​Joan Ruvinsky, who very graciously agreed to a conversation with me on Facing Death at the end of last year when her life and energy were already limited by her illness, has left us.

In spirit she is very much with us, of course, but no longer in her body.

I came to know her more than a decade ago, when I went to some of her meditation and chanting evenings in Montreal. We shared a love of Krishna Das chants and kirtan, and a love of meditation. She wasn't a non-dual teacher yet, and I had yet to meet my teacher Gangaji.

...  and maybe the most fitting tribute to Joan is this little video from the very last few minutes of our conversation, where she shares her celebration of Love, as well as her silent, love-filled presence: Death only happens to the body, we are Love.

I had a very beautiful session with a client today that made me reflect on just how practical Love can be, and how it has a tendency to show up in the most unlikely ways and places. The reason why she had called me was that she – let’s call her Clare –  and her husband were facing a very difficult situation: their son is having a hard time at school and acting out a lot, and they were considering pulling him out and have him home-schooled. She wanted to get clearer on her feelings about all of this before coming to a decision.

Very quickly during and after she described the situation to me, it came to me to ask whether she had spoken to the teacher. When clients share situations with me, I listen at that level, but I am also always open to the expression of Love. When I asked the question, I had no idea where it would lead, but I trusted the fact that it kept coming. It turns out that it may hold the key to a healing embrace and movement in and with this situation, rather than the disconnecting that they had been thinking of.

I've been so lucky so far with doing live online events: I've not had to cancel any of them due to internet connection problems. Until today!

Everything had started off well, and then, about 10 minutes before we were due to start, I got thrown out of the Google hangout, for good as it turned out. After 20 mins of trying to get back in, and checking and trying all sorts of stuff, I had to give in to the reality of a connection so minimal that it was impossible to do a live event. Now, after having given up and gone snowshoeing for an hour instead, everything is back to normal... but too late for Ellen, who had been waiting for me in the hangout having joined from the UK.

We'll reschedule and let you know about the new date.

​To all of you who were there, waiting, my heartfelt apologies. I felt really disappointed myself, as I had been looking forward to this conversation. But there was really nothing I could do (turns out it was a problem with the cable company that provides the internet connection). I hope to see you back for the rescheduled event!

​The pain was, in its essence, the pain of being disconnected from love. The pain of losing my very being, which I knew to be Love. My whole life was suffused by this pain. The pain covered over the knowing of Love, until this knowing started shining through again, revealing itself in many ways, over and over. The way the pain expressed in my life was as depression, emotional disconnect, and as a total focus on the mind. The depression was excruciating in my teens and lifted somewhat in my twenties. Helped by many years of psychotherapy and emotional healing in my thirties, I started opening back up emotionally. My love affair with the mind slowly gave way to a life lived more fully at all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and eventually even spiritual.

The tragic events in Paris happen as I’m in the process of organizing the next online event on ‘Awakening in the Heart’. My first reaction is shock and dismay in the face of all this violence and the suffering it causes. Then compassion and deep love. As I sit with all of this, I remember that there was a time in my life when I used to hate with a passion: I hated capitalists for exploiting workers, and I hated men for oppressing women. The way this hatred was mostly expressed was intellectual, in terms of philosophical argument, as I was teaching political philosophy at the time. But essentially, it was and is the same as that which leads people into hurting and killing others.

of my conversation with Joan Ruvinsky, on the 'radical joy' of finding out that she has terminal cancer; on her experience of her teacher, Jean Klein, towards the end of his life; and many more things.

This excerpt is from the very end of the conversation. It has a special message of Love to all of us and is filled with radiance. Enjoy!

I held you in my arms 
as you passed from this world
but you never passed
and you were never of this world.
 
I never for one moment 
felt the loss of your presence, 
for I never felt the loss of my own.
Yet only one presence remains.
 
One.
 
I held you in my arms 
as you passed from this world
but you never passed
and you were never of this world. 

Jeff Foster

Thank you, NIshkala, for sending it!

Dear ones,
 
Somehow the topic of death just kept coming up in different ways over the last few weeks, and it all came together in this new special event on Facing Death. It still is a taboo topic in our Western societies, and in the news, it comes up in the context of war, crime, or recently that of the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe. In those contexts, death tends to be seen from the perspective of survival, as a loss of life that could have been avoided. And for sure the refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea did so because they wanted to escape suffering and death in their native countries, and their deaths could indeed have been prevented.

I do not in any way want to belittle the suffering in these situations, and I hold the people in it and affected by it with much compassion. And yet there is a different aspect to death, a different perspective and understanding of it that highlights the preciousness of it as a human experience. Just like birth, it brings us face to face with the mystery and paradox of human life, arising from the unborn and returning back to it, whilst remaining unborn all along. Experiencing death consciously -- the possibility or reality of one's own death or that of others -- can change our life forever. It tends to point us to what is ultimately real and true. This is what this special event is all about.

As you will see on the Facing Death event page, there are two parts to this event: a pre-recorded conversation with Joan Ruvinsky, a non-dual spiritual teacher who has terminal cancer; and a live panel of speakers (Jane Duncan Rogers, Nishkala Jenney, Susanne Marie, and myself) who have faced death in the passing of loved ones and/or in facing our own mortality through illness. 
 
Joan Ruvinsky's willingness and openness to share with us her experience of her life coming to an end due to terminal cancer is such a gift to all of us. Her clarity in witnessing this consciously, and the 'radical joy' with which she does so, is a rare opportunity to hear the non-dual understanding and perspective on life and death as they are alive and lived in a human being who is facing death. My own teacher Gangaji is fond of saying how we 'catch' truth from one another... well, here's a very special occasion to do so!

Following that, the live panel will give you a sense of the depth of experiences, shifts, and insights that the conscious experience of death has the power to provoke in us. As I see it, it is such a blessing to come in touch with death, even as there may also be major fear, grief, or rage. It is in this spirit that the speakers of the panel will share their experiences. And, as always during live events, you are welcome to ask questions or share and inquire into your own experience by coming onto the hangout.

The links to the conversation with Joan and the live panel will be published on the event page. You will also find more information about the event, including the bios of the teachers and panel participants on the event page. There is no need to register. If you like, you can join the facebook event and invite your friends to it.

I so look forward to sharing this special event with you -- thank you for being here and appreciating these offerings!

In love and gratitude,
grace 

Dear ones,

There is such a natural focus in my being on the heart and on Love... and somehow, I always come back to that. Like the heart beat itself, it's like a steady baseline upon which different melodies rise, play and fall. Just as we are all unique expressions of Love, so it seems to be part of mine that I have this love affair with Love and want to explore and speak of it, and invite others to discover it in themselves, in ever new ways. It's really beyond my choosing, I just bow to it!

As far as these offerings are concerned, you may have noticed that some of them are free, and others are paid. There is an old spiritual belief and conditioning that, to be pure, spiritual offerings should be given freely, without asking for anything in return. I've really had to look at this one! And what keeps arising is that there needs to be both, so that the expenses of life can be paid. This, too, is a natural expression of Love, and I bow to that one, too.

So here are this fall's love offerings, including two new adventures:

1. Online group programs
2. NEW online course on 'Intuition for therapists, healers, and heart-based businesses'
3. Online conversations
4. Also NEW: 'In person' presentation at the SAND conference in October
5. Online retreat end of November

1  Online group programs
Life has been so busy over the last two weeks that I've had to postpone starting the online groups by a week. So they'll be starting next week at a reduced rate, since there'll only be 5 weeks left before I take off to California for the SAND conference:

• Awakening as Love group: Tuesday, 15 September 2015. Only two places left! More details HERE. 
• Healing and Awakening group: Wednesday, 16 September 2015. More details HERE.
• If you're interested, you can watch these two youtube clips from previous online groups: Resting in not knowing (4 mins), and All that shows up is included in Love (11 mins).

2  Online course on 'Intuition for therapists, healers, and heart-based businesses'
Intuition is the voice of the heart. As the heart awakens, we learn to listen to it more fully. And finally, the living of Love includes even how we earn our living, especially if what we do comes from the heart. It's been very healing for me personally to do business' in a heart-based way, including teaching intuition. You can find out more about this course HERE. 

3  Online conversations

• Join me this Sunday, 13 September, for this fall's first conversation. I'll be speaking with John Prendergast on inner knowing and truth as it is expresses and is felt in the body and in the heart. More details on the homepage.
• More conversations are still in the planning stage: with Ananta Kranti, and a panel about experiencing the passing of loved ones. 

4  SAND conference presentation 
I'll be giving a presentation on 'The Heart's Knowing: An Exploration of Non-Dual Awakening in the Heart'at this year's SAND (Science and Non-Duality) conference in San Jose, California, 22 - 25 October 2015. What a surprise that was! And how wonderful that I'll be able to meet quite a few of the teachers from past online retreats there in person, and hopefully some of you, too! Here's the link to the conference program. If you're there, do come up to say hi, I'd love to meet you!

5 The next online retreat
The date that is in my head is 28/29 November 2015. You could mark this in your agenda, but in terms of making it happen, things haven't advanced beyond some vague ideas about it yet. I hope to be able to give it some serious TLC in the next few weeks, so that it can finally take some more definite shape.

In Love and gratitude,

grace

PS: If you appreciate the Living from Love offerings, your donation towards the cost of offering them is very welcome! You can make a donation HERE.