Listening to Goddess-God-the Divine
6.0 Introduction to Listening to Goddess-God-the Divine
Why I Teach Listening to the Divine Song:
Death and Life
Tasting Death
Have you ever felt like you were dying? Not a fleeting fearful moment, but an extended time when you knew, “I’m going to die.”
The feeling of dying is not entirely foreign to me. For readers that have lived over a half-century like me, you probably have encountered a brush with death. But this experience does not feel like a brush with death that passes. Instead, it feels more like permanently losing consciousness. When this happened to me, the Red Cross phlebotomist asked, “Are you okay? Your face is turning blue.” Am I turning blue now? I’m terrified. I face the question . . . Am I dying?
Eventually, I found myself in bed at the hospital’s emergency room, hooked up to an intravenous fluid device. I look at my partner sitting across the foot of the bed and whisper, “I don’t want to leave you . . . I want to live.” I love you.” My face is wet with tears. I mumble a short prayer, “Okay, if this is my time . . . I’m letting go.” A few minutes later, I realize, “I’m still here. I’m feeling a little better.” Was it the intravenous fluids? The prayer? Maybe both of them have me hoping. I tasted death and am gifted with another chance at life.
Clinging to Life
Since that time, I sometimes experience milder fading-out episodes. During these times, I cling to a rosary given to me by my great-grandmother Elizabeth Snell-Fleck. Our Father who art in heaven . . . Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . .” When I awoke some hours later, I felt better . . . I was not dead, but alive!
My Mother and I visited great Grandma Fleck in the nursing home once a year during our annual family summer vacation trips to North Dakota. At that time, she was a woman in her late eighties, spry and filled with Divine energy. I felt loved when she hugged me tight. Did she know she was dying when, in her nineties, she placed that precious, maroon-colored rosary in my hands and clutched both her hands around mine? She looked intently into my eyes, perhaps hoping that I, a middle-aged teenager, would begin to understand the spiritual significance of such a gift.
I treasure my great-grandmother’s memory by gazing at a black and white photo near my writing desk. In the photo, I sit comfortably in the lap of my Great Grandma. My mother stands behind me on my right side with one hand on my shoulder as if to guide me, and my grandmother stands next to my mother as another support figure. When I gaze at the photo, I intuitively know that the Divine maternal love from these three women flowed into, nurtured, and protected me as I grew up. Looking at the photo as I write these words, I feel this Divine flow of love and am ever so grateful.
I pray great Grandma’s rosary every time someone in my close circle of personal relationships dies. And I pray the rosary for myself when I feel like I’m dying. I cling to