TODAY WAS HEAVENLY

today has been a truly sacred, magical day. for one thing, today - december 20 - is both my best friend, harmony's, birthday (she is the one whose mom was murdered a few years ago, and whose baby daughter is - ironically - named serenity); and also the 4 year anniversary of my aunty karen's death, mom's sister. i've begun to use the word "ascension" in place of death or passing. death sounds too final, which isn't accurate. passing sounds passive - as if the "anti-" life force has just come and swept away a soul wilted of its will to live.

both my aunt karen and my mom, though, - in the style of Jesus himself - were risen. their spirits rose from their bodies, moving purposely toward heaven. i once read a quote from a woman about her experiences meditating - consciously transcending her body - wherein she explained the heights of spiritual ecstacy she reached as being so beautiful, so full of pure JOY, that she thought it might simply stop her heart. as if she might DIE of JOY! i remember thinking, that must've been what aunty karen's and mom's experiences were like, of their spirits welling up inside, expanding, expanding, going higher and higher and higher, until their bodies could no more contain them! their spirits were just too vast and free-roaming to be kept in the confines of the physical world!

I will tell you why TODAY was such an amazing day - of joy, peace, beauty and healing. The ASCENSION of spirits revealed itself to my friends and i today in the form of WHALES bursting forth from the womb-like waterworld, sky-rocketing toward the highest part of the universe, where they might mingle with angels for a moment before returning to the here and now on earth! the humpbacks are JUST now arriving for their winter ceremonies of mating, and giving birth to their whale infants, who were conceived a year ago at this time, in the same warm and nurturing waters.

the other night, i was talking to forrest and star - the wonderful base of my support system here - about how my mom was always so great at communicating, in many forms and through many vehicles. in fact, she and i share that ability, and the love for finding abstract new ways of moving through life together since she has crossed over. NOW, she and i travel a strange and beautfiul path that binds the seam between this world and that one; between what information we receive from the senses, and that which pours over us like music, sensless and commanding the surrender of logic.

in moments of synchronistic perfection, i let mom's love wash over me until i am drenched in it - my aching for her presence almost quenched momentarily. my mind open, my soul evolving in leaps and bounds as i move, always closer to her. i had a dream before i came here, after "asking" for "proof" that mom's ascension was part to the higher order...that there IS a greater organization to which all of life AND death belongs. in the dream, i was here, in hawaii. i stood facing the horizon and a pink setting sun. i then noticed humpback whales - thousands and thousands of them - lining up in PERFECT straightness, to my left side. if i was facing west, they were facing north. all at once, out of an almost bizarre stilllness, every single whale - working as one mechanically PERFECT unit - JUMPED about ten feet out of the air...and the whole sheath of them, which darkened the whole sky in a shadow of serene, graceful gray, ARCED in an exact semi-circle, landing the precise distance from my right as they had been from my left.

it was a mind-bending image that is difficult to describe, even in writing. but after the whales became a living rainbow over my wondering head, i knelt down and cried, raising my hands to the heavens, and thanking GOD for the message. the following day is when i got letters in the snail mail from both star and forrest, inviting me with sincerity and compassion to their homes in hawaii. they wanted me to find myself here, in the healing embrace of this whale-filled environment.

anyway, mom KNOWS that the most effective vehicle through which to communicate with me is the WHALES themsleves. When my surrendered spirit summons whales near, i hear her saying, "i, too, have come. my darling girl, i am here with you now in this tender moment, and with every mighty breath you take; every jump out of the dark; every leap of faith, for the rest of your existence.

mom had so much JOY in her heart, she was absolutely overflowing with it. that's why she gave so much of it away. she flung it out freely to anyone with a heart open to its reception, like white doves to the wide open sky. at christmas, new year's eve/the one year anniversary of her AND her own mother's ascension, and in everything i do...i make the effort to live by her example, and spread what joy i find in my heart to all around me. the irony: the more joy we give, the fuller our hearts brim with its all-purpose medicine. mom was truly Christian in that she tried to live in accordance with the heart and motivations of CHRIST. she was a CHRIST-LIKE human being.

JOY is the LIFE FORCE that keeps us going, even in the most crushing of times. i hold all of the memories from the two x-mases i spent with you and micah and your family, cradle it, and smile as its magnificence goes on infinitely toward the outer limits of time.