Expressing Gratitude

This website is not the work of just one person. It is the accumulation of many years of experience. Many kinds of different experiences. (Click here to find out about some of them). It is also a collection of many people contributing of themselves to me over the course of my life.

So many words of wisdom shared. So many willing ears, hands and arms in times of need. So many gestures and words of encouragement on the path into a dark subject so full of light. Into a surprising passion for the end of life. For the journey into death. The journey into a good dying.

My first words of gratitude belong to what I call Spirit. In my life Spirit has a few different ways of showing up.

The first way is in nature. I love being out in nature. Especially out on a beach by the ocean. Or a forest full of trees with sunlight shining through. Or by a creek washing my emotions clean. There is a reason this website is full of nature images.

The next way I can experience Spirit in my life is in the shape of guidance from Spirit Guides. I have had a direct link to beings who without a body do have a presence I can feel and hear. Expressing gratitude for Dr. Peebles (through William Rainen and Divine Grace (through Peta Lynne) is especially easy, as for years now they been an integral part of my growth.

They have patiently listened to my questions, and so often surprised me with the depth of their answers. Foremost though has been their love for me, which I am feeling on a daily basis.

Expressing gratitude is especially easy for the staff at the Ashland Hospice Services. They do such important and amazing work. I have learned so much from all of them as a caregiver, a volunteer and especially as a person. I also want to thank Asante and Providence Hospice in Medford, and Lovejoy Hospice in Grants Pass.

Without all of them I would not have been able to meet all the inspiring clients I have accompanied on their journey into death, and I am deeply grateful for their trust in me.

My deepest heartfelt thank-you goes to all of my clients and their families and friends. May they have found the peace they ultimately all were looking for on their journey home.

They have been showing me the way into my own passion. They have been inspiring my poetry. They have been teaching me how to be a witness to THEIR process, instead of a director of MY script for their passage.

They have given me their stories. Their feelings. Their fears and their hopes. They have widened the path into more light for me with every dying. Expressing gratitude is the least I can do for them.

Expressing gratitude to the people below is an extension of my love for this incredible community that supported me during the creation of this site:

Our Team of Independent Caregivers, for being willing to work together as friends, because working together makes us better friends, and being friends makes us better caregivers: Andre Angermann, Annie Oulette, Anya Kumara, Bonnie Davalos, Eli Dumitru, Khakira Zinkler, Monica Port, Paul Moss, Peta Lynne, Sabina Cass, Sarah Bly, Sherry Garner, Gen Windsor, and many more.

The Ashland Dance Community, for loving me in body and spirit through our dancing every week, for holding me when I needed to cry the tears my clients could not, and for our delightful lunches Sundays after dance at the Ashland Food Co-op.

Our Weekly Drumming Circles, for always restoring my body and mind after long hours on the computer. We have definitely learned to be in circle together over the years. Celebrating our voices, our rhythms, our bodies, and our good food potlucks.

The Warmhearted Ranch and its Riverrock Cottage, for providing the perfect space for me to soar into passionate creativity, for helping me keep my feet firmly on the ground by picking fresh fruit all through the summer and fall, and for the loving presence of big hearted Lola and loud barking Brooks.

My Site Visitors for having the courage to explore the subject of dying. What a deep journey. What a rewarding journey. Thank you all so much for visiting this site. Look at how many of you are finding your way into this subject:close to 70,000 visitors in the first 18 months, and growing daily.

Expressing gratitude to my friend Satya Harvey for mentioning an internet program called SiteBuildIt is the easiest. It set me on a course of combining my abundant creativity with a subject I feel passionate about with a map of the internet. It thus enabled me to create the website you are visiting right now.

From the beginning I had a strong sense of feeling supported by using SiteBuildIt. Supported in creating an outlet for my passionate writing about dying. Supported in creating a viable internet business. Supported in creating an internet business based on values of integrity and sustainable relationships.

If you want to learn more about SBI, click here.

Here are part of the lyrics for this song written by a Chilean folk singer and visual artist Violeta Parra

Gracias a la Vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto,
así yo distingo dicha de quebranto
los dos materiales que forman mi canto
y el canto de ustedes que es el mismo canto
y el canto de todos que es mi propio canto.

TRANSLATION (source: www.williammorin.com)

Thank you to life, which has given me so much
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing
With them I distinguish happiness and pain
The two materials from which my songs are formed
And your song, as well, which is the same song
And everyone's song, which is my very song.

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