URS date December 3, 2017
Beloveds,
Our Elaine left her body this evening, lying outside in her gazebo, wrapped in her turquoise comforter, as the sun was setting, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were washed in red, and the full moon (super moon!) was rising, golden.
Asha had spoken to Elaine on the phone shortly before she slipped away, saying that the moon was rising where Asha was in Virginia, and that she was sending her prayers with the moon, and that when it rose in New Mexico it would drop Asha’s prayers upon Elaine. And when the moon rose over Taos Mountain it rose as a winged heart. (A picture of this beautiful miracle will be posted on Elaine’s Facebook page).
Her death was peaceful and sweet, with close friends chanting and singing her out. She was ready. A circle of loving sisters have already bathed and prepared her body, while singing and reading psalms and poems (and crying and laughing and holding silence). The air around her is still charged with beauty, which is bound to linger over the next few days until we lay her to rest (and beyond).
Tomorrow (Monday) is a day of visitation from noon onward. We will bury her at Lama Foundation on Tuesday at noon, and will gather for a reception at Elaine’s house afterwards (3pm-ish). Feel free to bring flowers and finger foods to the house tomorrow to share with each other if you come by to say goodbye.
Thank you, dear friends, for holding up Elaine and each other over these past four years of her cancer voyage. You have made her way easy and gentle. She has known for the first time that she is fully and unconditionally loved, even as she loved us with all her might.
Mirabai, Brady, Julie
I first met Elaine at the Mendocino Sufi Camp in the early 90’s. I was a beginning mureed and she was teaching poetry. At the time I did not think I could ever remember experiencing such spaciousness in another person. It was like her heart was a corner of New Mexico that she invited you into to warm up after a cold night. She took a light and playful approach to poetry that invited us to simply sing from our experience and the poems I wrote with (and for) her are some of my favorites. Many years later she returned to Mendocino and offered poetry once again. This time, older and just after my first real heartbreak, her invitations to write were just the pollen needed to nurture the honey up from pain and energy inside me. She would just listen to us, eyes sparkling with a happiness and wisdom and friendship that simply invited us to unfold. Those poems, that camp was magical for me and helped both heal and nurture a soul. Today, there is not a poem I read, nor one that I write that does not have a little Elaine in it. She was a muse, yes, but more a friend on the path whose hand and heart was always open. I miss her and she is not gone. Even now I can see that wry smile inviting me, these words, and us all to dance under the wide moonless night just outside a village you can not reach by any rational means somewhere deep in New Mexico. Ya salaamo, dearest Elaine.
Elaine, Beloved of Allah,
Gratitude for dropping by several times in this life…
Always I remember You as not just Beautiful, but as a “Beauty Catalyzer.” Invariably, after a few minutes together, I found myself being dragged, sometimes kicking and screaming, from the atmosphere of your beauty into experiencing my own beauty, then in awe of everyone’s beauty. You always made it so safe, greeting God in this beauty-permeating every one and everything…always, so many thanks.
Those hairsticks you brought from Bali, the ones with the turquoise beads…soon I will pass them on to my five year-old granddaughter Luccia and tell her about how you awakened beauty everywhere you went so that she might learn from your example and maybe do the same.
Love & MORE LOVE,
Khadija Goforth