A new binder

I had a dream. In the dream, a student came to me very agitated. He said he couldn't take anymore notes because the notebook he used for science was full. I told him simply to just get a new notebook from the supply cabinet. And then I woke me with a start, The dream was not scary, so I thought there must be something here.


So I thought about it. What about the full binder connected to my life?

My life with Jim was full... Full of love, laughter, passion, security and friendship. We had almost 20 years of love, laughter, tears, loss, challenges and joys. We traveled together and made a very comfortable home. We raised a kind, compassionate, hard working son. We had a good life And that notebook got full. It doesn't mean my life is over. It just means I need to get another notebook, and start filling it with adventures. 

I am still here

I had a dream one night. I was about to cross a rope bridge over a deep chasm like you see in the movies. Jim was on the other side, waiting for me. I started across to join him but lost my footing and fell. As I fell in slow motion, I rolled onto my back so I could look back up at the bridge, at my connection to Jim. As long as I could see it, I knew I could get back to it. It might take some climbing, but it was still there.

As I fell further, the bridge and Jim appeared smaller and smaller. I kept calling out, "I know you're still there!" This reassurance, that as long as I knew the bridge was there, I could get back. Back to the bridge. Back to Jim. Finally, I fell so far that the bridge couldn't be seen any longer. Yet I still called out, "I know you're still there!" Just because I couldn't see the bridge, or Jim, didn't mean they were gone. My connection remained.

As I woke, I was reassured. My perspective had just changed. No different from turning a corner and looking back over your shoulder, you can't see around the corner, but you are sure, you know whatever was there is still there. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains "Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it doesn’t exist."

In his book, no death, no fear, Thich Nhat Hanh explains how, after the death of his mother, he realized she lived on in him.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tenderly, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine along but a living continuation of my mother and father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil....

From that moment on the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.When you lost a loved one, you suffer. but if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death.... 

It 's like when you look at a sheet of paper and look deeply, you can see that the paper is made of trees and sunshine and earth and clouds, and even before the manifestation of the sheet of paper in this present form, you can only see the sheet of paper in the non-paper elements that existed before....

Suppose you are impressed with a particular cloud in the sky. When it is time for that cloud to become the rain you won't see that cloud anymore and you will cry. But if you know that the cloud has been transformed into the rain and the rain is calling you, "Darling, I am here, I'm here," if you have that kind of capacity of recognizing the continuation of that manifestation, you don't have to live in despair and grief. That is why for those who have lost someone who is close to him or to her I advise that they look deeply within and see that the one who was close is still there, somehow, and with the practice of deep looking they can recognize his presence very close to her.
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2002/09/Long-Live-Impermanence.aspx?p=3#cF9fSFKCUszLpWTA.99

I am grateful for the dream, and the grace and calm it brings me. 

Dream Sequence

For the last few nights I've been trying to dream about Jim. A few times in my life I've been able to kind of direct my dreams but it hasn't been successful in bringing Jim to my dreams. I'm just missing him and want to see him so I was hoping for a good dream, but it just hasn't manifested. So this morning I decided rather than wait for a dream I was going to do a sort of guided visualization. Here is what I saw. 

It started with Dharma in her window yelping with delight. She has a different bark for strangers than she does with people she recognizes, and I knew she recognized who was at the door. I opened the door to see Jim standing there. I fell into his arms, knowing it wasn't real, but going with it, knowing how much I needed to feel his arms encircle me. 

I hugged him and held him and held him and held him. Finally, we came inside and we sat down on the couch, our arms around each other. I wanted to sit where I could see him and feel him I just didn't want that moment to go away. There was so much to say, to ask, but all I could do was tell him how much I loved him and how much I missed him. Jim said he was always there, he was always with me, but that he couldn't stay physically here. He wanted me to know that he was always looking out for me. In life and now he would do what he could to  keep me safe. He reassured me he would always be there watching out for me.

He helped me see that he was always with me, in my heart, in my spirit, in the very air around me. Somehow I knew it was time for him to go and I just squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to watch him go, to lose him all over again. All of a sudden light just shattered into 1 million pieces in front of my eyelids and I knew that he was gone, but that his light and the light of his love and the light of the spirit's love is around me always.