Moon Eng Remembers

June 5, 2001

As I decide to send the following, which I posted at Sharing Place following Shirley Armintrout’s and my visit to Elizabeth and Paddy’s, I’m feeling Elizabeth’s courageous commitment to exploration during her dying process. With Paddy helping Elizabeth with her oxygen tank, Elizabeth and several of us engaged in a deep meditative journey, a journey into light, beauty, truth, and love. Elizabeth’s courage during her dying process inspires me to reaffirm the joyous Spirit within us all, the Spirit that connects us all, the Spirit that reminds us we are One.

Date: Wed May 30, 2001
Subject: Visit to Elizabeth and Paddy's

We hugged Paddy, it felt so good to hug Paddy and to be hugged by him. Wonderful, loving Paddy with his delightful Irish brogue. It felt good to hear Paddy say that he'd thought I'd gotten much better, that he could see by my aura. Paddy and Elizabeth had helped me greatly. [I'm recovering from a life-threatening medical malpractice worsened illness in which Elizabeth and Paddy's generous love helped me regain my strength.]

We'd brought some healthy cans of natural soup and crackers for Paddy, knowing that sometimes soup and crackers are nourishing when one doesn't feel like cooking. We chatted with Jeremy, and Paddy said that Jeremy'd been doing some wonderful work on digitizing Elizabeth's radio programs. Paddy said that the sound quality of the analog tapes had been poor, but that Jeremy's digitized tapes are excellent, and that we can access them by going to the home page of changes.com.

Then Paddy took us in to see Elizabeth.

Oh, Elizabeth you're so beautiful lying there so peacefully. Paddy said you were in a red Chinese wedding dress, and you melted us as we looked at you. Perhaps we all melted together in oceans of love. Then I held your two feet and my heart opened even more.

Letting go, softening, melting, dropping down, down, down.

From Elizabeth and Paddy's back into the "real world." A world that is blessed, and a world filled with human conflict and destructiveness.

I remember the nearly overwhelming anger within me as I worked with a young child who had two rows of scars on his back from being repeatedly disciplined by his stepfather's holding lighted cigarettes to him. And how I worked so hard to stay in contact with my compassion and not to let my anger undermine our therapy as I worked with a handsome young father who had sexually traumatized his young son and daughter. And my fear, anger, compassion, and sadness as I worked with a "psychotic" Vietnam veteran who was attacking me with a steel chair shouting I'm going to kill you, Moon, you goddamn chink chinaman.

Yes, Elizabeth, it's a very human—-and a very spiritual--struggle that you have engaged in while here in your physical form. How to change an unjust world through our intelligence and through our hearts. How to, little by little, transform how we are with our loved ones, and with those we know less well. How to be less defensive, less guarded, more vulnerable, more open to recognizing that when "I" "win" a fight with a loved one, "I" lose, for, ultimately we are all one.

Perhaps I can learn in my own life to continue to let go, to open, to soften, to drop down, to melt, to be with myself and others in a gentler, more loving way. Loving-kindness to myself and others.

Oh, Elizabeth, I love you