Mt Greylock in winter

Tomorrow—March 27—is the second anniversary of Rahima's passing. 

I'm calling it Rahima Day, a day to remember our beloved Rahima and to celebrate her yen for adventure.

With my friend David, I will be hiking Mt Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts. We're taking snowshoes with crampons and lots of determination. Rahima and I loved to hike there, but we never did it in icy conditions.

Sniff the air. Think of some way to stretch, to enjoy the outdoors. What will you do on Rahima Day?!

With a gentle heart,

~Andy

First Anniversary

Rahima Wade 

October 13, 1953 ~ March 27, 2012

Holding her memory dear.

Summer's End

Dear Friends,

The summer is winding down and my four-month sojourn at Woolman Hill has ended.

I've moved to a two bedroom apartment next to the Greenfield Community Farm, a project of Just Roots where I am a team member helping with outreach and promotion. We are reclaiming 60 acres that for one hundred years was our town's poor farm.

It has been more than five months since Rahima's death. The pain and sense of dislocation have subsided. I used the time at Woolman Hill well and now I am moving forward with confidence. I loved Rahima and who we were together. What remains is a sweetness for having known her and having been known by her so well.

Thank you all for sharing our journey.

~Andy

Return to Sea

I've posted an online album of photos and videos that Nancy and I took to share with you all.  ~A

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Nancy, Malik, Andy & Susan

On Monday afternoon, July 16, 2012, we fulfilled Rahima's request to have her ashes scattered upon the sea. It was hard and so beautiful. The day was perfect in many ways.

I met Rahima's sisters, Nancy and Susan, and her former husband Malik in Scituate, Mass. We borrowed a big red pick-up truck and four kayaks and went to Pegotty Beach. The weather was pleasant—not too hot, calm sea.

As the four of us paddled out, I was mindful that we were making this excursion on behalf of family and friends, some at a great distance. We chatted a bit, but mostly paddled in silence.

We took our time arriving at the rock that Rahima had designated as her "mermaid put-in spot" near the seawall, about a mile from the beach. After we floated there for awhile, Malik said the Sufi invocation:

Toward the One,
The perfection of love, harmony and beauty,
The only being
United with all the illuminated souls
Who form the embodiment of the master
The spirit of guidance

And I poured the ashes into the clear water. I think we all felt a spasm of grief at the finality of this act.

Rahima as we knew her in the flesh is no more, but her spirit lives on as does our profound gratitude for having shared this life together. We sang a couple of songs of blessing and then each floated off for some time alone. I took a swim.

Eventually, we paddled back to shore where we visited the church that Rahima attended as a child with her family. We poured a portion of her ashes, which we had reserved for the purpose, into the memorial garden where there is a family plaque and where her mother's ashes were interred three years ago.

As I related in the CaringBridge journal, when Rahima was 22 years old she wrote a letter for those who would remain in the event of her death. (This was near the time she had found the Sufi path, but when she still was known as Carol.) Her words still speak:

March 5, 1976

It is a bit strange to be writing this but I feel the need. A close friend and lover of mine died a short while ago and has inspired this message.

To those who care:

As soon as you can, let the sadness, grief, anger fall away from you and then... let my spirit live thru you—you can keep me alive in your heart and in your life. How? by cherishing what I have given you during my life.

I accept my death. I am not afraid to die. I am but one small speck in the circle of energy. I cherish each day and feel as though I have done much and touched many people.

Look for my smile in the new buds of spring, my voice in the winds, my warmth in the sun. We are all one.

Some requests—

—my body to be cremated and the ashes scattered upon the sea
—flowers for my funeral to be gathered from the fields
—no other flowers need be sent, instead
—donations to cancer research

Any of my writings, belongings can be shared among those who desire them and used for their best purposes. As a prelude at the funeral — "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee."

It's a very special kind of love when you let someone live in your heart.

Peace be with you, Carol

There is now a sense of completion, having fulfilled all of these requests and more. Some tasks remain, like donating Rahima's academic materials to the university, but we are substantially complete.

I still look for Rahima. Sometimes it's scanning the dance floor for her wavy auburn hair and bright smile but mostly it is Ya Rahim, the spirit of divine compassion that she embodied and that I experience so often through kindness and beauty—in the buds of spring, in the winds, in the warmth of the sun—everywhere.

I wish you all peace.

~Andy

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As I mentioned, I intend to continue this blog until the end of the summer. In the meantime, please sign the guestbook and comment on any of the journal entries. I may post more in the interval.

The Kite: A True Story

I once lost a kite to sea. A gust of wind yanked the spool right out of my hand. I was crestfallen as I chased the runaway spool into the surf until I could go no further and the kite fluttered down toward the water, well out of reach.

Then the waves grabbed the spool and to my amazement the kite lifted skyward again. It was flying on its own, further out to sea, soaring and darting from side to side, until another gust pulled the spool out of the water and the kite drifted down only to rise again.

I watched the kite sail away in this manner, repeatedly flying, fluttering down and rising up. Farther and farther to sea it went until I could see only a speck of light dancing on the dark horizon. Then it was gone.

How far the kite flew I do not know. In a sense, it just kept on flying.

~Andy

The Ocean

These words by Mary Oliver help me remember Rahima's lightness of being as I prepare to travel to Scituate, Massachusetts to meet members of her family and fulfill Rahima's request to have her ashes scattered in the ocean:

Prayer

May I never not be frisky,
May I never not be risque.
May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
and give them to the ocean,
leap in the froth of the waves,
still loving movement,
still ready, beyond all else,
to dance for the world.

~Andy

Rahima's Teacher

Below is a tribute marking June 17 as the Urs—the date of union with the Beloved—of Pir Vilayat who died on June 17, 2004. In Persian pir means elder. Among the Sufis it is used to designate the spiritual master. Rahima referred to him simply as her teacher.

The words, written by Pir Zia, reflect the spiritual lineage that Rahima entered as a Sufi practitioner. It was Pir Vilayat who instructed Rahima in Sufism—which I think of as the mystical way of the open heart—and gave her the name Rahima, meaning compassion. From this teacher she learned to meditate, to think expansively about "the love-light energy of the universe" as she called it, and to engage life with great generosity of spirit.

Pir Vilayat

Pir Vilayat was a spiritual pioneer who blazed new trails in the pursuit of the Infinite. True to the essence of tradition, he nonetheless broke free from outworn forms and illuminated a very contemporary path, putting music, psychology, and physics to the service of an ever-advancing repertory of meditative disciplines methodically developed to expand the frame of human identity and raise the tenor of earthly life. The Hope Project in India is testament to his commitment to a world nourished by love, respect, and solidarity. On this day, the day of his voyage beyond eight years ago, we celebrate his triumphant achievements, his generous spirit, and the legacy of mystical insight and compassionate service he has left to us.

I remain fascinated by the influence of this great teacher on Rahima and by the progression of thought from Hazrat Inayat Khan, who brought Sufism to America in 1910, to his son Pir Vilayat and his grandson Pir Zia, leader of the Sufi Order International today.

~Andy

Biographies

Early teachings

Greenfield Public Schools—Rahima Wade Award

Table at Greenfield High School
with photo of Rahima and a student,
June 7, 2012

This month the Greenfield Public Schools honored Rahima at its annual volunteer recognition breakfast, an event that she had previously organized. The Volunteer of the Year Award has been renamed the Rahima Wade Award in her memory.

At the gathering in the high school cafeteria, Rahima was remembered for her contributions to the school district over the last few years: directing the volunteer program, assisting the principal of the middle school, supporting new teachers, helping to promote the schools through the local media, and introducing a variety of enrichment programs. The most successful of these was the Pen Pal Project which matched more than 100 citizens with students in the 6th Grade. A team led by Joan Joshi carried the project forward. It culminated last week with a party at the school when the pen pals got to meet face to face. It was fun to see my charges, Jack and Zack!

These events were reported in three separate articles that appeared last week the Greenfield Recorder, our local paper. Rahima's influence in the schools is still felt and appreciated.

~Andy

Remembering Rahima

Woolman Hill Meeting House, May 12, 2012

This afternoon, the Quakers will have a memorial meeting for Rahima in the meeting house at Woolman Hill. This is similar to remembrances that are happening in her several spiritual communities.

I just received a report that during a Suluk reunion that is happening at the Abode of the Message in New Lebanon, New York this weekend, Pir Zia reflected on Rahima's life. The Abode was Rahima's true spiritual home on earth, where she received her name and where she completed Suluk, advanced study in Sufism.

In Iowa City, a Dances of Universal Peace—originally known as Sufi Dances—will be conducted on the evening of May 24 in honor of Rahima. It will be held in the sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City where Rahima attended with her family. She is remembered there especially as a leader around social causes.

It is a lovely day here at Woolman Hill, warm and sunny. The memorial meeting will be conducted in the manner of Friends. We will gather in silence at 3 o'clock. There will be a brief introduction followed by a period of expectant worship with messages arising as the spirit leads. After about an hour, we will shake hands then enjoy refreshments and conversation on the porch.

The meeting house had a special place in our world. According to Rahima's calendar, we first visited there on May 20, 2009, the day after our first date. Instantly, Rahima felt a strong spiritual resonance for the place, more than I can express here. We frequently attended the mid-week meeting for worship in the meeting house, Rahima more often than I. In the past year, her affinity for Woolman Hill led her to join the board of directors.

In a sense, to remember a person after their death is to keep them alive in spirit. Through this experience I have learned that grief is a doorway to gratitude. As time passes, my sorrow abates and what remains is a deep appreciation for having known and loved such a person as Rahima Wade.

~Andy

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How are you remembering Rahima? Who else are you remembering in this way?

Holding

If only I could hold your face
If only I could wrap up the light in your eyes
and put it away
          safekeeping

          safekeeping

                    against mistaken words
                    against parting
                    old age

                    against all human loneliness

We say that love has no beginning and no end
We know such love
          flowing out of itself like a river
          that meets and parts and meets

                    It's for that love
                    our eyes shine

          But oh for that time of parting
          for that time we are not ever
                    sufficiently shored against

tell me how to hold that precious light

Take my hands and bless them
          as they bless what they long to keep

Holding by Robert Grant Burns

The New Yorker, Dec. 18, 1971

Spirited Dancer

Spirited Dancer by A. P. Grant, 2011

I made this gestural photograph of Rahima contra dancing at the Fall Ball in Peterborough, NH. It speaks to me about the fleeting quality of existence, how our spirits animate these bodies and join in the dance of life for but a time.

~Andy

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What are your thoughts about permanence and impermanence?

Pen Pals

Rahima worked for the Greenfield Public Schools in various capacities. One of the projects that she initiated was a pen pal reading program for sixth graders which was so successful last year that the superintendent expanded the program this year to include the entire 6th Grade.

Joan, a volunteer who worked closely with Rahima, has picked up the program and is doing a fabulous job. More than 100 adult residents of Greenfield have been matched up with the students.

Here's how it works: Everyone reads the same book. In the course of reading, the adults and children exchange a series of letters—actual letters that are mailed through the US Post Office in bright yellow envelopes. They write a little about themselves and their thoughts about the book. At the end, the students and their adult pen pals have the opportunity to meet each other at a big party.

The book this year is "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis, an engaging memoir of a boy who is left orphaned and is in search of a new family. In some ways I identify with Bud although he had a much harder time of it.

This year, I am participating as a pen pal. My students are Jack and Zach, and we're just beginning to get acquainted.

Rahima delighted in coming up with schemes like this, that connected people in new ways and gave them insight into themselves and their community. She was a pioneer in service-learning as a rich field for education. She loved this work and I enjoyed seeing the charge she got out of doing it.

~Andy

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What lessons have your learned or are you continuing to learn from Rahima? If you're in the pen pal program, how's it going for you?

62 Haywood Street

The house at 62 Haywood Street is up for sale. This was the home and ours was the relationship that Rahima manifested from halfway across the country.

Not long ago, when Rahima was living in Iowa, she left her unhappy marriage and her tenured faculty position in quest for great love and a place to call home. She took her consulting work on the road and she chose Greenfield, Massachusetts as a place to live. In true Rahima form, she had several reasons for this location: 1) it was in New England, not far from her hometown of Scituate, Massachusetts; 2) it was within reach of the Abode of the Message in New Lebanon, NY, a center for Sufi practice and her spiritual home; and 3) she regarded the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield—the place where we first met—as the "contra dance center of the universe" (see video).

Now the time we shared in this place has come to an end. I am most grateful to the team of friends who helped get the house ready for sale. The realtor walked through yesterday and said the place looks fabulous. Here are links to an online gallery of photos I took yesterday and the real estate listing. Today, I worked with a woman to clear the house of energetic blockages and infuse it with love and light. I had a strong sense of Rahima's presence and approval.

This beautiful house was well-used, every part of it. Now it is time to let it go for someone else to enjoy.

I feel complete with this phase. My grief is not over. For a long time, I expect to feel the sorrow and gratitude that come. However, my active role in caring for Rahima has shifted. I have attended with her through the original cancer diagnosis and treatment, the hip fracture and recovery, the end-stage cancer diagnosis, the health institute and homecoming, her dying process, the home wake and memorial service and finally the sale of the house. I will hold her memory dear and relish the times when her spirit feels especially near, but my work is largely finished. In the summer, Rahima's ashes will be scattered at her "mermaid put-in spot."

Now I will rest and restore with a view toward progressing in my life. What my next step will be after my time at Woolman Hill—where I will find myself at home and with whom—is yet to be seen, but I feel confident and ever so thankful.

~Andy

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What are your memories of 62 Haywood Street?

Hiking with Rahima

Hiking was a big part of the life that Rahima and I shared. Our first date was a hike. Throughout our time together we made regular jaunts on the local trails. We took overnight hiking trips with the kids. We also had aspirations for more grand adventures reflected in the items pictured here: Rahima's passport and three guidebooks.

The book about New England waterfalls came up in one of our first conversations on the dance floor. I had shown her a picture that I took of a waterfall and she said she wanted to hike to all of the waterfalls in New England, she even had a guidebook. I said warmly, "I'll go with you," a comment that surprised and delighted both of  us.

Last November, we made reservations to travel to Scotland to hike the Southern Upland Way, the coast-to-coast route through the Scottish Highlands linked by a series of lodges. It was a trip that Rahima had attempted to make years ago but had to cancel due to a family crisis. When it became apparent that she would not be making the trip this time either, she encouraged me to go ahead.

So now I've invited my brother Bob to join me and he's game. I think it will be magical, hiking with my brother in the land of our ancestors, and bittersweet. Rahima will go with us in spirit and I will be reminded that I had a partner who loved to hike as much as I do, if not more.

~Andy

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What part does hiking play in your own life? What do you think about making plans that go unfulfilled or fulfilling a plan in a new way?

Maddie's Mermaid

Maddie's Mermaid for Rahima

My children, Ian (18) and Maddie (15), felt at home with Rahima. For this I will always be grateful. They appreciated Rahima's ease, her penchant for fun, and her yen for adventure. They especially enjoyed the constant table games we played and the camping trips we took together.

At Christmas, Maddie made a gift for Rahima: a transparent window hanging of tissue paper cut by hand and glued together that depicts a mermaid swimming in the ocean. This was a month before we knew that Rahima's transition was fast approaching, but the image speaks to me today of Rahima boldly moving through her final passage.

Rahima was intent on including my kids in her dying process, speaking with them personally, giving them gifts and modeling honesty, grace and courage. I couldn't have asked for more in this regard. It was their first experience with the death of a loved one.

Before I hand the keys over to the realtor on Tuesday, I'll take the mermaid down from the kitchen window, and remember times when we were together, happy times.

~Andy

P.S. I am most grateful to the folks who helped at 62 Haywood Street. Thank you. We did it!

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What makes a home and how do you know when you're at home?

Old Sweet Beggar

A favorite poem of Rahima's by the mystic poet Hafiz.

This
Path to God
Made me such an old sweet beggar.

I was starving until one night
My love tricked God Himself
To fall into my bowl.

Now Hafiz is infinitely rich,
But all I ever want to do

Is keep emptying out
My emerald filled
Pockets

Upon
This tear stained.
World.

                                  ~Hafiz

source
wiki

Sufi Turning

The following excerpt and poems were read at the Community Memorial Service for Rahima on April 1, 2012. The Sufi Turning followed the recitation of the Prayer for the Dead and Blessing Prayer.

"Introduction: The Mevlevi Turn originated with Rumi and is a practise of both surrender with great centered discipline. Rumi arrived at a place where ego dissolves and a resonance with the universal soul comes in. When the gravitational pull gets even stronger the two become one—a turning that is molecular and galactic and a spiritual remembering of the Presence at the center of the universe. Turning is an image of how the dervish becomes an empty place where human and Divine can meet."

The photograph was taken by me when Rahima and I traveled to the Quaker meeting house in Putney, VT last December to attend a sema, in observance of the anniversary of the death of Rumi, the Sufi mystic (d. December 17, 1273). Rupa, the person in the foreground of the picture, was the dancer at Rahima's memorial service.

You have said what you are.
I am what I am.
I have no name for what circles so perfectly.

Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
Circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes
From the center.

A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Hand unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.

Source: The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks, 1995

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What is dancing to you?

Dervish Retreat Center (Spencer, NY) 

Friends Carry Us Over

As more friends help me with the final preparations to put 62 Haywood Street up for sale, I am reminded of the song, "Love Call Me Home," that the Amandla Chorus sang often by Rahima's request–when her hip was healing, when she was receiving cancer treatment, and in her final days. It was sung by Amandla at the community memorial service.

Here is an audio recording of Amandla singing it in concert. Friends have truly carried us over!

~Andy

Love Call Me Home

When the waters are deep,

Friends carry me over…

When I cry in my sleep,

Love call me home.

Chorus
Time ferry me down the river,
Friends carry me safely over,
Life, tend me on my journey,
Love call me home.

When the waters are cold,
Friends carry me over…

When I’m losing my hold,

Love call me home.

Chorus

When I’m weary and cannot swim,
Friends carry me over…

Open your arms and take me in,
Love call me home.

Chorus

Take the gift I bring,

Friends carry me over…

Deep within me life is singing,

Love call me home.

Chorus

Life offers a chance

For friends to carry us over,
Time can stop or dance forever,
Love call me home.

Chorus

Words and music ©2001 Peggy Seeger

In tribute to Peggy's friend Christine Lassiter

Running with Rahima

View from Brown House this morning

I'm off for a run this morning on the trails above Woolman Hill, and Rahima goes with me. One of the things she loved most in this life was running. She ran 15 marathons and at one time held classes for people interested in starting long-distance running. In Iowa City, she trained with a group of women she called the Goo Girls, after the nutritional gel they consumed during races.

Her running career began when she was sixteen years old in Scituate (pronounced SIT-chew-it), Massachusetts, the seaside hamlet south of Boston where she lived with her family, the oldest of five children. She ran with her father, an engineer who had a passion for all manner of physical activities. He admitted to her that he didn't really love to run; he just knew it was good for him. Rahima, or Carol as she was known by her family, felt differently—she had a deep and abiding passion for running.

One of Rahima's unique talents was her sense of timing and orientation to place which I think was honed over years of running nearly every day. She could leave the house for a 7- or 10-mile run and tell me the minute she would return, and she would be exactly right.

When she broke her hip on February 5, 2011, it ended her running career. It was a terrible loss for her, and hard on us. In the previous months, we had started running together and found ourselves well-matched for short distances, although I had neither the experience nor the endurance. For a time after her accident I would go out on solo runs but it was just too upsetting for Rahima to know that I was running and she couldn't. So I reverted back to hikes in the woods which became part of her recuperation.

On these hikes, she had a funny little run loop the she would do, jog out a few paces then swing around with a big smile, arms wide as if flying, and return for an embrace. I miss that childlike joy in life and her delight in our sharing it together.

Now with Rahima's passing, I am feeling a push to get out and run. I don't go out every day or nearly as long as she did, but some days like this one I feel the urge to use my body in that way, to see the world at running speed, to invigorate my lungs and stretch my legs. And when I do, I feel in a sense I am running for Rahima or with Rahima. Her spirit goes with me, and it is good.

~Andy

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What are your memories of Rahima running or running with Rahima?

62 Haywood Street

I'm often asked, "How are you doing?" The answer just now is that I feel exhausted. I'm actively grieving, attempting to resume work, moving and getting the 62 Haywood Street ready for market next Wednesday, April 25, 2012. So at the moment I feel spent and overwhelmed. Fortunately, I've had lots of help and offers for more.

Rahima and I used this beautiful house very well, every room. Now it is time to move on.

I'll try to write more tomorrow.

~Andy