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Yellow Flowers for Baomei

From May to certain close friends and family March 17

Dear Friends: I am writing to you as a group so you will know who is safe to communicate with. I wanted to wait till Jean's book is complete but I don't know when that will be.

I have been diagnosed to have terminal cancer of the liver.

Since it is incurable, whatever treatment can, at best, only prolong my life somewhat, along with all that tormenting side effects. Therefore, I decided to choose "NO TREATMENT." Surgery is ruled out because there are tumors all over the poor liver. The doctor gave me 6 to 9 months but that is often not precise.

At this point I feel perfectly normal, like last week, the week before etc.. I have spoken to my Chinese medicine doctor to participate when difficult symptoms began, just to make me feel better, not to treat anything or to prolong life. I feel perfectly calm and grounded. You will be more disturbed than I am, I know! As a matter of fact, I feel rather privileged to know how and when I'd likely to do my exit act!

Actually, telling selected persons is the most difficult part. I find myself repeating myself. Yes, still the old impatient self! I cannot promise you to give you up to date development. I plan to continue to work until I actually feel uncomfortable or distracted... One just never predict the future, not even in the last stretch.

My dreams actually predicted something is drastically wrong related to my life energy as represented by hair, a frequent image in my dreams. Then I dreamed of a lovely garden with a tree that had bright purple flowers but only on one side of the tree. I suggested to the owner "You can have chamber music concerts here." Last night, it was a field of deep green vegetations with small, young fruits groaning out near the roots. I picked some! Death is a chance of rebirth.

I will continue to monitor myself by way of my dreams as I usually do. Nothing like having something inside of yourself that fascinates you! This is healthy narcissism!

Love to all, May

Correspondence from Jean to May on April 15

Dear May,

Just in case you haven't been reading the Bridge posts, I thought I would send you this one.

(forwarded message from Kathy)

Where are you, Baomei??? I miss hearing from you.

Correspondence from May to Jean on April 15

Dear JJ, I just turned on the computer to write to you and, here you are!

I am conflicted about returning to the Bridge. I tried to get to the mail but my new computer doesn't seem to go there. How DO we go there? It's been a long time. What I say? I am at a peculiar place: I don't feel about this world and issues as I did before but I don't know anything about the "other world." I would never have imagined it is like this. I thought I should b e used to be in two worlds. At least, those two worlds are concrete! Now, the only familiar place is my inner world. All these terms feel different now.

I can no longer read. It was like an over night change. Nothing feels relevant to me, not in a negative sense, just an absence of emotional involvement. Quite interesting!

So, instead of reading, I only feel for colors. After a couple of weeks I realize that colors are something I always responded to and it is from the inside. So, now, I am coloring mandalas! I got this book a couple of years ago. It is very meditative and absorbing, with inner silence. I'll bring some to China with me as before, I'd read. I'm saving some for my later period when I can't go out anymore or too tired to do so.

All my affection, though in sadness, to you, my dear friend, May

April 27, May announces that she has been in pain and will cancel her planned trip to China. But her family intervenes, and they leave for China from San Francisco on May 6.

May from China, May 12,

Hi, everybody, yes, I'm still alive but not kicking too energetic.

The long flight from SF to Beijing was hard. I got to the hotel, threw myself on the bed, didn't get up till the next day for dinner w/ old friends. Eating is SO hard, especially a/t that is sweet. I ate something at the dinner. They surprised me by having four psychologists whom I have met in SF, played hostess to them.

Now, we are in Lanzhou, for the third day. I spent most of the time resting. I can only eat one meant, barely, per day. Walking two blocks wore me out... I have dreams, able to remember and wrote them down. There are some very fascinating stuff, helping me to understand why I just had to come back one last time...

Having the family here w/ me is wonderful. They do go out and enjoy themselves tremendously, eating themselves to Nirvana... I am glad. They make me feel safe without dragging them down.

We go to Dunhaung tomorrow afternoon... A great deal to say... So, until we meet or from Dunghaung.
Love to all, May
 

May from Dunhaung, China on May 15

Ah, now I know why I had to come here. It is really another world. After flying over a long stretch of sand, we got to an Oasis, another world. It is surrounded by the Gobi Desert which the hotel -- like an old palace, layer after layer of courtyards. We are all out here so it's very quiet.

We went to what I call it the MIRACLE LAKE way up in the sand which surrounded us like a bowl. Up there, there is a small, crescent moon shaped LAKE. As you can guess, it is full of mythical tales about how it came about. "Basically" the celestial beings created this lovely like lake so the mythical Queen Mother could have a place to wash her face. Naturally! The purity, the dignity, dwarfs the human world.

I can really buy endless things to bring back, all so other-worldly. I love this place. I feel "at home" here, as if I have always been here. Or, always felt I SHOULD be here, not as a human being but as a mythical one, among other mythical beings.

My health is improved. My iPOD is working, David.

Yesterday, at a practicing Taoist temple, I burned incense, bowed, all in sincerity. Then I pull out a fortune telling stick, asked the Daoist monk to interprete for me. What I picked our says "913". He asked me what question I wanted to ask,(cheating?) I asked how my health is. He said it is not good right now, not good in the next period, (seems to be three months/"period".) Then, at our time of September, it's going to get better. I thought, okay, that's when I was supposed to go to the other world. I asked him is "well" means I will be well in this tangible body or in some spiritual way. "The tangible body." said our wise man. I did give him a chance to be spiritual!!!

As I had so much hard time organize this unusual trip and consciously not really why, I now know. The highlight on the Yellow River is to float on the ancient river on a "float" that is made of whole sheep skin, blown up, and tied to a raft. We whriled in the water as the water wanted us, and rippled us as she wanted to. The boat man is a moselem, from this area.

We had so much fear of the weather rumors. But, so far, the weather in Dunhaung is perfect. There is not a thing I can complain. The hotel has a driver, charming and personable, with a van, taking us to all places. We are taking a day off to rest, to E mail, to read, write, just recollect ourselfes...

Two more days here and we fly back to Beijing, rest for a day, and back to SF on the 20th, I think.

Love to all, dear earthly folks, until I come down to earth, Baomei
(As usually, unedited.)

From Jody to the Peace Bridge on the death of American Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz, May 15

First a poem from Stanley Kunitz, the great American poet Laureate who died yesterday at 100 years of age. He is celebrated by the New York Times headline for telling "Stories of the Soul."

I read this poem to Jean this morning and want to share it with all of you.  Especially you Victoria, it seems so very apt.  It is the concluding stanza of his poem entitled "The Long Boat."

Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.
 

May 16 from Jody to May

Ah May, indeed you have come home to your miracle place and to the homeplace in yourself.  It seems most fitting that you who dreamed up the idea of a reservoir where the wdpb members could come for refuge and refreshment should come to the real thing for yourself.

In the desert, the Oasis. The reservoir where the waters of life collect. And of course for the Queen Mother! She must have pure water to wash to show forth her beauty. How this soothes the soul!

I remember a wonderful book by Jon Blofeld called the Bodhisattva of Compassion, about Kuan Yin or Kannon or same figure by other names. But always the Great Mother of Compassion, “ She who hears our cries and comes.” One chapter tells of a mythic tale of a lake where the figure of Kuan Yin emerges. I wonder as I read your letter if this might be the lake of your experience that Blofeld writes about. In any case it connected for me. I feel Kuan Yin is with you, healing and comforting you.

And as to you being a mythical being, guess what, the secret was already out: we all know you are one!

Now about the Temple and the health reading from the Daoist monk: what to say? What do you say? I hear again your droll laughing self joking about giving him a chance to be spiritual! What I hear is that Baomei is very much alive and with us, that there is illness and more trouble with your health, but there is hope of healing too. September? What we can at least agree is that the sense is that all will be well, all will be well, all will be well.

I continue to hold you in my daily meditation when I light my candle. And look forward to another visit with you in the coming months when I come again to SF.

Finally, I want to share with you a poem that I read in the NYTimes today by the poet Stanley Kunitz who at the age of 100 passed on to another life.

In his poem “The Long Boat” he concludes with this stanza:
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn’t matter
which way was home;
as if he didn’t know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

You dear Baomei, bringing heaven and earth together in your journey, be rocked in the peace of the Infinite!

Love,

Jody

On May 23, Mary Joyce sent the following message to the Peace Bridge, saying she had a "meditation" vision the morning before and the morning of that day. She said she felt strongly that she needed to send her to all as just a "reminder" of how much we are all really connected when we pray, meditate, call on, dream for PEACE.

Tara, Goddess of Peace and Protection

The Goddess Tara originated as a Hindu goddess, the Mother Creator, representing the eternal life force that fuels all life.

There are many embodiments of Tara, but the best known are the White Tara and the Green Tara.

The peaceful, compassionate White Tara gently protects and brings long life and peace. The more dynamic goddess, Green Tara is the "Mother Earth", and a fierce goddess who overcomes obstacles, and saves us from physical and spiritual danger.

In Sanskrit, the name Tara means Star, but she was also called She Who Brings Forth Life, The Great Compassionate Mother, and The Embodiment of Wisdom, and the Great Protectress.

Adopted by Buddhism, she become the most widely revered deity in the Tibetan pantheon. In Buddhist tradition, Tara is actually much greater than a goddess -- she is a female Buddha, an enlightened one was has attained the highest wisdom, capability and compassion. . . one who can take human form and who remains in oneness with the every living thing.


The oldest reference to the goddess Tara, perhaps, is found in an ancient saga of Finland. The saga speaks of a group known as Tar, the Women of Wisdom.

A version of the Goddess Tara exists in virtually every culture. Indeed, it is said that the Goddess Tara will assume as many forms on earth as there are needs for by the people.

The Celts called their Great Goddess Tara. Her name is thought to be the root of the word Tor, which is a mound of earth or hillock imbued with spiritual energy or connection to the other worlds.

We also hear the echo of her name in the Latin word for earth, Terra, a connection between Tara and the concept of "Mother Earth".

The Goddess Tara is also associated with Kuan Yin, the great Chinese goddess of compassion. In South America she was known as the ancient mother goddess Tarahumara.

The Cheyenne people revere the Star Woman who fell from the heavens and whose body became the earth that provided them with food.

The ancient Egyptian Goddess IshTar who, in her myths, came to earth from the heavens and instructed her people to comingle and intermarry with the earthlings to give them the benefits of their learning and wisdom was yet another incarnation of the Goddess Tara.



In the legends of Tibet where the worship of the Goddess Tara is still practiced in the Buddhist tradition, it is told that the goddess Tara is the feminine counterpart of the Avalokitesvara, the Buddha who is reincarnated as the Dalai Lama.

It is told that she first appeared rising from a lotus blossom in the lake that had formed from his first tears of compassion, tears that fell when he first beheld the scope of suffering in the world.

Because of her essential goodness, she was granted the right to assume her human form as a man. But Tara elected to remain in her womanly form.

The Goddess Tara vowed:

"There are many who wish to gain enlightenment in a man's form,
And there are few who wish to work for the welfare of living beings in a female form.

Therefore may I, in a female body, work for the welfare of all beings, until such time as all humanity has found its fullness."



One of the myths of the goddess Tara demonstrates her compassionate and loving nature and tells how she got the name "Tara of the Turned Face".

An elderly woman who was a sculptor worked in a city where there was a large Buddhist temple called the Mahabodhi (Great Wisdom). She sculpted a statue of the goddess Tara and built a shrine to house it. Upon completing the project she was filled with regret when she realized that she had not considered the placement of the shrine. "Oh no," she thought, "Tara has her back to the Mahabodhi and that isn't right!"

Then she heard the sculpture speak to her, saying "If you are unhappy, I will look toward the Mahabodhi." As the woman watched in amazement, the door of the shrine and the image of the goddess Tara both turned to face the Temple.

Such is the love and compassion of the goddess Tara.



The ancient goddess Tara in her many incarnations has many gifts to share with contemporary women. Tara embodies the feminine strengths of great caring and compassion, the ability to endure stressful and even terrifying moments, the acts of creation, and the source of sustenance and protection.

Demonstrating the psychological flexibility that is granted to the female spirit, the goddess Tara, in some of her human forms, could be quite fierce and wild.

Refugees fleeing the horrors of the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese armies recounted numerous stories of the Green Tara that protected them during their torture and guided their flight to freedom.

In other of her forms, such as the White Tara, she embodied inner peace and spiritual acceptance. She symbolizes purity and is thought to be part of every good and virtuous woman.



Tara is an archetype of our own inner wisdom. She guides and protects us as we navigate the depths of our unconscious minds, helping us to transform consciousness, our own personal journeys of freedom.

It is the goddess Tara who helps us to remain "centered". The myths of the Goddess Tara remind us of our "oneness" with all of creation and the importance of nurturing the spirit within.

"Love is just like the fragrance of a flower. It demands nothing. It simply shares." Osho
 

Jody followed this message almost immediately with these words:

Dear Mary Joyce and all,

I was moved to read this description of Tara and her many manifestations and names.

I have a deep devotion over many years to this figure whose statue resides in a place of honor in my office. I have worn a jade pendant of her under her aspect of Kuan Yin for many years and this same figure has traveled on bodies of many others in times of special needs:

She, in the form of my jade pendant,was worn by my daughter during her first pregnancy and birth and coincidentally her midwife wore the same figure when she delivered my daughter

She, in the same pendant, was worn by a friend who survived a drowning and lost her voice during her recovery and her first plunge back into the ocean overcoming fears

She, in the same pendant, has rested on the chest of my son as he went to war twice in Iraq as an ER doctor,

She has ridden on and in my heart through heart attacks and heart aches.

I know her also by her name: "She who hears our cries and comes"

I know her when tears of sympathy arise as this is the story of her emergence I love the best:

The story goes that when the Boddhisattva, Avalokiteshavara was heading on out to bliss, he heard the cries of suffering beings and was moved to tears. These tears became the Great Feminine Compassionate One, Tara (Kuan Yin in China, Kannon in Japan). So when beings are moved to tears by the cries of suffering beings, SHE APPEARS.

I know this story to be real, to be true, to actually occur. That is why I wear and send forth this pendant. Though now I hold her always in my heart.

For all those we know are suffering among our Bridge family, all who are suffering in the wars, may the peace and protection of Tara/Kuan Yin be fully present.

Jody
 

And immediately following this, Jody, who had asked for and received permission to tell the Peace Bridge about May's condition, sent the following message:

Dear Friends,

I have just written two posts, and yet, I need to write one more. One devoted solely to our Baomei, known simply as May to many of us.

I have asked her permission to write news to our Bridge family about her.  May has given her ok, so I move forward with what is a hard but important task.

May has communicated to a few friends and family that she has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. She has told a few of us about a month ago that she did not want this news shared at that time. She said she will not seek conventional treatment such as chemotherapy to arrest it even if she could. Rather, she is facing this reality with her usual equanimity and wisdom seeking only help with pain from her Chinese doctor when this becomes necessary as the disease progresses.

As usual May has been more concerned for the worry or trouble she might give others than worrying about herself: she said something to the effect, it will cause you all more trouble than me.

Who can say.

What I do know is how much she means to us, how much we love her and how hard it is to face this reality with her. But now that she has given her ok to sharing this news, I trust that the channels of love and support from all of us will be fully opened.

I had the opportunity to visit May in San Francisco in April when I was in California and realized what a gift it was to have that special sunny afternoon with her in her apartment by the sea and to walk and talk by the ocean. I said I knew that many of us would want to have just the same opportunity to be with her. She said, yes, I know, but you are the messenger.

So, I deliver this message of our dear Baomei with her blessing.

Jody

 

---

From Kotaro to May

Dearest NN,

When I was resting in my stationwagon like this, my foot was out of the back hatch. Under my foot were narrow agricultural streams. They were making so refresh sound. I closed my eyes just like this photo and listend into the gentle sound. It was very fine time. Never had for lately.

The parking space is for public near by THAT beautiful lake, Matsubara-ko松原湖 (Pinetree Field Lake). As I could read your mail to my cell phone, on the way to another area from Kiyosato highland, I found a sign "This way, Mtasubara lake" and found a wonderful place of water, which was too big to be called a pond, but to small to be a Lake. I took some photos there including that of cell phone photo.
 

Sitting on the rock of Lake...(like Autis Ledding's song: spell?), I released my complicated state of mind onto the surface of the lake. Was thinking about you, wondering how that lake  in your dream would be.  Anyway I did not doubt the heaven's guidance for me to this lake.

This short trip was priceless, actually I used minimum money. It was so funny.

Oh yes, I will pray for your place in the future, of course.

DaFuMay,
Kotaro