Ed, my husband, and I met David and Julie Spangler shortly after 9/11. Though we live on opposite sides of the country, David and Julie in Washington, and I in Massachusetts, the sense of being right with them in thought and heart deepened over the years as I corresponded with David and got involved in online Lorian classes. Ed and I subscribed to Views from the Borderland from its start and helped to organize an Incarnational Spirituality study group in our area.
To go back a step, I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church but was certain God was too vast to be confined to a church or any religion for that matter. I was also certain one could talk with rocks, plants and rivers and if one was still enough could hear the stars singing. When I was 22—the year I met Ed—the work of Rudolf Steiner also came my way. I was overjoyed to read about many other dimensions reaching beyond religious experience as I had heard it defined, beyond the reach of conventional historical thinking as it was then expressed, and out beyond the beauty, vigor and resonance of the natural world.
While Steiner took me, and Ed also, into wonder and mystery without end—and I still read Steiner with amazement and gladness—our introduction to Incarnational Spirituality brought three things home to us:
1. The first was how important the horizontal dimension of spirituality is. Prior to Incarnational Spirituality Ed’s and my focus was far more on the vertical, primarily on the divine as being above and in many instances, beyond us. I realized the overall standpoint I had lived in, rather unconsciously for most of my life was that I, as a human being, was inferior to the divine. Yes, the divine was in the world but still it was, basically, above me. And a worthy goal in life was to attain, by way of study, exercises and meditations, to greater awareness of this fact. Some teachers said it could take many life-times to enter into a closer relationship with the spiritual dimensions. Incarnational Spirituality, however, helped to confirm my own sense that these dimensions are right here, all around, not up in the clouds or in some distant time.
2. Though Steiner fleshed out my awareness of the spiritual worlds—and this continues to be an ongoing process—Incarnational Spirituality has taken this awareness a step further. It actually took a while for me to recognize a step was being taken and, though it may sound like a small step, it was a big one. It consisted of this: not only were my interactions with the spiritual worlds real and important, they are no big deal. Such interactions included my understanding from an early age that death does not mean the end of life; being aware of the so-called dead is no big deal. Anyone can sense them, may in fact be sensing dear departed souls, strangers also, without being fully conscious of it. Such Spiritual experiences are available to all of us regardless of age, background, religious upbringing, education, race or gender. In the physical world we may feel or find ourselves outwardly limited by such factors but in the subtle realms we are all souls, free spirits.
3. This, in turn, brought me very naturally into an appreciation of two words that are central to Incarnational Spirituality: Self-Light and Sovereignty. I say “very naturally” because I often saw the light in people’s eyes but hadn’t given thought to this light as also being within myself. And suddenly I knew I could see it because it is also in me. Even more importantly, it was not only visible in the eyes of others, it is within the whole human being. “Sovereignty” became the word expressing this radiance, on many levels: physical, mental, emotional, psychic. It is also the word that, for me, best defines the connection of our innermost, our soul, to our physical body.
These three learnings from Incarnational Spirituality--the importance of the horizontal dimension of spirituality, the no-big-dealness of spirituality, and recognizing and saluting the self -light and sovereignty within oneself and others–were of immense help to Ed and myself. They encouraged us to know ourselves as sources of light and active participants in both the obviously tangible visible world and less obviously visible subtle worlds. And they found practical expression when Ed and I had to face the final challenge of our lives together.
In 2008, on his 64th birthday, Ed was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. The challenges that followed as the disease progressed were at first few and far between, then there were more of them, then they became more complicated, then they began to accelerate at a frightening pace. Ed died of complications of Late Stage Parkinson’s and COVID April 19, 2020. Throughout our lives—we were for married 52 years—and particularly during our journey with Parkinson’s, Ed and I observed a daily practice that included giving thanks for the gift of being incarnated and for the presence of the ordinary-extraordinary spiritual worlds we are a part of. We knew our actions in and through life, together as partners and separately in our own work were always clearer, and more fluid and joyous when we acknowledged and honored the interweaving of both even if we couldn’t see or understand what was going on.
The need to acknowledge this interweaving became more acute as the Parkinson’s intensified and the outcome, I must add, was an intensified awareness of several things.
First, the closeness of help in the horizontal dimensions—for example, the exact “right” people appearing at the exact “right” moments to assist us, as if directed our way by an invisible choreographer. Second—and this awareness was painful rather than joyous—we both knew Ed was on his way out about eight months before he passed over. We knew this from within as Ed lost his ability to write, type, cut his food, drive, move without freezing up, dress, remember names and dates, think clearly, and more. Yes, his body was failing and his brain was sinking into dementia, but his soul was still present. And those who loved and awaited him on the other side—his mother especially—were also, I realized dimly, then more vividly later, very present for him.
It’s my impression we may think we think in our brains, and Parkinson’s had clearly scrambled up plenty of things in Ed’s brain, but our true thinking to which our soul and consciousness are connected arises elsewhere in us, in our heart area, the center of our sovereignty. And through love we can see when the thoughts that arise, or which we invite or allow into our hearts, are light or dark, and act accordingly.
Fortunately, Ed and I had always talked together not only brain to brain but heart to heart and when Ed’s physical brain began to go off the rails I listened closely for and spoke to his heart. In this way I sensed when he passed through times of regret in regards to the incarnation he was ending, and grief that he was coming to its end. (I went through them too.) Moreover, I could sense where he was even when I was not near him physically, in the very same way it is possible to sense the soul moods and trails of the so-called dead on the other side.
This last point—that we can know how those we love are even when we are not with them in body—made it possible for me to be with Ed after he was admitted to the hospital, where our daughters and I couldn’t go because of the COVID lock down. So it happened that during Ed’s last week when I got the inner impression he was in need of inner help I was able to offer that by standing in my sovereignty and addressing Ed in his sovereignty. I will close this account with a description of that experience, taken from my book, Unraveling>Reweaving. Passing Through and Beyond Parkinson’s. I hope my observations here and in the book might be of help to others dealing with similar challenges. How we are with those who are dying and have died seems more important now than ever. It’s my impression many of the so-called dead want to continue to connect and to work with us now during these crucial times.
Before sharing the account from my book I wish to express heart-felt thanks to David Spangler and Incarnational Spirituality for showing Ed and me the more of who we are and can be, and how deeply the physical and the spiritual can be interwoven in us when, and as, we continue to incarnate. That interweaving –what it is like and what it can be--IS the big deal!
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It came to me early one morning before the COVID spiraled downwards that Ed needed some inner assistance. There was this feeling of inner “stuck-ness” that reminded me of the physical “stuck-ness” Ed had displayed in March when he first went to the hospital ER and I knew I’d reached the end of being able to care for him physically…
I used a meditation Ed and I had done. The core of this meditation is called The Standing Exercise.
To describe roughly what I did: I sat in the chair I always used during the morning time imagining Ed, in his chair to my right. After being quiet for a few minutes I stood, eyes closed, inwardly seeing Ed also rising to stand beside me.
We were facing south. I spoke aloud, offering thanks first for our physical bodies and the fact that we could stand upright. Then thanks for the fact that Ed and I had met and shared so many years together. Followed by thanks for our families, our parents and brothers, our children, their children, close friends, colleagues, and others, all also standing.
Then Ed and I turned, facing west, eyes still closed. Still speaking aloud, I offered thanks for the Earth, its beauty and its bounty, the seasons, the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, the winds, waters, and more.
Next we faced north and I gave thanks for the times into which we had incarnated and historical highlights and challenges that came to mind. These particular thanks –ending with thanks for COVID and PD—were harder for me to express. I ended that list with a quote I’d found in one of Brian Doyle’s books:
We are part of a Mystery we do not understand and we are grateful.
Then we turned and faced east. I got the strong inner impression of a path opening up before us. We’d hiked together for years, up and down many mountains in different parts of the United States and abroad, but I knew this path was just for Ed. It was truly time for us to part. First I expressed thanks for the sun, the moon, the stars and the many celestial beings around and out there overseeing this path. Then, without looking in Ed’s direction, keeping my eyes on this path, I thanked Ed again, said I looked forward to meeting with him again, and wished him Godspeed on his journey.
He moved forwards. I saw his back, then I couldn’t see him anymore.
(p.67-68)