Simply Sacred

By Irene Kokatay

Many of us are experiencing an urgency to wake up, to live more fully in the here and now, and to stop taking our lives for granted. We are haunted by a feeling there is something more to life, something just out of reach. We feel disconnected, incomplete, but sense an intrinsic wholeness at a deeper level of our being.

In Simply Sacred, author Irene Kokatay offers an invitation to wake up to our fundamental nature in the ordinary lives we’re living. She weaves together narratives of her years of experience working as a hospice counselor facing death on a regular basis, at an ashram in India, and her encounters with a spiritual mentor to share her unique journey of awakening. Kokatay seeks to inspire others to embark on their own quest to live a richer and fuller expression of who they are.

Through stories, insights, and contemplations on life, death, and awakening, she encourages us to deepen the experience of the sacredness contained in the everyday moments of our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Oct 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781982214531

Irene Kokatay

Irene Kokatay is a psychotherapist in private practice. She lives in Hawaii with her partner, Stuart Mooney. Together, they offer programs and spiritual retreats worldwide. Visit http://www.irenekokataybooks.com for more information.

Book preview

CONTEMPLATIONS

At the end of each section, I have included contemplations to invite you to sink more deeply into the truth of your life. You may wish to take some time meditating on those contemplations that speak to you. Begin by sitting quietly with eyes closed and taking a few deep, conscious breaths. Allow your mind chatter to die down. When you feel relaxed, allow the contemplation to rest gently in your awareness. You may feel a sense of peace, or discomfort may come up. Just be with whatever arises as you consider each one from a place of stillness. You could also journal about the feelings and insights that are revealed during the contemplation.

THE NON-PRINCIPLES OF TRANSFORMATION

My friend Tasha has been writing a self-help book—a how-to guidebook based on her years of work as a psychotherapist and life coach. Logical and organized, it sets forth principles and step-by-step practices to follow. One day, tired of asking me what my book was about and not getting a clear answer, she suggested I come up with some principles on which my book would be based. I resisted but finally presented her with fifteen non-principles. They are attitudes toward life that cannot be accomplished and checked off our to-do lists. Rather, they must come to us as gifts of grace. But we can cultivate an openness to receive them, an intention to grow and evolve and allow more grace into our lives. So, thanks to Tasha, here they are:

1. Allow peace and transformation to come to you.

2. Surrender to the flow of life.

3. Be empty and open.

4. Embrace what is.

5. Connect to source.

6. Loosen your grip on life.

7. See that you are not in control.

8. Release the concepts about who you are.

9. Awaken to the possibility that you are more than you appear.

10. See the oneness of all things.

11. Allow life to touch and teach you.

12. Open to all that the moment contains.

13. Acknowledge your suffering.

14. Embrace impermanence and uncertainty.

15. Travel the path of unlearning.

These non-principles, it turns out, are what this book is about. They are considered throughout the book in the various stories, experiences, observations, and reflections on life, death, and awakening.

Note: There are contradictions throughout this book, as we move beyond the realm of logic. The paradoxes of the spiritual path are revealed and considered from different angles. Our perspectives constantly evolve in the process of living. Sometimes, we can revisit an idea or experience over and over, each time viewing it through a new lens. Sometimes, what was a mystery yesterday can suddenly become clear and obvious. Life is an ever-evolving journey that requires becoming comfortable with change, uncertainty, and contradiction. It asks us to expand our consciousness to make space for seeming opposites to exist side by side.

PART 1

THE HOSPICE CHRONICLES

Recently, a friend who spent many years living in an ashram in India mentioned that her guru had advised the disciples to always remember two things—God and death. Remembering our mortality is a powerful spiritual practice, but it’s not usually something we want to dwell on. We’d much rather forget that we are going to die someday and go about our business blissfully unaware of this glaring fact. But at some point, we will come face-to-face with it, guaranteed. Some would say, why not just live our lives and ignore it until the day comes? That would be fine if it were actually possible, but we all know on some level of our being that death is lurking there in the shadows. Why not face it head on and be done with it?

Many spiritual traditions use the knowledge of our mortality as a way of waking up. The yogis of India are known to spend time at cremation sites and burial grounds to break their denial of death, to realize the temporary nature of the body, to awaken to the deeper reality that is limitless, eternal. Many of us in the West would consider this morbid, but these yogis are so dedicated to their spiritual awakening, above all else, that they will do whatever it takes.

I didn’t consciously seek out a job that would plunge me headlong into encountering death; it came to me. But I did embrace it as an opportunity to grow, to ask questions and search for answers to the mystery of life and death. And that is certainly what it turned out to be.

STARTING OUT

A mass shooting occurred at the local post office the day before my interview for a job as a counselor at the hospice. The hospice counselors would be dealing with the aftermath of the shooting, supporting the survivors and the friends and families of the victims. Just thinking about being in that role was distressing. I knew people who had intense jobs like ER nurses or EMTs, who faced unimaginable situations of life and death every day. They seemed to fall into the category of people who take death in stride as a natural part of life. I was not one of them. I wasn’t exactly a bastion of emotional strength in the face of trauma, but here I was, sitting in front of a panel of interviewers, convincing them I would be a good fit for the job.

One of the qualifications for working at hospice was having experienced a significant loss myself. A few minutes into the interview, I was asked to describe my own losses. By that time, I was more than qualified, having been through the grieving process several times, but my first significant loss cut the deepest.

When I was twenty-nine, my older sister, Pam, died following surgery to remove a brain tumor. As the doctors had fully expected her to survive the surgery, our family was completely unprepared for the devastating news. How could this happen to me? How could this happen in my ordinary, drama-free family, where everything seemed be under control, to go according to plan? It made no sense. Something like this only happened to other people. Putting down the phone after hearing from my devastated parents that Pam had died, I walked out into the backyard in shock. Surviving this kind of news seemed impossible. It was my first real experience being in such close proximity to death, which I had built up in my mind as something too horrible to even contemplate.

My husband tried to reassure me; he said, We are equipped to deal with death—that ability is built into us.

He had grown up in a culture where death is openly visible, acknowledged as a normal part of life—not denied and concealed from view, like it is in the West. His words and attitude toward death helped me through the initial shock that threatened to derail me. It was many years, though, before I could recognize Pam’s death as a gift. Naturally, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I can see now that going through the process of dealing with her death over the years deepened my spiritual quest and opened me up emotionally in a way that nothing else could have. It invited me to question long-held beliefs, reach deep within for answers, and open to the healing flow of grace that comes from something beyond the ego. Over time, my life became richer and fuller as a result of grappling with this shattering loss.

But back to the interview: after managing to hold it together through the first question on my own losses, which included the recent death of my father, a member of the panel asked me, What would you say to a child if you were called to her school to inform her that her mother had died?

My heart sank.

I was still reeling from the first question. Oh, my God, I thought. I have to do that? What have I gotten myself into? I needed the job, but this was an impossible situation. I stumbled my way through an answer which, as I remember it, consisted mostly of different ways of saying I don’t know, like, I’m sure you have a protocol for situations like that, and Well, I admit there will be a learning curve as I get up to speed, and some vague non-answer regarding being calm, supportive, and comforting, while still conveying the information in a direct manner. (How on earth was I going to accomplish that?)

After being presented with other similarly impossible scenarios, I left the interview somewhat shaken, relieved it was over and certain they would not offer me the job, for which I was thankful. But they did. Now what? My work was cut out for me—to do this job would require developing an intimate relationship with death.

The years at hospice were some of the most fulfilling and rewarding, as I engaged in the poignant work of journeying with those confronting death. It was a period of profound spiritual growth, which invited me to come to terms with my own mortality every day. There may be no better way than this to experience the reality of your being. I lived, breathed, ate, slept, dreamed death. There was no escaping it. There was no denying that we all are going to encounter death—of those we love and our own. Until my sister died, I was in deep denial. Apparently, I had secretly expected to be the one and only person who ever lived to avoid that inevitable aspect of life; and at the same time, I knew it was there, lurking in the background.

Those of us who work with death can forget that others aren’t in as close proximity to it as we are, and they don’t necessarily want to be. We can become comfortable in our denial. The other therapists and I often had to stop ourselves from talking about the subject to other people in our lives. It was never far from our minds. Even in our spare time, we watched movies about death. Mom, can we talk about something else? my daughters would have to say. Looking back on it, it was almost an obsession that held a certain fascination. After all, it is a significant part of life that we tend to ignore.

Although it could be challenging to voyage with those who were grieving the loss of a loved one or who were on the brink of death themselves, every day was a learning experience that required reaching a place deep within to expand my capacity to be present and to learn the lessons death offers to teach us.

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Contemplation

Reflect on your significant experiences of loss. What lessons have they taught you?

Has confronting death increased your capacity to feel more deeply, to be more fully present in your life?

Become aware of how you have changed and grown in ways you didn’t think possible as a result of your death experiences.

Consider how facing mortality can remove the fear.

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THE SACRED SPACE

Soon after starting work at hospice, I was assigned the task of organizing and facilitating a support group for parents who had recently lost an infant. Anxious at the prospect of dealing with their intense grief but wanting to be as helpful to them as possible, I dove headfirst into the project. While doing research in preparation for the group, I came across a photographer whose job it was to chronicle, through photos, the short lives of babies who died at birth or soon after. She was called to the hospital maternity ward to offer her services to the parents of these babies. She invited me to her office, where she explained what she did. First, she would gently and lovingly help the parents prepare the infant’s body by dressing them in a tiny, hand-crocheted outfit. Then she would carefully arrange flowers around the baby’s body and adjust the lighting to create just the right effect.

It was shocking to me at first, but as this incredible woman showed me picture after picture of beautiful infants, I was deeply touched. She told me that the parents were grateful to have these beautiful pictures of their children whose lives were over before they could begin. Her work was truly a labor of love, and when I began facilitating the group, it helped me to focus on the love of the parents for the babies, rather than the tragedy of the loss.

After weeks of preparation, the evening of the first group session arrived. Five devastated couples showed up. I knew it would be challenging to sit with them and guide the group experience, but I was unprepared for the intensity of emotion that would be expressed during those sessions. We gathered in the sacred space, an odd-shaped, windowless room in the center of the lobby of the hospice building. It was meant to be conducive for meditation, but that was debatable. Uncomfortable benches with stiff cushions lined the curved walls. I brought a chair in for myself and gathered pillows from the other offices, arranging them on the benches to make the space cozier.

One by one, the couples drifted in and took their seats. After introductions and brief descriptions of their losses, they began sharing their devastating experiences in detail. By this time, as a therapist, I had facilitated various types of groups for several years and had experienced significant losses of my own. Even so, nothing had prepared me for leading this group.

Jake was first to share his story. He was robust—an athlete—with a big personality. His wife, Brenda, was quiet and visibly depressed. He began explaining the circumstances surrounding baby Noah’s death at six months of age from a severe birth defect that hadn’t initially been detected. Toward the end of his explanation, Jake suddenly exploded in a violent emotional outburst, like the bursting of a dam. The walls of the sacred space could barely contain this level of intense anguish.

We all sat in stunned silence.

I was certain everyone would run out of the room in terror and never come back. They were all in such a vulnerable place, having just experienced their own painful losses. Wouldn’t this extreme intensity harm their tender hearts and cause them to retreat inside themselves? But to my surprise, they all stayed in their seats, listening intently, and after the initial shock, began providing words of support to Jake and Brenda. Miraculously, everyone survived the outburst. In fact, they all felt a sense of relief. Big Jake expressing this level of emotion gave permission to the others to open to their own pain. One by one, the other couples began to touch the depth of their own grief and share it with the group. They thanked Jake for setting the stage and freeing them to express their feelings in the group with as much intensity as they needed to.

As uncomfortable as it was, the sacred space became truly sacred, as week after week, the couples returned to touch their deepest feelings and begin their healing journeys inside its walls. The healing energy in the room increased every week. And as hard as it was for the parents to bring themselves to attend the group, they all agreed that gathering in the sacred space was vitally important for their healing. It was a way of honoring their lost babies and their grief. The support it provided helped carry them through their journeys.

As I write this, I am sitting on a deserted beach on the Big Island of Hawaii, surrounded by black lava rocks and sun-bleached coral. Waves from a late winter storm roar incessantly in the background, and a lone whale breaches in the distance. It’s a long way from the sacred space, but the memory of the group is still fresh. Looking back on the healing and growth that took place for those couples and for me, I am deeply touched. My life was made richer and more meaningful because of their losses. I could more fully engage in my own life, seeing the courage and strength those parents summoned in order to face their deepest suffering. As we sat together each week, we were invited to grapple with the mystery of life and death. And through dealing with unspeakable loss, we began to awaken to a deeper connection to all of life.

Every Wednesday night after the group session, I would drive home to our cabin in the hills above town; I felt alive and full of gratitude. I was transformed by being at the edge of life, sharing the exquisite beauty contained in the undiluted, excruciating pain of losing a child. I think of an interview I heard with Philippe Petit, the high-wire artist who famously walked a tightrope between New York City’s Twin Towers, a quarter-mile above the street. Years after that daring feat, he lost his nine-year-old daughter. He was asked how he managed to not only survive but go on to live an extraordinary and vibrant life. He said he had to find a balance between the immense joy and immense sorrow he feels when he thinks of her. He also said that unless you are walking the wire, you are not living. When we are balanced on the razor’s edge of life, between joy and sorrow, about to be swallowed up by the void, that’s when we are most alive.

Sometimes, life forces us into this position, like the parents in the group, but we always have a choice to feel or to remain numb, to open to life or to shut down. And we don’t have to wait until we are facing death; our everyday lives present us with endless opportunities to step into the present.

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Contemplation

Meditate on how facing a significant loss has transformed you. Has it enriched your life and given you a deeper sense of connection with yourself and the world?

Notice how feeling your deepest emotions opens you to a fuller experience of who you are.

Reflect on the aliveness you experience when you are able to feel more of your joy as well as your sorrow.

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THE CLUB

After the first eight weekly sessions in the sacred space, we moved the infant loss group to a larger room. There were two brown love seats arranged in an L shape, and a matching armchair, where I would sit. I’d pull over the green and beige chairs to form a semicircle for the parents, then bring in a candle and box of matches and place them on the coffee table in the middle. After the room was arranged, I would get the roster sheet, place it on the table with a pen, and wait for the first parents to arrive. There was always a slight sense of anxiety in anticipation of how the group would go, but a sense of awe, too, at the prospect of witnessing the deep healing that would inevitably take place.

By now, I had adjusted to the intensity of the group and even looked forward to it. A powerful bond was created by the shared experience of loss and the compassion that came forth in response. If Ian showed up, we could count on his sense of humor to lighten the mood. Stefan and Sonny would always share some profound insight and help the new participants. Maria would bring a depth of feeling and authenticity that touched everyone to the core. They all dreaded seeing new members attending for the first time but welcomed them with the empathy only a parent who had experienced a similar loss could provide. Miguel and Angela, Patti and Ian, Jake and Brenda, Brian and Tracy, Grady and Kathleen, Maria and Rick, Sonny, Marco, Paige, and so many others—we were a part of each other’s lives at such a tender and powerful time.

It was a poignant time for me too. Every day at work, I was dealing with death. On my vacations, I was off to India in search of awakening, enlightenment, or something that would help me make sense of life and death. My life was being turned upside down. At the courses in India, we would dance in the temple, gaze at sacred symbols, chant ancient mantras, practice chakra meditations, and listen to teachings on awakening given by the young monks. Then it was back to work at hospice. I was deeply involved in getting to the bottom of who we are and what this life is all about. And my clients were my greatest teachers, especially the parents in the infant loss group, as they grappled with the meaning of their loss and the anguish it brought into their lives. Mostly, they concluded there was no purpose or meaning—it just was what it was, and they had no choice but to live through the experience and become who they became because of it. And we were all in it together, as I had certainly experienced my share of loss too. None of us are immune.

In those group sessions, we spoke about the unspeakable: what it was like to give birth to a baby who never cries or opens her eyes, to pick up your baby’s ashes at the mortuary, to have your milk come in with no baby to feed, to feel the ache in your arms with no baby to hold. They expressed what it was like to pass by the baby’s room all decorated with yellow wallpaper with baby chicks on it and matching bumper guards in the crib, a dragonfly mobile hanging above it—and no baby.

The support they provided each other was profoundly touching. The group included individuals from all walks of life, rallying around each other because of their shared experience of loss. Many of them developed a closeness with the other parents that they shared with no one else in their lives.

Friends and family didn’t always know what to say, how to be supportive. Sometimes, their comments were inadvertently hurtful: God works in mysterious ways. Time heals all wounds. You can always have another baby. There may be some truth to these statements, but they were not what the parents wanted to hear in the midst of their grief. Some loved ones steered entirely clear of the fact that the baby just died, never mentioning it. The parents wanted to talk about what happened. They wanted others to acknowledge their pain. And they wanted acknowledgment of their baby’s existence. They wanted to speak the baby’s name and hear others say it.

To be present with this deep grief week after week is to open to life. The heart expands to accommodate the experience. I couldn’t sit with my little ego and listen to the outpouring of this depth of grief; I was called upon to listen with the heart. There was no hiding my grief over my own losses, locked away in some safe place as I helped support these parents. Leading that group was an invitation to open to my own vulnerability and, as a result, to become more fully alive.

Some parents were reluctant to show up at group. Marco called it the club nobody wanted to be a member of. We would make tea in the kitchen and carry our full cups into the group room, hoping the tea in them would absorb some of the grief, as people took turns sharing their stories. If Jake were there, he would usually volunteer to go first, much to the relief of the rest of the group, including me. Every week, I was amazed that anyone could tolerate that level of intensity, and that we didn’t all go running out the door screaming. The pain was palpable. But it was a place they could speak the inexpressible and share their intolerable burdens. And we were all witnesses.

Some parents were truly unable to speak. Claudia sat through several sessions without uttering a word, until she finally found her voice and was able to describe her devastating story of losing one of her twin boys during the birth process. We all understood and held the space for her as she gathered the courage to share the unspeakable. It was a beautiful process to see her start to heal as she began to touch the places deep inside where she had hidden her grief. When it came pouring out, she could see it wasn’t going to kill her. Speaking her truth began a process that would eventually make her whole.

Most parents said that hearing the stories of the others’ losses, strangely, did not make them feel worse. They each felt that the other parents’ losses were worse than their own. Somehow,