So, the visit to Boston was illuminating.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Ronald was now based in Thonon with his work in Geneva, which had been his wish for some time.\u00a0 And it was a challenging and compelling task he had stepped up to.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Now there was a need to make space for each other.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
It was an unusual marriage.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We were both very aware of the profound changes which\u00a0 each of us had experienced.\u00a0 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. \u00a0So, we spent many hours, pleasant enough in such a setting but ploughing the depths of our feelings and commitments.<\/p>\n
I say we were spending more time together.\u00a0 But in reality it was relative.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was also twenty years since her marriage to her beloved Hardi on her sixtieth birthday.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
July marked the second intensive of the New Chartres School and the focus was \u2018Dialectica\u2019.\u00a0 I prepared for this trip back to Chartres with delight.\u00a0 My friend Beth, although not part of the programme, had friends and family in the area at that time and decided to accompany me.\u00a0 We booked in at the little guest house where we had stayed the previous year during the seminar with John o\u2019Donahue, at the foot of the village.\u00a0 As I walked up the hill early each morning to the meditation at St Yves,\u00a0 the cathedral dominated the skyline.\u00a0 Beth had her own plans, and we usually met up in the evening for a meal.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
On early Wednesday morning, I awoke with a very clear dream still present, hanging in the early dawn light.\u00a0\u00a0 My mother was attempting to climb a wooden structure.\u00a0 I was assisting her from behind.\u00a0 It was akin to a large wide ladder with steps or rather, rungs.\u00a0 There were seven rungs with a space of about half a meter between them. Difficult to climb, and my mother struggled.\u00a0 I helped: pushing, holding and easing her up till she was secure on the next rung.\u00a0 I was aware of her centre of gravity.\u00a0 She seemed heavy on the right side \u2013 her abdomen seemed bloated, balloon-like and this was making things even harder for her.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 I could feel the texture of her soft woolen lilac jersey over her slacks and her frail bones under the wide sleeves.\u00a0 And then I felt a wave of love emanating from the \u2018platform\u2019 at the top rung, out of my direct view.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was truly wonderful, and there was also a light hovering at the platform level.\u00a0 I felt a sense of relief; a knowing that she was awaited welcomed, and very beloved.\u00a0 She would be fine, dearly held.\u00a0 The thought flashed by as to who the presences might be on the platform, sending this loving energy and outreach to her.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t dwell there.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The message from my sister that morning confirmed things, and I shared this news with Lauren Artress and Caroline Myss,\u00a0 as we were preparing for the high point of the week, which would be walking the labyrinth that evening.\u00a0 In the prayer circle before we walked in silent meditation to the cathedral, my mother\u2019s name \u2018Beth\u2019\u00a0 was called out.\u00a0 We were dedicating this ceremony to her with prayers for her passage.\u00a0 I carried a dark orange rose for my mother.\u00a0 A young very pregnant woman in white carried a rose petal of the same colour, I noticed.\u00a0 She led the first group in, and I followed her with the rose for my mother.\u00a0 My friend Beth, whom Lauren agreed should join us, carried my mother\u2019s name and followed me.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The sun was finally setting\u00a0 in the west, after 9.pm, and the light streamed through and was captured in the jewels of the stained glass windows.\u00a0 It was totally unbelievable. I know my face was radiant as I looked up at the beauty, transfixed at this gift for my mother. \u00a0It was simply \u2018heavenly\u2019, the atmosphere in the cathedral that evening as I placed my rose at the centre and left it to be touched by the souls\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
On our way back to the guesthouse, Beth and I had a light snack at the Elle m\u00eame<\/em> run by a gentle Moroccan woman and drank a toast to my mother with a beautiful tinted ros\u00e9 in elegant glasses.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 \u2018La il la ha, il la ha… ,\u2019 repeating it over and over.\u00a0 This surprised me.\u00a0 I remained awake whispering this till the early hours when the SMS came through that my mother had passed over.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n My mother died on 12th July 2007, having had the most spectacular send-off imaginable in Chartres cathedral.\u00a0 She had been held in the loving heart energy of a group of spiritually aware and sensitive beings \u2013 teachers, masters and students.\u00a0 And so had I.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Further unfoldings in our relationship… Second Intensive ‘Dialectica’ in the New Chartres School. My mother’s death in July 2007<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":443,"template":"","categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","episode_posts","type-episode_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-part-2-music-and-my-soul"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/episode_posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/episode_posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/episode_posts"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}