Letting it be
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Greetings!
 Early this month a close friend's mom died after a long illness. While my grief at losing my own mom has lessened over time, it returns when someone else experiences the same loss. My friend doesn't know yet (as I have had to learn) that her pain will likely ease with time, that stories and memories of her mom will keep her close in her heart.
This month's Quest Maker Anne Zeiser lost her mother twice: her birth mom when she was four and her adoptive mom, the most powerful human being she has ever known, less than two years ago.
We spoke of how we strongly experience their presence. For Anne, whose loss is still fresh, how that presence happens is still evolving. As those of you who have been readers for a while know, my mom often comes to me in the guise of a spider. I have come to accept seeing her suspended from a filament dancing in front of me or in the middle of a web, crawling across my field of vision.
I don't know how to explain that my mom is with me at critical junctures lending me support, encouraging me, reassuring me that she is still with me. Maybe I am so comfortable carrying on conversations with her and
seeing her as a creature whose presence can be explained away logically because she is buried in a cemetery very close to my house. It's where Lily Lu and I walk almost every morning. On our rambles, I stop and spend some time with her.
Are these moments my own constructs, me just wanting so much to believe she is there? I can't say for sure. This is what I do know. Too many timest it's happened at just the right time for me to doubt my mom is with me.
After I heard Iris Dement, a folk singer sing Let the Mystery Be, I finally understood:
Everybody is wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody is worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain, so it's all the same to me.
Think I'll just let the mystery be.
Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say
you're gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, a bunch of carrots
and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Some say they're goin' to a place called Glory and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.
'Cuz, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
I choose to let the mystery be.
Everybody is wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody is worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
No one knows for certain, so it's all the same to me.
Think I'll just let the mystery be.
Like Iris, I'll just let the mystery be of how my mom can be here surrounding me in her love and I will live my life accordingly.
PS. At the end of every interview, I ask a Quest Maker what her favorite flower is. I do so because many of us, me included, are later bloomers. We are coming into our own in mid-life.
"This is the best question anybody has ever asked me! Unequivocally, it's the sunflower. I love them because they draw strength from and reach out to what I think is the ultimate power source - the sun. Sunflowers are happy flowers. They look happy and they make me happy. I love them." (Photo: © anitra)
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Meet Quest Maker Anne Zeiser
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 From an early age, Anne has been questing. About every 15 years, she experiences a big-life moment-an inflection-that sets her on a new path. Her first happened when she was 4-years old and her mother died. That's when she learned that the life you have is one you forge on your own. And forge she has, from living in the South Pacific as a young woman to her first foray into entrepreneurship in her twenties, and then in her late 30's to leave corporate world to work in public television at Boston's WGBH. During her tenure there, Anne became one of the leads for the largest and most life altering project of her life, Rx for Survival-A Global Health Challenge. Over her four-year involvement with the project, she discovered her passion work: combining her love of the media with her desire to catalyze social change.
At 48, that passion led her to form her company, Azure Media. For the next 18 months she focused on raising her young son and doing work that excited her and wildly exceeded her expectations. Then an unforeseen inflection point occurred. Anne was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Always in motion, for the first time in her life, she was forced to be still. Having had cancer doesn't define her. To Anne, it is but one of the inflection points she has encountered on a journey that, as she describes it, has fueled her passion to "harness the power of the media to raise awareness of and improve conditions in critical social, health, political, and environmental arenas."
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September Journal Sparker
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With its questions and exercises, a Journal Sparker aims to spark reflection or inspire you to take the next step on your journey to where you want to be.
 Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg
In this month's Journal Sparker, you'll find another way of contemplating how you spend the coin of your life.
We've created a cover sheet if you'd like to begin a Journal Sparker binder.
Download the Journal Sparker Cover
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| Do you know a Quest Maker, a woman who has realized her dream?
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Do you know a woman in her 40s or beyond who declared "now it's my
time," and realized her dream? Perhaps she's a friend, a family member, an
acquaintance. Perhaps it's you! If she or you would like to considered for an upcoming Quest Maker column in the Chronicles, please send me an email with a brief description and the best way to reach her.
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| Need an idea spark to ignite your own quest?
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Have you decided that now it's your time to claim your own realm and undertake your own voyage of discovery? Except you're not exactly sure how (or even where) to start?You may need an Idea Sparker to help you figure it out. That's where I can help. Learn more about me at Your Next Quest. Take the next step with a free 15-minute consultation with me. We'll talk about where you are now and where you want to be and how I can help you get there. Start your journey now by sending me an email or by calling me at 781.583.7185.Together, we can start you on the journey to where you want to be!
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