Beautiful Mother
My beautiful mother Ruth Naomi Gould slipped peacefully from her earthly life on
On Tuesday, her breathing was very, very labored and she was developing fluid in her lungs and throat. She was able to tell me that she loved me so much many times and she was even showing a bit of her characteristic comic “edge” that we know and cherish. I looked into her eyes and said, “It has been my absolute highest honor to know you and to be your son. It is okay to let go, because you can only fall back into God.”
My sister Denise, and also my mother’s sister Alma had been jumping through hoops with their legal maneuvering that made it possible for my mother and “Pops”, my stepfather and the eternal love of my mother’s life, to be placed in the same nursing home, side by side in the same room. Throughout this ordeal, my sister is the true shining hero of making the vital decisions and banging on the doors and seeing that they were both cared for the way they deserved to be.
I was completely wiped out by early Tuesday evening after going for 5 days with little more than a few hours sleep. I had done another radio interview, and 3 separate workshops. The bittersweet nature of my Sunday event at the Center for Creative Living in
Wednesday afternoon, after sitting at my mother’s bedside since early morning, I leaned forward, gently kissed my mother’s forehead, and whispered softly in her ear that I was going to step out for a while to get something to eat. Her eyes opened just slightly as the corners of her mouth barely arced upward with what was obviously her very tender effort to smile. I held her hand in mine and, looking deeply into her beautiful soul, I said once again, “It is okay to let go, because you can only fall back into God.”
During lunch, I had very strong repeated inner feelings that I should take my time getting back to her room. I sat and thumbed mindlessly through the local newspaper, sipping hot coffee and snacking on warm, fresh-baked cookies. When I returned to the rest home, I spent several minutes walking around the parking lot, making several phone calls to my wife and a few friends.
After about 10 minutes in the parking lot, I walked almost trance-like through the bustling post-lunch hallways back to my mother’s bedside. As I entered the room, I immediately saw that my mother appeared to have let go. I looked at Pops, who told me that he had been watching her take her final breath and that she had not breathed in several minutes. I put one hand on her forehead and then one on her wrist to feel her pulse. None. I turned back to Pops and asked that he please hit the call button for the nurse, to which he said that he already had.
Several moments later, a nurse walked in and I asked her to please check my mother. After she did, the look on her face confirmed my instinct. Another nurse came and it was exactly the same thing, as both nurses quickly left the room. As I stood looking at my mother’s lifeless face, time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl and warped into swooning, surreal mistiness. Almost as if I was unconscious, I could hear a lot of sudden hurried activity in the hallway and a lot of beeping and dissonant whispering at the nurse’s station. A moment later, 5 nurses came in, immediately hooked up several devices and felt for her pulse.
The head nurse looked at me and asked softly, “Are you okay?”. That is when everything in my vision rapidly squeezed down to a single pinpoint. I looked at Pops and gently nodded my head yes. His face held the simultaneous expressions of relief, confusion and terror. As the nurses prepared my mother’s lifeless body, I sat beside Pops as we embraced and cried into each other’s arms.
Family and ministers arrived over the next few hours as we caressed, held and said goodbye to the precious woman who gave us the absolute highest gift of Naphsha – The Breath of Life. She was the zany woman who made us laugh, the inspiring woman who showed us a love that transcends the boundaries of time and space, spirit and flesh. She is my mother – Mom. She is my friend. She is my eternal support and my greatest fan. And beyond all of these selfless gifts, she is my soulmate. Every breath that I take is due to her.
I will miss my mother for the rest of my life, but I absolutely know that she is in a much, much better place. The grieving is for me, not her, and I know that she will always be by my side.
Ruth Naomi – You will forever inhabit a place in my heart.….
Originally Published in the March 2007 edition of Spirit In The Smokies magazine
Birthing Anew in Each Moment
I believe that what was burning up was another layer of belief which separated me from the ever-present awareness of seeing only God. Each time that I experience this burning sensation, I always emerge much lighter with a feeling of deeper connection and heightened alertness to the swirling energies within and around me. The Honor of Awareness A quarter of a century later, I find myself just coming to realize the growth and spiritual re-awakening that was occurring for me, even as a young boy. At the time I figured I was just wandering aimlessly through the woods with my eyes closed, trying to get lost and find my way out, because it gave me a little bit of a buzz. My 34-year old perspective is that it was an incredibly courageous, if a bit naïve, test of faith in myself and in the spirit that I have always sensed within myself and nature.
My life's journey from mental-based theology to the spiritual experience of oneness with all that is has at times been quite dramatic. By the arrival of my fifteenth birthday I had already read the entire King James Holy Bible from cover to cover several times.
Every Sunday I was attending two separate churches, Methodist and Episcopalian. In the summers I was attending vacation Bible school and had daily Bible study with relatives. Scripture passages rolled off my tongue like warm honey from a vibrant beehive.
Year after year I kept reading and studying every line, story, parable and concept, especially those New Testament lines in red: the words of Jesus. It was glaringly obvious to me though that Jesus always spoke of what to do, but why was there was rarely ever a how?
I often wondered aloud to my ministers and church elders why. "You have to take those on faith, Dale," was often the stock response to my constant inquiries. But I just couldn't seem to shake my nagging gut feeling that something was missing, or maybe “lost in translation.”
Many years later, at the age of 23, I spent the summer of 1995 at HeartLand, Dr. Michael Ryce's teaching center deep in the
After memorizing the first half of the Aramaic Prayer of Yeshua (Jesus), I felt compelled to go for a walk down to the lake. As I stepped slowly and mindfully, deeply aware of my breathing, I found myself repeating "Abwoon". "Abwoon" is the first word of the prayer, often translated as "Our Father." It would be much more accurately translated as "birthing anew in each moment, from the One, pure potentiality to the manifest."
After several moments, my repetition of "Abwoon" grew into a speech-singing and was unfolding very organically and naturally for me, as if I had been speaking these words for centuries. This was several years before I became aware of the chanting "body prayer" work of Aramaic scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, who later became a significant mentor for me in my Aramaic studies and my spiritual growth.
When I reached the lake, I eased a canoe into the glassy water and quietly paddled several hundred yards around a bend where I was completely alone. I continued to repeat the phrase "Ahhhhh-bwoooooon," "Ahhhhh-bwoooooon," descending deeper and deeper with each repetition.
My intoning was reflecting back to me from the still water, the tinny reverberation echoing softly back to my ears and creating a canon-like medley of spiritual hyper-awareness. My body was now utterly motionless yet tingling with activity and vitality.
Thoughts of my childhood began to arise and move across my inner field of vision. I very clearly saw myself in church, vacantly reciting the words "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come…" I became aware that my consciousness appeared to be spanning distinct thought systems at the same time.
I was simultaneously present in both my now and then. I could also vaguely see that my divergent thought systems were beginning to intertwine, like two Sufi mystics interlaced within an ecstatic realization of dancing in oneness.
I continued chanting "Ahhhhhbwoooon" though a bit softer with each repetition, and began to feel a sensation of heat on my face. The only way to describe it is to say that it felt like a lighter version of shame – in my teaching I often call it "shame-lite." It felt like something in my consciousness was literally burning up in Noohra, the pure light of conscious awareness.
The true meaning of the word forgive in Aramaic, Shbag, means "to cancel, loosen or untie or return to an original state". Forgiveness is the process of returning home to the truth of our wholeness through the awareness of our own holistic breath, Rookha d'Khoosha, which is often translated as a dis-embodied "Holy Spirit". In the Aramaic truth, our own conscious, whole breath is part of the Holy Spirit, which is the all-embracing Breath of God.
Today, after 12 years of intensive study and insight into the Aramaic language, I often find myself so completely present when I am speaking or chanting in Aramaic, that I lose all sense of here and now and feel my awareness stretching across the expanses of time. I feel at once completely present throughout a span of two millennia, though not absolutely rooted at any particular point in the passage of time.
My life has become much more peaceful, authentically loving, and centered. On a moment-to-moment basis, whether alone or in my interactions with others, when any fragmented illusions arise in my consciousness, returning to my breath and silently intoning "Abwoon" returns me gently back into the healing arms of Alaha, the living, breathing Oneness. I return to Rakhma, the beingness of deep, still peace and absolute, all-encompassing love. The awareness of my breathing is the grounding rod to the energetic core of the universe.
I clearly see my childhood experiences within theology and religious fundamentalism as preparation for my Life Purpose, which is to help everyone I come into contact with to develop their awareness of the true Oneness and presence of God through the healing power of the One Whole Breath (Holy Spirit). The deeper insights that I receive daily from Jesus' native Aramaic language returns me to my spiritual center point, so that my actions, words and sharing of insights flows from the silent stillness within and infuses my everyday life with the radiance of pure consciousness.
Birthing anew in each moment.
Originally Published in the April 2006 edition of Spirit In The Smokies magazine
As a child growing up in the green farmlands of southern
My poor mother used to be beside herself at times, knowing that I was often crawling into the drainage tunnel under our street and sitting there in the musty blackness with only the sounds of trickling water and the occasional visit from curious wildlife. I would remain still, present and aware of the arising and falling of the steady stream of voiceless thoughts in my head. After a period of time, my mind would become still, and I would find a flowing, expansive peace in nature that I could not seem to uncover when surrounded by my boisterous friends and siblings. It was around this time that I started to be labeled a loner, shy, anti-social and unpredictable.
I never felt though, then or now, that I didn't like being around other people. It was just that I was more comfortable being alone and feeling that warm, quiet stillness that would so gently wash over me after the chatter in my brain would finally subside from my simply letting it be.
I would often sit for hours on end, 20 feet in the air, perched in the little nook I'd discovered atop the towering maple tree next to the pear tree and blueberries in our side yard. From my private watchtower, I could gaze out over the endless acres of cherry and peach trees and feel my oneness with them in my silent attentiveness.
Now that I have grown, I can see the value and depth of nurturing that stillness within me not only in times of solitude. I can now also see what is the essential core of those early alone times is how I can allow myself to honor that still center within me¾that eternal, breathing silence, and express and radiate that natural beauty outward into my world.
Even then, at the age of eight, I already seemed to have an awareness of an energy, a consciousness, that permeated everything within and around me. That energy was so real for me that I somehow felt so deeply connected with that old maple, the forest, the stream, and the deer, rabbits and squirrels that would play in our yard, that at times I almost ached to venture as deeply into that world as I could allow myself to without the fear of getting "lost". I can see now that it was never a fear off getting lost that I was overcoming, but rather the fear of finding out who I truly am. What we yearn for so innocently is often what brings up the most fear for us, which presents a tremendous opportunity for healing. In the words of Ernest Holmes, "There is nothing to heal, only Truth to be revealed."
I am so grateful for the gifts of my childhood years; Most of all for what was for me a natural cultivation of my awareness of the spiritual source of all life. I am so grateful today for the ability to remain still and radiate that peaceful knowing from within the deepest spaces of my being. I am grateful to have the consciousness to recognize that spiritual source dancing in the eyes of another human being. This is my highest honor.
