An exquisite moment: stillness

Water.  Is water the state we come from and return upon dying?

My mother took a turn for the worse today. No longer eating she seems to be taking in less air. She is silent. Eyes closed. Here, but not here, amongst us, but far enough away to peer into where she's going, and not close enough for us to hear her and feel the essence we've lived with the whole of our lives.  Our relationships with Mommy has changed and changed we all are by the new way she is balancing the the spheres of existence with the scope of her Death.

There is an exquisite moment stillness brings to us in the final moments during and after a decision is made that must intensify near death for Mommy. I remember how violent the end of my life was before I came into this lifetime. So, I am comparing. But, as I think about that death I remember there was a stillness the moment the shotgun barrels barked fire, and I released my grip on my life. I sunk into a soothing darkness, and an awareness that went somewhere, or merged with something beyond my telling ability.

Mommy is a woman, a mother of five, a wife, and a grandmother, and I, with my special privilege have watched, and been a part of , in some way, with her transitions from the Maiden to the Mother, and into the Old Wise Woman. Now the Beyond beckons, and teaches her sons, and husband, in her dying, to live the teachings in a new way, a different way.

Today, Mommy is alive, but where is her spirit, and what does it see, and perceive? How does she feel? Inside of her body what does she feel? Is she learning to disassociate,  merge, rekindle? I don't know. I just have feelings, and intuition, and past life knowledge, and my love for Mommy, and the love she's given me the whole of my lifetime.  So many questions that I will not ask of her in her presence, even in silence. She asked me once a few weeks ago if there was anything we needed to discuss. I answered, "No, ma'am. I am just enjoying the present..."

With that Mommy and I lapsed into a comfortable silence from then until now. We only communicate, and I listen.

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
3.28.13

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 "The deeper symbols convey the deeper aspects, or mysteries of life to self first." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 3.26.13