It all began with a simple sketch — In 2016, I attended a psychic fair in my hometown. It was sponsored by a friend of mine and I wanted to go, in part, to support her. However, during the last six years of my life, I had become more curious about the continuity of spirit or consciousness after…

And sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself — I have come to understand that every death we experience, permanently alters the landscape of our lives. In the event of catastrophic loss, or loss that defies the natural order of the universe, not only is the outer landscape of our lives altered but our inner one as well. It…

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers — Last week I walked into one of the rooms in my house and this above photo of my daughter Jeannine was hanging on the wall. I didn’t recall seeing that picture before, so I asked my wife Cheri, how it got there. She told me that she was going through…

We instinctively give and receive compassion — I woke up a few mornings ago and the first thing that came to mind was Ram Dass and Natural Compassion. I had some vague dreams the night before, so perhaps one of them triggered this thought. Regardless of the origin, I was compelled to revisit Dass’s work on Natural…

Sometimes we have to revisit our past, for others as well as ourselves — I have a 20-year-old homemade DVD that I have watched on one occasion. The DVD contained footage of my daughter Jeannine’s last 10 plus months on earth. Jeannine died on March 1, 2003, at the age of 18 of a rare and aggressive connective muscle tissue sarcoma. Watching these carefully…

But under what circumstances will we count the cost? — There is a memorable passage from a song by Rush titled Bravado: “We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost.” In their Roll The Bones Tourbook, Rush’s late, great drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart disclosed that this line is from a novel called The Tidewater Tales…

Shared pain is the ultimate form of empathy and interpersonal connection — The title for this story was taken from a song called “Can You Help Me” by Vertical Horizon. To me this passage beautifully captures the occasions in our lives when for a moment in time, we so deeply empathized with someone’s challenges that we became one with that person. It…

That is what occurs to me when I see a deer lying lifeless on the side of the road — Ted Andrews writes of deer and her teachings in his book, Animal Speak: When deer shows up in your life it is time to be gentle with yourself and others(Andrews, p.264) I first learned of the Native American teachings of animals in November of 2010 in North Babylon, Long Island…

How I knew that my deceased mother, Sadie, would welcome my daughter Jeannine home after her death — Recently, my thoughts gravitated to a day in mid-February of 2003. I was walking briskly, anxious to get to the oncology unit where my daughter Jeannine had received one of her last chemotherapy treatments. As I was walking, my eyes darted to a hospital room on the left. In there…