A letter from Pete Warshaw
Julie: Spirituality & Mystery
June 8, 2020
Dear Julie,
Today marks the fifth week since your death. You have remained firmly in my mind, but where are you? Bardo? Is that where you are? Is this series of Deliverance Ceremonies helping you? If you were alive, I think you would say something like, “Who’s to know?” I did ask you some months ago if you would like a Deliverance Ceremony, and you told me, “Do whatever you want. I won’t be there.” So I did. Anyway, it’s certainly helping me.
A year or two ago, you expressed a belief that spirituality, in some form, was a universal yearning. The fact that spirituality can take so many different shapes mirrors the exploration and study in which you engaged over your entire life. Each new avenue became layered onto what came before and then was mixed together. Nothing was discarded.
This openness and accumulation is expressed by what you put on your altar in our bedroom:
· A candle
· 6 crystals and a stone shaped like a pyramid
· A metal incense burner
· 5 Buddha statues: laughing, standing, sitting, and even in a snow globe
· 5 Hindu gneshas
· A Krishna statue
· Feathers you and Nancy used to smudge houses
· A metal bowl with sand to burn incense
· 4 Zuni fetishes
· A hag stone
· A mok tok
· A singing bowl
· A button with Ram Das’ picture
· 3 sets of prayer beads
· 9 smooth stones
· An arrowhead
· A rattle shaped like a green leaf
I think for you, spirituality embraced formal religions and your own personal magic and mystery. While you studied the thinking of others, including reading extensively, your beliefs were uniquely yours even as they evolved over the years.
You grew up in a secular Jewish household and always identified with your Jewish heritage. The primary holidays were celebrated, but with food rather than ceremony. I also reaped the benefits after your mother came to live with us.
One of your favorite activities was lighting the Hanukah candles. Again, no prayer, but their light meant something to you. Of course, humor entered into it as well, such as the menorah you made out of Playdough that horrified a practicing friend so much that she went out and bought you a metal one.
And when we lived in Detroit, you spent 2 solid years rigorously studying under Sherwin Wine, the founder of Humanistic Judaism (or “Judaism without God”).
Before I met you, you were taken by the writings of Gurdjieff and took classes at the Gurdjieff Institute in New York. I think his notion of awakening one’s consciousness was especially appealing to you.
You referred to your college days this way:
“And then, of course, there were drugs. We were a few years ahead of the curve – I like to think we were precocious – but thanks to some enterprising friends there was a ready supply of almost every illegal drug then available. For me, it was a mostly positive experience, opening me up to new ways of seeing myself and the world and providing me with a group of accepting and interesting friends.”
Ram Das and, later, Krishna Das and Jai Uttal remained touchstones. Their humanity, humility, and humor were attractive. And the fact that they didn’t take themselves so seriously also was appealing. You attended several Kirtan retreats, and I was pleased to join you for two. Kirtan chanting was trance-like for you – and transcending. You always were self-conscious about your singing voice. (There’s a reason why our children each independently offered you their allowance if you would stop singing them lullabies.) The only place where you were comfortable chanting Kirtan loudly was while driving alone in the car. That must have been a wonderful sight for people driving next to you along the streets of Manhattan and Chapel Hill.
Spirituality contained a heavy dose of mystery for you. This allowed you to explore the unknowable without looking for explanations. You accepted that you couldn’t come up with the right language because there isn’t any right language.
Is this why you were able to interpret the I Ching with such prescience? Is this why homes often sold quickly after you and Nancy smudged them? Is this why you knew that your friend, Margaret, had died before you got the email from her husband?
Later in your life, Won Buddhism became another stimulus for your spirituality. Again, the experience was more important to you than the details. How wonderful that we practiced together; for me an additional way for us to share, challenge, and connect with each other.
In your journal from a Won Buddhist retreat in 2014, you wrote, “We dance a Tai Chi meditation walk around the Meditation Hall porch. When I start I think I will never be able to get all the way around. When I finish I don’t want it to end. Then in sitting a moment of emptiness/no self, and afterwards a deeper understanding…of gratitude, compassion and intention. I am breathing the endless cycle of arising and ceasing. I look at each person in the group and remember that we are all doing the best we can.”
When you were no longer able to attend the temple services, Kathleen so kindly asked you what might be helpful. This evolved into the weekly dharma group held at our home for over a year. Sitting and, later, lying on the couch, you were able to participate in wise and thoughtful discussion with fellow practitioners who, in the process, became loving friends. The free-flowing, leaderless discussions and the camaraderie we enjoyed was a blessing for both of us. And it was especially wonderful for me to experience you in lively conversation when you were too sick to do most things.
I came across this Kirtan closing prayer from Krishna Das in one of your files: If we know anything about a path at all, it’s only because of the Great ones that have gone before us. Out of their love and kindness, they have left some footprints for us to follow. So, in the same way that they wish for us, we wish that all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be safe, be happy, have good health, and enough to eat. And may we all live at ease of heart with whatever comes to us in life.”
I love you, hon.