Inside Out aka *Pure Wonder
(*a perfume gifted by my daughter to her daughter)
Are you familiar with the term embodiment? Well, I wasn’t, i.e., not until I visited a local Zen meditation center, Shamhbala. The dictionary defines embodiment as the feeling of being “grounded” in a physical reality. Yet, the Zen center taught me that both within and outside the body is actually the vehicle for experiencing pure embodiment. It occurs simultaneously emanating from one’s innate state of divinity by moving personal awareness first from the outer body to an inner body exploration using the breath.
“It’s our biology that shapes our experiences. When we are separated from our bodies, we are disconnected from the information traveling from the body to the brain.” – Deb Dana, Anchored
Yahshua said, “If you were told ‘look the Kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds will precede you. If it was said ‘it’s in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. But the King (Queen)dom is inside and outside you” – Saying 3, The Gospel of Thomas
Having agency to be-come purely embodied is crucial to experiencing oneself unified as an inner and outer presence, i.e., exalting fully the patterns of the hierarchy. We gain from this unity, divine guidance, peace, and alignment with our true nature…less three-dimensional (physical) presence and more of a boundless (innate) fourth-dimension and higher presence embodying its power!
It’s crucial for me as a green death educator to show how this self-similarity correlating principle, i.e., made in the image of the Creator/ess, carries over to one’s “final transition”. Did you know choosing water vs. fire cremation honors the embryotic fluid in which babies come into the world. Equally as honorable, water cremation correlates with the world and our bodies’ 70 % water composition. All of life depends on water!
There is an African proverb and concepts that best describes this self-similarity, “as above so is below” and ubuntu = “I am because you are”. I, along with my granddaughter’s tech savviness, have produced an illustration [see “Nature Correlates” under Unity Consciousness page] showing many of these correlations.
Yahshua said, “I am the light over all things; I am all. From the all has come forth, and to me all has reached. Splint piece of wood, I am there. Look at the stone and you will find me there” – Saying 77, The Gospel of Thomas
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? – 1 Corinthians 15, King James Bible
Energetically we are wholesome beings whose energy, actions, and thoughts resonate at a higher, universal frequency. Read my article “Licorice and Liverwurst” about thermodynamics, a scientific principle explaining energy doesn’t die and/or is ever created. It simply recalibrates (embodies between varying states of molecular matter). Death isn’t a final act as society portrays it to be; it’s also a continuum. Embody all this knowingness and honor it/us for the pure wonder and reverence of divine sovereignty, dominion, and oneness…inside out – Ashay!
The Women of Riverdale Ave (Dedicated to Tara)
My family have done their due diligence in successfully researching and documenting our heritage on the side of my father. A couple of us, to this day, still make it a priority to attend his side of the family’s annual reunion held at the family homestead. It was without a doubt the patriarchal side who worked and preserve the land for future generational wealth.
Yet, if we were to reflect back on our impressive childhood, images from Riverdale Ave, Yonkers, NY, and the women who lived there, would flood back to us. (This memoir is a play on the Women of Brewster Place, a movie which shows the power of Black sisterhood.)
The women on the matriarchal side who lived and/or congregated at Riverdale Ave also equally played a pivotal role in our upbringing… as much as the patriarchal ones, if not moreso. As a child, the projects at Riverdale Ave seemed so magical, esp. at night. Note: Later we found out that other family members, along with what seemed like all of Yonkers’ Blacks lived there at one time or another. Oh yeah – we Black folks (Fowlkes) know a lil sumthin about projects ( . :
Times of staying with aunts and older female cousins definitely colored our youth. Much of these stays and visits started when our mother, Mary Alice, transcending at a young age leaving my father, William Harry to raise five young children…me being the youngest at 6 mos. old.
The aunts and older cousins stepped in to support him with such an arduous task, especially during those times (late 40s) for women…much less a man! There were overnight stays at both Aunts Lucille, Jerolene and cousin’s Jeanette houses. Cousin Mildred, Pat’s Godmother, would tend to us and our needs as well. (We each had our own Godmothers.)
Other times, they’ld come to our house in New Rochelle, NY (1 hr. or so away) bringing food/clothes, providing personal hygiene care for us girls, etc. They banded together right up to the time that my father remarried. There were stories of how each one of them wanted to adopt their favorite and/or namesake child; yet, my father was adamant about keeping us together. As adults we still stayed and/or visited with those who were still alive. Food and shares of best adulting were still given…actually more like told to us ( . :
Perhaps long awaited for (in spirit)??? either way, prompts, gratitude, crowns and flowers go out to the Women of Riverdale Ave– Ashay.
“I knew I would make it thru life because I knew what lived in me” – Tina Turner, Singer and Buddhist.
I recently published a brochure titled Mindful Living = Mindful Death that shared a Death Doula perspective on aligning one’s death with grace…and most importantly, Nature’s blueprint, i.e., akin to how we steward our lives – yes. Honoring one’s inherent energetic be-in-g and its principles give one agency to return death to its mindful, energetic nature. In this article, I will be sharing what level of mindful living would inform such a personal agency to embrace, e.g., a healthier relationship with death. I’ll all-ways be indebted to my oldest ‘transitioned’ sister, Harriette, for introducing me to Landmark Education (an ontology program that shifts the paradigm of the nature of being).*’Re-membering’ who we are thru cultivating mindsets, habits, and lifestyles that serve our innate selves, as well as acquiescing to the ease of wholesome awakening/manifesting… inform a quality ease of one’s final transition. Such an agency also calls for recognizing and surrendering to innate nudgings, courage, grace, and an alignment with one’s true nature as an energetic vibrational conduit.
“It’s not what we do [that orders our life]; yet who we are” – Indie Arie, Singer. Therefore, it is critical to unfold and sustain the highest energetic vibrational version of oneself. Throughout years of meditation and vibrational frequency studies/practices, and my moving away from the disempowerment of societal “otherness”, that such an alignment unfolded. Its unfoldment has ordered my steps in life. Gospel of Thomas reads “If you bring forth what is within you, it’ll save you. If you do not,,,it’ll destroy you“
Dr. Sue Morter, bioenergetic medicine practitioner, writes “there is only form – energy (aka life force) held in different patterns throughout life impacting our perceptions, our beliefs, vitality and our health.” This empowered ordering occurs via, e.g., answers to prayers, epiphanies experienced by meditators, vibrational resonance and synchronicities. The latter, synchronicity, is defined as the language of the cosmos, meaningful patterns of Divine/Ancestral ordering… the way the universe communicates with us.
There are many other brilliant books, podcasts, videos, etc. that unpack this divine phenomenon. One in particular that I recommend is Vibrating Higher by author Lalah Delia. Her book empowers us to live with higher potential and quality of ‘being’.
What I’ve shared here will re-mind us that yes, we have the agency to curate a mindful deathstyle via a mindful lifestyle. You see…they were never separated, i.e., a continuity of consciousness! Ashay :.)
*recovery of one-ness
© Tiyah F. Mensah 2/2024
Liverwurst and Licorice , “a coming out piece…”
(aka Death Reframed)
by Tiyah F. Mensah 2/2023
The article’s title are two things that shouldn’t be (according to most people’s palate) eaten separately and ugh… never together. Conflicting – yes. Yet, one of my “transitioned’ sister Mary’s and mine oftimes favorite delicacies. I picked this title because there are many conflicting narratives on my article’s topic, death, as well. Morbid, scary, called home, a mystery, a place of rest, God’s will, fearful, lonely…these are many of the words/phrases used to describe death. Don’t get me wrong, depending on circumstances surrounding a death, some of these expressions would be descriptive. Yet, for the most part they are misconstrued and conflicting. My spiritual studies and Death Doula training has shown me that Death is a wholesome and divine experience; society has just been largely miseducated regarding it.
Recently, I listened to a meditation on Divinity’s grace and how listeners can attune to it. A common definition describes grace as the unmerited favor (blessing) of God/ess toward wo/man. The meditation was being led by Queen Yenn of the Atlanta-based Oyun Ministries. She re-minded us that this kind of pure alignment with Divinity’s grace assures one’s holistic wellbeing in life. She went on to share that Divinity’s will is Inherently being done through us. I totally agree with her – yet, I was left questioning how many of her listeners, besides me, agreed that this was true in death as well…shifting society’s paradigm of the bountifulness of God/ess grace.
We are divine energetic beings. Honoring one’s inherent being and energy principles return death to its sacred nature. Reading Deut. 4; 19, Moses tells us that God[ess] is in the Heavens and on the Earth and there is nothing else. The Eternal Kingdom of God[ess] dwells within and we are made in God[ess] image. Therefore, we are eternal as well. This higher truth dispels death ‘so-called’ state of finality, gloom & doom.
The Mexican proverb says “they can bury us yet they don’t know we were seeds.” What if a person shows up in death in all their glory, grace and wholesomeness…one of which parallels with birth? Wouldn’t we be embracing a higher truth? (Read More)
Come Again…Again
By Tiyah © 2023
It’s time, AGAIN, to transition from this spiraling down syndrome that is revisiting my life…to re-member a more sustainable mindset…a radical and life ‘God/dess’ changing one. One that defies being incapable/irrelevant…one that allows knowing Elders have a lot of living left in them. Why, too many of my family and those of my husband’s need such liberation as well. I hear their silent despairs. It was time to redefine aging!
Hearing the Scripture Roman 8:11 helped me to begin re-membering my ‘true’ identity. It reminded me of the superficiality of those outer limits ‘age-related diseases/narratives’ and that there are no inner limits…a mindset to internalize (pun intended). It writes of the indwelling Christ sourcing life to one’s body because its’ spirit lives in us. John 14:16-17 also teaches that spirit dwells with us…a spiritual truth to be re-membered and embraced as what truly defines us. Such scriptures are also paralleled in Nature. As a symbol of eternal life, trees serve as one of God’s favorite metaphors in the Bible. Glory be… in the Old Testament, Isaiah even prophesizes that the coming of the Messiah will resemble a tree.
Writings such as Reforesting Faith by Matthew Sleeth, MD also refer to trees and their wisdom as the tree of life. He writes ‘hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life’(Proverbs 13:12). I felt such an immense sense of relief when he further wrote ‘wisdom and a fulfilled desire are seen as trees of life because they show human beings how pointless courting their own mortality is’. Yet, what really calmed my fears was when he quotes Psalms 92:12-14, ‘The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.’ Sounds about right according to what I learned in my Science classes… that it is trees’ oxygen that makes all life possible.
Looking to the practical “everyday living” side of life to balance my phobia, and having retired from the assistive technology field (a field that provides tools that helps people with disabilities perform tasks with greater ease and/or independence) and being an sacred icon designer/presenter, I recently resorted to pivoting my life. Tasks that I can no longer efficiently perform with my hands (some my passion/ministry) had to be scaled down altogether. And more and more I need (and am learning to humbly accept) help in doing many things.
In my trusting of God/dess, the Tree of Life, I have asked to be shown other things to be passionate about…sustaining my life’s relevance and keeping my mind/hands active; along with the ability to forgivingly, patiently, and trustfully embrace “surrendering and transitioning” my former lifestyle. This is unfolding every day/way. I must admit though that I encounter moments of melancholy; and am not as diligent as I feel I need to be… yet, I know the “I Am that I Am” is on the way to “branching” out to bear fruit in old age, full of sap and green…once again triumphing over old, disempowering, spiritually-devoid beliefs. Ashay – yes.