I was asked a few months ago by our local Charlotte librarian, Margaret, to facilitate a book discussion group. The book was “right up my alley! It was Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush’s new book, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying. I was delighted to be asked and looked forward to the warmth of the small group gatherings on the four wintery Monday mornings of January.
When I inquired a week before we were to meet, I was told the group was full…. with nine on the waiting list! How wonderful that there is so much community interest in this subject matter, that which is so dear to my heart. Keeping the conversation open… the avoided dying and death conversation…. is what is important. And here were souls wanting to read this book and talk about loving kindness and mindfulness, willing to face the truth that we are mortal beings in an organic process of living and dying…. temporary inhabitants of this place called earth.
Well, indeed, these were awesome, open-hearted souls. We read a quarter of the book each week and then discussed that which deeply resonated in it for each of us. In this honest and trusting group, intimate connections in our interests, concerns, hopes were revealed. Monday mornings became so rich for us as we dipped our toe in the insightful, meaningful and inspiring words of Dass and Bush. No one wanted the sessions to end!
But end they must as there was another group already signed up for the newly-added March sessions. And as I write this, and we face our fourth Monday of March tomorrow, there are two more four-gathering offerings being offered in May and July! How terrific is that?
Thank you, Ram Dass and Ms. Bush for writing this beautiful tome, so full of heart wisdom and soul nourishment. You have gifted us the opportunity, and the responsibility, to keep the conversation going and we’re doing just that!
As for “Poet and Activist”… I have, in over three decades, never had such a perfect descriptor for my passion. There it was in front of me when the librarian, Margaret, published a descriptor of these facilitated discussions of Walking Each Other Home. And indeed, that is exactly what we’re doing…
Interested? Inquire at https://www.charlottepubliclibrary.org/