My submission to the IDHHB Bardo Buzz, October 2024 edition.
A lot of you probably know that Rose Gander, a longtime student of EJ Gold and member of the IDHHB as well as the local town community, passed this September 11, 2024. Despite the visible decline over the summer, her passing still came much earlier than anyone had expected. Maybe between losing her internet access in July (I just noticed she stopped posting, later found out) and no longer being able to drive in late August this year, and determined to die at home, it was her timing. Our, meaning hers and mine, arc of sometimes very challenging work, taking place mostly in the garden, was gradually being completed over the summer and found quite an amazing ending from September 9-13. I wrote about all that elsewhere.
After I had already posted the video I made in her honor, I was reminded of another thing: she was ready to tell a joke when the opportunity presented itself, and she did so well. I also found this old image, incorporated here, in a FB post from June 19 this year in “Story Club of Nevada County”. Story Club was the vehicle she created for reading and giving books to children. I didn’t see the image in time, or I would have included it in the video. It said “Old friends, gone but not forgotten”. 
Then someone posted on YouTube something I didn’t know. Toni: “Here’s one memory that I have of Rose: It had been some time since we last visited the Land. As we stepped into the house, we saw Morgan, though she was no longer the Morgan we had known for so many years. Something had shifted. By her side was Rose, her steadfast companion, and we watched in quiet awe. Rose’s deep compassion and intuitive understanding of what Morgan was experiencing and what she needed moved me profoundly. In that moment, I felt lost, unsure of how to connect with the ‘new’ Morgan. But Rose, with her boundless patience and care, became a bridge. Bless her for the love and gentleness she extended in a time of such profound change.”
Early childhood trauma and the presence or non-existence of mitigating influences does leave its effects on how we adapt and are in the world. Everyone is doing the best they can.
In the end, I had some extraordinary experiences I never expected. Something that happened in the garden picking her beans not knowing she had already passed, then again the next day. I viscerally understood why EJ said he appreciated her in the garden, her energy helped him. Thank you Rose.
Rose recently also posted an old image of 2 men, stating Stan was her father. That and the “Old friends, gone but not forgotten” post, (see image) made me wonder. She must have known it was coming to an end with this particular lifetime. Was she wondering if anyone would remember her? This opens up a question: what actually does survive of us, our beingness here as this our unique self, this embodiment of a facet of the All That Is, consciously or unconsciously? I am thinking of my own grandmother who the children of today, her great great grandchildren, don’t know anything about? When her grandkids, me included, are gone, what remains? What really does get transmitted in a lineage? When simply looking at genetics, it gets pretty diluted pretty quickly. Riches, build great monuments? Eventually it all goes back to where it came from. Is there ANYTHING that remains? And what is that? Do we humans have the possibility of lasting impact on What Is, on Being? Do we participate in the evolution of the Absolute and if so, how? In the works of EJ Gold, you will find some answers. I suggest “The Hidden Work”. You still will have to prove to yourself through experience or realization whether or not it is true. I have answers that are valid for me. Harvesting the beans Rose planted, I did get another clue, one on the day she died, the other the next day.
Doing the video, writing and posting of our journey over the years and finally this contribution to the IDHHB BARDO BUZZ marks a completion of a particular process for me. Yet, as you well know, each ending is only the beginning of something else. Thank you to all those who were and are doing readings for Rose, made comments or told stories. She is doing well. May we all be blessed.
For those who would like to watch the video in her honor, below it is embedded. Since we also are trying to make IDHHB more known and to keep available the work of EJ Gold for future generations, comments are appreciated and I am sure Rose would love that too.
There is the extended version of what I chose to say.
The images are pretty much all in this video, though I might add some later to break the text up a little bit. If not, It is what it is.
This writing is what happened in regard to the passing of Rose Gander, a longtime student of EJ Gold.
For a number of years she lived with several others across the street from us in a place we called The Rose Garden. She came to IDHHB workshops & classes in the barn, for holidays and other gatherings. I mostly got to know her through working in the IDHHB community garden from about 2011 to 2024. It wasn’t always easy, that’s for sure, but things shifted over the last summer and became somewhat extraordinary around the time of her death, which, though we noticed a decline in the past few months, nonetheless came unexpected in its timing.
My contact and working with her is not separable from the garden, which until the time we both got involved around 2012/13, each in a different way, after our Master gardener Glenn was no longer able to run it. I still remember the large harvests of squash for our household and that of the 35 acres. The involvement of Wally and Lee and entire workshop crews as well as the cloister. More recently Glenn had gotten into biodynamic gardening and also away from any mono culture. There were storms that destroyed one of the hot houses and the hoop house was built. The last joint project was establishing the asparagus field with strawberries as a ground cover in what became quadrant 6.
In 2012, the chickens came. Not being able to build in the middle of the quadrants to make it easy to incorporate chickens into the weeding and fertilizing work necessary, I was at the other end where the old hot houses were. Getting 53 chickens, most of them roosters, was an adventure all by itself especially when folks at the 35 acres who had spoken for any extra roosters turned vegetarian.
There was also a lot of garden clean up work to do, which took a couple of years.
Meanwhile, Rose, who had never been part of a crew under Glenn’s direction, started coming into the garden. She watered, with a high overhead sprinkler which we had been using all these years, the asparagus bed and started growing things mostly in what would later become quadrant 5. Later, finding out EJ Gold, her longtime and beloved teacher, ate green beans, her focus went there. She also had other projects, spending time with Natalie until she moved away in 2012, and the Story Club with reading events and fairs.
She participated in the Sunday mini workshops live until she had to move to Penn Valley. She was at the Lili show which shows a side of her that is wise, clear and self aware.
She also got new knees, which happened in 2014, twice.
Prior to covid, she was then at the land a lot and also started listing and selling used books on amazon for IDHHB.
Covid changed a lot and for the last 3 years, the garden was her only place to come and be, help and be happy. Wearing a mask became important if you wanted to come to the ashram.
I had always grown stuff down by the gatehouse, flowers, a few tomatoes, then building the chicken coops, doing major garden clean up and been busy with the chicken coops. I had been and still am responsible for a bunch of things at IDHHB. Then I got the task to start growing food for the household. There was plenty of room in the vegetable garden and so I started that.
Rose healed from the knee surgery in 2014 and was a lot more mobile, also partly due to losing a lot of weight.
All would have been just fine, if it weren’t for the drought years continuing and our well drawing sand, not leaving enough water for the house.
While she initially had been given card blanche by EJ., “just let her be’, at some point cooperation and adherence to a watering schedule was made simply necessary and mandatory.
This led to major resistance and friction and while it went through ups and downs, some not so good things happened. It reminded me of a friend who lost his father a couple of years ago. His brother had been mostly caring and visiting and while all the people praised his dad for all the good he did, finally his partner posted something that showed a very different side of his dad, who had been severely traumatized as a young child. He treated his son …” sometimes downright nasty ….”. The other brother said, I think in a podcast, how his dad was never able to reconcile the trauma, never get over that and remained un-integrated.
In regards to Rose, after one of the episodes with witnesses, when she was later told…she did not remember. It might have made her think though and at other times she expressed how we need to get along and work together.
The covid years took away all other community involvement and the garden was the one thing left. For her. Me: I was dealing with a lot myself, mostly work and asked before the 2022 season if maybe I could slow down and do less (hoping to just stay down by the chickens, grow a couple of tomatoes but otherwise not be involved other than watering young trees were needed). It was indicated that if anything, we ought to prepare more, growing more food, so that was a NO to trying to get out of that part.
Her quadrant was already fenced in (protected from any chicken interference), raised beds had been made and filled, and now, so that we could both be in the quadrants growing, she got her own secure spigot, and an irrigation system was installed so overhead watering was not necessary. She had given up the asparagus quadrant a few years earlier as it was caring for it was getting to be too much….and honestly, it has not been weeded since, but I do feed it and water it and harvest!!! Rose mentioned it every spring…that asparagus needed to be harvested, even still this year, figuring I was handling it.
This set up worked, more or less. In any case, that is what we were able to do.
In her area, she could grow what, when and how she thought best. I mostly stayed out of her way, did the watering of her beds, fitting it into the schedule with the rest of the garden. She did however for a few years take any extra produce to bring it to the food bank. Whatever we had in abundance…she took it to the food bank, a beautiful common interest we both loved to provide.
In 2023 when she didn’t have a car for a while, her caretaker Rose and others just brought her so she could be in the garden. She also relented on insisting to kill all the weedy tall grasses everywhere else once she saw for herself the many little finches that fed on the seeds.
This spring, 2024, Rose still had big plans for the garden wondering if she could plant peas and chard along with beans. We let her know she could plant anything she wanted.
She began weeding her beds but before she was done, started weeding in another area without an irrigation system and when I mentioned to her that maybe it would be best to weed her raised beds first and also that there was no irrigation set up in the area she was weeding…all hell broke out one last time.
I was ready to let go and adjusted, canceled some plans I had for growing as I know if she did what she wanted, watering again would become an issue and I just could no longer add that to my life. I was done being the rod for unhealed trauma response discharge. So the way I took it was that maybe it was a blessing in disguise because I know how overwhelming the watering job gets in August after weeks of relentless heat and no rain. And indeed it was a blessing in disguise to have scaled back.
Summer progressed and the heat was relentless. Yet Rose made it over to weed and plant and harvest. Rose’s beds didn’t look as well cared for as all the other years, in part due to lots of spent pea plants and she didn’t keep up with the weeding, but she came and she was happy when she could harvest. It became more and more clear that she could not remember things. One would talk with her but even on the same day, it was as if the conversation never happened. Yet she was there, doing what she loved and had done for years. Growing beans for her teacher was like a sacred obligation to her.
Having asked her in the spring if she wanted a tomato plant again this year, she said YES. It was going to be one of the yellow ones. She liked tomatoes. She always mentioned how her dad grew the best tomatoes. That was in Texas when she was growing up.
Generally, over the summer, with her decline and what seemed decreasing strength and energy, a softening was happening in both of us, more of an openness to cooperation. It was subtle, but welcome.
The last month
In the week before September 11, I had Rose on my mind who had been coming to our community garden for years. As I said, we had very rocky times in the past, but things improved a lot when we got an irrigation system 2 years ago for the section of the garden where she worked. This year, cognitive decline was obvious and this continued to worsen as the year went on. I worked around that and was watering her plantings, green beans, which for years she doggedly and with great dedication planted for her teacher and also a lot of peas. She still had big plans in the spring. She had said YES to me planting her favorite tomatoes for her again this year. But I could tell, she was not as effective and efficient all summer in weeding, planting and the plants she harvested. Over the summer, energetically, a softening towards each other was happening in both of us.
When I was taking a photo of EJ taking his famous walk, around August 9 or 10, she was just coming out of the garden and EJ made a point talking to her. I saw it and was glad to hear it.
As the tomatoes were ready on the vine I reminded her a couple of times of the tomatoes she had wanted me to plant again this year, her favorite, the yellow ones. I weeded around there as maybe she could not see them. Then one time she did and lit up, “my favorites”, but she’d always forget to pick any by the time she left for the day. She wasn’t doing well enough to just get up from the ground to pick tomatoes and then back to the ground, but by the time she was done, she had forgotten all about it.
Looking at her walking, I could tell she was not her old self from years past. It was sad. Energetically softening happened during the summer, that went both ways.
Then one time, August 16, determined she was going to get to pick tomatoes this season, I was around when she was already up from the ground. Pointing out the tomatoes, she spotted them too, rejoiced and eagerly went to pick some. A beautiful moment of anticipation and joy. There is gratitude for that moment in Being. Later, once the tomatoes were eaten, she would not remember, but in that moment, there was joy. That was the last time I would see her. I didn’t suspect it was that close.
A few days later, my last interaction with her was over the phone. She called and asked whether I knew if she had been there to pick beans already, because she forgot. I had not seen her but said that I don’t always see her car if she comes early. She said she wasn’t doing well, that she had no memory, that she can’t remember anything. I wondered if she could write things down…not realizing that she really probably could not do that either. Then she asked me if I would pick the green beans, keep an eye on them if she could not make it over and I said sure, don’t worry about the green beans, I’ll pick them. I said it with a presence and willingness and compassion that surprised me. I imagine she could feel it.
I saw her car one more time after that, she weeded that day, cleaning up all the spent peas. But her car was parked strangely and I wondered how safe it was for her to still drive.
When I didn’t see her car for over a week after that, she was on my mind a lot. If she could no longer drive, and possibly lost the internet as she had stopped posting on facebook in June, she’d feel very isolated. I felt the impulse to prepare a care package for her. Her yellow tomatoes from the garden, and pictures of EJ and her over the years. I imagined it would help her stay connected, bring some joy and comfort on what looked like the last part of her journey here on earth.
It took a few days. Some images with writing on the back to explain what she was looking at and I imagined she would love them. Included were a couple of images of her teacher, of herself in the garden and with some people she knew. Also a notecard explaining things. EJ made a drawing on a card for her.
Then on the morning of September 11, I picked those yellow tomatoes and also was going to tell her that there still were some green beans for EJ. She was so strongly on my mind.
Then it was time to pick the green beans, because on the card I wrote: and we are still getting some green beans. There were not that many plants left, but there were still some beans on them. To my surprise, looking for and picking those beans, there was a great sense of love and dedication that I didn’t expect to feel. It also felt as if she were there, very quietly happy I was lovingly picking those green beans for her teacher’s lunch that day. It surprised me myself that there was a great sense of caring. I did the picking not as a chore, but there was a sense of love, care and service and respect.
I called a mutual community friend to see about getting this care package for the next phase of her journey over to her that afternoon.
An hour or so later we got the news that she had died in her home earlier, found by a caregiver, who I spoke with at that time.
Now it made sense.
Rose, this presence and essence of her love, was there, with me, in the garden. My sense/perception was accurate.
Her spirit was there in her garden area, the place that was her happy place, the remaining focus for the love of her being.
Somehow, that which I felt was felt in a shared space. Maybe it wasn’t even me at all, maybe I got to know a part of her I simply never could feel before.
I ended up sending that care package to the woman by the same name who lives 8 houses down the street who had cared for her since last year and who had found her that morning. We spoke on the phone about how she found her, that she didn’t feel well the day before, that she had a doctor’s appointment for the following week, how there was this care package prepared for her to go over that very day.
I told her that Rose would want her to have the tomatoes and images. We both cried. She seemed grateful, although it is bittersweet that the package got there a day late. Maybe though the caregiver actually needed the images more. Who knows. In any case, that is how the swilling patterns of light moved that day.
I did find out that Rose refused and resisted going into a care facility. She wanted to die at home. Her last year wasn’t that easy. And I suppose without internet contact, unable to connect watching her teacher’s morning show, unable to come to the garden, and her brain the way it was, it was time.
It reminded me of one of those sayings though: You can never do a kindness too soon…..
I posted a photo of her 70th birthday on the LRS forum and people started doing readings, with a Clear Light Reading Circle scheduled for 12:30 pm. So many people commented.
When I told EJ of her passing, he said she will do fine, she is a woman of the work. She knows what service is. He also said: I appreciated Rose in the garden, her energy helped me. A little later he added…and readings can help her now.
I went back to the garden to her quadrant in the evening. She was there and communication went on, ending the arc of our work together. We both knew we had done the best we could with who were and had to deal with in life and resulting habits and conditioning. It was all good.
At the end I said it was time to let go. I thanked her for the love and the green beans and that I would continue to look after them. She felt content and willing to move on. It was okay.
24 hours later
The next day I went back in the morning…
Sensing the space, I felt her energy was much more dispersed and …settled, cogent..and at peace. As if she heard all the readings being done for her, she saw the love for the green beans she planted. I found a few more beans I overlooked the day before. One hidden bean plant had beans on it that looked really good. I was struck by how incredibly beautiful they were. I even said: Look how beautiful they are!
Just 3 or 4 green beans and there was excitement and love. And joy …over just a few beautiful green beans – and I got it, that love, joy, excitement she had shared so many times in the kitchen. That energy EJ was talking about that helped him. That dedication, that spirit of service.
It didn’t matter really how many beans she was managing to grow.
I also viscerally got something that I have heard and read and understood for a long time: do small acts with great love.
These 3 beans, grown with great love were worth more than any huge amount of commercial beans…on that energetic level. On the level of being.
I can count on one hand the times in my life I felt the level or that vibration/quality of love I felt in that moment for those few green beans.
I understood why he said that he appreciated her in the garden. Her energy helped him.
My sense was that she was doing okay and ready to go. The readings really helped too.
On September 13, about 6 pm
It had been 2 days, I went back, didn’t go into the quadrant as I was not picking any beans that day.
Sensing the space, there was a very slight breeze, but it seemed so very clear and empty. She had moved on, leaving behind something like a faint lingering fragrance.
I could tell she had left because the beans and tomatoes were on their own now, alone. The raised beds are just there. Don’t get me wrong, left alone not in a bad way, they were just there. It was strangely empty but the fragrance (for lack of a better word, because it wasn’t actually 3D olfactory) was there, permeating everything.
She did not appear as someone to still talk to, like on the first day. She had left the garden. EJ had said her energy would be there, in the garden, for a bit, but that evening, she was gone….
Now, walking into the garden, past the parking lot, it is different for sure.
For me, as difficult as our 3 d working in the garden was, as much as I sometimes thought I am kind of like her, or wished we could really have worked together but just ending up finding a way we could both work there, there is no one else here now that loves gardening with the energy the way I do, the way she did.
Viscerally from the core of my being there is an understanding that doing small acts done with great love has a big impact on levels beyond usual human perception, in the higher dimension.
Thank you Rose. EJ says you are a champion and that you will do well, preparing the space for us.
I appreciate reading all the comments from people whose lives you touched. It opens up a dimension and side of you I never really knew.
I know she had another life outside the garden, loved her teacher EJ Gold, always wanting to be supportive, loved children and animals and books and serving and helping.
Below is a link to a video I made in her honor. It is made with images taken over the years, and images that are on her facebook timeline. I didn’t use all the cat and animal images she posted, but every picture where people were involved. I figure if you were on her timeline, the image goes into the video and if you cared enough to post one on her timeline, you’d be honored to be included.
May we all remember and be able to care for one another when the going gets tough.