GRATITUDE

Dear Beloveds,

In the quiet moments, as I walk through this new chapter without Chris in his bodily form, I think of you often. I have felt deeply held and supported. I am so grateful for the cards, emails and calls, the crystals, other sacred objects and works of art that you have sent to me and for the many ceremonies that were held on behalf of Chris’s healing.

I believe that Chris experienced a deep healing, albeit not in his physical body. The love and healing energy that you showered upon him and on me brought a deep level of peace that allowed him to surrender into his letting go of this life with no resistance and with deep trust. Both Chris and I were surrounded with love and the deep connections that we had made during our life together. I am so grateful.

Thank you also for all of those who attended Chris’s Celebration of Life or who created your own ceremonies honoring Chris’s life. Soon, I will be sending links that will allow you to watch videos, see photographs, listen to the audio of the celebration and view the beautiful video that Erik Johnson made in honor of Chris. I am still working with Erik on some technological challenges but we hope that you will receive the links in the next week.

I have been reading Thich Nhat Hahn on impermanence and I start to see something about how this process of Chris’s dying is the continuation of the work that we were doing. Leaving Knollwood to go on the road, we practiced letting go of attachment and especially the letting go of the attachment to the roles that we identified with. We learned about impermanence as we traveled from one home to another and one community to another. We learned about our connections — the myriad ways we embed in each other and share our energies for the work that we are doing on this planet. But there was a way in which we were still attached to the permanence of Kai and Chris as a physical entity on this planet.

Even as Chris was making massive changes in his energy and and way of being, we still held “Kai and Chris” or “Chris and Kai” with some kind of stability. The truth, however, is that everyday Chris was something new. As he lost his physical abilities, he would gain some new spiritual shininess. He was always in the process of change. I believe we were blessed to be able to be attuned to that string of moments and meet them with wonder and curiosity.

In all of that time, I never thought of dying — his or my own.There was only an intense moment of saying, “Ah, what is this? Ah, what is that?” And then, all those thises and thats, in one moment, turned into the this that we call death, followed by another whole string of thises that so far in my life had not had a name.

This seamless experience of life and death is the profound teaching of this challenging earth plane moment. In the cosmic sense, this is just the way that it is. It is the beauty way, where everything fits, dances, and plays hide and seek, laughing through the game, whether it be with tears or smiles. It is all the same. It is all energy. It is all creativity. It is all love. It is all one.

Chris and I were knocking on this door of Oneness. We dedicated our lives to this search. There was nothing that we would not have given to open the door. And Chris surrendered all so that he and I and anyone who can hear the story will know. There is nowhere to go. There is nowhere to come from. We rise when it is time and we fall when it is no longer time, into the great ocean of One. We make stories to point the way but only those who are willing to walk the walk come close to the mystery. And even when we find the mystery, we have to keep letting go, letting go. As soon as we grab and try to hold, the Oneness dissolves and we once again feel separate and alone.
So Chris knew that he had to hide from me and perhaps from himself also, in order to know that there is no place to go.

In my search for Chris, he becomes more than he or I had ever imagined. There is no place that I look that does not hold Chris in his wholeness. There is nothing that I hear that is not his voice. What I touch, smell or taste. All of that is Chris and all of that is everything else. It is I, my Beloveds, everyone I have every loved and even those whom I find hard to love. Chris becomes the doorway to see the perfection and Oneness of all that is. He always was that for me. Yet when I had his physical body nearby, I didn’t have to stretch very much to say “Yes” to this something that is so far beyond the power of words to encompass.

Now his body is dust but the door is open. Even my tears fall into the great ocean and I feel Chris in the wetness on my cheeks, the longing in my heart. I don’t ask where he has gone. He is everywhere.

Thank you, Beloveds, for walking this journey with me. I am deeply grateful.

With love and gratitude,
Kai