MAY is the MOTHER of ALL MONTHS

DURING the timeless time Mom and I spend together in the middle of the night, we hold each other. As is becoming a pattern in these visits, I sob into Mom's chest, and she reassures me with her overwhelming LIGHT. It is, in one way, amazing, because I am TRULY WITH HER, on some level, actually touching her, smelling her, seeing her face and red hair. She is THERE. But on another level, it is surreal and intangible, almost as if I am reaching out toward a mirage. The visits are comforting while I am in them, cruel when I awake to find myself light years and many worlds away from her again.

I am at a major spiritual crossroads: to put it simply, I am on the threshold between DEEPLY GRIEVING and TRULY HEALING. One may as well be the chicken, and the other the egg, because one must be experienced fully in order for the other to exist. I am transitioning. This does not mean I will not ALWAYS, in every moment and with every breath, miss her like the desert misses moisture. But it does mean that I am moving forward on my journey through grief, so that I may also release Mom from the bondage of my pain. In my last visit with her, Mom expressed to me that it was hard for her to know that we are all still in such deep pain, and unable to push through this stage of grief, and into the initial ones of healing.

Another aspect of this CROSSROADS can be seen in the progression of my dreams. While Mom was in the hospital, I would dream that she was all better, healthy, and being released from the bed; set free of her illness, and ushered back into the physical world with a new body. For a long time after she crossed over, I didn't dream of her at all. Later, I began having dreams in which I was with her in some way, but always a mysterious, only partial way. For instance, we would be sitting side by side, but I would be unable to turn my head and look at her. Or she would be at the edge of my bed, but I couldn't touch her, and her face was enshrouded in shadows. Lately, I have had a couple of "dreams" that have made me realize none of these experiences were merely dreams (whatever that means), but were actual visits, spirit to spirit exchanges of loving communication.

In the first two, my Dad held my hand and took me to her, encouraging me to go to her, and not be afraid. In these recent dream-like visits, we have met on a plane far higher and faster than the one I exist on consciously here in the physical world; and much lower and slower than where Mom exists now, in her boundless spirit-form. It is as though she is able to shape-shift somehow in these visits, making herself available to the desperate grabbing of my limited perceptive abilities. Her love - and the love we share - far transcends the perceived barriers of physicality. Our love trumps death. And I - through the gift of dream-flight - am able to escape momentarily from the limitations of my own still-human body, and meet her in the ether between us. This is the realm from which all are born, and into which all are reborn. It is the glowing cradle of PURE LOVE.

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Mom gave me a card on HER birthday, June 19, 2004, just four days before our joint surgery. On the front of the card, there is an image of a Native American woman, walking through water, looking down at her reflection; she is holding a white feather out to her right side. On the inside of the card, mom wrote:

My Darling Liz,

The symbolism of the feather is awesome. As you and I begin this Great Adventure, I know we will be lifted up to the very core and source of the Loving Spirit of which we are a part.

The water is the fluidity of life, the essence of our human bodies. The conduit of our elements which offer the continuity of life...

Thank you, baby, for offering me the gift to continue. As I have said so many times, I am so very blessed to get to be your mom!

I love you!
Mom

I have been focusing on this card a lot lately. The last time I went through my letters and cards from Mom, I chose this one to keep out and put on the shelf in my room. I have read it and re-read it. Trying to put her words into the burgeoning framework of my NEW THINKING. Thinking that says that she was exactly right. That we were in fact lifted up to that core of LIGHT, LOVE, and DIVINE PROTECTION, through the surgery and beyond it. And that even though Mom didn't "continue" physically, the true GIFT is in her being able to move ahead in her spiritual journey, which involved shedding her body precisely when she did.

I was running yesterday, and asked Mom for a message. "Mom", I said, "If you are here, show me a FEATHER...show me feathers". My eyes searched then for any semblance of a feather, birds flying overhead, anything that might communicate an affirmation. I try not to "look" for these clues, as then I worry I might be creating them or fabricating them from the deep pain and need within my unconscious mind. I decided that, even though a few little yellow birds swooped across my visual field, I wouldn't "count" them, because there would be too much room for "coincidence" there.

I didn't see any feathers anywhere. Until...I was finished running. I entered my house, sweaty and jazzed from endorphin rushing. I began to trot down the stairs to my quarters, which I have done hundreds of times by now. But this time, I noticed something I had never noticed before. It was a poster Star has hanging on the overhead wall space above the stairs. The poster was for an Earth Day celebration.... It says the following:

THE GREAT MOTHER, at once Gaia, Sophia, Isis, Rhea, Astarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Ceres, Papa; SHE is the living, pulsing EARTH: Wise beyond human telling, ever-generating, nourishing, and transforming with irrepressible vitality. WE ARE THE EARTH BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF HERSELF...The depth of our wisdom will sustain her, even as SHE, in all her breadth, NURTURES and SHELTER US, one and all.

I asked Mom for feather imagery, so she reminds me very clearly that her flight as a SPIRITUAL GODDESS has only just begun!

Directly in the bottom center of the poster is an image of ISIS, the BIRD-HEADED GODDESS:

Following are among the most common of her titles:

The Great Lady
The God-mother
Giver of Life
"Queen," in every nome
The divine one
The only one
The greatest of the gods and goddesses
The queen of all gods
Opener of the year,
Lady of the New Year
Maker of the sunrise
Lady of Heaven
The light-giver of Heaven
Queen of the earth
Most mighty one
Lady of the solid earth
Lady of warmth and fire
The lady of life
Lady of green crops
Lady of abundance,
Lady of joy and gladness
Lady of Love
The maker of kings
Lady of the Great House
Lady of the House of fire
The beautiful goddess
The lady of words of power

After reading that poster for the first time, I picked up my computer and feverishly began looking up information on ISIS - knowing that what I found would blow my mind. Knowing that the next symbolic "phrase" in the latest of Mom's communications was coming fast, and falling directly into its perfect order, just like words into a sentence.

As I often do, I set the computer on my lap, and had the t.v. on in the background for noise. I flipped to the Discovery Health channel, to watch a show I normally do not watch. I think I had seen it once before. It was Dr. G.: Medical Examiner. I wasn't paying any attention to it for the most part. But at one point, I happened to look up from my internet searching, to see a commerical which showed a man skiing down a snow-covered mountain. I kept my eyes on the commerical, understanding why I did so as the commercial unfolded to reveal what it was for...

The skier was Chris Klug, an Olympic Athlete who had a liver transplant at the University of Colorado Hospital, on none other than my grandmother's birthday, July 28 (2000). Igal Kam was his surgeon. I know because as I heard Chris's voiceover explain who he was, and what he had been through, and how he advocated organ donation, I fixated on the t.v. screen, only to see a moment later, a still photo of Chris Klug SITTING NEXT TO DR. KAM! Dr. Kam is the man who removed one lobe of my liver from my body, carried it to the operating room next door, and helped sew it into my Mom's abdomen.

I was now officially blown away. More appropriately, I was flying...on this grand, life-giving feather...the one Mom had written about in her card to me just days before Dr. Kam performed our joint surgery in the summer of 2004. It is these creative, loving messages from her that keep me breathing. Just as I was born and breathed for the first time of her love and creativity...For SHE continues as, and continues to become, the ever-more beautiful Diva: The ULTIMATE MOTHER.

* * *

The following day, I had friends from work, and neighbors from the block, come over to Star's house for a "gallery opening". I showed my photos for the first time, which was a very special event for me. It really meant the most that my new friends from Lava Java came by; and were very excited for me. I hardly knew any of them, but they all made it a point to come and show their support! The first to show up were my friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Jessica. As they got out of their car, I was immediately drawn to the faint outline of wings bordering Jessica's necklace pendant. As I got closer to her, I noticed that what she wore...was the figure of ISIS, the bird-headed, Mother-God, GIVER OF LIFE...LADY OF THE NEW YEAR!

* * *
One friend from work, in particular, would prove to be someone extremely special to me. Her name is Jessica, and, (as SHE informed me), she was to become my new 'favorite person' :)

She and I hadn't yet connected before that night at the photo party. But since then, we've been inseparable, and frankly AMAZED by the immediately profound and psychic nature of the connection between us.

Her mother's birthday is the same day as mine, December 23rd. She has seeminly "read my mind" on several occasions. We realize that we have been brought together to teach and learn from one another. Mom is clearly involved. And it is clear to BOTH of us, not only me.

* * *

MAY 1, 2006

May, according to Lifetime Television, is the "MOTHER of all Months".
At work, on May 1, a man named Joe - who I also hardly knew - called me "Little Angel".
Next, a customer came up to the counter, and asked me for a new cup of coffee...because his had a FEATHER in it!

Most brilliantly...Later that afternoon, in walked Martin and Chloe. Who these two are is a long and difficult story to tell. But I must, so I will try.

Martin is a videographer who works on the Fair Wind once or twice a week. He comes on the boat and films the guests' experiences, then sells the DVDs. He also teaches a reef ecology class, and talks about his own experiences...swimming with dolphins, whale sharks, and pilot whales.

For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by him immediately upon meeting him. But it was the less obvious reasons, which really are only beginning to open up to consciousness now, that proved to be the most interesting.

I remember, (and this was five months ago, when I was new to the island, and brand new to the boat), hearing Martin say a couple of things that have stuck with me all this time. They were things that made me feel compelled to learn more about him, who he really is, and what the deeper connection was meant to be between us.

Once, he said something about working hard. Another crewmember retorted with, "Whatever, Martin...You only work a couple of days a week!" And Martin replied, "It's EMOTIONAL work I am referring to." Over the next several days, I heard several little "whispery" tidbits of vague information about this "emotional" work that Martin does. But oddly, I could never quite get a full picture, from anyone. The most anyone would say was something to the effect that Martin was a "spiritual healer" of some sort. Put together with the knowledge that he is a heart soft for the Ocean, and also with my intuitive feeling about his depth of consciousness, I knew he and I were going to unify somehow, at some point in time.

So one day, through hopped-up nerves, I asked Martin "what is it that you really do?".
He was skiddish about answering. He alluded to the serious nature of his work, versus the whimsical, fast-paced, tourist-attentive nature of the boat environment. He said, essentially, that he didn't want to talk about it in that setting. I asked then if we could get together some time to talk. He said yes, though many months would pass silently between us before our real meeting would occur.

The one other thing he did say that I have never forgotten, and in fact have held close to me, was something that may as well have come out of Mom's mouth. It certainly echoed the beauty and sentiment of her heart. He said that "EVERYTHING IS MADE...(not of "energy"...but) OF LOVE". I was intrigued by him. Even moreso, I was intrigued by the strange friction that developed between us when we were both on the boat.

An odd and somewhat uncomfortable electric fence of silence buzzed invisibly there. But, I ascertained, it wasn't the kind of awkwardness that is born of a lack of subject matter between two people. It wasn't that we didn't have anything to say to one another; rather, what we did have to say, we knew on some level was very important; therefore, small talk never felt easy, necessary, or relevant. The one time on the boat I had found a moment and had broken through that barrier between us, I asked Martin what his spiritual work was about. He was hesitant to talk about it. Again, I knew somehow that the reason he didn't even want to begin the discussion, was because he knew that once he began, something longer and more profound than a simple answer would escape its secret box.

I let my curiosity drift from the forefront, but kept in the back of my mind, the knowing that someday Martin and I would explore what electrified the space between us. I felt intuitively certain that Mom had something to do with it, and that when the time was right, she would reach me... through him...

* * *