Sharing gratitude to be alive. Multiple musings from simple to complex w/ people, family, music, poetry, pet love, scenic nature, spirituality, health, motivation, & more. Also, find the book at ahouseinsideofme.com and in print, on Kindle, and iBook titled A House Inside of Me: Poetry by Marian Elsie Blake (2013) by Mary Blake Huer
The Malibu Hindu Temple is nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, located on 5 acres (close to Malibu Creek State Park) near Calabasas, CA (1600 Las Virgenes Canyon Road, 91302) and just a short drive from Los Angeles. It was built in 1981 and is considered one of the finest examples of a Hindu Temple in the USA. It is a significant Southern CA landmark and is free and open to the public (check the web site for exact hours, days, seasons). It is a great day trip and I recommend it highly. Please find multiple photos taken at this site.
It was interesting to note that Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, dating back more than 4,000 years. Today it is the third-largest religion after Christianity and Islam. Hindu concepts, beliefs, celebrations, food preferences, worship practices, and prayer actions may be furthered studied at multiple sites such as: Hindu concepts Hinduwebsite.com
A site I found particularly straightforward and easy to understand was:
There are many Hindu Centers around the USA. This particular Temple was special as at the entrance (where all must remove their shoes out of respect) is a large statement as noted on the stone in the photo below:
This Temple belongs to the Hindu Community of America. It Symbolizes Their Devotion to God and Dedication to the Spiritual Uplift of Humanity.
I found JOY in visiting a place dedicated to UPLIFTING Humanity. Therefore I feel gratitude to Hindus for sharing their religion in such a beautiful location with everyone who wishes to visit.
My motivation to start posting about gratitude originated from an illness that began in 2017. Now, six years later, I am grateful to be alive because of wonderful doctors at various hospitals. Recently, the City of Hope broke ground to build a new hospital closer to my home, targeted to open in 2025. My goal is to have treatments in that hospital in 2025 and long after.
A week ago, after labs and a visit with my doctor, I stepped outside to enjoy a cup of coffee, and was so pleased to discover that a huge ceiling beam had been positioned on the ground, with pens and instructions, inviting patients to sign and write an uplifting message on the beam. These messages will be built into the Foundation of Orange County’s only specialty cancer hospital to be completed by Summer of 2025. As one of their patients, I am thrilled to know that my note of gratitude will be embedded forever within the new hospital.
With deep gratitude, I recognize the outstanding missions of the City of Hope to provide HOPE, HEALING, Peace, Knowledge of best practices, and inclusion in every way possible to their patients. So joyful to receive treatments within the COH network.
I began my walk to gratitude when learning of an illness in 2017. In 2023, a recurrence causes even deeper reflection on end of life choice. I continue to claim good health, but it’s time to think about necessary choices. Rather than feeling sad, I experience deep gratitude as I learn about symbolism behind choice. Let me provide a few examples for you to think about for your own future.
It is unfortunate that we do not typically talk about decisions we make near the end of life, or we leave such decisions to our family or friends. As I grow older, my family members are passing, as are my friends and neighbors, and thus it is not uncommon for me to observe choices made. After a death, an early choice is what to do with the body: burial, cremation, donation for science, etc. Individuals have strong feelings/emotions, cultural and religious practices, and family histories with these decisions. Have you reflected on your own choices? On what basis did you/ will you make your decisions?
Towards a deeper understanding of “choice”, I searched the origins of the common phrase: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, and was pleased to learn that Genesis18:27, Job 30:19, and Ecclesiastes 3:20 in the Bible directly refer to “ashes” or “dust”. I thought it wonderful that in the Bible either burial or cremation is supported by Scripture. Family traditions, economic circumstance, location, density of population, etc. also determine choice. In other words, it is up to each of us to choose what we wish for our bodies, after death.
Many people have different opinions and emotions when thinking about where/what will happen to their body after death. Some persons do not like to imagine “fire” , while others do not like to think about a body in the ground for years. The memory of cremation of the Jewish population during the Holocaust is strong and would cause one to prefer burial, but people are changing, The preference for burial in a blanket under an old Oak tree is becoming popular (more natural return to the earth) for some, versus being embalmed, placed in a casket, and then into a vault to be preserved forever. These visual images cause discomfort in many persons, so typically they put off the decision of what to do, choice. Is there a strategy through which we may encourage persons to make necessary choices?
After evaluating my choices, I am satisfied that my body returning to dust (burial) or ashes (cremation) would yield a similar outcome:separating the physical body from energies within the body, the soul (consciousness).
This outcome is directly addressed by most religions. That is, after death the body (vessel) is no longer of importance, rather the “soul” or “spirit” is the emphasis. In Christian religion, the Trinity conception of God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is often the focus. What happens to one’s “Soul” at death is what matters.
Some religions/persons focus further on the physical body. That is, some religious practices frown upon destroying the physical body which would be an argument against cremation, but religious scholars, priests, and others do believe that God (Catholicism) can resurrect a body, even if cremated. So, again, the choice is up to you.
Personally, during my lifetime I have observed both practices. Each choice seems to make the family and friends very sad during the funeral service. However, in recent years I discovered a practice that makes me joyful, though still sad when a person dies. I discovered the peace and hope that “Doves” create when introduced to family and friends. Thus, I offer introducing doves during end of life services as one strategy to ease the pain of choice.
When we buried my mother, my son requested doves, released at graveside. I will never forget the feeling I had as I released one dove and watched it join the flock of doves, which circled above, and then flew to the Heavens. It was a beautiful, moving memory.
Recently, on the day of cremation, I had the opportunity to again see the release of doves. Rather than experiencing sadness at the thought of the concurrent cremation, persons present experienced peace, hope, and love as the doves escorted the deceased to the Heavens. During that day, I learned the symbolism behind releasing one dove, four doves, 100 doves etc. I was so moved that when I returned home, I read the history of the white dove in religion during funerals, and decided that my choice was to have doves at my end of life.
Doves offer such beautiful moments, and give us joyful memories. The visual images of a flock of doves during a cremation, or graveside burial are everlasting. Doves are symbolic angel escorts guiding our souls to God.
Because I still feel deep gratitude to each little dove I have observed at funerals, I made a video to capture/explain dove symbolism at end of life. Please enjoy. Then consider: What choice will you make someday?
Doves Represent Peace, Hope, and Love Guiding Souls to Heaven
Go to the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring in Los Angeles to find more than 250,000 books positioned creatively in a variety of displays across two floors. As a pushback against e-books go and enjoy actual books, including rare books and VINYL records at one of the world’s largest independent bookstores (2005).
Books offer so many benefits:
transport us to delightful experiences and lands
provide entertainment for individuals
teach us about new subjects and topics
remind us about our and other histories
introduce us to new ideas and concepts
challenge us regarding our current beliefs and value systems
offer us spiritual guidance so that we may find peace and understanding
I love to touch old books – the tactile experience is great. I love the smell of the pages in old books, as well as the worn pages from readers’ fingers before me. I do not get those sensory experiences from e-books.
The owner of The Last Bookstore has creatively displayed the thousands of books throughout the bookstore – as wall hangings, as a lighted tunnel, as walls, the torn and crumpled pages are displayed as a bush in a pot, as interesting windows through which one may peer and discover, and more.
I found great joy in the visit to The Last Bookstore. Go and check it out! Enjoy, with gratitude.
For the past week I have been watching the news regarding the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The death toll has exceeded 35,000 people and growing. They estimate more than one million are displaced from their homes and that number is climbing. The threats from infected water, lack of food, and extremely cold temperatures continue to add to the misery, sadness, and pain felt by people in that region. Today, 178 hours after the earthquake, a young girl was pulled from the rubble alive!
No matter what the political persuasion, the economic pressures, the religious differences, and/or the history between countries, it is wonderful to watch the help pouring in from around the globe. I feel joy for each life saved, and sadness for each life lost. Overall, I want to express gratitude for all life. Every human being is a precious gift.
After five years without my cancer returning, it is back! In four days I begin an intense round of multiple chemotherapies. Surgery is not an option for me this time. Chemo seems to be the only option now.Thus, I search for the courage for what I am about to face. I make last minute arrangements to prepare my mind, body, and spirit to begin to walk the new pathway to my future.
I feel fortunate to be a Ph.D. researcher as I use my skills to find, analyze, evaluate, argue, and describe the various courses of action available to me and my doctors. One of my areas of expertise is in cultural understanding of various groups, people, social classes, ethnic communities, and so forth to learn about and try to understand the value systems and choices people make throughout their lives. I can tell you that age, gender, cultural backgrounds, and various norms are readily observable within Western medicine in contrast to global medical choices. With a minor in statistical design, I am greatly dismayed when reading various medical peer reviewed journal articles, and when attempting to hold discussions with oncologists and other medical professionals. Answers to my simple questions regarding treatment outcomes are not readily available it seems. I do not have adequate time or resources to pursue inquiries into the various companies underwriting and sponsoring some treatment options, and clinical trials available to me.
On the other hand, I am also blessed to have been raised by an old fashioned Baptist minister, who taught me to have faith in God, to go to the scriptures for guidance, and to accept that everything in my life is according to God’s Master Plan. During this time I draw my gratitude from my heart versus my head, for which I feel extremely grateful and at peace. Daily, I read the various poems my mother wrote within ahouseinsideofme.com. Her ministry to the various families within my father’s churches offers guidance and gives me peace and understanding at this time.
Being the analytical person that I am, I have been thinking about patterns throughout life. For example, I do not think that anyone has a perfect life. Life seems to regularly present all of us with variances, for example, each day begins with a sunrise and ends with a sunset; every person experiences a birth and also their death; the tides in the ocean are governed by the gravitational dance between the Earth, Moon, and Sun to give us daily ebb and flow, and/or high tide or swells versus a shallow sandbar or reefs.
So it goes with cancer it seems. One discovers it and removes it through surgery, chemo, radiation, and various other treatments and joy follows with each test documenting no evidence of disease; yet apparently those little cancer cells typically like to reappear with a reoccurrence, and thus the cycle, i.e., remission and return which causes one to experience joy and sadness alternating throughout their life. We ring the bell at the end of a treatment interval and we reserve an infusion chair several months or years in the future. These variances are cyclic patterns of repetitions so often experienced by persons who are visited by the big “C” during their life.
For me, I have determined to find gratitude through my cancer diagnosis through my understanding of the above mentioned types of cycles experienced each and every day throughout one’s life. To be alive means total acceptance of variances during each and every day one is living. Just as the beauty of the colors of the sunrise always fade each day and the night blackens the sky; the joy of beating back and taming each cancer cell fills one’s heart with hope and expectation all the while, in the back of one’s mind lingers the anticipation of new cells revisiting to begin the cycle again.
My cells are visiting me again at this time. Soon I hope to initiate further action to invite them to leave me with hope. Thus, I find gratitude in my recent cancer return, similar in fashion to watching the waves in the ocean and each sunrise and sunset.
Recently, I visited the Mission in Solvang, CA, attending a Mass led by an Irish Priest, and experiencing the spiritual and social life of the Santa Ynez Valley. Through serendipity I received a blessing for my upcoming medical tests, as well as a blessing for a precious Bible purchased by a dear friend whose mother is nearing her end of life. The kind greetings from all of the staff at the Mission were most memorable as were the old fashioned gospel songs played through guitar by yet another priest. None of this was pre-planned which is why I am blogging, with gratitude, about my experience this day. It was a very special day!
I have always loved elderly people because they are wise and have wonderful stories to tell, if you listen. Unfortunately, we often get too busy during our own life’s journey to notice that older persons among us need more care from us. It is as though our journeys through life demand extra care when we begin our life, and again when we are nearing the end-of-life.
This posting includes my observations for you as a daughter, mom, friend, and health care professional regarding End-of-Life Care.
It is well known that people tend to like to stay at home as their journey through life comes to an end, but that is not always possible because of health issues, personal care needs, nutritional requirements, family distances, and so on. So, as we all age, the questions before us are: “What do we do?” “How do we plan for ourselves as we grower older and need extra care?”
Why am I posting this information for us today? Because I have watched my younger sister, my mom, and my dad pass away. Now I am watching dear friends and neighbors age, and I myself am growing older. As I was recently listening to Amanda Stead’s lecture on End-of-Life Care, I felt so grateful that Amanda reminded me, and helped me to summarize the wisdom we all have access to for our own planning:
We are all going to die at the end of our life journey, so how does one prepare for the best end of life? There are multiple resources to inform us about end-of-life care just as there is knowledge regarding beginning life, as in birth, parenting, etc.
As each of us, or our family members and friends age, it is important to learn about choices we each have regarding Hospice care, or Palliative care. Our choices do not need to be permanent as our health and care needs will change over time, but it is better to plan ahead and learn about such choices before being faced with an emergency.
As one ages there needs to be decisions regarding independence, dignity, spiritual preferences, psychological, emotional needs, ethical decisions, and personal wishes.
We all need to have people (family members or friends), who are our spokespeople in case we are unable to communicate clearly. We, or others, need to have an advanced directive (a written document) regarding our wishes for end-of life care.
We all need to discuss realistic outcomes as we anticipate what may be coming in our future. Thus, before you become ill or lose the ability to communicate, you need to talk about what you imagine to be a good plan for your End-of-Life. You might begin such conversations by answering the question: “What matters to me most at the end of life is ______________________________________?”
Sharing information is so important during this time. Information regarding your location preferences for where you wish to be as you grow older is important. Your financial costs, insurance coverage, wish for pain control, treatment preferences for eating, feeding, and swallowing should be identified.
Your personal wishes, and cultural values are important and necessary to understand and honor during this time period.
Reach out to Chaplains, Priests, Pastors, and Rabbis to incorporate your spiritual needs during these times of decision making.
Take care of the above types of decisions before you grow too old for such planning. Make sure you share your thoughts with your family and friends.
Know there is a “Dying Patient’s Bill of Rights”, and an abundance of resources provided through Medicare to assist you. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you should do today!
In the future, I plan to introduce a new “gratitude category” regarding end-of-life care as I am so grateful that information is available to me to provide for my dignity, spiritual, medical, psychological, and emotional needs as I grow older. In the context of generational differences in perception, as well as societal changes in our family constellations, it is more important than ever before to allow the elderly to prioritize their needs for independence as well as dependence on others.
I am grateful for knowledge regarding end-of-life care. How ’bout you?
For a spiritual perspective on End-Of-Life, let me conclude this blog with a poem written and read by my mother from her Book of Poetry titled, A House Inside of Me. The relevant poem for today is, I Don’t Want to Die I Like It Here. When you click on this link you will hear this poem. It seems relevant, in a more personal style of writing, to our topic today.
At this time in your life, What Matters Most to you for Planning? Please think about it as I am watching friends dealing and struggling with these issues right now.
President Zelenskyy is a wartime hero, a global leader, and a model citizen harnessing the power of social media to teach important lessons re: humanity to all persons throughout the world. From the horrors of the war by Russia, Ukrainians’ heroism, bravery, and courage are displayed daily, 24/7, for all of us to witness and from which we may learn important lessons for life.
To be able to witness the impact that one man has around the entire globe is awe inspiring.
I pray everyday that Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, will live as we all need his messages:
Follow your moral compass with honor in the face of horror.
Human suffering may be overcome through bravery and inspiration.
Hope springs forward from ordinary citizens who are inspired.
A Spirit of Community reminds us to not leave our friends or our neighbors in the face of adversity.
The best of humanity emerges through kindness and unprecedented support of strangers.
“Be all you can be” is a true statement that will come true through aspiration.
Wartime politics is a “mirror” through which we reflect who we truly are.
I will always remember President Zelenskyy because his words, his leadership model, his moral compass have challenged the world. I ask myself:
Where was I during the Russian War against Ukraine, and what did I do for the good of humanity?
How did a single man, an actor, become a politician who united Europe through NATO, who eliminated, in part, the partisan actions within the USA Congress, who demonstrated global outreach positively through the internet, who dared to sit in his office and wait for Putin to attack him, have such a profound impact around the globe?
President Zelenskyy gives me HOPE and I am so pleased to live during his leadership.
#gratitudeultra
Note: the image was selected from a Tweet by #bettemidler @BetteMidler on March 4, 2022.
Let me express my sincere gratitude to each of you for continuing to follow my “Guide to Gratitude” through gratitudesquared.com. The featured image above is my hand drawn idea for this site that I sketched in February of 2021 when this site was launched.
I selected the term “gratitudesquared” because I believe that “gratitude” is multiplied when shared and experienced, and such has certainly been the case through this site. To date, after 174 posts, 6,759 views, and with 3,004 different visitors, and 128 followers throughout 64 countries, we (you with me) are sharing “gratitude” around us wherever we may live. I am so deeply touched by your comments, emails, texts, and conversations with me. Thank you.
If you look at my hand drawn idea above, you will see that when one gives “gratitude to another” it is a gentle exchange, a gift, something great or grand, may be God sent through all his/her glory, when two or more people gather together.
Further, that act of “giving gratitude” is often gleeful, gracious, grounded in some emotion, may cause growth on each other’s part, may be compared and contrasted with growing a garden of gratitude, and may be overseen and sent by God from one to another to accomplish a known or unknown purpose or goal.
Just think about that!
Gratitude is a free gift that we exchange with each other!
What have we learned about “Gratitude” within only one year? We have learned that gratitude is deeply personal and also shared. Gratitude may be fleeting or long lasting. Gratitude may be serious or fun. Gratitude stems from our moral values at times, but also emerges from momentary pleasure at other times.
Gratitude Squared 