December 2005 Archives

Yes, I'm in accord with the reader who writes this in response to my advice, "Surround your children with beautiful things."

Children "should get nice things, but the beautiful things around them should be their family, friends, and activities involving those people," she says. "Right now insure they are surrounded with beautiful memories and a beautiful soul, a heart full of love, but most important of all is that they have self-worth and a self-esteem to be reckoned with. Because if those are the beautiful things you surround them with, you will never need to be afraid to dust their room!"

I don't mean to sound gloomy, but these days after Christmas often make me think of death. They always have.

But I've been more aware of life's fleeting, precious character in recent years. My mother died three years ago on January 3rd, and she labored under hospice care during this normally festive week.

So now, for me, the twelve days of Christmas have an exquisitely melancholy luster. Initially, this was upsetting, but now I see the silver lining. In the sadness, there is something shining.

My mother had experienced a really bad stroke. She was 77. There was no coming back. And she'd already almost died once in the hosptial. I am grateful that, thanks to hospice care, Mom got to die quietly in her own bed.

But here's what was wonderful about the night of her passing: When the hospice people dressed her body for the coroner, they placed an afghan blanket on her. It was just an old throw Mom kept around, but woven into this blanket were the words of the 23rd Psalm.

When the coroner came in at around eight that evening, he took Mom's body and left the blanket folded at the bottom of the bed. Four hours later, I went to sleep in a twin bed in the same room where my mother had died. I lay down and had a good cry.

But when I casually placed that 23rd Psalm blanket over me, to my surprise the blanket began to pop and radiate a very specific energy. Since I had not been looking for a "big experience," I actually pulled the blanket down and experimented with feeling where the sparkling, popping energy was. It was definitely IN the blanket--and it seemed to snap in little sparkles on the surface of my skin.

I have some training in Reiki--a method of divine healing through the hands. And since that training, I have been more aware of the existence of this sort of energy. But this popping sensation, I think, would have been noticed by anyone. It was very obvious. What was it? Pure life force, I guess. I don't think it was motherly love. It didn't seem like something being given specifically to me. It had an odd neutrality to it. It wasn't sentimental. But it was real. That's what I'm telling you.

The Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway says that "when the doors of heaven open and your loved one passes through, the energies of heaven come and kiss those left behind when they are quiet enough to be open to that kind of experience."

Post your own thoughts on this subject. I'd love to hear from you. I'll have more ideas on how the old yields to the new as we direct our attention to 2006.

One Source Publications has recently released a book-CD combination called "Do-It-Yourself Space Clearing Kit: Working With Nature to Enhance the Energies of Your Home," and the author Christan Hummel has some nice ideas for energetically clearing your residence for the new year.

She writes:

The start of a new year presents an opportunity to turn our attention to the energetic remnants lingering from the past. While many ceremonies are good for this (a ceremony of writing down on paper the things you are releasing and putting them in the fire, for instance), what we often fail to consider is that each home or property has an energetic being that is the record-keeper of the land. And THEY need to be cleared of their past vibrational imprints as well!

While the devic realms of nature are neutral, accepting imprints and "programs" just like your computer, they also continue to store those programs until cleared or freed from that commitment. It is like clearing the hard drive of your computer. If someone owned the computer before you, this is one of the first things you would do...

Here's how she suggests you release the "deva" of your home from negativity, sadness or other past programs (yours or someone else's).

1. Go into an inner space in which you feel your connection with the Divine within.

2. Turn your attention to the Angel of the Property (the deva, or record-keeper for the land).

3. It doesn’t matter if you see the deva, or feel it, this process will work regardless. Now state to the deva: “I hereby release you from any previous vows, commitments, thought-forms or programs from the past which no longer serve the loving Will of the Mother or Divine Father at this time. We ask for the assistance of the Angelic realms to clear the land of any past programs.”

4. If you like, you can also...request the assistance of the violet flame to help clear these old programs. Do this by imagining that a flame of violet light is sweeping throughout the entire property and cleansing and clearing it from programs that are no longer useful.

5. Offer a prayer of thanks for it having been done.

6. Now close your session...by ringing a bell, burning some sage, or incense, or doing a bow, whatever has meaning for you. It helps imprint the intent on the subconscious mind if we do something in the physical.

You could adapt this ritual to fit your own faith.

Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone,
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,

And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

--"The Death of the Old Year" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."

--Garrison Keillor

If you're feeling vulnerable or blue for any reason, do not miss Elizabeth Lesser's thoughtful article about coping with the intensity, competitiveness, and grief of the year-end season. Lesser is author of "Broken Open" and one of the founders of...

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Here's a guided meditation by Paramahansa Yogananda. Perhaps, if you are celebrating Christmas this year in a non-traditional way, you will find this inspiring. Meditation for Christmas EveLift your eyes and concentrate within. Behold the astral star of divine wisdom...

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We Chatterings will be eating pheasant for Christmas dinner. The idea occurred to me as I stood in our local butcher's shop two weeks ago and noticed his "Pheasant and Squab by Special Order" sign. So I bit. But first...

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Beliefnet.com posted astrologer Shelley Ackerman's annual what's-in-store-for-next-year article yesterday. Since the start of George W. Bush's administration, astrologers have been nattering about what's to become of our 43rd president. Many have consistently felt that he would not finish this second...

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Speaking of astrology, it seems apt to mention that many astrologers, astronomers, and Bible scholars do not believe that Jesus was born on December 25th. They think he was born in the spring. Astronomer Michael R. Molnar has written a...

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I have what may not be an uncommon view of astrology generally--I am skeptical. And yet, whether or not astrology is accurate doesn't trouble me, doesn't keep me from regarding it with respect and great interest. I see it as...

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I prop my drooping rose(its toppled headhung on the limp stalkof its spent neck)first, on a wishful finger:tilting the vase this wayand that, for a pointof balance that won't endure;then, on a twist-tie's wrappedwire, fished from a drawerto fashion a...

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Sadly, Mr. Chattering bundled up and left the house this morning in a Beliefnet.com-sponsored carpool. The New York City transit strike is still in full flower, and though I tried to convince him he could get more work done at...

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Thanks to the "tea totalers" who wrote me with healty tea suggestions. One reader recommends a high-antioxidant tea I've never tried called Rooibos (Red Bush) from South Africa, available from the Numi company at Whole Foods. I will look for...

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Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have rejoiced over the small pleasures that today's New York City transit strike has granted me. Mr. Chattering stayed at home to work at his home computer and I am warmed by...

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Congratulations Kurt Eichenwald, writer of yesterday's front-page New York Times article about how a thirteen-year-old California youth became ensnared in child pornography and then prostitution through his own family's sad disconnectedness and a web cam. This article will no doubt...

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I had cut back on my black tea consumption because--like many women post-childbirth, pre-menopause--I run slightly anemic, and both tea and coffee are known to inhibit the body's absorption of iron. But now, a Swedish team has suggested that drinking...

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Here is a provocative, many might say highly inflammatory passage from the opening chapter of the book "The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice"by Carolyn McVickar Edwards, now in its 5th Anniversary...

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Last night the Chatterings held a family meeting at the dining room table. We took turns holding a "talking stick," which initially was a lit candlestick ringed with tiny Christmas ornaments. Later, when the candlestick proved too distracting and delicate,...

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Can NPR's Terry Gross get any better at extracting delicate spiritual insights from the folks she so skillfully has on her program? I love her. I listen to her show "Fresh Air" in the car when I'm on my way...

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Wow! I have met my first shaman, and what a wonderfully nurturing woman she is. Her name is Donna Henes, but she is known to many as Mama Donna. She has written several books, the most recent of which is...

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Silly me, I always thought singer Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam ) had written the melody behind "Morning Has Broken," a hit in 1970. The song is, in fact, an old Gaelic Christmas hymn called "Christ in the Manger." You'll...

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This morning, I sat down and watched this enlightening four-way conversation on contemplative practice and meditation that was taped last month at Washington's National Cathedral. In it, NPR's religion producer Lynn Neary leads psychologist and "Emotional Intelligence" author Daniel Goleman,...

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So you didn't put your garden to bed. So what? The trees and shrubbs have already forgiven you. Plus, Home and Garden's website says that in most parts of the country, it's not too late to mulch. In fact, if...

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On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI lambasted "today's consumer society," which is "unfortunately subjected to a sort of commercial 'pollution' that is in danger of altering" the true spirit of Christmas. He suggests that Christian families, in lieu of spending their...

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There truly is something for everyone on the World Wide Web. Here's the Christmas carol page of a website devoted to sheet music and guidance for the diatonic harmonica player. I never got past "Oh Susannah!" myself....

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Last night, as I was readying myself for bed (I was, in fact, seated on the side of the bathtub, filling a hot water bottle), I thought to my chattering self: "Something's different. What is it?" It seemed we were...

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It debases the divine to place it in abstract heights, in some cloud-cukoo-land. We will never live in spiritual realities if we conceive the spiritual only in the abstract, if we cannot bring it into connection with the whole course...

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To study enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be one with all things. To be one with all things is timeless enlightenment. And this timeless...

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So much chatter, so little time to write at the Chattering household today! Our younger boy is still in his blue-striped pajamas, on day two of a mysterious fever, probably viral, says the doctor. After some early television viewing, I...

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God bless us, every one! And God bless the thoughtful writer behind "Ow, My Blog," who writes a Buddhist analysis of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Check it out. You'll find new dimensions of the famous fable. An excerpt:"While Dickens'...

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Thanks to the reader who tells me that Christmas albums by "Mannheim Steamroller" are her absolute favorites, "followed closely by the Trans- Siberian Orchestra. Both put out such a passionate flavor of Christmas tunes. They're quite wonderful."I've listened to patches...

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It has been my intention, since launching this blog, to get up at six-thirty, as I did this summer, light a candle, and meditate. Nothing fancy. Just a simple sit to focus on my breath. I am sorry to report...

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This is the first year in three that I have not written an article for Beliefnet.com on "spiritually uplifting" children's gifts for the holidays. Gifts for children tend to be so particular to the individual, and in truth, people were...

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You know, don't you, that the most important thing you can do if you are getting very little exercise is to stretch out on the floor, lying on your back and hugging your knees to your chest? Then you just...

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I came across a good quote from John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and second president of the U.S. What he says here makes me think he'd feel completely comfortable with Beliefnet.com:"I am, therefore, of the opinion that...

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There was a wonderful element to my account-settling trip to see my insurance agent in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn--just as I suspected there might be. As I left his office, which was garishly decorated for the holidays, I found a delicatessen...

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Funny conversation number one:My son, listening to the car radio and speaking from the back seat: "Mommy, who is this singing?" "Ah, this singer's name is Celine Dion.""Why is she screaming?""Ummm...." (laughing) "I guess you could say it's her style."Funny...

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Dearest Chatterers, I am blogging in a white heat today, because our car insurance policy was cancelled last week and I need to pay a real-time visit to our insurance agent. Apparently, we missed a small payment by just a...

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I hope you never think I sound like a commercial for anyone or anything, but I am, by nature, an avid helper who longs to direct people to things I like. Penzeys Spices has been such a godsend when it...

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If you like feminine, folksy music in the Joni Mitchell-Pat Humphries-Holly Near vein, you are in for a treat. But also heartbreak. Because Rachel Bissex, a singer I only learned of last summer, died last year at 48 from cancer....

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Here is picture of the staircase that leads from our front downstairs hallway to the second level of the house. I painted the rises of the stairs in alternating patterns with sample-sized jars of Benjamin Moore paint last August...

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I like to celebrate Christmas the way my family always honored it--with parties, carols, pageants, presents, prayers and church. But--like a true Chatterer--I'm also always looking for fresh inspiration. I especially like learning about how December's holidays--from various faiths--were celebrated...

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I am grateful for all the relationships I have had with alcoholics. They’ve often been painful but… always, the connection has left me with an appreciation for the complexities of human character, and an awareness of the fear some sensitive...

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I love Sarvananda Bluestone. A writer, psychic, and Tarot expert (he's written for Beliefnet about being a Borscht Belt psychic in resort hotels), he's also the author of "The World Dream Book: Use the Wisdom of World Cultures to Uncover...

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What do you buy the loved one you'd like to nudge into a life of spiritual inquiry without bonking them hard on the head with a 50-millimeter crystal or styrofoam yoga block? This is something I have asked myself more...

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