Tag Archives: ancestors

DIVINE TRUTHS AND HOLY CHOICES

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The significant question of the day: What does my soul tell me are Divine truths and am I living in harmony with all that I know to be holy truths.

Today is the 5th and final day of my personal online spiritual retreat with Caroline Myss. There’s two more classroom sessions tomorrow and the next day. We were instructed to arrive with no expectations. I had none. At this very moment I can’t really articulate what it is that I have learned or achieved. Wait, I do have one observation. I see or I now admit that all my chaos and distractions have been for the avoidance of facing/answering the difficult questions/situations/truths.

I am sure I am not alone in all of this. It is difficult to face our mortality. It is not death itself that I am afraid of. It is the journey, the process. How will I be able to cope with my mother’s leaving? That has been a possibility the winter before last. I felt as if I had died a thousand deaths of fright that time. It’s only when I accepted that possibility, that the fright passed. It’s much like falling off a tall building. I accepted that I was falling. I could land with a thud. I didn’t. It was a soft landing. My mother proved to be a tough cookie and is holding her own.

I hope I am stronger for the next round. I feel I am. I am standing tall, trying to face the truths of this life. They are the same for everyone. We are born, we live and we die. There’s no getting around that. But I do believe in a force greater than ourselves. I draw my strength from that. I’m feeling my ancestors blood in me. I’m hearing my grandmother’s voice. There is a Tian/heaven, she cried when she was imprisoned by the Communist in China. My grandmother survived having to kneel on gravel, having cold water poured over her head and people throw angry words and stones at her. I come from good stock.

I know right and wrong. I have always tried to walk the higher path. I am not sure that I have always succeeded. It is difficult to make the hard choices but I do. It is my nature. I cannot do otherwise. How else would I know if it’s worth it if I don’t make those choices?Life is hard. I suffer for it. We all suffer. What would life be without a hitch? It would be a big yawn, would it not?

I’m not sure if I had answered the question of the day. But it is more than enough for now.

 

 

 

IT IS THE EVENING OF THE DAY

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I’m hearing the melody of the Rolling Stones’ As Tears Go By.  I don’t know why.  Songs come to me much as words do – from out of the blue.  I’m singing the first line, It is the evening of the day.  And it is the evening of the day but I’m not shedding tears.

IMG_1112It was another one of those days again when the sun and clouds battled to be seen.  There was no rain.  My mother had been waiting for such a day when the family could get together and pay respect to my paternal grandparents at the cemetery.  We called it walking the mountain.  In the old country the burials were in the mountains.  Our village was called Mountain Top.

 

IMG_1486We bring food, light incense and burn paper money for my grandparents.  We bow and pour libation on their graves.  After we all have paid our respect, we have lunch.  Then we pack up and go home to come again next year.  It’s harder to get everyone together, especially now the kids are adults.  Some are in other cities for school or jobs.  We do the best we can.  I value honouring and remembering our ancestors.  It is where we came from.  I hope the young people do, too.

Now it is the evening of the day.  I am tapping out my words and thoughts across the screen.  I am feeling more mellow in the darkness of the night, even though the quiet is pierced by the sound of sirens of an ambulance and police car(s).  Music from next door drifts through the open window.  It is hard to find perfect silence.  Maybe it is only possible in my mind.

WHAT IF…..

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What if I told you that I see/feel ghosts?  What would you say?  What would you think…that I am crazy, or would you keep an open mind?

I would be happy if I didn’t have this ability.  I am contradicting myself in wishing that I’m not weird but there you have it.  I am also a contradiction!  Would I have been ‘normal’, I would feel no need to sit here, tap, tapping away my discomfort, my ghosts.

I do not really see my ghosts.  I cannot describe them.  Rather I sense them.  My first experience was when I was a child, many years ago in China.  I ‘saw’ them when I was playing on our rooftop.  My mother told me that they were our ancestors and not to be afraid of them.  The second time came shortly after that.  I ‘saw’ someone standing in front of my bed.  I felt, ‘saw’ the shadow.  I cannot remember other incidences from my childhood.

I became afraid of my ghosts when I was a young adult.  I would cross my slippers by my bed to ward off their visits.  I came to no harm, but it was frightening for me to wake up with something sitting on me, holding me inert and helpless.  I could not move.  I could not scream until ‘it’ left.

To reassure myself of my sanity, I decided that the next time the ghost visits, I would test myself.  How did I do this?  I opened my eyes, blinked and say to myself:  I’m awake.  I’m awake.  The pressure was great.  I could not move but I reached and reached to turn the lamp on.  I knew the light would dispel it.  I stretched and stretched.  The lamp toppled, the shade falling off.  My cat jumped off the bed.  The pressure lifted.  But when I ‘came to’, all was calm.  The lamp was still upright, where it had been but the cat was gone.

I kept my slippers crossed by my bed for quite a few years.  Those incidents have stopped but I have had encounters of a different kind.  Am I crazy?  Do you believe me?  What do you think?