In June I accidentally bumped my head on the overhead hatchback of our old blue caravan while I was loading boxes of seaweed in the dark. I developed a subdural hematoma and Sarah and Nina saved my life, taking me to the hospital. They sat with me for six days in intensive care. I’m not stabilized yet. I’m still bleeding. Right now, we’re using drug therapy to strengthen my dura, and then we’ll decide if I have to have further surgery. Now, especially, your positive thoughts and prayers can make a difference.
As many of you know, I’ve always used the power of prayer, holding a positive image and intention while taking positive actions. What else could you say about me when I get up at two in the morning to harvest kelp in the dark, three miles from home? I’m working for you!
My daughter Sarah painted that photo and gave me the watercolor for Christmas.
I’ve always been especially open to the guidance that comes from my father’s spirit. I call him The Great Navigator. None of us could deny the results of that prayer the year that six people showed up in my life in a nourishing and significant way, all having my mother’s birthday, May 4th, called the Day of Nourishing Support in western astrology. My dad and I are like two souls leapfrogging over each other, lifetime after lifetime, challenging each other to grow as we enter another reincarnation.
My mother is on the other side of the veil, and I am connected to my mother’s energy, too. I get her as a flash of blue light in my left retina as she enters my mind, and sometimes I feel her comforting hands on my body, reaching through the veil to me. I know the veil between life and death is just that: an illusion that makes it possible for souls to enter into sacred contracts with each other so that they can offer each other gifts and lessons while on the earth-stage. I call this theater an agreed-upon hallucination, “Earth, the Spirit Garden…..a School for Souls.
One of the life lessons is, “Time is short. Remember to maintain Presence while resting in the Heart. This head-bonk accelerates my process. I have some writing to do, and there’s a window of opportunity to get it done.
The seaweed harvest of kelp and alaria is completed, and there’s dulse to round out the Family Packs. My family would like to keep me on this side of the veil while I get the writing done. Your prayers are welcomed, and of course there are hospital bills to pay. I don’t want a handout. I want new customers because I intend to pass this business and this place on to the next generation, free and clear of debt. I never was fond of bankers and mortgages. They just needlessly make life twice as expensive with their compound interest curves. Those graphed curves are the same curves that result from plotting the growth of cancer cells on the host! When the compound interest rate breaks for the sky on the graph, like a stealth tsunami piling up on the shore, the host-debtor dies! In banking, that’s called The Cycle of Boom and Bust. In nature, there is a different gentle wave-shaped graph that shows the cyclical increase and decline of the growth of plants and nutrients that goes along with the seasons. The banker’s world is not the seaweed harvester’s world. I was wise to take the advice of my mentors, Helen and Scott Nearing, and live “cash and carry” as they wrote in their book, Living the Good Life. It IS a good life. So please help me heal up as I make the transition to writing and facilitating a retreat center. I’m an excellent builder, structural bodyworker, storyteller and healer in my own right. My daughter Sarah is also a massage therapist, actress, dancer, artist. You’ll be hearing more in the future.
For the moment, my offerings are found at theseaweedman.com and there are additional recipes at larchhanson.com. My apprentice Paba has contributed a new soup recipe, and that will appear in a future contact letter very soon.
One of my night nurses in intensive care had paranormal vision. One night she said to me, “Most of my patients have shadows around them. You don’t have any shadows. Most of my patients’ heart rates go up when they have visitors. Your heart rate goes down when you have visitors. You rest perfectly still while you’re sleeping.” “Yes,” I replied, “I have a Tibetan practice of resting in clear light while I sleep. I maintain Presence. When Nina and Sarah visit me, they often sit bedside and place hands on my heart.”
After I came home, my sons Jay and David showed up to help with wrapping up the alaria harvest. David started to catch on about opening up to the realm of the heart, and one night we sat up on fifth floor, the meditation room high atop the house, watching the moon and talking. I’d give him a bit of a story from my heart, and watch him digest it, a little at a time. It was a good transition. “Dad,” he said to me when he left, “we need more phone calls, not emails.” He’s right. The voice carries the energy of the heart.
For decades I have been signing my letters, “Rest in the Light, abide in the Heart.” Over a lifetime, spiritual practices like this have palpable results! I have other spiritual practices as well that involve holding a positive image for a lifetime, committing it to sound, and deepening the practice through taking concrete action. I’ll be describing all this and more in future storytelling.
Sarah and Nina, thanks for being there for me. We are fulfilling our sacred contracts. And to you who are part of the Circle of Friends, seen and unseen, I extend my gratitude to you for coming half way across the universe, showing up for this conversation from the heart. Relax into the Great Perfection that you are.