Knowing When and How to Let Go

Change comes from putting aside old or outdated perceptions, memories, or beliefs and learning a new way to live with life experiences. It often takes giving something up. This is a universal principle and the reason for ceremonies and rituals. They help us to bridge the gap between the physical world which demands our attention and the spiritual one that quietly influences the material one.

My neighbor’s 80 year old father died on Friday evening. They called a family member with a car and carried the father’s body to the funeral home. They bought a coffin. Afterwards the members of the family washed and dressed the body and placed it in the coffin to be returned home. In this beach community of Honduras, it is the custom for the casket to sit open for viewing in the living room of the family home. This allows neighbors and friends to visit and say their final farewells.

The family prepared food, along with that donated by neighbors, for the guests. Everyone pulled together to help the family process through this transition. In the meanwhile, adult male members of the family went out to the cemetery to dig the grave and build a concrete crypt. All this effort of preparation is actually quite healing and offers neighbors and friends an opportunity to assist the deceased person one last time. When it is time to go to the cemetery the community walks behind a van or pickup that carries the coffin to its final home. 

The family rode with the body of their father. The coffin was placed on a prepared stand at the entrance of the cemetery for words and song. This were the family says its farewell. As they all gathered around the coffin with tear-filled eyes and bowed heads, the oldest daughter pushed forward with cries of anguish, throwing herself across the coffin. From deep within her chest came sobbing words of goodbye for her papa. I had heard of dramatic displays at funerals but this was the first time I had witnessed one. Her wailing, tears, and hanging to the coffin continued until the box was gently lowered into the ground. 

Her 3 children, faces wet and tear stained, were standing next to her. They all watched the closing of the crypt just before sunset. The woman wiped her eyes and the faces of her children. She told them that it was time to return to the house, take a shower and change their clothes. They needed to take care of grandmother. That was it. The woman knew she had done the best she knew how to do. She turned her back on the cemetery and walked with her children back to their home. It was time to look to the future.

hamster photo courtesy of New Yorker digital

cemetery photo from my personal collection

  

Intuitive Living

A recent LinkedIn thread began with the question: “Has Your Intuition Protected or Saved Your Life?” I always appreciate probing questions and this one definitely set my mind to musing as I began the search of memory files for specific experiences and circumstances that would fit the question. In the struggle to remember particulars, my mind presented its own question: When am I not being guided by intuition?

I’ve been a practicing metaphysician for more than twenty years. Even before that I was delving into the mysteries, asking unusual questions and sitting for quiet periods allowing my mind to travel etheric highways of information. All of these habits brought long stares and the brand ‘eccentric’ from family members. However, those habits have also guided me to a way of living that brings me happiness. Whenever I look back at the decisions made, I can see where choosing another route might not have brought as satisfying a result. 

My years of counselingclients along with studies beside traditional elders have widened my  understanding in patterns relating to health, relationships and lifestyles of people that live guided by intuition and those who do not. First world cultures value reliance on academic or scientific information over the internal promptings that are the preference of the less economically developed societies.

My belief is that there are four areas where human beings draw decision making information. I list them from the most base to highest guidance:  

1.      Instincts (behavior performed without prior experience or learning)

2.       Cultural training or condition (belief systems, perceived safety and learned values)

3.       Gut reaction (an etheric DNA, sins of the fathers, attitudes or behavior before applied reason.

4.       Intuitive (knowledge beyond understanding of how or where; never harms another life form) 

Intuition is an inner voice available to all. It is a wordless language of the heart connection. Yet in cultures that rely on mental programming over feelings, 10% of the decisions are made instinctively, 50% from cultural training, 15% from gut reactions, and only 5% from intuitive guidance. That leaves 20% of the decisions being made from some chaotic distraction which often include influences from advertising. 

In traditional or aboriginal peoples, around 5% of the actions are instinctive, 15% from cultural training, 35% from gut Impressions, and 45% from intuition and a deep connection with the Earth. The reduced influence from cultural training is because the teaching in these cultures is to connect with nature and Spirit to find answers. 

Choosing to follow a more intuitive lifestyle helped me find my husband, guided us from Florida to Hawaii where I was accepted by Hawaiian teachers and family. It was through meditation and intuition that I received an invitation (and the funds) to travel on pilgrimage with Mayan elders through Guatemala. The same process of meditation and intuition led me to my beautiful home on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. I feel my life has been greatly blessed, and quite possibly saved from many painful lessons or uncomfortable situations in my choosing intuitive living. How have you followed your intuition?

Charity and Compassion

It was during the years I lived in Florida that I first began seeing men standing at intersections holding signs that read: Will Work For Food. At first, it was shocking in its newness; afterwards it became a personal conflict. I would often overhear groups of people talking about what a racket it was. They would say that limousines delivered the men to various corners. However, I had not seen this; could it be true or a lie? Then one day I was driving home from the grocery store. A man with a sign approached my car while I was stopped at the light. He was holding his sign to my window and looking in my eyes. I had to make a decision, it was no longer a matter for debate. It was there in that moment the world became silent. All the voices and arguments were gone. I had clarity. It was not my responsibility to decide if this man deserved my help or not. He was asking for food; I gave him a loaf of bread.  

What a relief and blessing it was once the decision was made. It is not my responsibility to judge whether someone else deserves to be helped.  When someone asks, give what they ask for. I did not give money, he asked for food. Where I live in Honduras, there is very little financial aid for those with physical limitations or the very ill. Often I’ll see a mother with a invalid child holding her hand out while standing outside a grocery store, a blind man with a brother or neighbor helping him request donations at a traffic light. There is generally some handicapped person in  a wheel chair holding out a jar at an intersection. People from other cultures can find these sights disturbing but within the culture here, there is a quiet understanding.

Those who have help those who cannot help themselves. I see it in so many levels here. If your life is blessed with a car then you financially aid those that are walking blind or in wheelchairs when they stand asking for help. If you live in a nicer house with a number of electric appliances, you pay the highest rate for electricity so that the poor who use little receive their electric free. The emotional benefit is a wonderful feel-good. There is also the added benefit of being free of guilt or shame in having while living amongst those who don’t. The benefit that comes on the energy or spiritual level is the highest reward. It is what is often referred to as The Golden Rule.