What a lovely send-off: Fresh thinking for funerals

This is a really well written article about how the funeral industry is changing to more personalized, family oriented ceremonies. Hope that you get a chance to read it. Thanks to our friends at Dying Matters

Posted in advance directives, caregiving, death and dying, death and dying, end of life care, funeral, prayers for the dying, spiritual care | Comments Off on What a lovely send-off: Fresh thinking for funerals

The Caregiver Crisis

An absolute MUST site for healthcare professionals as well as volunteers and administrators.

TEDMED – Great Challenge – The Caregiver Crisis.

Posted in aging, aging, alzheimers, alzheimers, care giving, care giving, care giving, caregiver, caregiver stress, caregiver support, caregiving, caregiving, end of life care, senior citizens, spiritual care, stress relief | Comments Off on The Caregiver Crisis

How Virtual Environments can be used to Help Others

Dedicating Efforts

computer game

A scene from Hadron Voyager

When you are in the virtual environment and you are running through the “game,” you can dedicate that run to the benefit of another. Dedicating an effort or activity, such as an  orb run, to the benefit of another being is essentially the same as doing a reading.  As we are doing that particular activity we “keep the person in mind” as we pursue the activity. We do this in whatever way that works best for us. Suggestions for how to do this more effectively are given here. We may want to have a picture of the individual on hand. We may  have his or her name, location or birth date written on a piece of paper. But somehow we try to remember that this particular effort includes his or her benefit. Some day we will be able to dedicate much more sustained efforts to the benefit of others, but for now, shorter, focused bursts of good intention are what we’re working with.

My angle in approaching all of this is from the caregiving or working-with-the-elderly viewpoint. A major problem of caregiving is that many of the elderly, once they become unable to maintain an active lifestyle, become unhappy and depressed. Their kids (generally) suffer as a result and are looking for things they can do to alleviate their parents’ suffering.

Doing readings or running orbs can actually help, but the caregivers have to be of the ilk to give it a try and put some effort into it. They can run an orb and dedicate it to their loved one. If they run the orb in the presence of their parent or loved one it will have even better result. Some folks may more readily do orb runs than readings, so here before us opens another path of service for others and ourselves.

talkin bout the revolution

Not all elderly who are infirm or less active are unhappy. In fact many are doing just fine. Their kids benefit from this. Its absolutely astounding how much difference attitude makes. A good attitude lasts right up to the very end.

Here is how you start if you want to run an orb for the benefit of another:

If you have the Caregiver Insta Fix CD, simply insert it into your CD drive and it will automatically start the game. Use your arrow keys or RIGHT Mouse button to move your character.

If you don’t have the CD:

  1. Download an orb.
    • Visit Prosperity Path Remedies page
    • Select an orb of your choice. Whether you use your intuition or common sense to select an orb — you cant go wrong.
    • Navigate to the page for the orb of your choice.
    • You simply press the download button on the page. (Typically just right of the title).
    • You will be directed to a paypal page where you must pay a download fee of 99 cents. (This covers the download fee that we have to pay the company, prosperity in itself is free – (we just can’t pay the bill if a million people decides to download our games)
    • If you don’t have a paypal account you can choose “DONT HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT” and pay with your credit card as you normally would.
    • You should now be directed to a download page. And, if you have given a corect email address, you will also receive an email which contain a link to the download.
    • Click on the download link.
    • Save the download on your computer. Please remember where you save the download to.
  2. Install the game.
    • When you have downloaded the game you will find it in the folder you have either choosen or it will most likely be in the download folder, if you cant find it and have windows 7 or vista you can make a search by clicking the blue windows tab in the left corner in the bottom and write the name of the game in the searchbox.
    • When you have found the game you click on it or choose the command open and the file will start installation.
    • Follow the instructions in the installer and it should be pretty darn simple.
    • You might get a message from Windows suggesting that “Windovs is not certain that this program is installed correctly.” This is not a problem, the game will have installed correctly. This is fine. Just click “The software installed correctly.”
  3. Play the game.
    • Double click the icon on your desktop to start the game. It is okay to allow the game to make changes.
    • You will be asked to enter your name. Please do.
    • Click okay, go, do it, play, or whatever buttons pop up next.
    • You will now be in the game.

Posted in aging, bereavement, cancer care, care giving, care giving, care giving, caregiving, death and dying, eldercare, end of life, holistic nursing, hospice, oncology nursing, palliative care, prayers for healing, prayers for the dying, senior citizen | 2 Comments

You’ll die laughing at coffins that put the fun into funerals

Not often that we will cite an article from, err, the Sun, but this is has some fun pictures and illustrates an idea whose time is, well, here upon us. Thanks to Final Fling, and if you haven’t friended them on facebook you are missing something!

Posted in care giving, care giving, care giving, death and dying, death and dying, elder care, end of life care, hospice, hospice care, humor, prayers for the dying | Comments Off on You’ll die laughing at coffins that put the fun into funerals

Easy Death – a classic in the death and dying field

Book review of Easy Death, by Adi Da Samraj (Da Free John)

As a longtime hospice worker I’ve made a habit of reading everything I can find about death and dying. The psychologically-oriented books on bereavement and mourning are interesting and even helpful, but most of them presume that death is just annihilation. The religiously oriented books are more hopeful but, to put it bluntly, most of them are filled with nonsensical dogma.
I know for a fact that death isn’t annihilation because even after people die you can feel their spirit in the room. In little, out-of-the-way spiritual bookstores I’ve found several small, pretty marginal books that acknowledge this fact and attempt to describe what happens to a person AFTER they die. But none of them really speak with the authority of the two best books on the entire subject of death and dying, Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and Adi Da Samraj’s Easy Death. The good Rinpoche’s book is very good indeed and I got a lot of out of it. But Adi Da Samraj’s book is of another order entirely.
Adi Da is an American spiritual master who literally accompanies his own devotees through the death process (the book contains some amazing stories about this). Most importantly, he addresses every important aspect of the death and dying in a language that we ordinary mortals can understand, offering us clear, absolutely usable advice that I’ve never seen anywhere else.
You really can and should know what happens after death, and this book will tell you. I’ve been employing Adi Da Samraj’s wisdom in my hospice work for a few years now and it’s just totally changed the outcome for those who have died right in front of me—as well as for their families, and even for me. It turns out that what you need to know about death is exactly what you should know about life as well. I don’t know who this man is or where he came from but they ought to give him a medal for this book.
—Will Knoblock, Hospice Worker

Posted in buddhism, care giving, care giving, care giving, death and dying, end of life care, hospice | Comments Off on Easy Death – a classic in the death and dying field

What, really, is an altar?

We all know what an altar is…we set them up as places for the performance of sacraments or to pray. But I recently stumbled on a description of altars that widened my view of what they are and what they might be used for…and thought I would post it for you:

What’s an altar?

     Most domestic altars function as demarcations of sacred space, according to the various ways the idea of “sacred” might be construed in a society. It is where we intend to access higher spaces, the divine, the sacred, unity or higher guidance. It can be used as a centering device to slow down and access again a space of going with the flow, open heart and compassion. Some altars have a specific function, for example an altar specifically created for the purpose of readings.
     One could call it a focusing device, a space where one approaches with a certain intention and attention to access other than what is called “normal”, beta brain consensus reality of the human primate, namely the states associated with alpha and theta brainwaves.
     Particularly in India, the cosmic significance of the altar was fully explored. The ancient sages saw its different parts as representing the various sections of the universe and concluded that its construction was a repetition of creation.
    Basically anything you set up for the purpose can function as an altar.
    Certain items are often used to define the space and function of an altar, others for focusing energy and create space, and invocation of higher vibrational spaces and beings. One of the most important conditions for accessing altered states of consciousness is the suppressing of beta brain waves. This can be induced with the help of sounds, smells, moods, meditation, relaxation techniques and through the beta blocker spirit radio.
     Below please see a list of available items for your altar.
Altar Cloth
Candles
Incense
Spirit Guides
Bells or other sounds
Beta Blocker Spirit Radio
Meteorites
Prayer beads or Malas
Thangka
Sacred Invocational Objects and Symbols
Charms
     All these aim to aid in the accessing of different vibrational spaces, creating an atmosphere where the supernatural, other dimensions and altered states of consciousness become accessible.
     An altar also often holds pictures of spiritual leaders and teachers, flowers, statues, fabrics, crystals, gemstones, feathers, bowls of water and/or rice. Anything you hold precious and honor as divine is an appropriate item to put on your altar.
     It is not necessary to take drugs to have an experience of breakdown of barriers to other realities. Altered states experiences can be accessed with practice. It serves one well to have some experience in grounding and getting back to consensus beta brain reality.

– EJ Gold
To see a schematic of an altar space as envisioned by Mr. Gold please visit Idhhb.com

I will be posting more about altars including showing a video of an altar set up by my co-author Patricia Elizabeth in the upcoming weeks.

Posted in buddhism, buddhism, care giving, care giving, care giving, catholic Prayer, death and dying, end of life care, spiritual care, spiritual care | Comments Off on What, really, is an altar?