I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

Photo by Picmonkey.

“Some people take a lot of light with them when they go, yet seem to leave things brighter nonetheless.”

-Jim Beaver, Life’s → That Way 

Today’s post is dedicated to a beautiful lady named Carole whom we called “LeoLady” on KindSpring.org.  She left us last month.  We’ve been celebrating her life for three weeks, reading, in her words, about her acts of loving-kindness for her friends, students, and more often than not, “strangers” or “almost strangers” as she called them in one post.  She speaks to my heart.  This is exactly what I want my life to look like when  I am strong enough to do my work all day, every day, and peaceful enough to do it with all the love in my heart.

There will be a new 21-Day “Celebrating LeoLady” in two months beginning on Carole’s birthday (in July) and then once a year on her birthday after that.  All are welcome.  Celebrating LeoLady2.

In case you missed it during our #grief week, if you are grieving during this pandemic and have no way to assemble to mourn; or if you are simply grieving for any reason and you want to find a way to celebrate your loved one and bring their light to everyone you know, I am available to help you.  It is a virtual-only service.  Here’s my Simbi blurb about it:  21 Day Celebration (Memorial). You can supply the story, pix, graphics, and quotes, or you can leave that up to me. I would just need to ask some basic questions and I can help you with the technical aspects of hosting too.  This was the 31st 21-day virtual gathering I’ve hosted since 2015.

I have a lot of experience with grief rituals. I learned how much they helped my children when we lost our little one, Sara, in 1995.  More on that here:   One Woman’s Story.

Rituals are important.  They are doors to a new life, paths to healing, a place of connection, a way to let go, or to never let go but to grow strong enough to hold on.  It is all a very personal journey. In my country alone, we have lost nearly 100,000 people.  That’s 100,000 families that need to mourn.  Yet death and grief and mourning are rarely spoken about.

In the Japanse culture, the nōkanshi prepares the loved one ritualistically for burial. It is an act of deep love and compassion.  The nōkanshi is a stranger to the family, but they prepare and hold this sacred space for the families to mourn.  That is what I am offering in a sense; not a physical space, but a sacred one of gathering nonetheless.

This week, as you’ve probably guessed, features quotes from Jim Beaver’s book, Life’s That Way →.  He is one of my favorite actors and he is a gifted and inspirational writer who tells it like it is.  The book is hard to read because it is about a great struggle, about grief mixed in with the joy. Yet reading it has helped me.  More about that here if you care to read it:  Haiku for You, Mariana.

Anything that helps us remember that we are not walking through life  (“…That Way →”) alone, is a light-filled gem to me and so needed.  I hope you think so too.

♥.