©2008 Janet Maher, Saint Francis Church, Josephine A. Maher Window, Naugatuck, Connecticut

        With this final post for 2012 I wish relaxing, soul-nourishing holidays and peace in the new year for all. Thank you to everyone who purchased my book, wrote about it, attended my talks and signings, sent me letters, made comments on and became followers of my blog. I am grateful to you all!

John O’Donohue wrote that the air around us is filled with the souls of all who have left the earthly plane before us. There are times that I sense this link with the deep past, but I also sense the cosmos as being filled with a web of connections invisibly darting about, like a psychic interpersonal internet.

Perhaps that energy from “the other side” plays a role in making disparate factors align, piercing its way through time and space to leave its mark on our lives. We wander through our daily realities, falling forward, and once in a while we’re redirected as if someone had been watching, seeing us flounder, and decided to shoot some new insight or spotlight out to guide our way. We wake into a new awareness or are steadied along. That strangers can become important members of our present continues to strike me as miraculous. It reminds me how vast and extensive a single life is and what actually matters in the long run.

Physical remembrances of my great great Aunt Josephine arrived not long after meeting a dear and formerly unknown relative. A silver serving bowl from 1847, silver bread plate and butter knife, were among things that Josephine and her niece had used and saved throughout the decades of their lives. “Auntie’s” Beleek porcelain pitcher and the Maher pin that she always wore became my treasures too. These were gifts I could never have imagined existed, much less having come into my own presence. Sequences of small miracles built upon each other and led to the discovering of people I was meant to know before I die. The gifts of the people themselves extended forward as if manifesting through myriad unexpected connections from a time long before us that now enfolds us.

Recently I was surprised with a gift from someone who shares my roots in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley. I am so grateful to Charles, a reader of my book, who took the time not only to send me a beautiful letter, but to make me an elegant framed tinwork that he had carefully punched with the Maher motto. He has allowed me to include his words here:

        “Please accept the enclosed as a thank you for the effort you expended for your readers. I am actually into my second reading. It seems as though you had me in mind as you wrote, since I arrived “on the scene” just at the end of your chronology. Every child grows hearing stories and references to people with whom they have no personal contact although the family obviously exhibits great reverence and respect. For me two such people were Josephine Maher and Peter J. Foley.

        These two were the stuff of legends in my family. A week did not pass without a sentence prefaced with “Miss Maher always said” or “Pete Foley would do it this way” being pointed in my direction as a guidepost for life. As time when on I surely integrated a lot of what I heard but the sources dimmed, mixed in with the volume of other influencing events. When I read your book, Josephine Maher and Pete Foley were back and with them memories which I had long ago stored on a distant back shelf of my mind…”

       I thank Charles again for his generosity, which means so much to me. The journey I’ve been on has renewed my appreciation for my home town area and its history that had long been lost to me. I am eternally grateful for all the people from this place who have influenced and shaped me in life, and for all the recent others whom I have been lucky enough to meet both virtually and in real time through the course of this project. That many of these new friends are now part of my current life is the greatest gift.

I’ve often wished that my friends in New England, New Mexico, Maryland and other areas could all be in the same place at the same time and that it wasn’t so difficult to keep in touch due to the busyness of our lives. The thought of a psychic network reassures me that we remain interconnected nonetheless as our thoughts and wishes for each other reach across the miles and throughout time.

May the new year deepen and sustain vital emotional connections for all and bring moments of joy and renewing stillness, healing for those who have suffered great losses this year, and blessings wherever they are needed.

Janet

©2012 Janet Maher/Sinéad Ní Mheachair

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