The experience is consistent and predictable. Having been gone for a number of days I enter Oma’s Cottage downstairs and am immediately greeted by Oma’s aroma. The couch that was the centerpiece of her living room in Glendale for so many years, continues to emit a distinctive olfactory sensation. No doubt this is the result of the dousing of creams and essential oils that it was exposed to in Oma’s presence.
Walking up the stairs the scent changes from distinct memory to a mix of daily living. It only seems natural that Oma in her white smock and a surprised “Da bist Du ja!” will greet me as I turn the corner. Instead I find the laundry basket filled with freshly dried towels and linens sitting next to the upstairs sofa. “Can I help with the folding of the laundry?” I ask her absentmindedly. There is a smile as I pull up her rolling chair and a reminder to turn on some music and close the closet door in her bedroom.
Its important to fold the hand towels the long way first. That way the main fold is at the end and they can be stacked neatly and picked off the pile simply. Oma’s meticulous ways remain and, as I see the stack of towels growing, I ask her if I’m doing it right. Oma is laughing at me as tears well up in my eyes, how fleeting is the illusion of separation, how powerful the feeling that Oma is still very much a part of my cosmic family, my existence, my being.
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In Laura's kitchen the white dishes belong up in the cupboard above the fridge. As I reach for the door my gaze focuses on a printout of St Francis’ prayer that Oma typed out and dedicated to My Love. It’s pinned to the cupboard door and represents just one of many manifestations of Oma’s love for Laura and her gratitude that we have found each other. Frozen in my tracks I lean against the counter as the memories flood over me and the tears flow in streams.
I know Oma is present because whenever the tears flow my soul has been touched and the harder they flow the more direct the contact is with the other side. Sometimes it’s my higher self, sometimes it’s a spiritual guide, sometimes its just the idea ferry and now, sometimes its my Mütterlein. Always it’s a profound feeling of connectedness.
Minutes later my love finds me frozen still in the kitchen and throws her arms around me. “Oma sure loved you a lot,” I tell her as we both release our tears of joy and gratitude at the wave of love that flows over us. Not a day goes by that we don't talk about Oma. So often I invite her into my heart, into my consciousness to experience the magnificence that surrounds me.
#
Most things here at the cottage remain exactly as they were when mother was living here, none of the furniture has been moved, her bed is as it was the day she left, her altar has her books, stones and candles on it, the treatment chair remains the centerpiece of the living room, her dear Andre Rieu plays his music on the CD. Even though all these props are maintained I still feel the image of Oma, slowly almost imperceptibly, receding into the background as the new brush strokes of life take hold.
This spawns a sense of urgency to start the writing process to capture the lessons and images of Oma’s transition. Still I feel it was a wise move to allow myself the time to adjust and accept the changes in my world. I still miss mother terribly but the sadness I have felt a month or two ago has transmuted into a gladness that mother’s wish has come true and she is on the other side with her spiritual family. As time moves on and I live in the afterglow of Oma’s light a serenity is growing around me. It has been nearly six months since her transition was complete and now it is almost starting to feel normal that mother is gone. Soon I will be ready to write.
#
Coming back in the morning is so easy. I step out of my dream world and voila, I am here at the Shambhala, doing my Yoga and Thai Chi, breathing in the fresh morning sunshine. Why would it be any harder for her to return from the other side? No body ready and vibrant to receive her? Is that it? Yet I feel the spirit presence in so many ways. When there is no music it feels important to put some on. Not for my sake, although I gain much pleasure from it myself, but somehow for Oma’s benefit. Its like she asks for it. She also asks to have the violet flame lamp lit.
Do I keep her spirit close by thinking of her or am I thinking of her because her spirit is close? A question of cause and effect that presupposes linier time. Cause and effect always presupposes linier time but as Einstein demonstrated, the equations of creation work equally in both directions of time suggesting that cause and effect are in fact one and the same. It would seem perfectly natural to wake up one morning, and encounter Oma walking through the kitchen looking for some tasty little morsel as she so often did, or find her sitting in her chair at her altar doing decrees.
Just before sunset, this time of year the golden rays find their way horizontally through the trees and bathe the sofa in the living room in a warm glow. Lying on my back with my head propped up a bit the full length of my body is illuminated as I feel the rays dancing on my face, inducing patterns of color under my closed eyelids. This was one of Oma’s favorite spots to watch the sunset. It was a physical representation of her whole existence in the last years of her life. The Sunset time, we called it. A time to be, not to do. St. Germain told her that; “you are a human being not a human doing”.
“Be still and know that I AM God”.
In Love and Light
ThomasCopyright © 2006 by T.M.T. Enterprises. All rights reserved.