Kate Loving Shenk

Dear Goddess, Is anyone here afraid of ghosts?

I believe their presence in our lives can be a gift of love and sweet presence.

A few days after Ulysses passed, I noted a puddle of  urine in the basement that was not there when he passed.

Last night, I fell asleep on the couch, and was awakened by a single bark outside the door. This bark reminded me of a cross between Muki and Uly’s bark combined.

Are they now One Dog?

I made a Squidoo lens one time called Ghost Dogs around Halloween. My brother and partner had a beagle, collie, German Shepard mix named Boop. Boop was a hero amongst us at the time. She was our guardian angel, fearless and independent.

She lived to age 18 and never ate one kibble of dog food. She loved
people food and that is all she would eat.

I wrote about Boop in an unpublished book about our escapades back in the early 1970?s. I will find her picture and post it here, today.

Has anyone here had visitations from an animal you love? I wonder if Boop has visited Delaney and Jala?

Anyone else?

Om Peace Amen

–>

heaven is everywhere.

Dear Goddess, Doing the Bibliography for Prayer Prescriptions: Spiritual Remedies For Long Lasting Health, is an experience akin to standing amongst Spiritual Giants.

The authors on the Bibiography run the range from Al-Anon Publications to Yogananda’s Autobiography Of A Yogi, the most influential spiritual book ever written, a classic among all the books put together.

All in all, there are 52 books on the list, and I am sure I could add at least 52 more.

Interestingly, I have a book from my mother’s library, Thoreau’s Walden, circa 1950, with an inscription written by my mom to my dad on the inside, 1952, to commemorate Father’s Day that year.

I remember giving 800 books to the Lancaster County Prison after my mother’s passing, many of which had similar inscriptions written therein, when the books were given by either my mom or dad, to each other.

“To my Loving Wife,” “To you, my
Sweetheart.”

These inscriptions made an impression on the prisoners, whether or not they ever read the books. Perhaps the inscriptions were an invitation to read.

Perhaps the inscriptions were an invitation to Love.

Om Peace Amen

–>

Dear Goddess,   “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Ralph Waldo Emerson. This was my mother’s favorite quote.

We were just discussing this saying with a group at Market in my hometown. What is a foolish consistency? Is it the same as a foolish inconsistency? Could you define it as getting out of the same side of  bed everyday, or going to sleep at the same time every night, or having three square meals at exactly the same time?

Is a foolish consistency tantamount to perfectionism? To indoctrination of all kinds? To an inability to roll with the Life Lessons that we inevitably must learn in this sojourn upon the planet?

We certainly are witnessing foolish inconsistencies in the multitude of Republican Debates that no one can stand to watch anymore.

We see foolish inconstancies in the way one religion says they have all the answers over every other religion.

Is a foolish consistency the same as a foolish inconsistency?

Both lead to the same place: Brain Drain.

Om Peace Amen

–>

Dear Goddess, I will send off  Prayer Prescriptions: Spiritual Remedies For Long Lasting Health, to an editor this week. I am trying to fathom this fact.

This sequence of time has less and less meaning for me. It doesn’t feel like I am getting anything done, as long as I think in terms of an orientation to time and space. Thankfully,  this orientation is loosening its hold over me.

What are your time and space concepts? Do you feel rushed? Are you staying rooted in the present moment?

Dogs have a way of keeping us centered in the present moment. Now I have to stay centered in the here and now without a dog, although the dog in the picture is my guardian angel, now.

He is born into Eternal Life.

Om Peace Amen

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Dear Goddess, My brother, D. D. Delaney wrote me a poem about grief.

A Medley of Poems for My Sister Kate

1)
Unbearable grief
has many friends
among the angels.

2)
And seeing their sorrow
the Prophet step forward, saying,
“When conditions are favorable for my nature,
I manifest.
When conditions are no longer favorable for my nature,
I cease to manifest.
I am not born.
I do not die.
I only change my form.”

And he continued, saying,
“Today I am as you see me,
tomorrow I am a cloud.
It is a happy thing
never to be born,
never to die.”

3)
Sorrow is the mother of happiness.
She creates him
out of longing
for the end of suffering.
Happiness cannot exist without sorrow.

Then feel the sorrow deep.
Be helpless and despair.
The happiness
about to be born
will be
so much greater
after hard labor.

4)
I love my watch,
but the band war outcome,
and Walmart doesn’t have a replacement.
What kind of shit is that?
Making a watch with a band
that won’t last
and I can’t get a new one?
I see conspiracy in this,
when I pay money for a watch
I went to keep
but can’t replace the band.

Oh, well!
Once again
that thieving Time
has played a trick on me,
teaching me to surrender
to what I cannot change,
detaching from a watch I love…
moving on…
leaving behind…
my old way
of telling Time.

5)
I get a lot of pleasure
when I remember those who’ve died,
a field of family, friends, and pets
living boldly in my mind.

And the tragedy of death
has no meaning then.
Once you heal from grief,
you remember only fun.

Om Peace Amen

D. D. Delaney

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Dear Goddess, Sheila Duncan of Trouble The Dog fame and I were discussing today how the picture in yesterday’s prayer revealed a third dog between Mukunda and Ulysses. There’s no way of getting around it.

Sheila told me that another dog is waiting for just the right moment to come into our lives. Perhaps this dog is waiting to come BACK into our lives, from a past life. Nevertheless, there is a third dog in that picture. When I took the picture, there were only two dogs.

I just finished a chapter for Connie Ragen Green’s new Kindle book on success and productivity. The name of the chapter is: “The Baby Boomers Guide To Success And Productivity.”

It feels like a Renaissance is occurring in the world of the Internet. I personally am involved  in the “Job Escape Plan For Guerrilla Marketers”, with Andrew Neitlich; with  Pat O’Bryan’s “Wow This Is Easy” Course; with D’vora Lansky’s Virtual Book Tour and Teleseminar Academy and Brendon Burchard’s Expert Academy. Kathleen Gage and Connie Ragen Green are a few of my personal favorites, as well.

I am glad to be involved in these endeavors, because the passing of Ulysses without these learning experiences would have set me up for a major depression.

So we continue to learn. We continue to grow. In a world without end.

Om Peace Amen

–>

Dear Goddess, One week ago, Ulysses died in our arms. I went to work this morning at 3 AM, and one of my nursing colleagues came to me and said that her grandpa had died at exactly the same moment as Ulysses the week before.  She said  he was a real dog lover. Neither of us knew exactly what this meant, but somehow it felt very important. Certainly we were bonding in a way that we had never bonded before.

Then another one of my colleagues came to me, and recounted a story about the time she lost a dog a few years ago. She cried as she told the story because the circumstances surrounding the death were traumatic, to say the least. I will spare you the details.

I told her the story of the eight dogs that were shot to death when I lived on a commune 38 years ago. The farmer who shot the dogs did so because he hated hippies. He went on to become a Republican Congress person, and embezzled several million dollars from the Republican Party. He was one hell of a guy.

When we share our stories, we are healed or in the process of healing. Healing happens the more we feel our feelings. We don’t wait for time to heal all wounds, but ask that time is gentle as we heal.

Working with women and being with women also helps me to heal. The women I know are not afraid to express how they feel.

We celebrate our feelings, even as we cry for release.

For the tears are what wipe the spirit clean.

Om Peace Amen

–>

Dear Goddess, Today I feel Ulysses around in the spiritual realm rather than the physical. The transition happen sometime today.

I went to work this morning,  to participate in what is called a skills day, and was immediately surrounded by ten of my female colleagues who  hugged and cried with me in that moment.

Male energy in the form of six Bucks yesterday, and beautiful female energy today.

It was healing. Something in that moment was miraculously transformed.

The best way to describe it is a shift in perception.

This is called miracle mindedness, according to A Course In Miracles. A miracle is simply a change in thinking from fear to love.

Yet what are we afraid of? Are we afraid that we will never be able to love that much again?

Are we afraid that no one else will ever love us the same way again? Do we feel suddenly unloved?

Are we afraid of death? Are we afraid of the death of those we love? Are we afraid of our own death?

Stop and feel the love. Meditate morning and evening. Pray for the well-being of everyone in the world. There is no sense in denying it: We are all one.

Om Peace Amen

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Service opens the heart for giving and receiving, a flow that cannot be stopped.