death

Seeking the Spirit

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You might try to find me in that place I called home for so long. You could sit on my stump and try to locate my spirit.

Just as you might seek a deceased loved one again in their favorite chair, just around a corner, or puttering in the garden, you will no longer see or touch my physical presence.

We spirits of the deceased are no longer limited by life in physical form, by illness, emotional pain, sorrow, grief, fear, natural disasters, roots that hold us to one place, to weather that breaks branches and uproots, the freezing cold, or wilting heat.

Grandmother Cottonwood last year

Time space and distance no longer limit beings that have passed into spirit form.

Those who cross to the light slowly acclimate to the freedom and flow, the lightness of being, the life of the spirit. This is our new dimension of existence.

We can communicate with you. We can give and receive messages in various forms. We are with you. We love and care for you. Please ask for a sign, a message, a feeling, a word, a dream or image from us so you will know our presence.

Flying red wing black bird

Once again I understand that all living beings originate in spirit. We choose to manifest in our various forms in physical existence. We live out our precious earthbound lives, be they long or short. We die, leave our bodies behind and rise up once again as spirit, indestructible, resilient, immune to all ills.

We spirits exist with expanded awareness, expanded compassion, expanded joy, expanded love.

Even though you do not see us, we are everywhere. Call on us.

In memory of a brother

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Betty’s note: Recently, my youngest brother, Steve died unexpectedly. I hope Grandmother Cottonwood’s words will resonate with those of you who’ve lost a loved one.

Now that a loved one has left his body behind and his spirit has crossed to the light, we must grieve this unimaginable change, this shattering of expectations, hopes and dreams, this kind and loving presence in our lives, now gone, this ground of the known universe, this brother that has been with us since earliest days.

Steve’s kindergarten picture – 1967

In the blink of an eye, the measure of a breath, the beat of a heart, our lives have changed and we are forced to let go, to allow his spirit to continue on in a new form, in a new dimension, one that is not so easy to wrap our minds and hearts around.

His physical form has left the building, but his spirit, the expansive peaceful part of him that is love, that is eternal and indestructible, lives on.

Letting go

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The season of letting go has come around on the cosmic wheel once again. I will soon release this year’s crop of golden leaves that soaked up the sun and fed me all summer. It is the time of the waning year, the waning moon. Time to let go.

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Grandmother Cottonwood, golden leaf

I must release my beautiful crown of leaves that shimmered in the breeze through sunlight and shadow, moonlight and midsummer heat. They will not needed during the cold dark months.

Releasing, surrendering, letting go – good practice for the final act of letting go that all living creatures must experience – a rehearsal for death, the great transition.

I bow to the cycles of life and death, to the inevitable. I make ready for winter, withdraw my attention from outward things, pull my awareness inward, down to my roots as my sap cools and subsides.

I will soon be ready for my winter’s rest, my dreaming time. There will be nothing to grasp hold of, no responsibilities, nothing to do or be or have, no agenda, no leaves to maintain. All the trappings of summer – released.

I may seem inert, even dead to those who pass by, yet deep inside, in my roots, below the surface of the soil, my inner hearth fire embers glow, ready to spring into life once again after the long winter nights give way to spring.