Wise Relationships, Palliative Care and Hospice Course

Aloha . . .

From tonight (Wednesday, Sept 12, 2012) to Sunday at 12 I am at the Santa Sabina Retreat Center (also on the web) with the Metta Institute.org on a course or retreat/study in Wise Relationships.  This is more aimed at Wise Relationships in the sense of working with the dying in hospice or palliative care.  But, of course, any kind of work like this benefits in all realms of one's life. 

This post will not be terribly well organized - lots of thoughts running through my head from the last week.  So I shall start with this - tonight Frank Ostaseski talked about the meaning of when people at this retreat clasp their hands together and bow.  Not only to honor of course but to pay homage, to acknowledge and so on and so forth.  But he said that one hand could be thought of as Wisdom and the other, Compassion.

I loved that and I want that to be me.  I fail miserably most of the time but hey, it's practicing right!? Compassionate wisdom and wise compassion . . . yeah baby.

This last Monday was my birthday.  I took the day off.  Partly in preparation for this course but also to process, think about and flush out the prior week which was  a very hard on on the work and personal front.  I drove to the Camp David West Sunday night and spent the night alone . . . but I was not alone.  I watched the stars for the longest time and I was not alone in my heart.  The ridge is a place of eerie beauty but not strange beauty but just so so beautiful.  I awoke the next day and it was one of those days, you know, where every little thing you see and hear is so crisp, present and real that it just leaps out at you begging to be noticed.  Every little thing I saw begged to be just watched and studied.

I was without thought really, not focused, no busy mind but just accepting, observing, being present, full of wonderment, appreciation and love.  But most of all, gratefulness for the opportunity to be alive and lucky enough to have clean water, no one trying to kill me or my family, good health and stability and so much more.  Yeah, those thoughts really did cross my consciousness!

So while I was alone . . . I was not . . . I was at home not only in my home but in my heart.  And all this can be so hard to explain to someone who just may not get it, who may not be in touch with whatever the hell I was in touch with.  But for me it was the ever present realization that I am a part of the larger picture, the web of interconnectedness that binds all of us and all things together.

I did not want to leave . . . to drive in cruel traffic, separate from the wash of ocean on rock, the cry of the hawk, the quiet rush, rush, rush of the Raven's wing over my head wending through Redwood trees hundreds of years older than I.

I struggle even now for the words that will fly straight into your heart.

What I know is that I needed to be there . . . alone or not.  The challenge, among so many, is to be able to reach that special place and realization where ever I am.  So I work and continue to work on that.

I left on Monday.  I stopped at the top of Myers Grade looking South and the view took my breath away.  It was so ungodly beautiful I just broke out in tears - just think - to have lived long enough and seen so much but to be touched to my soul by such beauty.  I am so very lucky.  Of course I did have Jan Garbarek's Officum album on and it was a long hard week (hmmm, lots of those of late but that is not all bad!).

I took Highway One all the way down to San Francisco and despite having lived / traveled over much of the planet it is one of the most beautiful drives or experiences there is. 

So that's quite enough for now I think! There's more to follow - these courses are vital, thought and feeling provoking and most of all provide the tools one needs to do the job in the ER or hospice and life in general.  I signed up for all of the courses - not cheap - but it is an investment in sanity and my ability to help others.  Gladly done . . . with out regret . . . with pride.

Thanks for reading . . . malama pono,

D