MY MAGIC GIRL

Sunday, November 30, 2008

MY MAGIC GIRL

Abracadabra
July 17, 1992 – November 19, 2008

I had to put Abby to sleep because she had lost her quality of life and was in pain. It was so hard to see her trying to stand in her weakened state because she was in too much pain to sit or lie down.

My heart was torn in two. On the one hand I could not imagine my life without her. She had been such a big presence for a long time. On the other hand, I knew what I had to do. She was telling me loud and clear it was time. She went peacefully in my arms.

I want to tell you about this magical little soul. Abby was a retired Champion when I took her in. She was a beautiful Tibetan Spaniel. The first time I saw her was in a picture on the internet of her dancing in a too too. It made me smile.

When she arrived in the airline cargo area and I took her out of her crate I couldn’t believe how little she was. She was wispy and as light as a feather. I had just lost the dog of my heart and wasn’t feeling totally open to another. I couldn’t help myself. I fell in love at first sight.

She came right into my life as though she had always been there. She had no knowledge of my loss and proceeded to build a life with me based on love and light. It was as though her soul was a light beam. She would be snuggly and loving and then she would wisk away in a second and be off on her own adventure.

Her presence was enormous. I felt, and told her often, that she was the Empress of the Universe. She filled the role with no hesitation. She was regal, definitive, elegant, and was quite comfortable within her own sovereignty.

She fit right in with my other two Tibetan Spaniels and never felt jealousy or envy. Nor was she bothered when her sister got jealous if I was petting Abby. She would just finish her time and move on. There was no problem for her and she didn’t take it on ever.

It was her soul that I don’t know if I can describe. It was like angel wings. It felt airy, effervescent and strong. She seemed to be on the earth to make me happy but it was though she didn’t have any personal work to do. She was complete just the way she was. Growth was not part of her life’s agenda.

She was diagnosed almost two years ago with kidney failure and responded very well to a certain diet and my making sure she ate. I was given a gift by her being so ill. It gave me the opportunity to be in the moment with her every day. Every moment we spent together I got to experience her precious essence. I never forgot that she could leave this world at any time.

Now I am left with my other two Tibbies and it is strange what an enormous void such a little girl can make. It is not just her physical self that I miss so terribly, but it is her energy. I had no idea how huge her energy body was! I honestly don’t know if I have ever known a soul that was so huge.

This evening, while I was sitting on the porch thinking about her, a curl of her hair came floating through the air. It floated down around me and then over my other two Tibbies who were sleeping, circled around the rocks that she had had such a difficult time negotiating in her last few weeks and then came a landed on my lap. Then, just as quickly as it floated down, the wind whisked it up and it floated away. I was certain I had been visited by little Abracadabra.

I am sad. Very sad. And yet, I do not feel that she is far away. I feel her angel wings holding me tight while at the same time I feel her flying free. I was given a wonderful gift of many years of “being” with this little magic Abracadabra, and I cannot find words to express my gratitude.

Life's Purpose

For as long as I can remember I have had a sense that there is a purpose for my being alive at this time. Over the years I have followed my path and it has taken me to the mountain vistas and way down into the valleys. I have been seeking the entire time.

From the outside, looking at my life, it appears that I have only been learning lessons, one after the other. Often I have been challenged with the same lesson, which I guess means I am either dense or it has been important for me to really understand it.

Now that some wisdom has been attained, I have been contemplating about what a life purpose is and how to attain it. This has brought me to the realization that there is a battle going on between my mind and my heart. My beliefs and my knowing are at odds.

My mind looks at the outer world and into the future. It has the idea that there is a goal “out there” and my reaching it depends on what I “do”. My mind believes once the goal is reached, I have arrived. There is nothing after that, except perhaps another goal.

My “knowing” heart lives in the present. When it is not fighting with my mind, I strongly feel that my purpose is simply “being” right in the moment. Sometimes it is the most natural thing in the world and other times, when my mind tries to pull me back, it can feel quite uncomfortable.

How do I stay in the moment? How do I live out my purpose with this way of being? Part of the way is imagining that it is already done. The human mind can be a wondrous thing. It doesn’t question what is real or what is imagined. It only functions on data input. By bypassing my fearful mind and imagining my life this way, it becomes the data that is dealt with.

What do I need to do my soul’s work? What will I need to implement that intention? It seems that the answer is to prepare as if my heart’s desire is already there. It is like sending love and gratitude from my heart, thanking Spirit for having accomplished the aim.

All the while I gather my tools. I imagine whatever I need in my life, see myself using them and see myself functioning as if my desire has already arrived. I must put my awareness beyond getting the intent into having it. I must function as if it is done. All I have to do is be there. I must taste it, feel it, see it in my mind’s eye and it will catch up to me.

How is this done moment by moment? I must put myself into the mental groove of gratitude for the desire accomplished. When I stray from that perspective, I must pull myself back into it. Soon I am functioning at a higher level of awareness and creativity, which accomplishes any undertaking I seek.

Sometimes it doesn’t work right away. That is when the little voice of doubt tries to jump in and take control. That is my lower mind. Living the new way, though, is a facet of free will. I must choose the higher vibration of love in every moment, rather than the lower vibration of fear in all its faces. By staying in the higher mind, in a loving vibration and in an attitude of gratefullness I am living my life’s purpose.

Every moment of my life is what I am doing for the planet. Sometimes I find myself working toward something specific and then I remember I am operating at the lower vibration and I change directions.

So when I ask myself, “When am I going to find out what I’m here for?”, here is the answer: I am here for now…not for something coming up. I need to examine what I don’t like in my life or what is happening that I would leave behind or that I don’t understand. Listening with my heart's pure intention through truthful introspection helps me stay in the now I am creating.

The picture is clear. I must take the situation of today and mold it into something that’s beautiful for me now. In difficult circumstances I must anchor and celebrate all that is around me. Those are the times that I must claim the compassion of Spirit and let it fill me.

Then I need to keep going…even in doubt. Instead of striving to satisfy my mind, I must strive for understanding the circle of energy that makes up my new “now” reality. From this perspective life is not linear. There is no future or past, there is only now.

This awareness is a choice I can make in every moment. As I accept this way of being as my Spiritual practice it gets easier and more satisfying. It reinforces the sense I have always had about having a purpose. That purpose is now.

Spiritual Growth

I want to tell you about Arty, my Tibetan Spaniel. In dog years he is 14 which, when you do the math, makes him in human years a very wise 98 year old. I became guardian of this beautiful soul when he was 3 years old. At that point in his life he was far from being as stable and wise as he has become.

He had been a show dog, a Champion. His handler had not liked him and during our first few years together, I questioned the treatment he had received. He was frightened of many things. Thunder, lightening, cameras, and people were terrifying to him. He would jump into my arms and shake.

The other quality that he was lacking was courage. He wanted everything to be the same and was extremely rigid about trying new things. He would even pass up a morsel of meat if it was something new. If someone new (human or canine) came into his personal space he would high-tail it out of there. It evoked in me a strong need to protect him.

I had never considered the parallel of personal evolvement and spiritual growth for dogs with the development we go through as humans. You know how we are constantly being given lessons that we can ignore (and they just come back in a larger form) or work through and on the other side we have arrived at an entirely new level?

Arty’s growth seemed at first to be about coming to grips with his external world. He had to adjust to his new home, new caretaker, another dog (Hobbit) and a whole new life. This took him a while and I began to notice the more comfortable he became and familiarly settled in, the more his personality began to show.

He started to relax and come out of his shell. He became comfortable being alone in a room and not having to follow Hobbit or me around. On our walks he began to venture out on his own while he kept a close eye on me. He started showing his soft lovable side and became quite a wonderful snuggler.

Then he discovered a passion for music. When my string quartet would come to the house to play, Arty would plant himself in the middle of the music stands and not get up or even move for the entire two and a half hours we played. Everyone looked forward to coming to my house because they knew how much Arty loved music.

Just as Arty was coming into his own, Hobbit (who was 18 years old in dog years) lost her hearing and sight over a few months period of time. She was a terrier mix and lived to go for walks. Having no hearing or sight did not deter her urge to run so I began taking them to parks that were fenced in.

This was an amazing transformational time for Arty. All of a sudden, he took on being Hobbit’s eyes and ears. When we went for walks he would herd her and keep her close to me. He kept up with her terrier pace and kept her safe. At home he would lay right beside her and then help guide her when she got up in whatever direction was appropriate.

Arty’s relationship with Hobbit began to feel like a spiritual awakening. The love he had for her was enormous and just continued to grow. He was totally present to her and right in the moment. As I watched him take on this new position, I saw a total change in his personality. His openness increased his trust, courage, power and his entire being.


When the day came for me to get Hobbit put to sleep, we took one last walk among the daffodils on a beautiful spring afternoon. I knew Arty had to be in the room with us and fortunately my veterinarian came to the house. The moment Hobbit was gone Arty jumped onto the couch and put his little head on Hobbit and let out a howling moan. I couldn’t stop sobbing.

He took Hobbit’s death very hard. In fact, I think it took him about four years and moving to a new area of the country where there were no reminders of her before he started feeling happy again. In the meantime I acquired two more Tibetan Spaniels. Arty wanted nothing to do with his sisters. He only wanted Hobbit and I had brought the wrong girls home.

It was as though his heart was broken. A couple of years after Hobbit’s death we discovered through a doggie heart specialist that Arty’s heart was three times the size it was supposed to be. It didn’t seem to bother him, but I couldn’t help but wonder if his grief hadn’t affected his heart.

When we moved across the country he was happy almost from the first day. Then another growth spurt happened. He began to act like a real dog. Maybe I was in a learning curve, too, learning how to be the alpha dog and let my dogs be dogs. Arty thrived on this new arrangement and seemed to relax because he wasn’t having to take care of his sisters and me.

Arty was diagnosed with several life-threatening aliments almost two years ago. He has done well on medication and I make every day an opportunity to be with him one more precious day.

I was just away for three weeks and when I returned I just sat down and held Arty and cried. He had lost about a quarter of his body weight and I could even see the bones on his back. I know it won’t be long now before he will die.

When I think back about Arty, I am in awe struck about how much he has grown throughout this lifetime. He learned to trust and be in his power. He opened his heart to Hobbit and took care of her marvelously. He loves unconditionally. He lives in the moment and when he is with you he is totally present.
He has learned how to be an amazing dog. Most importantly, he has developed his spiritual being way beyond what most people are capable.

I just had to share Arty’s story with you because it is important to be able to witness personal growth in another being. It helps to remind me to stay on my path and keep growing. What I do matters less than how I do it. Arty taught me that.

LOOOOOONG WEEKEND

My perceptions about myself were greatly altered this weekend when I was left in charge of caring for five sick puppies. My first response to taking on the responsibility was a resounding “NO”! Two of the puppies had died the day before my stint began.

Emotionally I felt overwhelmed, overburdened, and scared. Never in my life had I given a shot, let alone sub-Q fluids. Doing it was beyond my comprehension and comfort level. It was the holiday weekend and everyone who might have done it was going to be out of town. The choice came down to either my stepping up to the plate or putting the puppies to sleep. I couldn’t handle either choice, but putting them down did not feel like an option.

Personal growth is a curious phenomenon. In this case, it was as if some part of me was asleep. I heard and felt the messages that wanted to move me forward. Yet there was heavy inertia to stay asleep and in my comfort zone. Waking up to face the challenge took courage and a lot of energy. The resistance was ferocious.

Without my wanting it, my sleeping unconsciousness had come to an end and my engagement in the “new” was the journey I was on. I felt the strong desire to run away and stay in my stupor. In order to cope with the situation I realized I needed support so I enlisted help from my neighbors. Their presence in the process made me feel not so alone with the task and helped me calm myself down.

Taking care of very sick puppies felt like a BIG thing and began to show me how far I had lifted my head off the pillow. My first attempt at changing a needle was a disaster. I poked myself hard under my fingernail and bled profusely.

There was a waxing and waning of energy as the days passed. I would feel good, like I was making a difference when the puppies showed signs of improvement or stabilization and then defeated and deflated when one of them died.

I could sense my mind giving me negative messages in its own feeling language. This language was limited to my life experience, which in this case I had none. I could watch my mind exposing my inadequate knowledge and capabilities followed closely by an emerging new confidence that was exhilarating. As I proceeded through the days, I began to see and appreciate the less-than admirable parts of who I am.

Both the waxing and the waning were assisting me to glean further insights into myself, helping me relate in a fuller, more complete way. The waning was revealing parts of myself that I no longer needed. It was revealing my weaknesses and vulnerabilities and feelings of worthlessness.

As the weaknesses were exposed by the receding energies, I could feel the ebb and flow in my external world
too, interacting with my natural process of realization and awakening. I was gaining strength and hope when I stayed conscious. This would be closely followed by moments of moving back into the disconnection that had been my norm.

I began to wake up more and more. I began to see the times of disconnection clearly within myself trying to return to my old way of thinking and make me feel bad. I began to lose my fear of needles and accept my new perceptions.

As the weekend progressed, the movement of energies and thoughts became increasingly more evident when the old feelings of doubt would return. I didn’t give in to the depression and sublimation of my own knowing and I especially didn’t give up on my own inner journey. When things seemed impossibly difficult on the outside, I started turning inward and loving myself. The waxing and waning being revealed inside at these times was showing me the changes that were being made.

What I was experiencing was reflecting who I had been internally. Here was my opportunity. I was beginning to know the parts of myself I was ready to change. Giving that my attention made it possible to grasp when the external challenges came my way. My feelings began to change from those of being afraid, overwhelmed and feeling incompetent to confident and compassionate for the struggling puppies and me.

The situation I had manifested in my life was waking me to parts of myself that had previously felt more comfortable asleep. The turbulence of what was demanded externally could only be seen when I felt the most despair. It was a time of honest assessment. These times became shorter and shorter as my perspective and perceptions of myself changed.

The weekend is over and four of the puppies are getting healthy, eating, drinking water and have no more need for medical intervention. I commend my willingness to allow myself to witness my perceived limitations and the courage I had to grow and change. Life gives us many opportunities to expand our views internally and this opens up new ways of thinking, feeling, and being in our external world. Who would have thought taking care of sick puppies would have been such a life-altering experience?

I'm Afraid Of Desert Critters

I am not a native of Arizona. I am not even sure I am a courageous enough person to live in the desert among the creepy crawlies who enjoy their environment and habitat here. There are many things about the desert that are redeeming and many people, including me, love it. I just wish it felt safer.

When I first arrived it was November. That is the time of year when all the critters go underground and wait to come out when it gets hot again. I had heard tales of them but as yet had not encountered any.

I put my fears in the back of my mind and enjoyed the winter without the tons of snow and overcast skies I had been accustomed. I put my boxes of warm clothes and sweaters away and dealt with the cool evenings by throwing on a light jacket that I only needed sometimes. It was pleasant and I forgot totally about what was coming.

In April I began thinking about the critters after my neighbor reminded me to pay attention where I was walking. That was not a comfortable suggestion, but I took it seriously and walked carefully back to my house.

Several weeks lapsed and I saw nothing scary. I began to get my confidence back again. Not that I stopped looking where I planted my feet, just that I hadn’t seen anything unusual.

Then one day I had a complete turnaround that knocked me for a loop. The first thing that happened was I opened my friend’s gate and started to step through and saw a rattlesnake coiled and sleeping next to the gate. I quickly shut the gate and ran out back to get some help. When we came back the snake was gone. That was extremely disconcerting. Now my fears were real and no longer a myth. Now I understood about watching the ground.

I went into my friend’s house and sat down in the living room for a chat. As we sat there drinking ice tea I saw something crawling up the wall. It was pinkish-clear and shaped like the pictures I’d seen of a scorpion. I tried to be casual in asking what it was, and to my horror, it was indeed a scorpion. My neighbor killed it with her shoe and sat back down and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.

I was shaking inside but did not want to show my cowaderdness. A little while later, I got up to go to the bathroom and as I went around the corner of the kitchen I stopped in my tracks. On the wall was a huge hairy spiderish looking thing on the wall. It did not look real until I saw it move. “What is this?” I called out. “Oh, that’s just a tarantula”, she said calmly as she grabbed an envelope, scooped it up and put it down outside the door.

I had been initiated all in one day. I was beside myself. Like all initiations, my world was turned upside down. I made my way home, knowing that I could never live where there were so many scary things that were part of a normal day in the desert.

Soon after that, a dog in the neighborhood licked a Colorado River Toad while I was there and went into convulsions. She had to be practically drowned with water rushing down her throat before she could come back to normal. It affected her neurological system and for a while she could barely walk, even after the water treatment and she foamed at the mouth for several hours.

That experience made me what I am today: an ax murderer. I was thinking about that just this week when I put my dogs out into a side yard before going to bed. Just as I put them out, a huge toad moved right in front of them. Now, I don’t know if you have ever seen one of these creatures, but they are gigantic, ugly, and strongly resemble “Java the Hut”. I whisked my dogs back into the house and went for the ax.

These toads are not fast and tend to get themselves into corners to get away from you. Because I saw that dog almost die a few years ago, I have no mercy for these poisonous toads. A strong protective urge comes over me that out weighs my fear. I held the ax high over my head and came down hard on the creature over and over until I knew it was dead.

Just the day before, as I was sitting on the porch of my house enjoying the breeze against the backdrop of a very hot day, I saw my two cats carefully moving in the same direction toward a ladder that was against the house. Then I heard the distinct rattle of a rattlesnake. I yelled at the cats to stay away, which did nothing. I started throwing rocks in between the cats and the snake. I got the cats to move away and hastely picked them up and put them in the house. The snake coiled itself up and went to sleep.

I sat watching the snake feeling totally helpless and thinking about all the times I had not been protected or not been able to protect myself, my son, or others. I did not know what to do. I felt paralyzed. I knew I could not kill the snake because I was too scared of it. After about a half hour the snake woke up and slithered across the yard in the opposite direction from where I was sitting and disappeared.

Now you may be wondering why I am still living in a place that on such a continuous basis scares the bejebees out of me? That is a question I ask myself many times a day from April until November every year. I have never lived in a place where I have been aware of so much danger. My innocence and naivety shock me and I yearn for the safety that I previously enjoyed.

It is all very clear to me now. I am not a native of the desert and honestly don’t believe I’m cut out for it. The desert is beautiful but foreign to my being. Oh, did I tell you about the gila monster?

The Gifts of Grieving

By noon, the island had gone down in the horizon;
and all before us was the wide Pacific.
---Herman Mlwille: Omoo

For all that has been: Thanks!
For all that will be: Yes!
---Dag Hammarskjold

Grief can engulf us within a spiral of emotional chaos that tosses us around and around until there is no possible way to know which way is up. We seem to get our bearings from what appears to be down, but we cannot be certain of anything. It feels like we are spinning in a vast, dark void.

Grief befalls my world when it has been overturned by loss of some kind. It will never be the same and there is nothing in my control that can change that. In my loss, I feel lost. All my points of reference have been altered and I find myself in an unknown place where I am alone. The silence and emptiness can be unbearable.

I have had many different kinds of losses just in the last few months. As I write about them I realize that I have stayed outside and aloof. I have not taken advantage of the opportunities grief has offered me.
Perhaps this is why I have lost my bearings. Hopefully, if I share some of my experiences I can move through the throws of grief and find myself again.

While on a road trip, I received a call from the dog- sitter that one of the dogs in the kennel had been bitten by a rattlesnake and had died. This was a shocking loss; an accident where there was no forewarning. There was nothing I could do.

I have been in close contact with one of my friend’s husband who is dealing with chronic pain. He is one of those people who has never been aware of his body. Now he is struggling with the loss of control that his pain dominates and is regularly having panic attacks. He also lost more money on the stock market last week than he had made working the year before. Work and immortality have been his identity. The loss of himself, which he is encountering, is challenging his entire being.

My position as part of his support system has been difficult for me because I feel so powerless when he talks about wanting to commit suicide. I can understand the confusion that arises in his mind and the strong desire to stop the suffering. His attempt at taking back control in what seems like an uncontrollable situation makes sense, but it seems to me the urge is more symbolic than literal. Does the desire arise from the hatred of life and wanting to stop the suffering, or a yearning for things to be different? One thing is certain; the dilemma is an unsettling battle in his mind.

I was honored to support a good friend of mine on his journey with his wife dying with cancer. The illness brought them so much closer than they had been before the illness took over. They moved through the untimely process with such love and grace that every time we spoke it was an inspiration.

Shortly after her death, my 92-year-old Aunt, who had filled a space left in my life when my mother died 30 years ago, passed away. She had been ailing for a number of years and I had taken the opportunity to see her as often as possible. We had reached a peaceful place of acceptance and completion in our relationship. I felt deep sadness when she passed, but it was not unexpected and I felt relieved that she was no longer suffering. She had been set free.

The greater loss during this experience was much more disconcerting and upsetting. My cousin (my Aunt’s daughter) had asked my sister and me to stay with her and help her through her mother’s funeral. Out of the blue in the middle of our stay, she verbally blasted us with a wall of hatred that completely bowled us over. Her rage, disrespect, and out-of-control behavior were totally shocking and unacceptable. It is hard to explain how difficult and painful it was to set the necessary boundary. Tough love in the face of abuse creates a myriad of emotions. We left without saying goodbye, knowing we would most likely never talk again. This was a wrenching loss. She made the entire celebration of my Aunt’s life and death a total loss.

Lily was the next to go. She was the old American Bobtail cat that ruled the place where I am living. She had such a strong presence I never even considered what it would be like if she wasn’t here. Sure enough though, she disappeared. I still expect her to be by the back door when I go out or come sauntering around the house for a good head scratch.

Recently I received a frantic call from a college roommate. Her 90-year-old mother was very ill. I have done my best to support her long distance. When I was back East a few weeks ago I spent time with them in the hospital. What was difficult for me was watching my roomie desperately trying to keep her mother alive. I don’t know when her mother’s time of passing will be, but I am certain it will be a devastating event for my roommate.

These are just some of the experiences recently that have brought up grief for me. They have given me pause for some thoughtful musing about loss. Surprisingly, loss gives me something when it takes something away. I think it is loss that makes me stop and appreciate the preciousness of life and every thing in it. Loss brings me up close to what is truly important. It gives me the gift of really knowing the value of living and shows me how to love with an open heart. It reveals to me just how deeply I can love.

Grief makes me examine my beliefs. When I have a particular belief about life and death, loss seems to weave its threads together around those beliefs. If no beliefs are in place, loss chews my grief process into tiny, unmanageable pieces. This is where Spirit comes into play. If I am looking at loss strictly from a third dimension perspective, nothing can sooth my grief.

Grief that I don’t deal with accumulates so the next loss and the one after that add up and become enormous. No matter how much my heart aches, dealing with the feelings of each loss makes the next one much more manageable. Otherwise, denial builds up an entire overwhelming mountain of grief that seems insurmountable.

Tonight I am waiting for a call from my sister to hear if her cat (that I love dearly) is able to come home from the animal hospital to spend the last couple weeks of his young life at home. He has congestive heart failure. When I asked my sister how she was feeling she said emphatically, “I’m pissed!”

I am angry, too, at all the losses. I don’t like it when I feel lost and disoriented, troubled and despairing. Grief snatches me in its grip and the only thing that brings any relief is opening my heart and letting the feelings come. The way I see it, I can gradually, over time, move through the grief or get caught in its insidious grasp and not take advantage of the opportunities being offered. Either way, loss hurts. Either way, grief offers the opportunity to be a patient and tender teacher.

Grief can teach me to be in the moment. It insists that I learn to let go. To go through the grief process I must search deeply within myself. This has the potential to show me many things about myself that I might not have known. It helps me grow and become more aware, more appreciative, and more open-hearted.

When I am going through grief, my feelings change rapidly. My knee-jerk reaction is to contract, pull in, close up, and shut down. When I have the courage to soften at these times, my feelings flow through me like messages and the pain softens. Gradually, my heart opens up again and I feel like a totally different person.

My mind wants me to avoid grief. It wants me to not acknowledge all these different experiences that individually, in my denial, seem somewhat distanced from me and not a big deal. I know though, life is full of loss. I have made a commitment to myself not to ignore it any more. I am going to look grief right in the eye and not turn away. It is challenging to feel all the feelings and move through the losses. Still, I don’t want to miss one moment of this amazing chance to learn and grow.

Observing The Mind: Healing Dream

On a recent road trip, I had an incredible dream when I was sleeping at a friend’s house in New Mexico. The dream is what I would call a “healing dream”, and I woke up feeling energized and happy.

In the dream I was sitting in a grand stand with my sister. We were watching the joyous pageantry of a festive parade. The parade consisted of all people who were dressed in light purple and cream taffeta costumes. There were flags and spirally banners in the same colors flying and confetti was coming down in sparkly flakes.

It was clearly a magnificent celebration. I watched the participants in the parade as they stopped to perform in front of the grand stand. I was surprised to see they were acting out all the highly emotionally charged events that had happened in my sister and my lives.

We were happily observing the spectacle, laughing out loud at the absurdity of the situations that were being enacted. All negative emotional charge was gone and we couldn’t stop laughing as one after another of the events were shown to us.

At some point, my sister leaned around me and pointed to a man sitting to our left a few people down. His aura was glowing so brightly it extended clear up into the sky and lit up the entire area. “Look”, my sister exclaimed, “it’s Jesus!”

Then I began to look around at the other people in the stands. Everyone was glowing in the same way. I glanced at my sister and she, too, was emanating a golden glow. I looked at myself and I was glowing, too.

We both agreed everyone was glowing, although not everyone saw or knew it. This great teacher was showing us that we are All light and love. As we turned our attention back to the parade we both basked in the truths we were experiencing.

When I woke up from this dream I was bombarded with realizations and questions. The strongest inspiration was becoming conscious of what my thoughts and perceptions had been doing to myself. Had I really allowed my thoughts to prop up negative opinions of myself by feeding them needy connections, distractions and mental and emotional despair?

I was stunned that my life had been bound by all the illusions my thinking had harbored about these emotionally charged situations. I could feel how these perceptions had dominated my life’s power and authority. These thoughts had interpreted my experiences and actually defined my reality.

I had awakened to the awareness of what it meant to own my experiences. A gigantic shift had occurred while I was sitting on the grand stand in my dream. I could feel a strong sense that now I was in the center of my life, observing and seeing it clearly. I was eager to live in the new experience of myself the shift had brought.

The dream had shown me I was ready to stop reacting to the old lies my thoughts had told me with all their judgment. I wondered what it was going to be like when I didn’t hold myself back. Would I be aware when fear and resistance tried to enslave me with old ideas, or would I laugh at them like I had in the dream?

A distinct new sense of myself had emerged. With it came a deep feeling of what my inner knowing wants for me. The person I had accepted as the “real” me and my old identity had lost its energy. An enormous trust of my spiritual intuition had replaced the old ideas of fear-based thinking, lack, and all the limitations I had placed on myself. The coping mechanisms I had used were no longer necessary.

I was delirious with the feeling that my spirit and my authentic self genuinely know me and do not judge. Just like when I was on the grand stand watching in the dream, now I had the knowing I can be neutral and just observe life with detachment. I had called my thoughts’ and perceptions’ bluff and I felt free. I felt inundated with an overpowering connection to my soul again.

Isn’t it amazing how when we stop believing the lies in our minds and observe our truth and experiences, our souls awaken and beckon forth our true selves? When we surrender our old thought forms and old emotions they simply float up into the clouds of illusion and show us how we create all our experiences. There really is a Divine Plan. We never again have to be less than we are!

Transformation Through Solitude

My life sometimes takes twists and turns that I don’t expect so that my soul can learn its lessons.

Four years ago I was catapulted out of my three-ring circus life and I lighted alone and isolated in the seclusion of the desert. The desert was so alien to my senses, I felt as if I had landed on the moon. I struggled to get my bearings. I found the desert to be a wilderness created simply to itself.

It took me a while to realize the desert was a dwelling place for seeking nothing but being myself. A place so barren and solitary, the desert called for self-inquiry, deep thinking, and solitude. I was alone with nothing standing between my Creator and myself.

I struggled to getaway from the solitude that surrounded me. The vulnerability of being alone with myself was frightening. I felt miserable. I struggled with detaching from who I had been and everything with which I had identified myself. I needed to give up the perception of reality I had left behind. For a long time I was hopeless and felt really lost.

The desert landscape that I had not yet learned to love reflected my depressed inner landscape that felt so bleak, numb, and useless. I started questioning my part in the events that had cast me here. I slogged through a lot of shame and self-doubt, anger, regret, and remorse. With intense resistance I started sorting out what was mine and what was not. It took a lot of effort to find balance anywhere in my life during this tumultuous period.

I felt as though I was caught between something and nothing. Being alone gave me a lot of time to think. One day I began to consider nothingness. I wondered if that was what I was experiencing. Was that what I was battling? What did it mean to know nothingness? The more I allowed the experience, the less of a grip nothingness seemed to have on me and the more I began to live peacefully with it. I began to appreciate nothingness as an act of humility to love and accept my state of moral and metaphysical helplessness.

In order to be with my nothingness I had to cast out all the old ideas I had held and been told about myself. I had to accept everything as mine, coming from something Greater than myself. If I was going to love my nothingness, first I had to love myself.

About this point in my journey something shifted and I began to relax into and realize I was choosing solitude. I started appreciating my situation as a precious gift. It was a time unencumbered by outside influences. It was providing an incredible opportunity for self-review. I wanted to use my time wisely so I could devote total attention to myself, seeking love for myself and connecting to Spirit that I had lost.

Solitude was providing me a space of sublime reverence for Self. My life, as I had been living it, had separated me from my true self. I had disconnected from my spirit. My soul felt a strong yearning to heal and rise from the pit of despair into my Higher Self. Looking inward was helping me find my divinity.

When I allowed myself solitude, I felt connected to All That Is. I recognized how some people live for All That Is, some live with it and some live in it. Those who live for All That Is fill their life with activities outside of themselves in the world. Those who live with All That Is also live for it, but they seldom allow the vulnerability necessary to let it in. Those who live in All That Is do not live for others or what they do. They live for what All That Is does through them. I felt a growing need to live in All That Is.

With this awareness, I began to puzzle whether solitude or partnership brought greater advancement to my soul. Reviewing my relationships that had ended, as well as those that had blossomed, reminded me of some of my life's greatest lessons. I had grown a lot being in committed loving relationships.

I thought about how relationships had been a method of reflecting my belief systems by giving me feedback about myself. Solitude was demanding detachment. It was helping me become reacquainted with myself. Knowing myself was facilitating and bringing me sovereignty. I could see the importance of having balance in a committed relationship. Haveing solitude within a partnership for self-contemplation provided the balance.

My journey of chosen solitude was bringing my life to a new level, I was living more consciously and being present in the moment. My soul had needed to clearly define Self in order for me to grow. Self-discovery was, without a doubt, embodied in this period of chosen detachment. I was being shown how to release dependency and all that was not serving my divinity.

Knowing myself was helping me discover who I am and what I believe in. I started to feel that this chosen time of solitude was a sign of my soul’s intention toward grace. I sensed that the final graduation of the soul is not accomplished through living outside All That Is. Life’s journey is manafest with the divine self in Universal harmony with All That Is.

Having the courage to let solitude be my teacher helped me understand that a spiritual life is not merely something to know about and study. It has to be lived. With me, everything that seemed to be a problem was not imposed by fear from the outside but pressure I was imposing on my self. Solitude taught me that sanctity means to be without anxiety in the midst of anxiety.

I have learned many inspiring and valuable lessons in this time of chosen solitude. I have been shown there are many contradictions in life. I know now I don’t have to resolve them all, but live with and rise above them. I want to be totally alive in body, soul, mind, heart, and spirit. The way to the Divine for me is through connection with the sacred sovereignty of Self. The way to my Higher Self is through self-definition, accepting what resonates as true, and loving myself. I am here to make the unknown known. The path isn’t always easy. Before I can surrender myself, I must be myself. I can’t give up what I don’t possess. This is the essence of solitude.

SHADOWS AND PROJECTIONS

A facilitator I couldn’t stop talking about gave one of the first workshops I ever attended. She was grounded, friendly, at ease with herself, connected to spirit, funny, intelligent, and brought us all into the moment with such quiet enthusiasm that I felt transported to another dimension. I talked about her with all my friends, “You just wouldn’t believe how wonderful she is!” They humored me for several weeks. Then one courageous friend boldly said, “She doesn’t sound like a real human being”.

I was shocked! My friend’s comment gave me pause for thought. What was there about this woman that had so energized me? I asked my friend to elaborate. “Well, when you talk about her, all the qualities you admire are ones I see in you.”

This really shook me up. I couldn’t grasp what she was talking about. None of these qualities were ways I identified or felt about myself. I would have described myself as flighty, aloof, uncomfortable in my skin, disconnected from spirit, bumbling, dull and shy. Where were these characteristics that my friend saw in me? Why couldn’t I feel them?

That is when I began the journey to discover those qualities in myself. The first step on my journey I had already taken: bringing what I most admired into my consciousness. After that the path led me right to the concepts of shadows and projection. This journey, which has taken years to walk, has radically altered my perceptions of the world and myself and changed my life.

Shadows are the parts of myself that I have not integrated so I experience them as being outside of myself. Some of my shadows are dark and others are light. I know when a shadow is around by the intensity of emotions I experience. A light shadow might be something in a person that I admire, like with the workshop facilitator. Dark shadows show up with someone I can’t stand because of things they do; like being too loud, too happy, too quiet, or having no respect for things that mean a lot to me.

One matter was becoming clearer in my discoveries: when a shadow is present, my mind fuels me with extra strong emotions. Reality gets distorted and clouded by what I think and feel. People, situations, and things take on bigger-than-life proportions. One thing that seemed odd was that the light shadows made me feel inadequate, inferior and hopeless, while dark shadows made me angry and opinionated.

Another incident taught me more about how shadows and projection operate. An acquaintance of mine recently got a new computer. My mind began to obsess about all the things the computer did. I couldn’t stop thinking about how a computer like that could offer me so much in the work I am currently doing. My mind was telling me I couldn’t afford to get one. My emotions were running high.

The light shadow for me was all the positive qualities I was seeing in the computer and also how they could empower my work. The dark shadow was rearing its ugly head, too, with loud jealous feelings toward my acquaintance. My mind bounced me back and forth between the two. When I felt the potentials the computer could offer me, I would think about how the computer I have was inadequate and limiting to my work and me. Then I would get furious at my acquaintance and feel the unfairness of their having the new computer and not me.

It was becoming obvious from my enormous feelings; my mind was trying to show me something important. As my mind was flooding me with conflicting emotions and incredible discomfort, I stopped and tried to access what was really going on. The strong emotional responses I was experiencing were coming from my mind giving me a plethora of dichotomies: good and bad, desire and lack, love and hate.

I could sense that shadows, both dark and light, were at play. The strong emotional chaos in my mind was trying to get me to see what I didn’t yet know and hadn’t integrated in myself. The emotions brought and kept my attention on this experience so I wouldn’t miss it. I cautiously let myself think about the opposite of what I was feeling. This brought me face to face with the shadow: the computer offered possibilities for my work that had not found its way into my awareness and my mind wasn’t allowing me to have. I quickly realized the anger at my acquaintance had nothing to do with her.

I was reminded of the intense feelings I had felt with the workshop facilitator many years before. I knew I was in the territory of shadows. This time, however, I began to see how projection works. It’s like being in a movie theatre watching a movie on a giant screen. The movie tells its story and for several hours I am ported out of my own reality and live within the movie’s. As the characters play out the plot, my emotions are carried along with the story line. Some part of me knows that I am watching a movie, so when the protagonist does something that is emotionally jarring; I do not jump up from my seat and run screaming into the screen.

When I am not at the movies but back in the reality of my own life, the powerful emotions that erupt from shadows are like a movie I’m experiencing. I can see that my mind is projecting these feelings out onto people and things and attaching distorted meanings to them. Then my world tumbles with a jumble of hurt, disappointment, envy, adoration, anger and lots of confusion. My response to the world in the reality my mind is creating is equivalent to running hell-bent into a large movie screen. I wondered what would happen if I pulled the projections back and witnessed my feelings instead of letting them run amuck.

Now that I better understand projection, I am doing an improved job owning my shadows. I watch for strong emotions as signals there is something I need to stop and observe. Sometimes it still takes me a while to integrate the qualities I admire or loathe, but I am getting gentler about giving myself the time I need. I do not give away my power to people or things outside of myself anymore, at least more of the time. I find it fascinating to witness the world from this perspective and my mind no longer jumps into the old obscure reality with its tempting antics.

As I integrate my shadows, I feel more whole and authentic. I love facilitating workshops, for instance, and humbly appreciate how grounded I can be and the ease I have with myself. I value my sense of humor and friendly nature. I am astounded at my connection to spirit and love holding group energy so participants can be transformed by discovering connections within themselves. I also have a computer that serves my needs. I find myself feeling happy for others when I hear about their successes. Shadows have become positive beacons for me and are no longer destructive distractions. I appreciate knowing what I am unaware of in myself. There is much less projecting. Isn’t life an amazing journey?

Mysteries Of The Moon

It was night of February 20, 2008. I was out watching the total eclipse of the full moon. The sky was enormous. There were no clouds. When the moon came up, it was a breathtaking milky-gold ball that lit up the horizon. As it rose and became white, the eclipse shadow began taking over. I kept watching it as the shadow grew and even tried to take some pictures of it. The pictures did it no justice. It is one of those things I will just have to remember.

I have been enchanted and awed by the moon as long as I can remember. Watching her cycles wax and wane has taught me more about life than just about anything else. She has been the most consistent and dependable thing in my life. I know she is out there when it is cloudy, her path misses my view, or when she is covered by the shadow of an eclipse.

When my son was small and one of us would go away, I used to tell him that we were never far away from each other because we could both see the moon. That made it much easier to be apart. It would have been unbearable if the moon had not been there for both of us. Even though my son is now an adult and on another continent, I still use my reference point to be certain of our connection.

Once an amazing thing happened. While watching the moon one night I had what I would call a sacred experience. I was on a mountain in Colorado camping out under the stars when a full moon rose in the sky. The light was so bright I could see as if it was daytime. I was laying in my sleeping bag watching the sky in wonder when, suddenly, I had the experience of not being separate. It was as if I was a part of the mountain, the sky, the moon—I was everything. From that moment, my spiritual life has filled and changed my perception of life.

I was hungry for lunar knowledge. I found the symbolic and spiritual connections fascinating. I read folk stories, fairy tales, poetry, novels, magazines, astrology, psychology and any spiritual books I could get my hands on.

I found out that many ancient cultures worshiped the moon more than the sun. Some called all deities the “moon”. To the Greeks, menos meant both “moon” and “power.” To the Romans, the morality of the Moon-goddess was superior to that of the Sun god. In many cultures, the Moon-goddess and the Creatress were one and the same. The Moon-goddess was thought to create time, with all its cycles of creation, growth, decline, and destruction, which is why ancient calendars were based on phases of the moon.

Because the Moon-goddess was threefold, the Destroyer as well as the Creator, she was the devourer of the dead as well as the giver of life. The Greeks located the home of the blessed dead in the moon. Most important for its association with birth, the moon was supposed to be the receptacle of menstrual blood by which each mother formed the life of her child.

Few religious symbols occurred in so many diverse contexts as symbols of the moon. Despite all the church’s condemnations, rural folk continued to trust the Moon-mother in all their most important activities. To them, the moon governed women’s sexuality, birth, death, and magic. (Walker)

As I gathered information, my own beliefs began to take shape and I was swept away with inspiration. With the new insights, I began to feel my power in a new and exciting way. The moon began to signify the feminine to me. She became a link to my mother, and her mother and her mother. I remembered when I became a mother and felt her presence right beside me, holding me and rocking me back and forth, back and forth.

I was beginning to understand the moon's energies about life and death. When my mother died, I initially felt as if I had lost all connection to everything. It was night when I got the word, and all I could do was go outside with my dog and sit on the ground under a huge tree and weep. Just as I was being submerged in agonizing despair, I looked up and the moon was peeking over a cloud at me. I remembered in that instant my connection to everything, including to my mother, now on the other side. Knowing I was part of everything, even death would ever take her away. My mother died thirty-one years ago this month. It seems like yesterday and forever. Tomorrow is my son’s birthday. It seems like he has been with me always.

As the eclipse completely obscured the moon, I took deep breaths and basked in the gratitude of her presence, her secrets, her power and the mysteries that she has offered me. She has shown me about the cycles of birth, life and death in many it's many forms and ways. She has helped me connect with spirituality. Because of her and what she has come to represent to me, she has enriched my life with a wondrous journey. I celebrate the blessings of the moon as she travels through the sky, holding her secrets for me to discover.

LIFE PATHS

I was born into music. Life offers us many paths, and for me, music has been a constant presence, a source of pain and joy, and a beacon for my inner life. It has meant various things to me at different times. At first it was so much a part of my world, I didn’t even question and couldn’t tell where I began and it ended. As I was growing up, there was a confusing swirl with my mother and music. I wonder now if the opportunities she provided to develop my talents were really about her unlived dreams.



My mother was a natural, talented musician who played organ at church for over 30 years before her untimely death. A guilt-ridden sense of doing penance for some deep-seated sadness permeated her music. She dutifully played without missing one Sunday service in all those years. She also taught piano lessons to any child in our small mid-west town who expressed an interest. When I wasn’t climbing a tree to listen to the music of the rustling leaves in the wind, I used to hide under a table in the hall and listen to her teaching.

I started playing piano at age 4 and violin at 7. Every Saturday we would make a 60-mile drive to take lessons. The weekly excursion gave me the idea that music was my life ticket out of town. That vision grew as the years passed and gave me a forward-looking focus to my life. I never looked back.

I didn’t really know how I felt about music back then. I actually gave no thought about what it meant. Studying the basic instrumental techniques when I first started was tedious dull work, like all new students experience. With my natural enthusiasm to learn, having the discipline to practice was not a problem

Learning the basics was, for me, not exactly music. It was similar to learning to walk, read or learn a new language. In the early stages there was no magic, beauty, or transcendence. It was a necessary rite of passage, which would later give me the tools to step into music and let it take me away.

By the time I was fourteen I started giving piano lessons. This was really fun and I totally enjoyed my students’ progress and watching them becoming ignited with the love of playing music. I continued teaching piano for 15 years. The last year I taught, I had forty students, ten of them adults. At that time, I had become quite fascinated with the effect music had on the heart and soul. I decided to give a workshop for my adult students to share this with them.

They were all much older than me and, as I look back on it, it gives me a great appreciation and compassion for my courage as a very young and naïve adult. I talked passionately about music and the soul and laid myself totally open to my budding beliefs. When I asked the question, “Where does the music come from?” and all ten responded, “the piano”, I spent the rest of the time trying to impart “the real truth” of my convictions.

The following week all ten students dropped out. I was devastated! I knew deep down what I had said was incredibly valuable and true. Had they stayed with the process, I knew it would have taken them to a new level in their lives. I still remember the sadness their leaving provoked in me.

Unbelievably, two weeks later, all the students returned. Their playing had improved tremendously. What was more profound though, was how they had integrated parts of my convictions into their lives. This inner growth had deeply changed their lives and given them a voice. Their souls were singing through the piano with joy.

I got a degree in violin and piano performance and became a professional musician. I practiced many hours a day. The isolation heightened my shyness and tendency toward depression. I was not happy. I played in orchestras and freelanced with other musicians who were underpaid, unappreciated and unhappy. Being paid to play music was no longer play but work. Music was no longer uplifting and I felt as if I was losing my life force.

The familiar knowing of needing to let go that I had experienced many times in my life emerged. I had to let go of making my living with music. Once I made the leap, I gradually began to remember the joy of music, my passion for it and how it fed my soul. I yearned to play with people who loved music as much as I did and who played for the sheer joy of the experience. This path led me to chamber music. I was enchanted with all of the different combination of instrumentation and the wealth of compositions that had been written.

During this time a pathway opened up and music became my own. More importantly, music took me over and made me hers. I do not remember the exact moment when I became the music and began to express myself and my relationship to everything in the Universe through this seamless collaboration.

Rediscovering earlier awareness about the connection between music and my inner life coincided with opportunities to improvise with other musicians. This was a totally new way of relating to music, quite different from my classical training. This expansion from form to formlessness began to help me conceptualize the thread between music and psychology.

Psychology was a tremendously exciting path. I loved becoming more familiar with my inner life. I took classes in psychology, immersed myself in individual and group therapy, extensively read psychologists and their theories and eventually molded all of my deep-felt zeal into a new career. My process led me into a world that provoked many of the same experiences as music, but was bigger, deeper, wider and higher. I realized this was what I had been trying to convey to my piano students.

With psychology and music, my inner and outer worlds merged and became enlivened in ways I couldn’t have even fathomed. I found that my creativity was rising to the surface and finding expression I didn’t know I had. This combination fed and nurtured me beyond my wildest imagination.
Then, one day I woke up and felt like a chrysalis about to break out of a cocoon. No part of my life seemed to fit anymore. The path I had been on had taken a sharp turn and then divided. It seemed impossible to find my bearings. My soul was opening my awareness to something new.

My immediate inner response was to drop into an empty void so deep that psychology and music disappeared altogether. I plunged in the anguish of the dark night of the soul. Music and psychology had been so alive and active. This place was totally still and dark. There was no light to guide me. All I could do was sit in the quiet and wait. My soul was taking a new direction and I had to wait to see where I was going.

In the waiting, I became aware of the importance of silence. In music, the space in between was equally as important as the notes. In the inner psyche, the places that seem void of everything are just as vital as the ones filled with noisy experiences and frenzied feelings. I could not escape the depth of this emptiness. My soul had a lesson for me. All I could do was wait and let it emerge.

After what seemed like an eternity, I began to sense a new dimension emerging that was bigger than music and psychology together. The world that my soul began to show me was metaphysical. It began to connect all of me together. The inner work I had done on myself and all of the ways music had guided me throughout my life began to come into focus, with the backdrop of something greater. My soul had broken out of its old form and was showing me a deeper, spiritual dimension of my life. This outgrowth from music to psychology to my spiritual self seemed like the most natural thing in the world. All tension lifted and I experience inner peace for the first time.

Psychology is the study of the soul. The next step in looking at the personal and interpersonal aspects of my life is transpersonal. I believe the soul offers life lessons through giving situations that require both inward and outward tension. Working these lessons out, no matter how many mistakes or successes, moves my soul forward to the next level or lesson. At some point, a transpersonal vantage point comes into view. This gives my soul its connection with the spiritual aspects of life.

Music and psychology, as they have operated in my life, have given me many lessons and taken me down many paths of learning. By integrating them into the transpersonal, I am now much more aligned with my soul. I am now connected with myself, others and something much greater.

Recently I have dusted off my violin case, put on new strings and carefully place chosen notes into the world. It seems so delicate and fragile, yet strong and powerful at the same time. My inner life resonates with the ‘new’ through my every moment of my life. Everyday my soul gives me another piece of this metaphysical puzzle in ways I understand on a deep level, but have no words to express. I have entered the next phase of my life. I know psychology and music are my foundation and now I am learning to fly low and have a strong place to land.

I was born into music. Music has patiently accompanied my soul. I am blessed to have come into this life with the gifts and willingness to find myself over and over again. From where I am now, there is nothing to do but follow the ancients in their pursuit of the Music of the Spheres.

A Treasured Friend

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to breakdown and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes

Steve Wickert was a gentle, broad-minded, hard-working, multi-talented, disciplined, intellectually curious, cheerful, thoughtful, charming, and utterly unselfish man, beloved by all whose lives he touched. I know he inspired and touched my life in a profound way. He was my friend.

I first met Steve in 1991 when I was asked to join a weekly chamber music group. We played quartets and quintets every week until I moved away in 2003. There is something about the intimacy of playing chamber music that creates an unusual bond that goes beyond normal friendship. It is a bond that, with the ethereal quality of the music, moves the soul and could be characterized as a spiritual experience. Because of that, my moving away and Steve’s death have not carried with it the usual pain of distance or loss. We are bonded in spirit.

Early on, there were times when we played music that I found Steve frustrating. He would always pass out the music and I was always given either the 2nd violin or 2nd viola part. I realized all the voices were equally important in such a small group, but I missed playing the beautiful solos of the 1st parts. As time went on I began to be given the 1st parts occasionally. I guess I had proven myself and he was more willing to share.

In later years Steve’s hearing began to go. We still continued to play, even though at times we all joined in Steve’s version of the music so that we could all play together. It didn’t matter though, because each member of the group understood the importance of playing with elder members in hopes that someday younger people would be willing to continue to let us play and express our passion for music, even with limitations.

The last time I saw Steve was in February last year on a visit. I had arranged with the other musicians to surprise him at their musical get together at his home. When he saw me his face lit up into a beautiful smile and I went over to him and gave him an enormous hug. Our cellist, another dear friend, told me after he died that she had never seen him give or receive any physical expressions of affection in all her years of knowing him. I am glad that my spontaneity and feelings allowed me to hug him and that he so opening and gracefully received it.

I am looking at Steve’s obituary notice, which has given me more insight into his long life. Steve was born in Germany and was the sixth of fourteen children. His father was an organist and parish hall director. His parents had plans for him to become a priest, but when he showed early promise as an artist, they allowed him to study art and art education. He used these skills both in Germany and later in the United States and was well known for his amusing posters that he continued to draw his entire life. All through his life, he exhibited as a painter, sculptor, illustrator and caricaturist.

Over the years, he also issued a series of over a dozen self-published books as gifts to family and friends, anthologizing more than a thousand German and other European folk songs in his own piano arrangements, with his own English verse translations, and accompanied by his own illustrations. At his death he was at work on a new volume, consisting of American folk songs. I treasure the volumes I received that are now in my library.

Toward the end of World War II, he was drafted and served as forward observer for the German artillery in Italy. His unit, however, retreated soon after his arrival and surrendered to the American forces upon re-crossing the Alps. After his release from an American POW camp, he rejoined his family, who had been relocated following a bombing raid. In 1952, he came to the USA with his family and became a naturalized citizen in 1957.

In addition to his professional talents as an artist, Steve was a passionate lover of music throughout his life. He played piano, violin, viola and cello with local orchestras in Rochester, New York and regularly met with friends to play chamber music. He was scheduled to perform a two piano concert two days after his death.

In 2006 I received a letter from him that touched me deeply. I am going to share it with you because I think it will help you understand what a wonderful man and friend Steve was.

12/13/06
Dear Paula,
Was it a bolt of lightning or was it the soft wing of an angel that touched me, when I read your account of your travel through the year.
It’s the least I can say: I was touched. To be included, an old man that I am, into what you accept and tolerate in the sheer battle of yourself, it felt like an honor.
Of course, I am still here, or am I? It’s the quaint but articulated indifference to what real age makes of a man. Plainly: Nobody knows except the old one himself. He doesn’t know, he just is condemned to live it. He is the “Unicum”, the oddity, the lover, the inaccessible one except for the vain scrutiny of trying to make him “act like all the others”.
Oh yea, I still stick out my antennas, actions that come with learning to walk and to eat, and even stroking a bow over a fiddle. That’s my conversation with the world I grew up with, though that has dramatically changed. I know it’s there, I can’t deny it, but I don’t have to agree with it. I don’t care whether anybody likes me. Most of them just take a step backwards in front of a confession like that.
Do I feel rightly seeing you sitting there calmly while I am blabbering away? You’d justly remind me of how much help I am enjoying with my children. And you are so right there. But even that is like rightness limited when one of my 4 favorite girls is befallen from a sneaky “Poliomyelitis” and will have to relearn moving like a baby, probably over the next 6+ months. She is God’s reminder for me that physical short comings are not reserved for old age.
Should I take hope from a turn like this? You bet I do. When you see your life elixir, your children, strangled in their youthful normality, then my age doesn’t matter a bit. There will be no miracle, but suddenly: oddity is normality.
Will we see each other at all, before it is too late? Christmas is such a wonderful God-given chance to join hands and cry out while you still can.
I know your courage has grown to face the oncoming year. I return your love in full measure.
Stephan Wickert

In Jeff Michaels’s article entitled “Endings and Beginnings” in the January issue of Sedona Magazine he expresses some of my beliefs and feelings about my relationship with Steve. Excerpted from this article:
“The ending of life is called “death,” and for many, death is a finality; death is an ending, a stopping, a ceasing—no more. There are faiths that describe death as the end and then they tell you what will happen afterward. They make something up: “You will go to heaven or you will go to hell. You will cross a river.” These are observation; these are glimpses, and they are all attempts to describe what you know is true. Death is not a stopping. Birth is not a beginning. Your energy does not cease.”

I will treasure the wonderfully fulfilling memories of many hours playing music and knowing Steve as a person in my heart forever. I also know, deep in my being, his spirit is soaring free and will be with me whenever I play music now or whenever I think of him. He continues to be a deeply loved and dear friend.