Marcia Beachy, MS, LPC, CCHT

Gifts from the Soul

My friend Jim sits like still water, soft, unmoving in his assigned seat. No leaving without permission. Rise only if the wheels are locked and the bed rail is nearby, or a nurse. Them’s the rules, partner. These feet don’t go nowhere without a steel friend. He sits half to the window, half to the wall, bearing witness to this extraordinary corner of real, whether-you-like-it-or-not life. The Mystery abides here, both foe and companion.  Dare I enter this quietness with my outside bustle and cold January hands?

Hey Mr. Jim….

Ah-h the face of Jesus. Come in my Dear. So good to see you….

Is this a good time?

Of course, of course!

There is a monastic, painful wonder in which his days are held. The loudspeaker in the hall clamors for nursing staff to come immediately to the dining room. Someone moans across the hall. But this, the farthermost room from the nurse’s station, is a bastion of morphine-driven, slowed-down life, flavored with a precious, fierce love.

We all drop in, self-proclaimed members of the “Barnes and Noble Temple of Heretics.”

Hey Rabbi, we miss you! We need you back at B&N.

He smiles, great effort at strength and conviction.

I’ll be back. I’ll be out in two months, they say. Back home. Goodbye University Park Care Center. And, by the way, today I walked with the walker to the nurse’s station!

All that training in the healing power of mind and spirit. Focus the mind only on what you want. Ask Jesus, your guides, your inner healer, the Holy Spirit. See it. Feel it. Know it. And it IS!

I flip over the coin, peeking underneath. Ah-h…lonely. Years of lonely days piled one on the other. Heaped out back and covered with a tarpaulin. Now adding another layer of goddamn nursing home and medical trauma loneliness. We mostly do not see or name this. We don’t name heartache or longing or grief. But they are alive and well, thank you, orphaned by the “right” way to heal and the need to entertain visitors. I wonder about the orphaning of such deep feelings. I want to say, wait, let’s name and hold them…..

And if it’s not on the no-no list, we might even wander together into the land of sacred dying. You know–that universal back-up plan….

When I see your face, my friend, I wonder about this inner struggle. When I hear what you don’t say, I step softly in among the lily pads. I don’t mind. Loneliness is my familiar, a nemesis and teacher. It’s okay with me, whatever you want. Just so you know, the non-words are talking, I’m listening, and you aren’t alone. The non-word sounds and the great stillness of your Rabbi soul are all a beauty to me.

By Marcia Beachy, January 7, 2009

So precise, deliberate and delicate. My grandson, Elias, sits unwavering in his focus. A one-year-old Zen master whose meditation target rests lightly on his highchair tray before him. A food mantra that he comprehends completely. Deep blue and succulent, the organic blueberries wait in stillness. Then small fingers form the thumb-to-forefinger blueberry pickup. Slowly and without hesitancy each blueberry is lifted carefully to his mouth as the most precious of nature’s bounty, created particularly for babies. With the aid of four teeth and empty gums, the blueberry is thoughtfully mooshed and disappears. Plump and succulent berry becomes plump and huggable baby. He zeros in on the next waiting morsel, like a fat baby bird learning the art of getting dinner down the hatch. What greater honor could be gifted the final moment of any blueberry? After traveling hundreds of miles from field to market, that blueberry has arrived at its final destiny. A sacred demise, not to be confused with the common bustle afforded restaurant berries or gobbled breakfast routines. No, here in our quiet dining room, each blueberry is lifted up as a gift from God, then savored, relished fully and polished off with aplomb.

I am thinking of my own blueberry childhood. I smell my Grandma Eva’s blueberry pies cooling on the window ledge beside the scarlet potted geranium. Perhaps blueberries from a can, but fresh and tasty to me and my grandfather, who insisted on blueberry pie a la mode. About halfway through my pie-baking career, I remembered those Grandma Eva pies and began adding them to my holiday dinner options, feeling the circle come round.

I am thinking of grocery shopping at Safeway yesterday. The organic produce section had–sure enough–more fresh blueberries, each small carton worth its weight in gold. I bought one, of course, wondering if blueberries in April will become my secret baby reminder and a must-have.

I am thinking of Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who would hold up a blueberry and say something like, “In this blueberry is the whole world. In this blueberry is the soil from which it grew, the sun that shone on the mother plant, the rain that watered it, and the wind that blew through its leaves. In this blueberry are the hopes and dreams of the farmer and his family who grew this berry, and the hopes and dreams of the families who picked and processed it. In this blueberry are the truck drivers and the gas stations that got it to market and the grocery store personnel who put it out on the shelf. In this blueberry is the fascination of a small child picking it up like the first taste of forever.”

Blueberries and grandmothers and kitchens and Zen masters and babies. Old fingers rolling out pie dough. Small fingers gathering up blue magic. In this baby-with-blueberry moment, the whole world comes in out of the cold and quietly finds a place by the fire. Over this treasured weekend with Elias, my daughter and son-in-law, blueberries have become woven into the sweet, fruity fabric of the generations wrapped in the essence of an intent small boy with only one thing on his mind. It looks like eating dinner, but I think it is actually the “Blueberry Meditation for Contented Living.”

In this blueberry is the whole world…..

By Marcia Beachy, April 2009

Angela arrived for her past life regression (PLR) session saying that her life was so crazy and confused that she must have done something really terrible in a past existence and therefore was now reaping the results. She had read an interview with me on past life therapy in the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper (see article) and decided to gather up her courage and give it a go. In this life, Angela has fought for her schooling, her employment, her safety, and at times, even her sanity. She described her family as non-supportive. Life seemed to challenge her every effort. Nonetheless, she was well-employed, loved her children, and was ready to dig into the roots of her suffering.

Angela’s soul had other plans. She found herself in a simple country setting as a small girl of another race. This child, Sarah, loved to go barefoot, loved the feel of the grass under her feet and the blue sky overhead. She felt cherished by her parents. Life was tender and good. But at 18 years of age, Sarah died suddenly, leaving a grieving mother behind.

As we explored the reasons this life was shown to her, Angela felt the profound delight of that life, the joy and happiness, the simplicity, the connection to Earth and Sky. Most of all she absorbed the feeling of being truly loved and cherished. She experienced being accepted just as she was. This was a new freedom. This was a healing contrast to her present life experiences. She now has memory of unconditional love, and a complete complement to the complexities and challenges of her daily life. Rather than the troubled past she expected to find, her unconscious said, enough already! More important to her present state were deemed the gentle gifts of innocence, simplicity and wholesomeness. In seeking the roots of her suffering, Angela was given instead sweet passage into her joy.