Message from the Grandmothers

February 2008

I was being very much affected by the pain and confusion of other people. It was almost like I had become a psychic garbage collector-- picking up feelings, attitudes and ideas everywhere I went and all this stuff was making me sick--getting in the way of joy and freedom. If people were angry, I felt it, if they were sad, my heart ached, whatever it was, I took it in. A dear friend of mine now had cancer and, not only was the disease extremely challenging to her, I was also being challenged. We were trying to build our faith through this experience, but she was doing better than I was. "This sponging up everything around me can't be right," I said to myself. "How helpful can I be to her if I am "feeling her pain?" I didn't want to do this, but couldn't see my way out. So I decided to go to the Grandmothers.

This time as I approached them, the Grandmothers were standing in a circle beside a lake, and as I came near, they opened their circle so I could step into their midst. "Grandmothers," I said to them, "I don't think I know how to be in right relationship with others-- animals as well as people," I explained. I'm too affected by their pain," I said, " and it wears me out. Please teach me the right relationship."

Immediately their hands went to my heart and I stood still while they held and nourished me with their touch. Everything in me calmed, quieted and filled with peace and as it did, the Grandmothers and I smiled at each other "Thank you," I whispered and they turned and pointed to the side, showing me how my energy had become frayed by too much reaching out to others. As I observed, I saw what appeared to be tail ends of energy trailing off into the distance, looking frail and fragmented.

Then turning to me the Grandmothers said, "No more horizontal. Vertical." "What?" I wondered, "does this mean?" but before I could say a word I saw my dear friend with cancer and saw that the Grandmothers were with her and in her. I blinked, looked again and they were her! There she stood, cancer and all, and the Grandmothers were looking at me out of her eyes. I was dumbfounded. I had been taught to "see God in everyone," and I had tried to do that but the idea had remained just that. An idea. Now, however, I was seeing the truth of this teaching. God was not to be sought in some far off place; God was here-- now!

I had been trying to be a friend to Margie, trying to fulfill her needs myself and in her distress I hadn't seen who she really was. "How ridiculous of me!" I cried, laughing at my blindness. Margie's suffering had fooled me into thinking that was who she was. "Yes," the Grandmothers said as they patted my hands and stroked my shoulders. "You didn't see us. You were caught up; you were playing along with the myth of separation from God. When you were with her you were calling on us as if we were far away. As if we were not already in her and of her," they said. "Then," they puffed up their cheeks and pantomimed, "thinking that we were far away, you held your breath, did everything you could do while you continued to call on us as if we were somewhere in the distance. No wonder you are tired. We were already there," they said. We are there now.

"Do not be so easily fooled by pain and distress," the Grandmothers said, shaking their heads. "It is dramatic," they said, "and we are aware of this, but we are present in every part of life. We are not only present in the so-called 'good.' We are also present in the 'bad.' We are within everyone at every moment of life. We are there in the most distressing acts of human beings. It is a pity that no one remembers this fact," they said, "because if you did, such events would change. Call us forth!" they said, "call us forth. Do not call us as if we are coming from afar. We are there, just waiting to be summoned.

"We recognize that what we are asking you to do is difficult," they said. "For thousands of years you have been conditioned to believe that God is good and will only be found where goodness is present and that pain, suffering and evil actions denote the absence of God. But that is not true," the Grandmothers said, riveting me with a fierce look. "God is everywhere. There is nowhere God is not. And we remind you that we are at one with God and as such, we hold and love all life at every moment. We are present in the best of times and we are there in the worst of times," the Grandmothers said, firmly nodding their heads up and down.

"Life is not some sort of macabre mistake," they said. "It is not a series of random events. Everything has its purpose—even cancer," they said, "and We Are There. Call us forth!" they commanded, "and recognize our presence.

"When you call us forth," they said, "you crack open the myth that you are 'here' and God is 'there.' By recognizing our presence, even in these distressing times, you enable us to work with and through you, to work with and through all who are present. We are in and with the one who is suffering and we are in and with the one observing the suffering. There is no separation," the Grandmothers said, emphasizing each word. "There is no separation," they repeated. "Remember this."