. I have to trust God with His Plan. 

I have to trust myself that she loves me enough that she would want to come home. 

I have to trust her that she is smart enough to find her way home. After all, we walk these village streets every day. She must know her way around quite well by now. She is a hound dog after all.  

Driving up the gravel road to the school for the fourth time, 

did I see two shining eyes up the road in the headlights?  

🎶"Before I knew it she was walkin' next to me...singing do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do."  🎶

No. It was my imagination.  Maybe a premonition. 

Wait. Look! Is that her standing over there?    

No. It's a downed tree that just happens to look like her.

Hey, a rabbit! It looked like the same rabbit she went after. 

Came out from the same place in the bushes. 🐾
I followed the rabbit.

🎶" Whoa-oh, I knew we was falling in love..."🎶

A left turn down into the nearby neighborhood. Into a vacant side lot. 

Drove my car over the bumps and rocks to search the lot with my headlights. 

Did I see two shining eyes ahead?

  🎶"She looked good. She looked fine. And I nearly lost my mind."🎶

From the Archives

🎶 There she was just as natural as can be. Standing perfectly still. Looking at me.
The rabbit was sitting there watching us the whole time.
Immy seemed confused, scared, not moving. Looked like she didn't recognize me.
This sighthound had to get a close smell of me to know it was me.
She often lets fear get the best of her. (Sounds like someone I know.) 

As I got closer I was able to see her dilemma. She had gotten the handle of her 16' retractable leash caught on a nearby mesquite bush. (so strange, we usually use the retractable on the wilderness trails and the regular leash in town, but for some reason we used the retractable one tonight. Divine Intervention?) Not only that but she had obviously tried to get herself loose and had it wrapped around quite creatively on an upside down tree stump beside her. Knowing how she gets when she is scared, I was not surprised to see the rest of the leash wrapped round all of her legs, like a cat's cradle, so she couldn't move an inch. 

The rabbit just watched. Immy was silent. She never complains about anything. She just endures. 

🎶"Whoa-oh, I knew I was falling in love..."🎶

It took about ten minutes to get her untangled from herself. 

Gosh she must've heard me crying and calling for her all over town, from her tangled web on this dark vacant lot. I wonder what she was thinking. Feeling. 

As soon as she was loose I hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. She is not usually tolerant of much affection but she was hugging me back. 

She was thrilled to get into the car. I wish I had a picture of her and Joey when they reunited at the car window.

But no more pictures when I have a dog on a leash. 

We headed home. 

🎶"...and so I told her all the things I'd been dreamin' of..."🎶

I had to be calm. I had to have faith. I had to stop crying and Be Still.
The stress. The adrenalin! Imagining the worst.
The moment I stopped worrying and put my faith in God and all the rest of us, everything turned around. 

I came home to hundreds of prayers from my frantic posting on Facebook two hours earlier (gosh it was only two hours? It felt like ten!) A very kind and helpful call came in from the local Santa Cruz Sheriff's Department who had received a call from a friend in Connecticut about my lost dog, wondering if they could help. (I was a little nervous, I thought they might have been calling me because I had been driving off-road all over the town screaming "IMMY!" and carrying on). I also received a call from an Animal Communicator friend I had met in Sedona who has expertise in Finding Lost Pets, calling to offer to help me free of charge to locate Immy. And one of my home care patients who is now a Facebook Friend offered to drive down with her husband to help me try to find her. Wow. I am overwhelmed with the care and concern and offers to help us tonight.  

What an adventure. She's exhausted. Joey's exhausted. I'm exhausted. 

But we're happy.  🎶So Happy Together 🎶

When you lose something precious and then get it back, you make sure to fulfill your promises. No more taking photos along our walks. It's going to take some discipline for me, based on my history. 

🎶"Now we're together every single day...

We're so happy and it's how we're gonna stay..."🎶

You do what you have to do and you honor your Promises. 

🎶"..Do wa diddy diddy dum diddy do..." 🎶

Night Night Miss Immy.  

Lyrics Do Wah Diddy by Manfred Mann

Songwriters: Ellie Greenwich / Jeff Barry

My apologies ahead of time if this song sticks in your head for the rest of the night too! 

I Don't Know, 'I Don't Remember, I Don't Remember' : On Being Transparent About Sexual Abuse

SEXUAL ABUSE AND POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
WHY WE CAN'T REMEMBER THE DETAILS

By Kate McGahan LMSW

Along with the rest of the nation, I have been riveted on the Brett Kavanaugh/Christine Blasey-Ford testimony. Why all the hoopla? Aside from the deeply disturbing values and attitudes that are being consistently revealed in current politics, the story touches everyone who ever abused, was ever abused, ever did things beyond their control under the influence, ever forgot …ever remembered.

Last week Dr. Ford reminded me of what happened to me. She reminds me of what I tried to forget. It’s not like I forgot altogether what happened to me. Oh no. It’s that when it actually happened, I dissociated from myself because, quite simply, I didn’t want to be there. I wanted no part of it. So I “left”! Dissociation is a natural defense mechanism for those experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) whether it is due to wartime, devastating natural disaster or sexual, physical or emotional trauma. 

When he came looking for me that first night when I was ten, I was hiding from him. I had already learned that I did not like the way he treated me. He was just, well, “yucky.” Every night through my terrifying moments, he would find me, hiding. Behind curtains. Behind chairs. Under beds and tables. He always found me. I don’t know why I didn’t just run away from home altogether but there was something in the experience that paralyzed me like a deer in headlights.

I don’t know how many times over the years he did this, but it was many times. I never told anybody about it. This was the first person who taught me to Not Say No, to Not Tell Anyone, to try to continue loving someone even though they hurt, abuse and betray. He taught me how to deny the Here and Now, how to suppress my feelings until it became natural for me to stuff them away altogether. He taught me to expect that someone you come to love will probably come to hurt you. He taught me that family can betray you.

DISSOCIATION:

WHY WE CAN’T REMEMBER WHERE, WHAT, WHEN

BUT WE ALWAYS REMEMBER WHO

Once he found me and took me to his bedroom, I couldn’t hide my body anymore, so I hid the rest of me. I vacated. I dissociated. While his hands groped and his aged appendage shook as he spoke dirty words to my virgin ears, I exited the situation. My mind was able to whisk me away. I floated up out of the situation. Around the walls, covered with pink and blue wallpapered flowers. Up the wall to where the white painted molding met the yellowed ceiling. Most of the time I’d be “up there” somewhere but sometimes I would go even further. I would go through the ceiling and out into the freedom that was the rooftop and the sky. Despite what was happening I had already developed a faith in God and the angels and I believed that when I went “up there” I had a measure of safety that I didn’t have below. When we are traumatized, leaving the scene spiritually and psychologically is a safety measure. It’s By Design for one’s survival. It's no surprise that we cannot remember details when we are "not there." The circumstances at hand are too overwhelming to process and so we are designed to have an exit route and that route is called Dissociation.

When someone drinks or does drugs, they can exit too, through blackouts, drug “trips” that take them out of context with their own bodies, straight into an altered state. This is why most of them do it. They can't remember the details either, those that happened during their trip. They too are seeking an escape from something in their lives that they can’t bear. Some people can’t find their way back. They can be stuck in a confusing state of Dissociative Disorder, which is a disorder of identity. When you leave yourself behind this way, the day eventually can come when you find that you don’t know who you are at all. You don’t even know what you are. You have not lived life like a normal “person”.

When children are abused, they can lose sight of who and what they are. Now nearly fifty years later, I still do not know my worth, my value, my best qualities overshadowed and disguised by lifelong shame. This makes no sense to someone who has never experienced abuse, that a child can have such shame and guilt for the torrid acts of someone else, but it is the nature of a child to suffer guilt for such things beyond his or her control. Many suffer this for the rest of their lives. 

When you're young and your parents divorce, you always think it’s your fault. After all you are still somewhat ego-centric, as all young children are, and you think the world revolves around you, so therefore everything must have to do with you, for better or for worse. With various types of abuse, there is deep shame for being submissive, for not saying “no” to something that is deeply wrong. There is guilt for not being brave enough to tell anyone, not reporting the perpetrator. Perhaps even guilt for enjoying the experience despite the circumstance. Horrors! 

One of the specific problems for children who experience abuse of any kind is that as they grow, their brains are developing too. What goes in becomes a part of them. Walking. Talking. Tying Their Shoes. Reading, Writing, Arithmetic. Words of praise become a foundation for how they see themselves as they move forward into adulthood. Physical, Emotional, Sexual Abuse. These too become a foundation for how they see themselves and rate their poor self-worth as they move forward into adulthood. They never know why they don’t trust, they fear betrayal, they avoid intimacy. They throw themselves into dysfunctional relationships – after all, we attract what we feel and we will be like magnets drawing the same kind of people to us who will continue to hurt, harm, betray and abuse. In our ongoing insecurity, we can become addicted to pathways of escape: drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography or work. We further dull our awareness of who we are because we don’t like who we are and we must find some way to escape from our own lives. It’s just another kind of dissociation. There are so many ways to lose ourselves. Each one of these situations is actually another opportunity to Show Up differently, but still we tend to focus on losing ourselves instead of finding ourselves. 

...Until one day we are reminded and it all comes rushing back. It fills every sense that had forgotten until now. The groping, the gravely voice, the lumpy pillows, the wallpaper flowers, the stale smell of the room. You can’t say when, you don’t remember how often. You only remember the flowers, the ceiling, the man, the hands, the feeling of terror and powerlessness ---- only now there is no escape from it. You have finally admitted to yourself that this has happened and now what are you going to do with it? You can’t heal what you don’t feel and now fifty years later you feel it’s full effect. You feel the fury, knowing how it changed the way you came to live your life. You see it from the eyes of an adult now. You know now that you deserved more in life but look how you always settled for less.

Last night anchor woman Connie Chung came forward. God bless her. She has remembered too: the trusted family doctor who delivered her as a baby who came to assault her as a co-ed. In fifty years she never told anyone but her husband. She now reminds me of one I’d forgotten. Our small town family doctor who fondled my breasts during a procedural exam for college admission.

     “Is someone playing with these?” he asked me.

     “No.” was my shy but robotic answer. 

      How on earth does one answer this?

     “Aww, that’s too bad,” he replied as he gave a last fondle.

     Oh my God I forgot about this until now.

So many of us are caught in the process of unlearning the erroneous things that we’ve been taught, needing to rewind back to our innocence and to remember the love and respect we must inherently have first for ourselves. We must tell our story and once it's told, to learn what we can from it and try to forget the part that only deprives us of creating a better story for ourselves in this new day and age ....knowing that the challenges along the way are what gave us the strengths of empathy, compassion and appreciation for the good things in life. Nothing is ever all good or all bad. The key is in accepting it as part of our development and moving forward with the strength of character that we have developed. We are different people because of these things and when it comes to our own testimony of ourselves, we are innocent.  

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can; 

and wisdom to know the difference.

Oh If You Only Knew

Do you ever feel that your life is a tragedy? 

Have you ever let someone walk away without telling them how you feel?

If I Were You, If You Were Me

April is National Poetry Month. Why don't you write a poem too? You might surprise yourself with your talent on expressing something you are passionate about. Try to get out of your head and gently move into your heart and see what happens. I wrote this little rambling poem/song while I was out walking the dogs one night not long ago and I thought I would post it. In honor of April.

If I were you
I'd be able to see
The way you'd come to live for me.
If I were you
I'd hear the way
You honor me each time you pray.
If I were you
I'd feel your face
I'd touch your heart
I'd taste the life you bring to me
I'd know your scent when you are near
And when you're not - when you must leave -
I'd always trust that you'd return.
I'd have no fear. I would not grieve
I'd have great faith. I would believe
In you and me.
Two hearts entwined;
My life yours and your life mine.
If I were you
I'd taste
I'd smell
I'd see
I'd hear
I'd feel
I'd sense
I'd want you near
I'd love you dear...
I love you.

But I'm not you.
I'm not you.

 ©2018  Kate McGahan

Who is speaking in the poem? Who is You? Who is Me? Who is speaking? A child? A parent? A pet? A friend? A lover? God? Everyone who ever loved or couldn't love? It's all By Design. We are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us. At one time or another, one situation or the other, we each have loved in this lifetime and we each at a certain moment have disregarded the call to love.

If you now feel unloved, it is not true. You are not a victim of a life without love. Someone Somewhere loves you very much. Someone you do not see or seem to sense. You are never alone. Think about this and look around. You are the one who does not see. Open your eyes, your ears, your heart and find the One who loves you.  Seek. You shall find. 

Questions in a Rose-Colored World

What happens when you remove

Your rose-colored glasses

And realize that I am just

A person with imperfections

Just like everyone else?

Will you leave me then?

By leaving you first 

Am I shielding myself

From that possibility?

By leaving you first

Do I deprive myself of knowing

The answer? 

Is It Another Senior Moment Or Is It Alzheimers?

By Kate McGahan LMSW

How often we are reminded that schools teach reading, writing and arithmetic, but not the lessons of the pure applications of life. They don’t teach us how to love, only that we love. They don’t teach us how to remember, just that we remember.

As we age, everything we have ever been creates an evolving identity of who we are, complete with our memories of the past, our place in the present and our hopes for the future. When we lose our connection to our past due to significant memory loss, we lose sight of everything we are. Our memory is essential to our growth as a person, as a family member and as a productive member of society.

“Uh oh,” we think “am I losing my mind? Is it Alzheimer’s?” when we forget a name or maybe a face. We prematurely experience what is called a “senior moment” or we become the butt of an old age joke. We remove the cold morning coffee from the microwave, forgotten in our mad rush to locate our keys. Where do we draw the line between mere forgetfulness and the problems that are the result of Alzheimer’s and other such disorders?

Every passing second of our lives we are receiving and transmitting information. The satisfied look of our golf partner, the disapproval of our boss, the ray of sunshine streaming through the window or a bird on the wing...the blare of the muffler that needs replacing, the roar of the alarm clock or the sweet sound of a symphony...the smell of your father’s aftershave or the feel of silk pajamas against your skin. Every sight, sound, smell, touch and taste is recorded in our phenomenal record-keeping center called the brain.

Every single experience has the potential of causing a physical neurological change in our brain. To this we owe the great success of music, art and aromatherapy to name a few. Every single message received by our senses goes through an intricate system of procedures. When we learn something or experience something, that “something” enters into a process that will file it according to what we will need it for. In other words, every experience will enter the brain, which will then decide if it should go to the short term memory, the long term memory, some storage area in between (a “recycle bin” of sorts, to be retrieved if necessary) or if it will be expelled as nonessential information.

It is our natural state to sort and file. A healthy brain does this flawlessly. Problems related to memory loss are not a natural state that comes with aging. It is said that we have 90 or so billion neurons and that with age they decrease in number. Neurons are naturally depleted with age by possibly a billion or so... hardly enough to affect our lifestyle.

What gets in the way? No matter what our age, we are affected by stress and anxiety, lack of sleep, malnutrition, overwork, hormonal changes and more. Exposure to influences such as drugs, alcohol, electromagnetic fields, medical illness and traumatic events can dramatically affect our memory storage and retrieval system.

Other than avoiding exposure to such things, what do we do to keep our memories on track?

1) The old standbys of eating right, getting enough sleep and exercise and trying to decrease stress is a good start.

2) Take some time to discover the growing industry of memory “wellness”. Hundreds of books, websites, school programs and courses are designed to help people to learn ways to adapt, compensate for and prevent forgetfulness. An array of alternative medicine remedies such as ginko biloba, vitamin E, lecithin and vitamin B12 are being professed as playing a part in winning the memory loss game.

3) Everything you experience, to a greater or lesser degree, creates a physical change in the brain. If you have had a negative experience in the past, don’t hang onto it -- because it will continue to affect you in negative ways.

4) Be sure you are doing the work you love and that you surround yourself with people who are supportive and nurturing rather than those who are critical or judgmental. You will absorb whatever others have to offer you – positive or negative.

5) Surround yourself with an aesthetically pleasing environment. Colors, sounds, textures, light can all have an impact on your sense of well being.

6) “Use it!” Don’t just play the memory games and take memory classes. It’s the things that you learn that you incorporate into your “being” that have the most profound affect on your memory. It’s looking at life in a whole new way, or looking at yourself with a new attitude. It’s having that internal light bulb go on that say’s ‘Wow, I never thought of it that way before.’ It’s the things that encourage you to take off the old shoe in exchange for new ways of doing and perceiving. It’s living in the moment. The positive experiences that stretch your creativity, your passions and your feelings will create an atmosphere in your brain conducive to optimal memory and cognitive health.

In a June 13, 2000 TIME magazine article, George Johnson writes in regard to memory loss: “(Research has shown that) canaries create a new batch of neurons every time they learn a song, then slough them off when it’s time to change tunes.” Don’t be afraid to change your tune once in awhile; it may be just what you need.

7) Don’t worry about your forgetfulness unless it begins to impact your patterns of routine, your behavior or your overall functioning. Not being able to find your keys is one thing. Not being able to find your car, well, that may not be quite so bad either. Not being able to find your way home is another story.

8) If you feel that memory loss is impacting your life or the life of someone you care about, don’t hesitate to seek medical advice. Many people procrastinate because they “don’t want to know” that they have a cognitive disorder. The fact is there are 100 or more reversible conditions that could cause memory loss. The sooner you find out, the sooner you can realistically get back on track.

In the meantime, you can join the rest of us who question ourselves from time to time. Just don’t let it prevent you from allowing your brain to grow from the experience of living life fully.

...And if you can say “Wow, I never knew that” somewhere during the course of this article, my goal today has been accomplished.

Why Are So Many People Afraid of Death? The History Behind Halloween.

Hi, Jack here. When I arrived at Rainbow Bridge, I really didn't know the difference between Halloween and the Day of the Dead. My friends Here came from all earth faiths, cultures and backgrounds and we all got together to talk about the holidays that we celebrated with our humans on earth. It was fascinating! 

If you live in a place that has four seasons, you know that hard frost usually comes to the garden near October's end. The harvest must happen before the frost comes or the harvest will be lost. 2000 years ago the Celts celebrated Samhain to welcome the Fall Harvest at the end of each Summer. (Remember how I've said that the end of something is always the beginning of another?)  The Celts believed that on a particular night the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead became very thin and that they could communicate with the spirits of the souls who had transitioned. They offered up the harvest, for they believed that the souls of their dearly departed would visit, drawn back by the very power of their faith. They would have parties, wear masks, dress up in animal skins and tell fortunes. Ultimately the Celts were conquered by the Romans and around 600 AD. Samhain merged with Christian tradition and it became an annual routine to pray for the dead at harvest time.

The inspired Pope eventually declared November 1 as the annual day to honor the martyrs and saints. When November 1 became All Saint's Day, October 31st became All Hallow's Eve. A hallow is a saint, or holy person. E'en was the short version of "evening" and thus evolved "Hallow-een"! Did you know that?! I didn't!

The Irish Catholic immigrants brought All Hallow's Eve with them to the U.S. and "Hallowe'en" soon became a tradition. Meanwhile the Catholics and other Christians revered the date of November 2nd as All Soul's Day, a day when the dead are honored. Far away, south of the equator 3000 years before, the Aztec people were honoring their tradition of Dia de los Muertos: The Day of the Dead. It is sometimes known as Dia de los Santos (Santos = Saints) in Central and South America. This day which used to be a month-long observance, continues to be passionately celebrated. The beauty of it was --and still is-- that The Day of the Dead reveres those who have passed from this world into the next. It does not mourn their death, it celebrates their life! It does not fear. It is driven by love. It is a happy time, a colorful celebration of food and flowers, masks and processions, music, altars and candles. Other cultures too, from one side of the world to the other, established similar traditions and over time they blended together to become the holidays of today.  

In the fast pace of modern life, details can be lost and misconstrued. The beauty of these holi-("holy")-days can be smothered in retail consumerism and hype. Many people get caught up in the candy, the costumes, the haunted houses, eerie ghosts and scary ghouls. They completely forget about Heaven and the Harvest. They forget about the Souls who once touched their lives and the natural beauty of an edible organic pumpkin before it is carved into a jack o'lantern.

Mostly they forget the thinning of the veil.* They grow up as children fearing ghosts and goblins --- and they learn to fear death too. The souls of those who love them become the creepy phantoms. They are not often taught that life goes on and the souls of their loved ones live forever in a sacred place where they wait for the rest of us to Come Home. These children become adults who have lost faith in what they cannot see. In fact they become quite fearful of what they cannot see. They forget that they are never ever separated --- no not even by death -- from the ones they love. 

Sometimes you need to create new traditions for yourself when you are faced with loss and grief --- or if you are struggling with family issues and disappointments. Holidays can be difficult at best when your life feels empty or incomplete. One of the things you can do for yourself this holiday "season" is to celebrate Halloween as your very own Day of the Dead. Do not mourn the loss. Celebrate the life.  Build an altar, light a candle. Say your prayers. Invite your loved one to visit you and talk with them about your hopes, dreams and memories. Soak in the happy times of being blessed by someone in your life who loved you and who loves you still. Someone who taught you the meaning of love, not fear. 

Celebrate that love and know that love never dies. 

"Become as little children..."    

Matt. 18:3

* If you've read Book 1, you know how I love studying language. As I wrote the word VEIL I saw the word "EVIL," scrambled. I saw the world "VILE," scrambled. Then I saw the word "LIVE" and that's the one I'm going with!

Fear is an Illusion that Cannot Exist When you Live in the Moment

Excerpt from "Jack McAfghan: Reflections on Life with my Master" Chapter 31. 

She had a hard time accepting that we were very different from each other emotionally. While a dog has feelings to an extent, most of us don’t really worry about things like people do. We don’t fear anything emotional. We don’t fear the future. We live in the moment where there is no fear. We have nothing in the future to prepare for. We only experience fear when something physically threatens us or startles us. Once in a great while we can experience a form of fear when we pick up on the emotions of our loved ones and on some level we react to the fear that they feel.

It might seem like we have deep feelings because we look guilty or ashamed when we are caught getting into trouble. We don’t really feel guilty because deep down inside we know we are innocent. We live from love and we do the best that we can. When we seem guilty, we have just learned to give you the reaction we know you want from us. You want us to feel guilty? Okay, we can show you how guilty we are. As soon as we do, you stop yelling at us because you then believe that we understand our error (we usually don’t). You might then feel sorry for us because you “made” us feel guilty and then you cover us with your beautiful forgiveness. The game is totally worth it for us to get your love and your forgiveness.

Love, 

Jack 🐾