7:44pm As importantly as today being Day 34 of my kitchari* fast is that it’s September 11th. Endings and beginnings. On this day, commemorating a terror act that slaughtered thousands, brought down an icon of corporate America, and continues — 9 years later — to terrorize us, my beloved spiritual home at One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, opened its doors in a brand new, beautifully appointed space, to a brand new crop of first year students. I, about to begin my second year — my ordination year — was privileged to be a greeter, to welcome the newcomers into a process that is nothing short miraculous. I certainly would not have embarked on a 40 day practice of any kind if not for One Spirit.

Today is also the day my mother stopped knowing who I am. Because of the fast, because of this blog, because it’s September 11, 2010, I will forever know when that day came.

My mother and I had spent the day together, from noon on, because her weekend aide had to fly to Jamaica due to a death in the family. I split the day with my daughter so that I could get down to One Spirit in the morning. Driving down from a brief visit to the country house where she’d spent 36 summers with my father — dead now these past 5 and a half years, the house she’d given to me several years ago, she turned and asked, looking around at the back seat, “Where’s my husband.” It was so sudden. I was caught off-guard. I said, foolishly, “Are you talking about my father?” She was silent for a time and the said, “Are you my child?” We’d been talking the whole way down about things that referenced the family, there was no question that we were connected in the way that I was accustomed. She’d dozed off and it was after she woke up that things started to get wonky. I didn’t realize at first, when she’d awakened, that she really didn’t know in whose car she was and who I was. She complemented my driving, which she has done before. My father had been a terrible driver. She went into great detail about all the ways my driving was good. They were all the ways my father’s driving was appallingly bad. I said something to that effect. And that’s when she all of a sudden switched and asked where her husband was. She absolutely knew she had a daughter named Riva, but she didn’t believe that I was her. She was completely baffled at how much I knew about her family. I was completely baffled that I was trying to reach her in this way, given that I knew this day was coming. I reminded her about her grandchildren, who she completely remembered. I said that I was their mother. She said “Do they know that.” I was flummoxed by that response. Once the car was parked and we got upstairs, I began to fully lose my emotional equilibrium. She seemed to understand that there was something wrong — she seemed to get that I knew too much to not be Riva. She tried deciding to accept it, but I could absolutely feel that she was looking at a perfect stranger. As often as I’d heard about this happening with Alzheimers, it was devastating. I txted my beloved who reminded me to call in Spirit Help and promised to do so on my behalf. I felt better almost immediately and I began to feel into the energy of the situation. I became unafraid, unreactive and introduced myself as Riva, the person taking care of her this evening. I was aware that she had a daughter named Riva and wasn’t that a coincidence. She asked what had caused me to know that she’d even need care today, and I responded that I’m the person who sees to her getting the care she needs. She was interested to know that. I could feel the energy unjamming, I kept it going, the energy flow. Back and forth, sending her expansion, acceptance, building a field of trust. Before too long, I could feel her shift back into seeing me as her daughter. Until the next time — which could be tomorrow, when I will again be sending the afternoon with her. The day will come when I won’t be able to retrieve her.

What I know is that this access to the kind of energy work I did today is something else I have a much greater conscious awareness of, faith in, and ability to work with as a result of the increasingly clear field engendered by the kitchari fast.

Tomorrow’s another day. Please send prayers for her, for me.
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*For those of you who are sensitive to issues of consistency of usage and spelling, I want to acknowledge that I have not landed anywhere on how I think kitchari (kitcheree) should be spelled. This is the case because I’ve been told on good authority that kitchari, with the accent on the second syllable is absolutely the right way to spell and say it (this from 1. my beloved, who spent several years following a macrobiotic diet and 2. a Guyanese friend) and I have been told on equally good authority that kitcheree (accent on the first syllable and a decided roll of the tongue on the “r” is the absolutely correct way to spell and say it (this from a friend married to an Indian man). I trust and love all three sources and so sometimes it comes out one way, sometimes another.