For My Epitaph

Last Words

“Love one another.”

--George Harrison

I have been in a state of mourning for a dear friend who recently passed on suddenly and unexpectedly. Vicki McDermott, who was a subscriber to this newsletter, was a teacher for many years at the Karin Kabalah Center in Atlanta where I received my in-depth Kabalah training several years ago. She was like a “gentle love” cloned version of the founder and director of the Center, Shirley Chambers, who had passed away this past January. I hadn’t been in touch with Vicki for several years, but we reconnected on a very deep level when I came to Atlanta for Shirley’s Celebration of Life services. I think the sudden unexpected nature of her passing, along with the fact of our recent connection, created more of a wound in me than news of the passing of anyone else, including Shirley, my other spiritual master, Swami Rama, and even my parents. I know now more than ever before what people in deep grief have described as a wound that eventually heals to some extent, but will always leave an impression, a scar. And just as with the passing of those others, what has followed in its wake is an energy boost whereby I have become refocused and reinvigorated.

I sorted through various profound teachings I keep in a file regarding transition, and I decided to share this poem that I wrote many years ago.

For My Epitaph

On to the full realization of all Paradox:

The simultaneous existence

Of Silence and Sound

Of Darkness and Light

Of Stillness and Perpetual Motion

Of Birth, Life and Death

Where have I gone?

There is nowhere to go.

There is only

The circle, the spiral

Of energy

Rising,

Transforming,

Dissolving.

There is only Love.

--Steven J. Gold