Therese's Story from the Early Days

The Beginning of the Journey 

Many people ask me how I began my journey here is a snipit of my story.

The death of my father was my first real encounter with the fragility of life.

This time of my life was full, I was a married  a mother of two children, I had a full time career working at a municipal job. I was overwhelmed by the busy schedule of my life and my children’s lives.

My mother and I were very close so when she told me of a wonderful experience she had with mediation and how it felt for her like a movie I was very intrigued. I knew very little about meditation other than you had to sit quietly and do nothing, which felt strange to me. I asked Mom where she had learned to meditate and she told me about the book Revolution for Within by Gloria Steinman. The book intrigued me as it was about how to find our inner wisdom and part of the journey was suggested meditations at the back of the book. I was quite skeptical, I had never meditated and thought sitting quietly with my eyes closed would be a waster of time. In my job I was proud of being someone who got the job done, and enjoyed being organized and efficient.

My mother had told me of her meditation and she described seeing herself as a young woman in her twenties she wore a red dress, and could smell the wood stove in her first home on the farm. As she told me this story I felt a twinge of excitement and a feeling of adventure, so I decided to try this for myself.

The first suggested meditation in the book was to go back and find myself as a younger child, one night after I had cooked supper and the family had gone to bed, I found a quiet place and closed my eyes and began. After some time of just sitting and relaxing I was delighted; it felt as though a movie screen hand been unveiled and I was walking toward my younger self, I could see a small child of about three years old, short blonde hair  she stood in the meadow in the farm I grew up on. The meadow had flooded that year and she was standing ankle deep in the water by an old shed that I remembered from child hood. Dressed in a red dress trimmed with white ric rac which were in the shapes of hearts, she stood smiling at me I remembered that this was my favorite dress. It felt surreal to see myself and yet still be me older and taller.

As I approached this younger version of me, I found myself crying, grieving for my father, I was nervous to tell this little me that our father had died, I did not know how she would be when I told her our Daddy was gone. I got closer and could see her clear blue eyes and I explained our Daddy had gone, she looked at me bemused, and I heard her say my Daddy is not dead here. She then began to show me visions of times with Dad that I had forgotten about. I felt myself riding on the tractor with him as he raked the hay crop, I could feel the sun on my face and smell the new mown hay as it was being turned over.

I was reminded of the wonderful bedtime stories he would tell me about Jimmy the Bear, and the stuffed Bear he bought me when I came home from the hospital after getting my tousles out. I could see when we played cards together when I was sick one winter. The little one smiled and stood there like a little angel leading me from grief to sweet memories.

Coming out of the meditation I felt excited and rejuvenated.

The excitement remained with me this meditation world was amazing for me the pictures appeared to me like a movie and I was transported and uplifted to another world.

A new routine began to emerge for me when I could not sleep at night I would crawl out of bed and wrap myself in a blanket sit on our big chair by the fire place in the living room, and go into the stillness.

On one occasion I was surprised to feel and sense Dad come into my meditation and invite me to fly with him. My father had been a fighter pilot in World War II and so I knew he was an accomplished flyer. In the meditation I said “Dad I can’t fly with you I don’t know how” he just laughed and said” take my hand Terry”. I did and we flew over the hills and I could see the river and valley floor below. I was so energized and excited to feel the freedom of flight.

These flights began to be part of the meditations, then one day the mediation changed and I felt I had been dropped off on the top of a mountain, I was by myself and I noticed a little log cabin, I was intrigued and walked up to the house. Inside there was a small wrinkled little old lady, her eyes were all knowing and her stare unwavering.  I was so surprised to see her I popped out of the meditation. Who was that I wondered and what was she doing in my meditation. Up until now I was certain I was making up my own mediations, and to have a visitor in my space felt strange.

  To be continued

Love Therese