Writings, Reflections, Photos & Artwork Sharing

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Death was a scary theme in my family.

I loved my dad. He died when I was 16. Even though he hadn’t lived with us since I was 8, our connection was deep. His suicide was expected, in a way, and it tore my psyche. I felt shredded, numb and the ensuing depression led me to the inner path. When I was older and in our Work, I saw that I had flown to him in spirit to try to save him. Four years later my grandmother died of more natural causes. I dreamt of colored bones and felt at peace. My mom died quickly after a late stage cancer diagnosis in 1995. I was 37 and stayed with her so she could die at home. It was grim, though by that time I was in the School and had discovered the Tibetan Buddhist teachings around death and dying. Those gave me the courage of heart to be with her in kindness, without trying to fix anything. Our relationship was unsettled. We shared a few genuine moments and she was glad to have me at her side.

My mom died in fear, without a belief beyond material existence. Her death felt unsettled. Even so, I was curious about her spirit and what she might experience if she were even a little bit aware of her journey. I sensed nothing from her then.

But now 25 years on, things are good. Every so often I sense my mom and dad at my back offering me support as loving light. Their presence feels clarified and light.

In January of 2016, spontaneously, I began to receive contact from individuals, recently dead. So far, all have been part of a social circle or community of which I’m part; and a couple with people I knew in life. Each experience has been distinct and shown me something different. I feel I’m being methodically taught about life in death, how we can give and receive support and touch each other across the Great Divide. Sometimes I’m offering, sometimes I’m receiving and sometimes there’s a reciprocal flow.

A good friend of my neighbor, who had just died, contacted me, shared his love and loss and asked me to pass a message to his wife. I felt a sense of blessing. It also freaked me out. I’ve had to do some work with the belief systems that got so challenged. As the experiences continued, I wanted to talk about them, but also felt inhibited. What would people think of me? Plus, these contacts have qualities of preciousness and grace that I didn’t and don’t want to spoil.

After a couple of years, I began to share with some of my inquiry partners and sought out some of the senior teachers in our School. Everyone I approached encouraged me and I felt seen and met. It turned out many of them also have such experiences. A couple of the senior teachers, along with their encouragement, gave me some cautions (below in italics) that I’m sharing with you because they are so important.

Before I list them, I want to underscore the importance of our inquiry practice. These experiences of contact are arising naturally, and while I’m open to them, I’m not asking for them like a medium would. They’re arising out of living inquiry in my life.

1. While the Diamond Approach encourages us to be open to all kinds of experiences, it doesn’t say that contact with souls who have died is part of the teaching.
2. There’s a risk of getting inundated with too much emotional and psychic content. Guard against getting ungrounded. Pace yourself. For me, from the beginning, I’ve felt lucky because I know I have a choice. If I’m tired, I let the soul know and we work out another time to meet. If I need to focus more exclusively on my own soul development for awhile, I’ll take a break, even for months at a time.
3. There’s no way to validate these kinds of experiences and therefore engaging here adds a risk of fantasizing. I agree and would add that fantasizing or distorting can be very subtle and tricky. It’s very important to be entirely present and attentive to the experience itself while it’s happening, without embellishing, interpreting or analyzing. I have learned that contact with some souls is simply more amorphous and not to add my suppositions. Other times, contact is so clear we are having a conversation with words.

I feel deep gratitude to Hameed’s example of openness to experiences of all kinds, including with those who have physically died; to all my teachers and guides, seen and unseen; and to how I’ve opened and integrated on my own inner journey in this lifetime. I feel the presence of the logos guiding me and opening me to experiencing the potential of continuing to awaken even in death.

Having these experiences and increasingly so in the past few years has completely changed my feelings about death itself. I was terrified of death and my defense was to think of physical death as a final defeat. Now I see physical death as a major transition, with the soul’s life continuing and having the possibility to continue to have insights, realizations and awakenings.

I’m posting to connect with those in our Ridhwan School community who have had a sense of contact with someone who has died. I hope to put our stories together into a book. Everyone of us has a unique piece to offer. I would love to hear about your experiences. Please be in touch and feel free to share the link and password with others in the School.

Click here for suggestions for contributing your stories to the book project.
Password: DiamondHeart

As a community we have a unique opportunity to inspire and ignite others, to show people that what’s possible in human experience is virtually limitless, and to show the possibilities for supporting and learning from each other across the divide of life and death. May we benefit all beings.

Olivia Fermi, catalyst@fermi.ca
Cascadia 2, Vancouver, Canada

This is a poem, later sung as a song, that I wrote years ago, when first embarking on my own spiritual quest, and before I knew about the Diamond Approach. It feels as relevant now as it did then, however.

Truth

Try as I might, I can not stop this busy mind,
But what delight, when Truth comes to light,
And I see the Beloved in all human kind.
Truth is there, in the trees, the Earth, and the oceans.
It’s the core of all Being, and every relation,
Truth is there when the mind-stream flows on without end,
It is there when a prayer would have my knees bend,
It’s the very unchanging nature of All,
It’s the One, the Silence, the ever-present Call.

Sending Love and Support to all my Diamond colleagues, and teachers, at this strange and transformative time,

Howard Dieno 

Photos (below) from Victoria, BC week of 3/23/20, prior to lockdown