The Nurturing Nest

I have never been fond of the term "empty nester". Labeling anyone with any word doesn't sit well with me. Yet, after spending several days visiting my daughter who lives more than half way across the continent, the term pulls at my heart strings. It had been almost a year since we had spent time together and the days shared this past week were too short. We spent time doing things together and, far too little time for my liking, talking about what is happening in our lives now and re-membering our experiences in the nest together. But, we did speak the words, "I love you", many times. I am grateful to the practices of the Love, Loss, & Forgiveness Project for helping me to keep that front and center. Forty days until our next visit when we can share the nurturing of the nest together. What more do we each need to hear than, "I love you".

John Martin Schneider

John Martin Schneider died at his home on Tuesday April 12th, 2011. His distinguished work as a Professor in the department of Psychiatry at Michigan State University that included writing and teaching about grief was well known. Yet it was not to remember his academic accomplishments that a few of us, including his wife Sharon Olson, gathered on May 13th for a Month’s Mind Ritual.

John was such an attractive human being. In our sex-obsessed society, this would usually be imagined as a reference to his sexual desirability or a judgment that he was handsome or alluring. John certainly attracted people to him because he was a lover, but this was a matter of heart and soul rather than sexuality. John was a kind, gentle and loving witness and an enthusiastic spirit for anyone who would bring their grief and despair, and they received from him the love and courage that was necessary for them to heal themselves and move through the underworld of loss.

Our Month’s Mind Ritual allowed all present to speak about John as they held the Talking Stick, and a Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Practice allowed all to speak to him for ten minutes as if these were the last moments we had with his Mortal self. We all need to say goodbye to the Mortal nature of those we love, but very often, through the suddenness of death or because we put off saying what we need to say, this does not happen. We also had the opportunity to imagine how we could continue to use the loving experiences with John to fuel living and dying more lovingly.

In the last paragraph of his book The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder said “Soon we shall die, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten.” And he ended: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” I take this to mean that if we have lived a loving life, the love lives on, and if our life was barren of love, nothing at all remains but ashes. John lived a loving life, so his love is still available to us even though his Mortal nature is not. We have around us many seemingly powerful men and women who have made killings in the market place and the “playing” field and in other wars in bedroom and battle ground, but unconditional lovers are an endangered species, and only they will dissolve the hatred that is killing us.

Thanks you, John, then and now. I love you and the other lovers who were so present at your Month’s Mind gathering.

Michael Murphy

Alone

Having just returned from spending a few weeks in the wilderness of Northern Alaska I think back on how it felt when the plane that took me there lifted off the glacier and the roar of the engine faded to a deafening silence. Alone, without most of the things that I surround myself with at home that I feel give my life value and meaning.

Instead, I was there with only the mortal me, the one who was born and will die... alone. I felt strongly how I can fear both living and dying and how that fear can so totally get in the way of opening myself to the experience of myself and others. It occurred to me that I do not have to go to the ends of the earth to know wilderness, to experience that alone-ness and that being alone with myself can be just what I need to learn to embrace myself and live in love with my own true being.

We all share that alone place being human. Who knows, perhaps some day we can even learn to love a glacier?

Namaste Jan

From Arnhem, Netherlands, comes this letter from Christiane Voit, who attended the memorial service for beloved LLFer Jan Marissens in Antwerp, Belgium this past weekend. Jan died suddenly late last month, en route to Belgium from North America, where he had been traveling with his wife Magda.

Dear Tim,

My heart and mind is full of the impressions of this day. May I share some of them with you?

Here is a summary of the funeral service for Jan. Antwerpen is a good two hour ride from where I live. Early in the morning we hit the road. It was lovely to travel with two other LLFers to Antwerpen: sharing experiences and  telling of cherished memories and moments of insight and change. In the church there were around 500 people paying their hommage to Jan: the whole company of firemen, lots of young people, about 12 LLF members, neighbours, friends and of course the family. I was struck by the face of Magda. What grief and pain! There are no words for it. 

The service was held without Jan - he was still on flight coming home to Belgium. (How difficult it must have been to leave him behind in Canada, I thought. And have the children actually seen their dead father?) So they set up a table with his picture and belongings: his fireman outfit, his climbing ropes, tools from his toolbox, paint roller, cooking instruments, some lit candles. The priest that led the service must be a good family friend. He was invited  for the birthday dinner: Jan died one week before he turned 54. In the freezer they still had some spaghetti Jan had made for another get-together. Jan must have been famous for his spaghetti with sauce. So they had Jan's spaghetti on his birthday. The whole service was conducted informal, striving for simplicity and heartfelt commemoration. Just as Jan preferred to keep it simple and straight. He acknowledged that Jan was a Christian and was seeking to find expression for his spirituality. One way to do it was by zen meditation (That is something I talked about with Jan and also his love for the mountains. He went climbing in Switzerland, he loved the nature).

Magda gave a short relay from their vacation in New York. It was their first - and last -  far away trip together. How heartbreaking it was to have to call the children "your father has died". Magda was ever so thankful for the great support of friend Marijke during their dramatic flight and time in Gander, Canada.

Music was played by friends, guitar was accompanied by an electric piano and singing!

Son Bert showed that he was wearing the shoes from Jan. With those shoes Jan had walked thru New York and had worn them thin. A smile went thru the whole church.

Namaste Jan

Jan Marissens

Namaste is a sanskriet word and means: "I honour and bow before the divinity in you". This mantra Jan brought home on a poster he had bought in Ireland.

I honour the place in you that is the same in me.

I honour the place in you where the whole universe resides.

I honour the place in you of love, of light, of peace and of truth.

I honour the place in you that is the same in me.

There is but one.

The children gave the following meaning to these words:

Namaste, Jan, papa,

We greet the divine in your love for life,

your family and your follow-men,

we honour the divine spark that also resides within us

around which the whole universe is turning.

This spark within you and us, this is love,

truth, light and peace,

it makes us one.

Aid us and nudge us.

Help us to be strength and warmth for each other,

so that we can go on

hand in hand.

It was a long service of 2,5 hours. The bright sunlight was streaming thru the stainglassed windows. There were moments when I could linger on my memories with Jan when everyone went forward to the front to virtually greet Jan where they had placed his mountaineering picture.

Not till I was in the car that the three of us said: We LLFers should have stood up to sing "may the blessings of love be upon you... We should have picked up the sha! for Jan".

We shared a lunch along the way home to keep, body mind and soul together.

Namaste Jan!

With love,

Christiane

(Pre) Postcard from the Edge

From The Love, Loss, & Forgiveness Project

When this blog entry posts itself today, I will not even be anywhere near my computer. In fact, I will be hundreds of miles from the nearest road on the McCall Glacier in northern Alaska. True wilderness.

I grew up in New York City, but my spirit prompted me as a young man to go to North. I started my college education at the University of Alaska, in Fairbanks, to be close to sublime mountains and the last wild open spaces left on the planet.

There is something about going into the wild, away from the buzz of civilization. For me it allows me a full mirror view of myself, as all the noise in my head gets focused on the fact that I am alive, and if I am going to stay that way, I need to become present. It is a wake up call of sorts that life can be even shorter than it already is.

Consider this a postcard from the edge, think of me today, on a massive flow of ice moving slowly towards its destiny, as a small drop of water in the Arctic Ocean. It is amazing how in this technological age we can keep up on our communication even when we are “nowhere to be found.”

-Many Blessings to all my LLF friends, John Carlson

The Untried Path

Leaving my comfort zone through work, through interactions with friends and family, through reflections on myself often gives me a wild and uncomfortable journey. When I am in that place my calves tighten, that flight or fight mode kicks in full bore. I am finding with age, (one of the beauties of it, actually) is that when I am on that untried path now I more embrace Love (which itself, can be untried, if not true). With Love, both for myself and for others, my friends, and yes, foes alike, I can be more at peace with myself. Then, the untried path can become a path of new and unexpected life changing and fulfilling magic. The Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project, is one such untried path for most of us, at first, anyway. What might feel like a jump into the unknown at first, can be full of goodness and illumination when we take Love's hand for that ride.

The Month’s Mind

Death is a breath-taking event even when we imagine that we are prepared. We mourn and grieve and gasp, and we have wakes and funerals, but we quickly forget. We fail to remember, perhaps, because the mortality of ourselves and the others we love is too difficult to imagine, so we banish its memory as soon as possible. The old form of wake has largely disappeared, and has been replaced by mourners making a brief appearance during restricted “visiting hours” at a funeral “home” away from home. This modern ritual allows us to act as if death is not part of the normal stream of life that flows through the place where we live. The sanitized showroom of the funeral home bids us to take a quick voyeuristic look at the dead, pay our “respects” to the living, and sign a book to prove to ourselves and others that we were there. Having done our duty, we return to “normal” as we continue to stoke the fires of the market place.

Funeral services conducted by pastors are usually other-worldly, most often calling upon God to give peace and comfort often without much focus on the life and death of the Mortal who just died. Many memorial services offer a more personal touch, but I believe that both with a memorial service and with the quick glance in the funeral home, not enough time is spent involving ourselves in the alchemy of the occasion.

A ritual like the one depicted in the Oscar (2009) award-winning Japanese film Departures has us pause for a while and gaze at the body of the one we loved. This ceremony gently holds our silent attention while we absorb the shock of the end of life of the Mortal nature of our loved one. It also gives us some moments to weep and to gaze and to absorb the death, as well as to give thanks and say goodbye.

Another ritual that is practiced rarely in these times except in Ireland is the Month’s Mind*  mass that is celebrated one month after death. Shakespeare made mention of the ritual in TwoGentlemen of Verona, (Act 1 sc 2) “I see you have a month's mind for them,” and the wealthy in England often used to leave elaborate instructions for the Month’s Mind that would follow their death.

I imagine us re-creating a Month’s Mind Rite that begins on the fourth Friday evening following the death and continues on Saturday until about five o’clock. A facilitator would explain the details of the ceremony to the gathering, and those who have attended a workshop on Love, Loss, and Forgiveness would also be familiar with the design of the ceremony. The Friday evening session would begin with two rounds of the Talking Stick that would be interwoven with a candle-lighting ceremony. The Saturday session would involve two trio exercises and a final round of the Talking Stick.

The first trio exercise would have the theme: “What did his/her life mean to me? Our friendship, connections and disconnections, the loss and much more.” We would have ten minutes to talk to the witness in our trio about our thoughts and memories of the person who died a month before, and ten further minutes to speak “to” that person by way of the witness. All the trios would reconvene in the large group, and there would be a period before lunch for participants to share their experiences.

The exercise after lunch would be inspired by the thought: “How will I spend the rest of my life?” We would have ten minutes to talk about our self with this focus, and then ten minutes for our Soul and Spirit to gaze at ourselves (by way of the witness). For the first five minutes we gaze lovingly at our mortal selves living life, and then for the next five minutes gaze and perhaps touch our self by way of the witness who lies down in front of us as if she were our dead Mortal self. After each member of the trio has completed their experience of witnessing their Mortal life and death, they reconvene in the large group as before for some reflections, and we would end the Month’s Mind Ritual with a final round of the Talking Stick.

I believe that the Month’s Mind Ritual would be an example of how loss may be transformed into loving energy for living. Thornton Wilder ended his book The Bridge of San Luis Rey on this theme with the words: “Soon we shall die, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten.” Unbelievable and unacceptable, and yet life is very short, and all memory of our being will be forgotten in a generation or two, if not earlier. “Oh no!” we cry, “I will never forget you,” but we do. And Wilder concludes: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” So this ritual celebrates the survival of love, the only meaning, and if our lives are to have meaning, we must pass it on.

Since I first thought of the idea for this ceremony less that a month ago, two important men in my life have died. The first was John Schneider that I first met in Lancing MI and then at a workshop in Ireland and later at his home. Then, a few days ago, a close friend for twenty years, Jan Marissens, died next to his wife Magda while flying back to Belgium from New York. I had no idea that I might be facilitating this ritual in Michigan and Antwerp so soon, but it would be my awe full privilege to do so. I wrote the following for John, and I have now added dear Jan’s name, for they seem like brothers to me:

Good Mourning is also a greeting and an encouragement to we Mortals left behind, urging us to go through this ultimate confusion of being mortal. I imagine Gentle John and Gentle Jan smilingly encouraging us to move on through the chilly darkness, for the love they lived is everlastingly available and palpable to the touch even though their Mortal natures have moved on. Thank you John and thank you Jan for the time and the love you shared with us, and thank you for your love that is now and ever more.

Michael Murphy

Albany, NY

---

*These “Minding Days” were of great antiquity, and were survivals of the Norse Minne or ceremonial drinking to the dead. The Venerable Bede (672-735) spoke of the day as commemorationes dies.

Good Mourning?...

Last week I wrote of "Good Mourning" as I attended a memorial service for a 23 week old fetus. I felt the mourning of the family and friends that attended. I mourned the loss of the baby.

This week there was nothing "good" about the mourning I experienced at the lost of our Jan and as I thought of his wonderful wife who is an inspiration to me, and of their children whom I have never met. I have not spent much time with either of Jan or Magda, but the time I did spend with them at Dzogchen Beara in Ireland in 2009 connected us. The time they spent with my Mom just before Jan's death connected us even further.

It was a shock, a punch in the stomach, an ache that will be mourned and remembered. I have no other words.

The Edge

I have been thinking about “the edge” recently. That place where what you believe, and maybe even hope for, becomes eclipsed by what is. Sometimes this may seem like a good thing and sometimes, not. I am thinking about a dear friend who just months ago retired from her work and was trying to come to terms with “what now?” Then, she started coming down with debilitating migraine headaches and what was believed to be a hernia that turned out to be cancer. Healthy, vibrant, full of promise just a few months ago and now in the hospital, in critical care fighting for her life. It can happen that fast, and it gives me pause.

Stopping to think about a work trip I am about to take to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska, one of the most desolate wildernesses left on our planet, and how going out “there” brings me closer to my friend in the hospital, and closer to us all, as we live out our human conditions. We are fragile, and we are going to die someday and that is hard to talk about- who wants to think about that!

But as I do consider it here and now, I feel my heart open. I feel the strength of my spirit wake up and look deeply into that seeming void, and there, I catch glimpses of life, of real living… on that edge, where the view can get terribly clear, and be terribly beautiful.

As we each struggle with our own facts of life, I feel blessed that I have connected with other brave souls, spirits, and mortals like you, who find your selves here- sharing the reality of our being.

For me, it is in this sharing that makes living all the richer and softens some of that edge.

Great Sadness

Jan Marissens

Today I am grief stricken by the unexpected and tragic loss of my great and gentle friend, Jan Marissens. He will be remembered by all who knew him, his family, friends and many who were graced to have met him through the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project.

I have no words at the moment, it is hard to move or even breathe. My sister tells me to move forward with the life I still have in me. And so with this life, and a heart ripped open, I send love to all of you.

The Un-Dead

This is one of those rare years when the Western Christian and Eastern Orthodox Easter celebrations fall on the same day. The news media, ever alert these days to the gathering of crowds in the middle east, report that it is creating a bit of choas in Jerusalem. Extraordinary crowds of pilgrims seek to retrace the Via Delorosa or stand within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as Sunday's light dawns. Mass movements need to be carefully choreographed. Yet, though swept along with the crowd, each pilgrim is on an individual journey: to consider and better comprehend the permeability of the boundary between life and death. Half a world away, we can ponder with them.
Theologians use the term "resurrection"; more simply we ask, "Can the dead live?"
The scientist within wants to insist that dead is dead and that the siren song of denial must itself be denied. I visit the tombs of my father, mother, sister, aunts, uncles, friends and no stone is rolled back. They are where I saw them last-- laid to rest--undisturbed--that's it--finis! Why then, even as I stand there, looking at their names and dates inscribed in stone, do they all seem so alive within me?
I suspect that for others as well as myself, the dead are not so dead either. There is a portion of my consciousness where all these familiar folk have set up house. At a moment's lapse, I am through their door. I see them, they speak, even dialogue with me in tones I recognize and in settings I have experienced. Close my eyes in sleep and they are likely to meander through my dreams, sit there alongside as I relive my day, offering their unsolicited opinions. They seem as influential as ever, perhaps even more so. When I am awake, I seem to be their vehicle of expression, adopting their habits, employing their attitudes, indulging in their emotions. Like the cats who snuggle into bed with me at 4:00AM, I love them dearly, but crave my own space.
We are far more than the sum of our genes and influences. Deliniating one's own particular parameters of spirit and self is necessary and worthy work. Thankfully, Love, Loss and Forgiveness makes that work a deliberate conscious process. Confrontations and conversations that might have happened [had not circumstances and human frailty intervened] are given expression and hearing in safe settings so that we are freed to focus on the life we live rather than the life we might have lived. In a sense, the permeable boundary is re-crossed. Grateful for what we have been bequested, we move onward toward greater self-appreciation and self-responsibility. And that feels very much like becoming un-dead.

Imagine Loving Thy Neighbor as Thyself

This is the time of year when many remember One who loved his neighbors as himself and died for them. I thought that the following piece that will shortly appear in my new book, Gazing at the Lighthouse: Reflections on the Loving Life might be of interest, and I offer it with love.

We are urged to love our neighbors as ourselves, and it is a disaster for the neighbors. In fact, most of us hardly know our neighbors and probably don’t like them, never mind love them. No big surprise, because many of us are also unfamiliar with ourselves. Loving ourselves is something that we have been lead to believe is weak or self-indulgent or narcissistic, regardless of the fact that Narcissus killed himself because he discovered that he was unable to love himself.

What if we really loved ourselves and then acted in the same manner towards those around us! Imagine waking up and saying to ourselves, “Good morning! How glad I am to see you!” Imagine being our own best friend, someone we can trust to whom we can take our concerns and worries without fear of judgment. Imagine being comfortable with solitude yet relishing connectedness!

Loving ourselves is giving voice to our feminine Soul nature. In our increasingly masculine world, the feminine within men is often unfamiliar. If as men we love ourselves or love other men, then we imagine we must be gay, regardless of the fact that sexual preference has little or nothing to do with love.

If we love ourselves, we might believe this to be a statement that we prefer self-love to a sexual relationship with another, regardless of the fact that masturbation and sexual relationships may have nothing to do with love: they may be more akin to scratching an itch than being expressions of love. If we feel love towards a woman other than our wife, that love is often seen as off limits because coveting our neighbor’s wife is taboo, and it must mean that we want sex, regardless of the fact that we can love ourselves and others without sexual activity. So men are often lonely and out of touch with their feminine nature. They may only allow themselves sports talk, backslapping, and a variety of addictions and protective habits with men and flirtatious but not deeply penetrating exchanges with women.

For women and for men, loving ourselves is the best preparation for unconditionally loving others. Many women who have little love for themselves dedicate their lives to filling the feminine void in men. Filling the emptiness of another is impossible, as broken marriages and other relationships tell us, and neither the woman nor the man is satisfied once the bloom of sex is diminished.

So let’s imagine loving ourselves. We will need to practice forgiveness; we will need to practice letting go of the doubts, judgments, and limitless ways in which we torture ourselves for not being someone else. Let’s look in the mirror and love what we see. Let’s meditate lovingly on ourselves, and when we feel fulfilled, the love will spill over and nourish others.

Michael Murphy

Cracks and muscles

Mortal, Soul, and Spirit — the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project unites these three aspects of ourselves into a trinity of well-being and inner strength. The Mortal is our physical self, the one that eats and breathes, toils and dances, and must eventually die. For each of us, the Mortal takes the guise of one gender or the other, but what the Soul and Spirit recognize is that within each of us we possess both the feminine and the masculine. The Soul is that feminine part of us that can love unconditionally and gaze in rapt attention at another without judging, and feel the heart fill. The Spirit, our masculine energy, is the voice of inspiration and enthusiasm, the nudge that prods us to live life and meet our destiny.

When I began in LLF earlier this year, I was astonished by how little I was acquainted with my own soul and spirit. Although the idea that each of us embodies male and female energy was not new to me, I only knew it as an idea, an abstract concept carried in my head. For me, as for so many others, my intellect had become not a way to engage with life but a clever means of escaping it. I began to see this as the exercises of Love, Loss, and Forgiveness had their effect on me, which was first to crack the thick crust that had formed over my inner life. As Leonard Cohen says, the cracks are how the light gets in; very quickly, I began to feel alive in ways I had longed for but had not known how to achieve.

Once Soul is stirred, life takes on a texture and depth that feels almost miraculous. My emotions woke up to a different space. As I have begun to feel more deeply within myself, I find I am able to respond more genuinely to the outer world. One aspect of our personal soul is the way it connects to the souls of others, and to the larger mystery of Soul that unites everyone and everything. It's a thing called Love. As Soul has come alive in me, my spirit, which before had been largely a mechanism of responsibility, duty, and stymied dreams, has begun to grow its muscles as well. I have experienced a new level of creativity, confidence, and courage, outward manifestations of Spirit. Spirit animates the world, literally sets it in motion. And so we can begin.  — Timothy Cahill  

Good Mourning

Last week I attended a funeral service for a stillborn infant of 23 weeks. The young twenty year old parents were surrounded by many friends and family members. The priest greeted us with the words that most of heard as ‘Good morning’. How strange I thought. She acknowledged the strangeness of the greeting and clarified that she really meant ‘Good mourning’, that we were going to take our time to mourn the loss of this infant, and to acknowledge that the mourning would continue. And that is the way it would be…

Ah, now I understood the profound greeting and immediately thought of the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project. My first experience with the LLF Project allowed me to experience the loss of my Dad in very powerful ways. One way was through the realization that his death was an intense ‘scream’ in my life, a time when one feels a deep loss and a scream, whether voiced or internal, is the sincerest response. My Trio- myself, and two others who acted as a witness and a guide- gently allowed me the expression of that loss in a way in which I could embrace the love that my mortal Dad had given me and to acknowledge that he would no longer be here as he had been. Yeah, Dad! You are still in my heart!

-Kate Reid

The journey started for me...

There is a ring I wear on my right hand, a ring made up of three interlocking bands of gold: yellow, white, and rose. Even though each one is lovely in its reflective, pure nature, the three bands cannot be fully separated from each other, and all three are necessary to make this trinity ring. You are able to spread them apart, you can allow air to blow freely through them, but they are forever entwined.

I’ve been wearing this ring since I first put it on last May in my “wedding ceremony”, standing on the banks of a lovely cove in the middle of formal gardens in Ireland. My dear witnesses were two women whom I had never met until five days’ previous. I was pledging to love and be faithful to myself, and to respect and honor all aspects of my being: mortal, soul, and spirit. Thus, the three interlocking bands. This was the culmination of an amazing week with people who had been strangers to me but who had all experienced a life-changing workshop on Love, Loss & Forgiveness.

This journey started for me when I attended a weekend mini-workshop with Michael a year ago in Troy, NY. I experienced the first steps towards profound changes in my approach to life, to those in my life, and to myself. I took a risk and signed up for the week-long workshop in Ireland, which led me to that little cove, accompanied by other seekers. And I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to impart my experiences with you all, and hear about yours in return.

You and I are able to connect through our stories, how we got involved with the Project, our first tentative steps, our fears and enthusiasms, those “Eureka! “ moments as well as the slow awakenings to self-love, and our applying what we’ve learned to “Real Life”. We do the work ourselves, but how wonderful to be able to bond and learn from each other as well!

It is my intent to write a new blog entry at least once a week. I also hope you will write back and take advantage of this opportunity to build our little supportive community around the globe.

May the blessings of Love be upon us! CD

Romanian Reflections

Photos by Traian

Here are a few pictures from the recent LLF Workshop in Romania!

Always great to see Michael at work.

Brings back powerful memories of past workshops myself.

Here's to gazing everyone!

Warm Regards,

Kelly Hurley

Roadtrip to Now

By Roger Wyatt

The miles fly by. I pass an eighteen wheeler out of Quebec. From my car radio comes the music of my youth - Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Kinks. The miles fly by. I'm headed to Ohio to spend time with my departed wife's family. She died ten months ago.

In Syracuse, I get gas. In Buffalo, I pay a toll. In Erie, I stop for a meal. Back on the road. I'm into the rhythm of the journey. The music drives me as much as the gas - Stones, Supremes, James Brown.

Life is not static. I intend to tell them about the new woman in my life and how deep and serious our relationship is. This roadtrip flows and changes just as our lives do. ... When she died, we spent our last moments together with eyes locked in an intense gaze. There was no more to say, just a loving gaze to share as she sliped out of her body and into eternity. In seconds a life can change forever.

Suddenly I see fragments of a blown out tire in the road ahead of me. I swerve past it. Two seconds later I see smoke from the car whose tire had blown. A second later I see the car in front of me has stopped to stare or to help. Time has slowed and seconds have become lifetimes.

I'm traveling at seventy five miles per hour. If I don't react immediatly I will plow into the back of that car. I will die or be maimed along with the other driver. In the next second I swerve into the right hand lane. In reaction to my high speed maneuver, my car fish-tails, wildly swerving left and right. In the next second I pass that stopped car. I have control of my vehicle but do I control the length of my life? Our time is not our own.

When she died what needed to be said had been said. But life keeps flowing. If my life had ended in that auto incident so much would have been left unsaid with so many others. Now is the only time we actually have. The past is a blurred memory and the future is yet to be. We must use the present wisely, it is all we have. Now is the time to say what needs to be said.

Michael Writes a Letter from Laz

Dr. Traian Strambu in Ireland, Photo by Roger Wyatt

The house on the hill in Laz, Romania, a small village in Transylvania, was the home of Dr. Traian Strambu’s grandfather. Traian is the heart and soul of the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project in Romania. He first invited me here after he participated in a workshop I gave in Ireland. A psychiatrist by trade, he is a warm and enthusiastic man, as passionate about LLFP as I am, so it was easy to become friends.

The three generations of participants in this workshop ranged from a fourteen year old girl, who came with her mother, two other teenagers, and eight others. Everyone was silent as the beginning of the workshop—awed and a bit fearful about what was to come. They sat pensively waiting for permission to speak. The Talking Stick gave them that permission. This initial Silence seemed a shadow from the particularly dangerous and malignant brand of communism that bred fear and distrust throughout the country and was made more poignant by the dark mantel of guilt and secrecy brought on and practiced by the church.

I could easily feel the warmth of these beautiful people, but that warmth at first seemed to be hidden from themselves, and each other. However, when given “permission” to talk, they opened right up-- for they were literally dying to talk. It was so moving to witness their struggle to find the words necessary to give voice to their suffering-- and when they dared to speak, they cried fountains of tears that had been unshed for years.

We also laughed a lot, and had an evening of fun-- for Romanians love to sing and dance and enjoy life, however difficult.

Poverty is the rule here, and most of the people attending could not afford this, or any other workshop. I envision a time when the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project community will be vital enough to help make available the practices of LLF to these brothers and sisters in Romania and other less fortunate places around the world.

I wish you all could have met these beautiful people, because you would have loved them as I do. Perhaps someday you will have that opportunity, as we expand our LLFP Internet programs and open new channels for communication with one another.

With love, Michael.

Michael Leaves for Romaina Today!

Micheal is off to Romania today to meet with Romianian LLFP practitioners and lead a workshop.Thanks to Traian and Simona Bernat, and others, Romania is home to a lot of project activity, with active groups of nine and annual start up workshops given by Michael. Michael will be staying with Dr. Traian Tudor Strimbu at his home on the waters edge. This should be another amazing series of meetings!

This also kicks off for Michael, and the LLFP, an exciting time for the Project, as John Carlson, Roger Wyatt and Kelly Hurley of MediaThinks Inc. will be heading the development of a whole new Internet membership platform for the organization and running of LLFP activities internationally. More on this new way for you all to stay in contact with each other and the project on this blog in the coming weeks...

Please keep in touch, we love would love to hear from you in the comment sections of the posts.The Love, Loss and Forgiveness Project is about all of us, it can become an important international movement for Living the Loving Life!

"I was frozen inside..."

"I have been involved with the LLP-project-work since 2000. In that time we called it "Murphy-training", because we didn't have a name for it yet. During these nine years I came together with many groups and I have SEEN wonders happen doing Michael Murphy's work. As a witness and a guide I have seen TRANSFORMATIONS happen in other people...I have experienced the power of "listening without judging", the power of " looking in the mirror," and these taught me (as a general practitioner and a human being) that there is always hope ... for everyone... even when we go through very bad things or very difficult times.

I also learned I cannot do this when I'm alone with a patient. We need TRIOS-- the story-teller needs a witness AND a guide. So now during my work, when I met people that I as a GP can't help alone, I know there is hope for them if we can practice in the trio's of the LLF Project. And then came 2009... and a crisis for me. My body didn't allow me to do what I wanted it to do. Tired and exhausted… (How was that possible?), I felt I had lost a part of myself, but I did not know what to do, where to go, or why this was happening to me.

I went to Ireland this September to the Love, Loss and Forgiveness Project workshop of Michael Murphy .... and there I felt the WONDER of transformation happen IN ME. It took only 36 hours....and I was "my whole self" again... I could cry again... I could really laugh from inside, again... and I felt, and I still feel the warmth of LOVE deep within me. I was frozen inside and was becoming a hard women…

My difficult time is not over yet, but I'm sure I will become better, and I know that it will take time and as Michael always says, “it is VERY SIMPLE, BUT NOT EASY.”

I'm so grateful that I know the Project, and that I can help to spread it a little bit in my region in the future".

Krista from Belgium