Motherwort sounds like something dropped into the cauldron by the witches in Macbeth, ‘eye of newt, toe of frog..howlet’s wing..’ But this herb, whose Latin name is ‘lion heart’, is the perfect remedy for grief. Herbalist Robin Rose Bennett gave it to me when Laura was dying. She writes in her new book The Gift of…
Tag: grief
The Greatest Gift
The Greatest gift you can give to someone who is grieving is to let them talk about their departed loved on. It is something I know from my own experience, but it was a great comfort to hear Sue Frederick, an experienced grief coach, repeat it in her Grief Coaching workshop today For me it…
Laying Low
Grief is like a rip-tide. It grabs you by surprise and pulls you under. There is no warning. Sunday was Laura and I’s 4th anniversary (of when we met). I was fine all day until about 5pm and then I just collapsed. I am still as weak as a limp lettuce today. All morning all…
Knitting Without Borders
Every child needs a friend, even if that friend is simply a teddy bear. That was the basis for Knitting without Borders, created 2 years ago by my dear friend Loredana. She started the project after hearing how an African girl, orphaned by the AIDS epidemic and dying of AIDS herself, had asked to be…
10 Years
These past 10 years have been the hardest of my life. Almost exactly a year ago, Laura’s CT scan came back with pages and pages of new cancer tumors. They poured out of the fax machine in what seemed to be a never ending stream, detailing tumors in her bones, and every organ except her…
Think Pink!
Sometimes my life feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Twice in the last 4 months my digital camera has picked up a pink streak on the path in front of me. It happened first in Avebury and then this week in Sedona.The first pink flash was a little freaky. It felt like I…
Awakening
Yesterday I went to the ‘Healing Our Grief’ workshop at the Open Center. It was a beautiful sharing experience hosted by Sue Frederick author of Bridges to Heaven. Sue’s husband died age 37 from cancer and her best friend died the same year. These two tragedies transformed her life, reawakened her intuition and her spiritual…
Rumi – The Kiss of Spirit
My iTunes just played Laura’s last phone message : ‘Sweetie, come on back. I miss you wherever you are.’ Then I heard this beautiful Rumi poem for the first time – There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of Spirit on the body. Seawater begs the pearl to break its…
Out of the Wardrobe
This past year I’ve felt like Lucy in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, falling out of a cosy wardrobe into a whole other world that I never knew was there. My experiences of Laura’s spiritual presence have opened the door to a vast parallel universe of life beyond life. At first I…
The Remains of the Day
What a joy to finally have Laura’s things back (and some of mine). We parceled everything up in a rush last summer when we moved in together and jumbled up all our things. They’ve been living in her brother Barry’s attic for the past year. Now, like an elephant who returns to nuzzle a…
Ever Hopeful
I just discovered Laura had scribbled in her copy of Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart, ‘I don’t agree’, ‘I don’t agree’, at exactly the spot where I chucked the book. It seems neither of us thought ‘Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your feet. Begin with hopelessness’ was a good idea. Especially…
A word from the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered ‘Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live…
Through a Glass Darkly
‘What I’ve learned is that I’ve so much more to Learn’ -Maya Angelou. I couldn’t agree more. These past 8 months it is as if a whole other world has opened up to me. The life I am living now suddenly seems like a tiny walk on part within an elaborate play cycle that spans centuries…
Soul Love Forever 