THE STONE MADONNA

As a scientist and a philosopher  I am a student of the quantum nature of the universe. 

This story is excerpted from the book  Halfway Across the River: Messages of Hope from the Other Side. 

It details a true life event that absolutely changed my relationship with reality.  I share this event not because I want to seem extraordinary - quite the contrary. I share this story because I want to show that miracles are our birthright. Because I feared scrutiny, I coveted this event away from others for many years so as not to “commercialize” it in any way. It was my dying friend Margaret Borwhat who shook me from my spiritual slumber and scolded me for my selfishness… how ironic reality can be! I thought that by keeping the event to myself I was staying humble. It was she who gently taught me that I was not being humble, but instead weak. It was Margaret who took me by the hand and led me to own my story. As always she was the master at performing small tasks with great love, and so she did with me.

So this story of the Stone Madonna, it reminds that we live in a quantum reality of pure potential… each of us surrounded by infinite possibility that we can learn to harness. The Stone Madonna and her appearance in my life is a beautiful and natural example of the interactive universe that surrounds each one of us. May your eyes be enlivened by this story and these images, so that you too may find the gifts that lay on the pathway before you.

The Stone Madonna

During the summer of 1998 my family and I took a vacation to Carmel, California. I had the opportunity to meet an artist named Andy Lakey. Andy is well known for a specific type of angel artwork that I had been collecting. He was familiar with my work with the dying and had agreed to meet me shortly before his public art show that night.

I waited quietly in the gallery anticipating Andy’s arrival. Before long the door opened and I found myself face to face with Andy. A combination of intensity and warmth, we spoke easily, as if we had been in comfortable conversation together many times before.  As our conversation ensued, Andy suddenly became pensive. He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked as much at me as through me as he spoke these words, “You came into this life to write. You came to teach and to tell the story that your soul knows.” He was very intent as he said this, to the point that I looked away and stammered a bit. 

He said it one more time, holding my gaze, and then quietly excused himself. Although these words may sound benign, at that moment they hit me like an avalanche. His words caused something deep within me to stir. The rest of the evening carried on without reference to what he said, but I felt strangely altered by our conversation. Rather than feeling excited, I began immediately to feel a sense of trepidation. There was an instant recognition within me of the great responsibility taken on when choosing to ‘tell one’s story.’ The silent doubts quickly swept in, and I felt I had taken a step forward into a world that seemed unfamiliar and completely beyond my control.

The next morning, we awoke to a beautiful coastal day. Never having been to Carmel before, I decided to take the kids to the stunning white sand beaches. My sleep the night before had been fitful and my mood was somber. My spirits lifted as the beach came into view. At first walking and then beginning to run, we tumbled head on toward the beach. The kids were laughing as they struggled to stay upright running down the steep decline which led to the water. 

As we began to walk along the beach, the relentless pounding of the surf and the cool salt water breeze made a natural backdrop for a deep sense of reverence. As the kids ran before me darting in and out of the small waves that lapped at the shoreline, I silently began to pray. I had been as equally touched as disturbed by the words Andy Lakey had spoken to me the evening before. If, indeed, I did have a sacred calling that involved writing books, I felt incredibly unsure of how to even begin the process. One look at the beaming faces of my two children in the shallow surf told me that my moment of quiet reflection was likely to be short lived. Wasting no time at all, I simply closed my eyes and sent out a simple and sincere invocation to the universe. My request was simple: If my writing was indeed a way to heal the lives of many, then I needed a sign. 

With that I left my worries in higher hands, ended my moment of reverence and went to join my children on their walk down the beach. The heaviness I had felt since meeting Andy was replaced by a deep sense that this situation now lay in higher hands. Although writing had always been my dream, it was a dream I had thus far been unable to manifest in my life. I felt liberated, liberated from Andy’s expectations and in a sense free from my own hopes and dreams about writing a book.

The kids began running slightly ahead of me. As I walked along in the surf, enjoying the interplay of receding sand and surf beneath my feet, a small stone that had been tumbling recklessly back toward the ocean, suddenly anchored itself at my feet. Although there was no sound, a tangible force held the stone still as the rushing water receded around it.

As my eyes began to assimilate this form it was as if the waves had stopped. I stared in stunned silence at what lay beckoning at my feet. I knelt down and with shaking hands picked up what I have now come to call the stone Madonna. The significance of this small stone which lay in the palm of my hand cannot readily be conveyed in words. It was an exact replica of the central figure on my meditation altar at home.

I turned the small icon over in my hands and was utterly speechless at the detail of this gift from the sea. My daughter came to see what it was that so gripped my attention. In wide-eyed wonder she squealed that this was “the mommy and baby lady” that I loved so much. Her deep blue eyes looked at me approvingly and she scampered off to find a treasure of her own.

I stood up, my eyes shifting from the clear blue sky to the outstretched horizon of the sea, to the small figure in my still shaking hands. A visual trinity was forming around me as I stood in the surf, white foam mandalas swirling around my ankles. As I turned to walk back to my children, nothing was as it had been. I began to walk a path that moment which to this day continues to unfold.

Upon returning home, I remained in a deep sense of reverence, literally seeing the world through eyes that seemed to have been enlivened by some inner force. I made my way through those first few days somewhat superficially, still feeling the quiet hum of divine contact within me. Five or six days after returning home, I went to our local grocery store to retrieve our vacation photographs. As I finished my grocery shopping, I absentmindedly reached into my purse to peruse our photographs. I was wholly unprepared for what was waiting for me.

The first dozen pictures were vintage family vacation shots. I smiled as I relived our outings in Carmel. In the middle of this envelope of vacation photos was a picture taken on the beach the day the stone Madonna appeared. My hands began to tremble. In front of me was a picture of myself and the kids, ocean waves in the background.

The sky was a beautiful azure blue, and above us are dozens of opalescent balls of light. They looked like small orbs descending upon us. The scene was breathtaking in its sheer beauty. It had been snapped just a few minutes after the stone had washed onto the shore before me and as I looked down at this picture, I was overcome with the grace I had been given. Leave it to me to have one of the most profound moments of my life while standing in the middle of a grocery store. The universe has nothing if not a sense of humor.

I began to look around the store now, feeling a sense of urgency, trying desperately to get my bearings. As I stood in the middle of that busy supermarket, unbeknownst to anyone else, my world was shifting around me. I had the unmistakable sensation that my feet now lay on a distinct path and that I was urgently being guided to follow.

It is said that when our calling arrives, the whole universe becomes very, very still, as if our guardian angels hold their breath, waiting to see if we can hear the still small voice that tells us who we are. On this day that inner voice was not so still and not so quiet. As I left the supermarket I walked out the door into a brand new world. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I agreed to answer the call.





THE WILDERNESS OF GRIEF©

Sometimes it’s hard not to wince as I take messages off my office voice mail. It’s not terribly uncommon for these messages to be punctuated with sobs as the caller tries to succinctly let me know why they have dialed my number. Last week after a bereft mother haltingly tried to tell me that she was calling because her son had died, she ended her message with this phrase: “Someone told me you might be able to help me find him.” There is never a time when these kinds of words from the grieving do not make my world grow completely and utterly silent as I am transported along with my caller into the wilderness of grief. 

Envisioning grief as a wild terrain for which you are not prepared is quite appropriate. Trapped in the rugged wilderness without supplies, several coping strategies would be immediately configured. First, how do you begin to move OUT of the wilderness? There would be no smooth and predictable pathway out, so if you were used to driving, biking, or casually walking to your chosen destination, those means of forward movement would no longer serve you. When you became hungry or thirsty you could not raid the pantry or order from a local café to satiate yourself. In order to move through the wilderness, you would likely need to learn some new techniques, perhaps how to rappel down the face of a rock, or how to safely navigate a deep and swiftly moving river. You might have to scale a tree, collect rainwater, and perhaps even eat a small creature in order to survive. As the saying goes, desperate times require desperate measures.

So let’s revisit the phrase, “Someone told me you might be able to help me find him.” In my world, this is not such an extraordinary request. It is not all that different than someone asking a wilderness survivalist, “Can you give me some pointers on how to survive in the wild?” And of course, the answer is, “YES!” I grant you, there is no giant neon hand pointing to a sign that says, “YOUR LOVED ONE IS HERE,” but there IS a vast amount of forward movement one can make in moving through the wilderness of grief.

A large part of my work with the grieving does entail helping them to locate their now deceased loved one in their world. I use the concept of Continuing Bonds to help my clients do this. This process can run the gamut from helping them identify a simple psychological or symbolic sense of their loved one, all the way to exploring the after-life sciences and learning what science and experience indicate regarding the possibility of the continuation of life after-death. Without fail my clientele are always absolutely amazed at the vast amount of credible information and scientific explorations that support the grieving who seek to understand what may occur beyond death’s door.

Continuing Bonds (CB’s) occur in a range and it is my job to help the grieving find the place on that continuum where they are comfortable. Sometimes I use the analogy of a swimming pool to help people find their comfort zone. The shallow end of the Continuing Bonds pool is where we will find grievers who find solace in symbolic or implied bonds, to their deceased loved one. A typical example of this type of bond would be someone who has planted a tree in memory of their loved one. The tree becomes a sort of living placeholder for the deceased loved one’s presence. Another example of this type of CB would be a scholarship that is set up in a loved one’s name, to support a student that embodies some of the deceased’s ideals.

Some grievers want to move beyond a symbolic or implied relationship with their deceased loved ones. Because of their need to locate their loved one’s presence beyond the physical life, this desire often brings them into the realm of the after-life sciences. This deep end of the Continuing Bonds ‘swimming pool’ is full of those who do not think they can go on for another moment without some sense that their deceased loved one continues on in some form.

It is for this group of grievers that I have created my Rx for the Soul Grief and Bereavement therapy. This is a unique program that combines Continuing Bonds grief work with education on the after-life sciences. These sessions offer the most potent medicine I know of to combat the wilderness of grief.

As the harsh edges of grief soften with education, a space is made for a continuing bond with their loved one. Sometimes, families receive a direct experience of an after-death communication (ADC). Although I do not make these communications the focus of my work, often times, when working with the grieving, I will begin to get words and images from that depict accurate information from their loved one.

There is nothing even remotely dramatic about this when it occurs. In fact, you would be surprised at how ‘ordinary’ the conversation is, when it happens. These types of ADC’s are nothing more than mental ‘calling cards’ from their loved ones that I have the sensitivity to discern. I will use an example here that actually occurred today, on the day I am writing this article. Earlier this morning, I worked with a grieving family seeking an indicator that their loved one still continued on after death. When I asked their loved one for a message/symbol, the image of something I called a “coat of arms” flashed into my mind. I drew the image to the best of my meager artistic ability.

As I handed the image over, there was immediate recognition and you could feel the heaviness of loss lighten into a sense of wonder, connection, and gratitude.  I had depicted a family heirloom given to the bereaved by the deceased; an object that was very significant and meaningful. When the family returned home from our appointment, they e-mailed me a photo of the object and gave me permission to share it here, along with the original drawing I gave them.

 Their willingness to share is precisely why I call my company ‘One Candle’. Now their story becomes yet one more candle on a dark pathway… and one light at a time, my goal is to dispel the fear of death and bring light to the journey through grief.

Although the small example of an ADC I have given in this article defies logic, proves nothing, and creates more questions than it answers, it gets us moving out of the wilderness of grief by focusing on a farther horizon. An after-death communication is not a destination; it is more like a road sign on a long journey. Rx for the Soul facilitate these after-death communications and help the grieving to become aware of the varieties of ways they happen, but the ADC’s themselves are not where the grieving want their focus to stay. As healing as that moment of connection is, our work is to build the healing out from that point.

Researchers estimate that up to sixty-six percent of the bereaved experience some type of ADC. Yet an ADC in itself does not always lead to a healing outcome. Those who have a strong ADC, but cannot construct a sense of meaning around the experience, are believed to have the poorest grief recovery outcome of any group at the five-year mark after their loss. Rx for the Soul supplies the bereaved with good resources, sound information, and assists them to construct meaning around both their loss and the subsequent after-death experiences that follow for up to sixty-six percent of the bereaved. Rx for the Soul participants consistently report their level of grief is decreased, while their level of peace and meaning is increased.  Continuing bonds and ADC’s can help the bereaved to locate their loved one after loss, but finding a way to construct meaning around the experience is the foundation for healing. These things combined are what carry the griever out of the wilderness of grief… not necessarily the after-death communication itself.