How to enhance your life by embracing death? An Interview With Lily Myers Kaplan

Today, SevenPonds speaks with Lily Myers Kaplan founder and director of  SoulWorks and the Spirit of Resh, two organizations that offer counseling, retreats, and support for any difficulty in life. Her mission is to teach how to enhance your life by embracing death. Lily holds a Masters degree in Culture and Spirituality, is trained in dreamwork, bodywork, gestalt therapy, voice dialogue, and is an ordained, non-denominational minister and a hospice volunteer. Today, Lily speaks with us about counseling, how important it is to enhance your life by embracing death, her retreats, and her new book, “Two Rare Birds: A Legacy of Love”. 

Gabriella: Can you start off by telling me about your two organizations, The Spirit of Resh Foundation and Soul Works?

Lily:I founded the Spirit of Resh Foundation in 2012, dedicated to the lives of my sister, Lois, and her husband, Dave. They died 9 months apart from each other after fourteen year in tandem cancer journey. The organization inspires awakening to love and to the spirit. Our mission is to build awareness that death is part of the wholeness of life and that body and earth are one with spirit. We help people to realize that our lives are temporary and that we come to face what really matters.

Gabriella: Your organizations offer support and counsel?

Lily: We are a nonprofit organization, so we never turn anyone away for lack of funds. When people are facing death they are not thinking about money, but only about what they need. I sit with people, wherever they are in their soul journey, including loss. I work with people who are facing the loss of a loved one and with people within all stages of facing their own death. Sometimes the process of grief happens before a person has passed.

For me, I had grieved for my parents during their illnesses while they were still alive, which helped me when they died. Sometimes my role is to hold a sacred container for someone, so their passage on can be peaceful as possible. I help people see what they need to face before death; some things need to be completed before they pass. Near the end, what becomes important is different from when you were fighting to live. It’s is a matter of soul. Everyone’s soul journeys are unique but there is something that is universal for all people, and that is the need for a safe and sacred passage.

Gabriella: You mentioned to me that you have a retreat in August, would you mind telling me a bit about that?

Lily: Yes, it is called “Finding Your Way Home: A Retreat for the Bereaved.” It will take place from August 25 to August 31, at Ghost Ranch, is a retreat center in a small town in northern New Mexico. The people joining the retreat are usually dealing with loss or going through a major life change: death, divorce, loss of identity. We go on to understanding loss as a spiritual journey. We look at loss with an awe that is transformative, which always involves compassion. We explore deeper the life of a soul, and of how to be with the process of dealing with the death of someone close to you.

Gabriella: You have a book out, Two Rare Birds A Legacy of Love. What was the inspiration?

Lily: Yes, I began wanting to tell the story of my sister and her husband. My big sister, who is two years older than I. It was a very intense experience. There were hurts between us, but when she got cancer, and was on the operating table she experienced that the universe was made of love. After that she came to me and said she missed me, and wanted to heal with me. Facing death transformed us both. So, a year after they passed away, I began writing, and discovered the story I needed to tell was my story. Their cancer appeared back and forth throughout many years shaped the way I grew. Two Rare Birds is our story of transformation and growth. Love was the awakening force. This is not a how-to book; it is an intimate story that people are experiencing as a helpful guide.

There was a time when my parents knew they were going to be moving from their home because they needed to be taken care of at every level. My sister, Lois, had two brain tumors by then, and my other sister and I sat down with her and discussed what our parents needed. We had some conflicts, but also discovered a sense of how we were going to take care of our parents. It went on to become our path, more than something we had to do. Lois asked us to stop planning, and grabbed cards from a deck of angel cards, each one having a positive word. My two sisters and I each pulled a card, and they were so perfect for each of us. Lois had the words sacred duty, and devotion; Sally had perfection and gratitude; I had vigilance and faith. The cards created a pact between the three of us on how we were going to take care of mom and dad.

“After the first wave of shock, fear, anger, grief or denial, it may be helpful to stop and ask yourself how you want to go through whatever comes next. What values, qualities or
attitudes will be your guiding principles as you face the medical swirl ahead?” (For the full list of tips, advice and support, check out the facebook page here.)

Gabriella: You are obviously a very spiritual person. What motivated you down the path of spirituality?

Lily: There were many, but there was one particular experience from when I was three or four years old. I remember waking up and looking out of the window in my bedroom. There was a tree, and one day the tree was just a bud, then it suddenly transformed into a big leafy tree. At that age, I was in awe with the beautiful state of the tree. I remember seeing the tree burst into green, and it was surrounded by light. That experience with oneness—it couldn’t be put into words. It was a powerful experience of union with…life. After that moment, I started asking deep questions about life. Really young, I began exploring who I was. I started meditating at the age of nineteen. I was following my deep calling towards spirituality through that early time in my life. I studied myself and made a commitment to myself in my twenties that I would follow my soul. I had an inner desire to know some mystery greater than me.

Gabriella: Any last words you would like to share with our readers?

Lily: Our mission statement is to build recognition that death is part of the wholeness of life. Within our culture, people are so afraid to think about death, which is understandable, but death is much like birth—a being coming into a little body, being born through a narrow canal, growing through a whole lifetime of love, sunsets, challenges, and everything that life is filled with, then birthing out of that body into another, unseen reality, which is as much a sacred journey as being born. Resh is bout building an awareness that birth and body are one with mind and spirit and helping people integrate that understanding in order to live holistically and aligned with our purpose and values. We are all made from the same matter, and  come from the same cosmic substance: stardust. I believe we are one with all that exists on earth.

Two Important Things to Remember:

• Death is the great equalizer because it is real and happens to everybody.
• Death makes us human.

 Gabriella: Thank you for enlightening us today, Lily.

Lily: Thank you!

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