Answers to questions about Alzheimer's, dementia, and being of service to those approaching death and their survivors.

   Micciah: Please, Judith.

   Judith: My question is about Alzheimer’s Disease and perhaps in a broader context, senile dementia. What actually is happening to the person who is suffering from the illness? What aspect of the person is leaving, has left, is still there? And, how can we communicate optimally with someone who is no longer the person that we knew, and yet, still is?

   Micciah: Another complicated question. It is different with every person. Your friend, and Julie’s and Jon’s, John Zeisel knows a great deal about it already without going into the issue of communicating with energy bodies. He knows a great deal. And there have been extraordinary studies and very creative work through him and in, we think, France and Switzerland in understanding the available resources within the individual who has dementia of some kind. That you have misperceived the resources that are still available, that can be elicited and used creatively, that they can, many of them, paint and write and do plays and all kinds of things because the traditional thinking is they’re gone. So even within the physiological understanding at its cutting edge there is a very wide span of possibility for people in those states.
   But, going on from there, when that is no longer possible, and this is not an opportunity that most people in that state have because that work has not spread far enough yet. But going on from there, when those abilities, the various parts of the brain really are not available for any kind of ordinary communication, what you understand as communication; the soul does not have dementia. And Spirit, which inhabits everyone, is the core of beingness itself, is completely intact. Of course. So you can communicate intuitively, that is the person will not understand cognitively because those connections cannot be made any longer. But if you sit with someone who is no longer abut to do that and you go into a meditative state and communicate, “I love you. I am here. I know you’re here. I am blessing you. I’m with you.” They will receive it.
   When Julie was working with John Zeisel at Hearthstone, she and some people from the Helix Training were working with, not really meditation but relaxation to see if they could teach people to calm themselves. And Julie and another woman were sitting with a man who was just talking all the time, talking nonsense. “I have an appointment. I have to go. I had an appointment yesterday. I spoke to the mayor yesterday.” Very agitated and rapid speech. So, the other woman was trying to just engage him by speaking a little to him. Julie was sitting in meditation, just meditating there with him. And after about ten minutes his speech slowed and then stopped, and he said, “I feel much quieter.” And it didn’t last and he went back to talking.
   But is this what you’re asking about, can you… So if you shift your own alignment and are in a meditative state, not being concerned about the cognitive parts, “It’s a lovely day. Do you recognize me?” They will receive the communication and be so grateful for it. So grateful. It is an error and leaves them stranded, although sometimes when people’s cognitive skills have been destroyed, they begin to travel. So then they, their larger awareness is aware of people who have passed, of other entities, of all kinds of things. Not always, but sometimes.
   [To Clare] So certainly, when you are with your mother and you perhaps do this with her, to sit with her in meditation, and communicate, “I’m here. And the part of you, you know with all cognitive skills is not here. The rest of us is here. We are here together. I know you’re here.” This is very important, very important.
   For people who have dementia, for people who are differently abled, for children who are on what you call the spectrum. For people with a variety of difficulties, to find ways of communicating, not to assume that the “normal way” of communicating is the only way. Because it isn’t. Not at all. Not at all.
   Malia.

   Malia: The question that jumps off of the previous one and how we can assist those moving into death and those who are surviving and are still here. And how to be the best of service through this process.

   Micciah: Much more was known, is known, in other cultures, other teachings about the process of dying. In Tibetan Buddhism there are monks who are trained to journey with the dying across the river, to escort them. So they are safely, taken there safely, with love and with consciousness. And then the monks return.
   Many years ago, in this one’s work, in the channel, we talked about walkers between the worlds. People who are trained in different ways in different cultures. Shamanistic cultures do it in one way, Tibetan Buddhism does it another way. In the Christian teachings, in the earlier church there were… We believe there were nuns trained to chant the person through the process of leaving the body. Chant and pray. So to be present with it for so long in this country, it is better now, somewhat better. People were shut away to be present with them, with the process, meditating, praying. When Jon’s dear sister Rachel was dying, Jon and Julie and his other sister, Erica, were there with Rachel, laying on hands and singing to her, rubbing her feet, to be present with it. To accompany the person.  It is a birth into the other realms. And now we understand in this culture there are death doulas. One of the students Julie had was training to be a death doula, to birth the person into the next realm.
   It used to be, death took place, unless it took place on a battlefield or an accident, it took place at home. People were surrounding you, your family. When it came to be that death took place in hospitals and in the time when this culture was so violently afraid of death, people just died alone, shut away. Now that has change, hospice has changed it.
   But if you are asking it personally for yourselves, you and the love, the persons who love the people who are passing… Be present. It is not unrelated. All these questions are related. To be in a meditative state, to say “You are going to the light, you are safe, we are with you. This is a journey. We love you. We are here.” Do you want to ask more about that?

   Malia: And how to assist those left behind?

   Micciah: That depends on the person and her or his needs.

   Malia: And this is effective with them at a distance?

   Micciah: Oh yes. If you are not able to be physically with someone. There is no… Space and time are not a barrier. If you can be with them it is very helpful. If you cannot, you can connect through those energies that are non-physical and are not subject to the conditions of space, or time. And it is… If the person is ill and in pain that is one situation. They may not be in pain, in which case it can be a joyous occasion. You are going to leave a body which does not support you anymore. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time!... To go.
   It is preferable to die without being drugged. That cannot always be the case. If you are in pain then you need something to alleviate pain, unless you are one of the Tibetan masters who can sit up, do the practice they were taught, shut down the chakras, leave from the root chakra. And for the people who remain, you have to be with them, to be around them if that is what they need, to ask them what they need, although people cannot always tell you. The practice in Judaism of sitting Shiva, that is to be with people. The community was with people when they pass. The family, or the individual was not just left alone. So…

   Paul: And wakes.

   Micciah: Wakes yes. To be with the person, the individual, the family, to be together, to keep them company. And to keep that connection going. To remember their feelings are not going to evaporate in a week, that you stay connected. And not have the expectation of ultimately it would be desirable not to be attached, to let them go, to celebrate that they had simply gone into the next realm and were free, if they were in pain. Different if it is a young person. But, in your human selves you have to attend to the feelings of your grief, with a kind heart. With patience and compassion. It isn’t going to vanish. The more the connection is maintained, even though it isn’t physical, the easier the process can be.
   [long pause] We are thinking about befriending your own death before you get there. That would be a good thing to work on in class. And how you deal in ordinary life with the death. You are always being born and dying. Different parts of you , different ways of being. People come into your life and go out of your life. Experiences change, organizations disappear. This is a realm of impermanence. Befriending you own death, and that doesn’t mean only your physical death. This can mean befriending impermanence. A very good teaching, particularly in a culture where there is an endless emphasis on youth. Your face has to be fixed. [patting her legs] Everything has to be adjusted. It is the fear of death. So befriending your own death… wrinkles, grey hairs. And doing it in many ways in your life. Very useful undertaking. [laughs all around] Unintended…