We first published this post two years ago. It’s seems particularly important in the current moment that we revisit Lamp Lighting.
Some time ago, I had reason to visit my doctor. I’ve been seeing Althea for more than twenty years and she is among the most knowledgeable people I know. She is a practitioner of Oriental Medicine and an herbalist of considerable note. Beyond everything else, she understands the inner workings of the mind, body and spirit like few people in the world today.
“They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite.” — Cassandra Clare
And yet on this day, it was she who was suffering.
I know this to be true because I ASKED her.
Several years earlier, she came upon her husband dead, parked in his truck, on an Indiana county road near their herbal farm. He had passed away from a heart attack. He had been out that morning longer than intended and Althea worried that something was awry. In retracing his journey she found his truck in a field.
John, too, had been a practitioner of Oriental Medicine. They had built a successful practice together and had raised three beautiful children. No two people could have been more intrinsically connected.
Then in one bitter, unexplainable, unimaginable moment — it all ended.
Several years had passed since his death and yet her pain was still acute and her own light had been understandably diminished. I wondered, how does one bring light to a light bearer?
I asked her a straightforward, honest question, “How are you really doing?”
She gave me a quizzical look, put her hand to her cheek and asked, “Do you really want to know?” I said indeed I do and I have all morning. Wow, what ensued was an outpouring of pent up:
- Emotion
- Grief
- Confusion
- Resolve
- Appreciation
- Peace
By the time she was finished she had provided me an amazing illustration on how to process an enormous loss. She walked me through the steps of grieving her loss, but what had really transpired is that she had worked the process for herself.
She had become the source of her own light.
All I had done was to listen, but what a powerful medicinal tool is listening, really listening. I was reminded of how much good we can do when we simply let another talk and talk and talk. If we allow someone the opportunity to find their own light, they generally can find it and become —
Lamplighter
Just a thought…
Pat
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