A Lifelong Course

Life is all about the experience of love

...Or the lack thereof...

And the expression

Of feeling.

Life keeps dishing out opportunities

To feel

Good and bad.

To FEEL. 

When that happens

We either come through

Our Rite of Passage,

Or we smother the opportunity,

Burying it with our chosen painkillers;

Anxiety, addiction, depression....

Push the feelings away

And maybe one day

You won't feel anything.

You can become an inanimate object.

And life will still keep dishing it out

In the hopes that one day

You will learn

What it hopes to teach you.

Love is always the lesson.  

Spring Prayers for Those Who Grieve

Everything is going to be alright. Love never dies and the end of this life is not the end of life at all.  Something that appears to be the ending is always just the beginning of something else.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Have you read any of my other books?  Did you enjoy them? If so, please consider rating them on Amazon to let others know they are worth the read. Reviews mean everything to me. I am not allowed to give anything in exchange for a great review, but if I could I would give you the world. Prayers going out to all who struggle. It sounds cliche but this too shall pass. After all, nothing lasts forever but Love. 

How many take love for granted? 

It starts out sweet and then disappears. 

Imagine the fun they had putting this sculpture of LOVE into place. A few days later, people still notice and appreciate it. 

A few weeks later people start using it as a landmark. 

"Turn right at L-O-V-E, go down three blocks and turn left on 

I-Could-Care-Less Street!" 

A few months later they pass in its shadow, hardly noticing. 

Such is the way with love that is not nourished or nurtured. 

But look! Years later it still stands tall and strong! 

Of course it does. It is more stable and more powerful 

than all the inattention in the world. 

A Ripple to Eternity

A ripple on a silent pond can reach eternity.  

The water becomes calm again but 

forever holds the memory.  

Butterfly wings across time, across space, 

the gentle vibration cannot be erased.  

The power of one, as small as those wings... 

Small as the red-throated hummer spinning 

eighty beats per second! 

Too small you say?  

Wait 'til the mosquito comes to your bed tonight 

and never again say you are too small!  

Yes, one can make a difference but wait!  

Put two sticks together and then try to break them!  

The effect of the butterfly wings ... 

only possible because it has two.  

And the power of many small loving hearts 

can swell like a tsunami wave, 

all because of 

one ripple 

on a silent pond.

Why Do Happy Memories Make Me Cry?

...All of a sudden I remember you and me

Watching the clowns on the Playa with the little kids

Wearing big monster mask heads

Answering silly questions

That made us laugh like kids ourselves.

Your arms were around me

As we watched and laughed.

It seemed a magical time, a magical place.

From this I know.

No matter what should happen

Though we may drift apart,

There are many things that will make us look back

And smile.

If this is true,

How come I'm crying as I write this?

"A butterfly lights beside us, like a sunbeam and for a brief moment its glory and beauty belong to our world... but then it flies on again and although we wish it could have stayed, we are so thankful to have seen it at all." Author Unknown

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?

My Secret Love

Lo, praise for the epic scenes ne'er told

So many from the days of old.

When time was young and youth was new

And love was pure and true.

Many sagas I could write

Of those who tried to win my heart

Or me theirs.

Through hoops and fields of memory run

The words that speak Of Life and Love

Kept inside, a silent prayer,

That one will come and remain there,

Through tests of time and storm and strife

The reason others went astray...

The one who is my Love for life.

Dear Jack,
My little girl died unexpectedly. We still don't know what happened. We came home to find her lifeless body, still warm. We had a funeral for her and decided to cremate her.  It's been very hard and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her and feel that heaviness in my heart... It's been three months and it just doesn't get easier. I still miss her terribly. I look at her photos and think why? My baby. 
Samantha


Dear Samantha, 
It's always hard not to know what happened. It makes you feel really bad when they have passed alone, even though there was no way you could have known. Truly, however, we are never alone. We are surrounded by love as we prepare for the journey. Please don't keep focusing on her final hours. She wants you to remember the good times, there were so many! When you dwell on her death it keeps you stuck and you cannot heal. If you dwell on something, dwell on the life! Dwell on the love. LOVE is what heals you. She is full of love for you still and she is doing very well over the Rainbow Bridge. Prayers for your healing. 

Don't forget: Try to focus on the Love not the loss. If you focus on the love and read our books and join our group it will get easier, I promise. Love. It's where the power is for both of you. It's what keeps you connected to each other from lifetime to lifetime.  

Love, 
Jack 

Fast Forward

You don't need anything else

When you have everything you need.

And everything I need

I find in you.

Alas, you pack your bags

And travel far from me

Taking all the love I have to give

With you when you go.

Forgotten, years later,

I am doomed to become

A fat, drunk, depressed old woman

Who maxes out her credit cards

And cares for naught

But her memories of you.

The Key to a Love that Lasts Forever

Letting Go doesn't mean you don't love them anymore. Letting Go doesn't mean you won't miss them anymore. You'll always remember. You can never cut the ties that bind two souls together who truly love each other. What you DO need to cut is the Leash of Grief and Guilt that binds them to you and prevents them from doing what is best for them.

As They say, set something free and if it was yours to begin with, it will come back. It's natural law, in Heaven and on Earth and in all the spaces in between life and death and life. Your loved ones cannot come back from a place they have not yet arrived. 

If you are looking for Signs and not finding them, take a look at what you are doing. If your best friend is still on the leash of your grief, your best friend is not yet free to be everything he or she can be. 

Letting Go is the most important thing you can do for both of you. It is the ultimate act of faith... and you will be rewarded for it. 

Breathe. Then Let Go. It's time.

You say you love. Do you love them enough to let them go? 

Do you trust them enough to have the faith that they will never leave?  

"'Do not cling to me,' said Jesus, 'for I have not yet ascended to the Father.'"

John 20:17

(Jesus to Mary Magdalene) 

A Day in the Life of a Dream

My Poem. 

In Honor of National Poetry Month on National Pet Day.  

Look around at what you've got. 

What you value matters not.

The eyes of love see everything.

Let the ones who love you bring

The meaning of this life to you:

To learn to love before you're through. 

Beyond this place is a world that's true

Not this dream you thought was you. 

Things are not what they may seem.

It's just a day within a dream. 

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. 

Meditation on a Dozen Roses ❤️

Each perfect flower picked by you

Now full in bloom, at beauty's peak

Each rose opens ripe and red and true

As if to say "Here I am!

I entrust myself to you."

Like love that's unconditional

The blooms unfold with innocence.

They share with us their gentle gifts

They know not how to have defense.

Like you and me, they're in their prime!

How to keep alive and well

Though time's passage threatens

To bring with it the thorns

Of change, of loss and unplanned pain....

My time with you is cherished.

Will every shared and lovely moment

That I long to keep in bloom

Soon fade in it's own time?

The rose, divided from its roots

Has no choice but to fade and dry

But love that grows from roots of truth

Also has no choice; it cannot die.


Excerpt from "One Heart's Journey"

Did He Know I Loved Him?

Dear Jack, 

It's 4am and I cant sleep. I really want to know what my boy went through at the end, not that it will help or maybe it would. I just want to hear that he didn't suffer too much. 

I Love You and I Know You Love Me Too

Dear One,

The fact that you were there with him offsets any suffering your boy may have had. Being surrounded by love always alleviates pain and suffering. When we love, our endorphins kick in. Endorphins are the natural antidepressants that are created in the natural pharmacy in our bodies. When we are loved, we are more immune to feeling the effects of discomfort. Some of us choose to die alone. Some of choose to be at the side of the one who loved us. Just like people, animals are all different and they have the ability to make some choices such as this. 

His suffering was short-lived compared to the life he lived and loved with you....and all of that life is but a blink of an eye when compared to the eternal life he is living now. It was just a tiny moment in time. You'll see when you are together again with him. You'll see how it all works and you will look back and say how foolish you were to worry so. But worry, it's the human condition. It cannot be helped. Worry is your teacher. 

Did he know you loved him?  The answer to this is the non-prescription drug that brings peace to everyone. Ahhhh, to know they were loved! We all need to know we are loved and we need to believe that those we love the most know that they are loved in return. Love is the drug. Love is the key. Love is the answer. Love is the question. Love is the secret. Love is everything. While you continue to suffer, he has moved beyond suffering. He is not suffering now. When we enter Rainbow Bridge ---and ultimately Heaven--- any of the "bad" memories leave us. The physical scars and feelings heal instantaneously and if he hurts, it's only because you are still unhappy. 

The best thing you can do, now that you know he knows you love him, is to love yourself. Love yourself so much that there is no room for guilt and second-guessing.  

LOVE,

Jack

The Jack McAfghan Trilogy is available on Amazon Worldwide in Print and on Kindle. Click here for more information! Our story is your story too. 💖

A Poem on Hindsight

I Seem to Have Loved You in Numberless Forms....

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,

It's ancient tale of being apart or together.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers,

Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,

the distressful tears of farewell,

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

The love of all man's days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -

And the songs of every poet past and forever.” 

~RABINDRANATH TAGORE~

~Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems

There's a Reason for the Longing in Your Heart ...

A famous poet (I don't remember which one) once said something like "Love only seems to disappear so that you will seek it again."  It's kind of what I'm saying.

Life is too short  -- and too long -- to live without love. I love you and it would be sad for me to think of you going through life in sadness and longing when the whole point of life is LOVE.  A soul was meant to love and love is all there is. Don't spend the rest of your life looking backward when love is waiting ahead of you. Allow yourself to heal and you will once again experience a love like you've never had before.

Life is the school. Love is the lesson. Love is the Teacher too.

Just Say Yes

I hope we can create some more memories soon.

Love, 
Sarah

from the upcoming book "It's All About You"  

An Open Book, But I Don't Tell All.....

Lo, praise for the epic scenes ne'er told

So many from the days of old.

When time was young and youth was new

And love was pure and true.

Many sagas I could write

Of those who tried to win my heart

Or me theirs.

Through hoops and fields of memory run

The words that speak Of Life and Love

Kept inside, a silent prayer,

That one will come and remain there,

Through tests of time and storm and strife

The reason others went astray...

The one who is my Love for life.

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!