Sharon’s Teachings from the Other Side
On August 11, 1972, my mother left her body. I was 10. When I kissed her stone cold corpse in its coffin a few days later, who knew that I was being initiated as a priestess of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld? My mother’s death plummeted me into the death mystery. My biggest question was: Where in the Universe had she GONE? And was she OK?
Many moons, events, initiations, and healing experiences later, on Feb 18, 2015, I participated in the ceremonial washing and anointing of my dear friend Sharon Maser, who had passed from this earth earlier that day. When I gazed upon her lifeless body I began to feel, ah, what a shame that she died unable to live out so many of her dreams, how terrible that she suffered in the last days, how sad this is, etc. But as I looked at her I had the distinct impression of a voice saying, “I’m up HERE!”
When I felt into Sharon, I had the sense of “Whee, whoopie, this is GREAT, Marguerite, sort of like being on a sacred medicine!” I felt Sharon as a free spirit, going on an adventure with her characteristic pluck. A subtle feeling of elation began to take root within me. I had the strong impression that there was no reason to be sad, really, because she was fine and she was actually accessible to me in an even more intimate way.
The very second the six of us who participated in the ceremony began touching her body for the anointing, a dove began cooing outside the window. The dove: symbol of the traversing soul, associated with the Pleiades, where deep legends tell us human consciousness originates. The dove, totem of the major oracular centers of Greece, including Delphi, where Sharon had been making plans to visit.
We were in egoless harmony and a simple place of love as we anointed and dressed Sharon’s body for cremation. We caressed her limbs, opened her crown with holy water for the further passing of her soul (the dove cooed again then), soothed, sang, reminisced. I had no idea the simple, one-hour ritual would satisfy something deep within me, allowing me to have a needed feeling of completion with Sharon. I had no idea that the organic & unpretentious love among the intimate community gathered would infuse me like a fragrant, sustaining perfume. I had no idea that I would come away from the event elevated, not heavy. In the several days following, I felt Sharon close by – and I had the sense that she was also with all those who loved her. Hm. I was learning that the soul of a departed could be everywhere at once.
No wonder Sharon was having a good time. She always loved experimenting with spiritual states. I found myself asking her advice on things. She kept saying: “Just be in the love,” to any dilemma I presented. “All there is is love, Marguerite.”
On the third day after her departure from the body, as I sat in a Peruvian Q’ero initiation rite in Berkeley, CA, I meditated with Sharon again. I had that sense that if I had communed with her more during this period, she would have taught me even more about the “post-body” state. “You of all people would be deeply interested this,” I felt her say to me. I realized then why the Jewish tradition arranges to have someone pray for/with the person for seven days after the soul exits. It’s a profound time of communication. The message I received was that after the third day Sharon would be moving a little farther away.
The sense was that the soul is very much connected to the personality up until that time, but thereafter it becomes more diffuse, until it begins to dissolve into ever greater oneness. Depending on a person’s path, one may even choose to blend fully into the All eventually. Already I was sensing that Sharon’s energy body was now very “tall.” Where had my mother gone? Was she OK?
Sharon was a teacher and a healer of women. She had been a mothering healer with me on several occasions. Who knew that her greatest teaching and healing for me would be in her passing? What would it be like to live truly not fearing death? Like initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece, I now have a taste of that. Thank you, Sharon, teacher, guide, sister, friend. May the journey together continue.
Love,
Marguerite