Elle Mème – Herself
So, the visit to Boston was illuminating. I returned with a series of casette tape recordings of my sessions with Charles, a sense of what my music is about, and a clearer sense of myself. Ronald was now based in Thonon with his work in Geneva, which had been his wish for some time. And it was a challenging and compelling task he had stepped up to. This was also the first time we were based in the same place and sharing Thonon since I had moved in and established a home in March 1999, almost eight years previously. Now there was a need to make space for each other.
We realised that in our twenty-fourth year of marriage we had probably spent less than twelve years in the same place at the same time!
It was an unusual marriage. And now, spending more time over meals looking out at the majestic Lac Leman, we had intense discussions and reflections about our paths, trying to identify the intersections and interfaces where we could continue our sharings, still precious to both of us. We were both very aware of the profound changes which each of us had experienced. Ronald was not comfortable with some of mine and I was provocative about the changes I felt were needed in him, in us, in our relationship. So, we spent many hours, pleasant enough in such a setting but ploughing the depths of our feelings and commitments.
I say we were spending more time together. But in reality it was relative. I was still in South Africa for a good deal of the time and called upon for consultancy work in the Balkans and in Mozambique and Tanzania. A few months after our trip to the States I was again back in Cape Town as my mother as turning eighty in May 2007, a huge and significant milestone. It was also twenty years since her marriage to her beloved Hardi on her sixtieth birthday. These events really needed to be celebrated, and I believe I was in Cape Town from mid-April for a period of six weeks. And a glorious celebration it was.
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July marked the second intensive of the New Chartres School and the focus was ‘Dialectica’. I prepared for this trip back to Chartres with delight. My friend Beth, although not part of the programme, had friends and family in the area at that time and decided to accompany me. We booked in at the little guest house where we had stayed the previous year during the seminar with John o’Donahue, at the foot of the village. As I walked up the hill early each morning to the meditation at St Yves, the cathedral dominated the skyline. Beth had her own plans, and we usually met up in the evening for a meal.
Again, a powerful line-up from the faculty of Wisdom University were in attendance plus a huge group of participants, many of whom I knew from the first year and some of whom I was really happy to meet up with again. Caroline Myss had returned, as had Lauren Artress and Andrew Harvey. We started our work on Dialectica, a most interesting liberal art, but on Tuesday afternoon, with the news that my mother was in hospital my attention shifted, and I was no longer able to concentrate on the discussions. I spent time alone in the cathedral, aware that my mother was in a difficult stage and that I would shortly be taking my leave from Chartres.
On early Wednesday morning, I awoke with a very clear dream still present, hanging in the early dawn light. My mother was attempting to climb a wooden structure. I was assisting her from behind. It was akin to a large wide ladder with steps or rather, rungs. There were seven rungs with a space of about half a meter between them. Difficult to climb, and my mother struggled. I helped: pushing, holding and easing her up till she was secure on the next rung. I was aware of her centre of gravity. She seemed heavy on the right side – her abdomen seemed bloated, balloon-like and this was making things even harder for her.
I looked upwards along the face of the structure, trying to assess how she would progress when I could no longer give her my support from below. I could feel the texture of her soft woolen lilac jersey over her slacks and her frail bones under the wide sleeves. And then I felt a wave of love emanating from the ‘platform’ at the top rung, out of my direct view. It was immense and it seemed that there were huge hands, hidden from me, but reaching out to her to help her up the final climb and onto the platform. It was truly wonderful, and there was also a light hovering at the platform level. I felt a sense of relief; a knowing that she was awaited welcomed, and very beloved. She would be fine, dearly held. The thought flashed by as to who the presences might be on the platform, sending this loving energy and outreach to her. But I didn’t dwell there. I surfaced from the dream knowing that my mother was close to her end in this lifetime but also with a deep sense of knowing that all would be well.
The message from my sister that morning confirmed things, and I shared this news with Lauren Artress and Caroline Myss, as we were preparing for the high point of the week, which would be walking the labyrinth that evening. In the prayer circle before we walked in silent meditation to the cathedral, my mother’s name ‘Beth’ was called out. We were dedicating this ceremony to her with prayers for her passage. I carried a dark orange rose for my mother. A young very pregnant woman in white carried a rose petal of the same colour, I noticed. She led the first group in, and I followed her with the rose for my mother. My friend Beth, whom Lauren agreed should join us, carried my mother’s name and followed me.
And so, to the medieval music played by a group of musicians, we entered the labyrinth, and walked slowly, circling, passing loving gazes and open hearts and feeling the tenderness of touches as we made our way to the six-petalled centre. The sun was finally setting in the west, after 9.pm, and the light streamed through and was captured in the jewels of the stained glass windows. It was totally unbelievable. I know my face was radiant as I looked up at the beauty, transfixed at this gift for my mother. It was simply ‘heavenly’, the atmosphere in the cathedral that evening as I placed my rose at the centre and left it to be touched by the souls of all those that followed me in, and perhaps to be crushed finally by the feet of those at the end of the group leaving its essence on the central stone in that powerful chakra of the cathedral, which is the labyrinth.
On our way back to the guesthouse, Beth and I had a light snack at the Elle même run by a gentle Moroccan woman and drank a toast to my mother with a beautiful tinted rosé in elegant glasses. Then in the little blue room, I lit a candle and placed it in the basin for safety to let it burn all night and settled into my bed and my thoughts, sleeping lightly if at all.
At about 3.oo am, I woke with pain in my chest and found I was whispering a mantra, it appeared to be a Sufi chant. ‘La il la ha, il la ha… ,’ repeating it over and over. This surprised me. I remained awake whispering this till the early hours when the SMS came through that my mother had passed over.
We were on the train back to Paris and Geneva by 9.00 am, and that evening I was on a flight to Cape Town, having met Ronald at the Geneva airport with my ticket and a suitcase he had packed for me.
My mother died on 12th July 2007, having had the most spectacular send-off imaginable in Chartres cathedral. She had been held in the loving heart energy of a group of spiritually aware and sensitive beings – teachers, masters and students. And so had I. I floated out of Chartres, across France to Geneva and then to Cape Town, still seeing the luminescence and hearing the music as I walked the labyrinth with my orange rose.
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