In Loving Remembrance of Judith Duerk

 In Loving Remembrance of Judith Duerk

It was in January when my holiday card and letter to Judith Duerk was returned to me with no forwarding address. Although we hadn't talked in a few years, I never failed to outreach Judith with a card, family updates, and love at year's end. And now here was this returned card ― which had never happened before. I also always remembered Judith on her birthday and knew that she was now 83. And I wondered if she had moved to live closer to her family. I picked up my phone and called her home and cell phones. Both had been disconnected. 

Now I worried. And it came to me to do a search. That is when I found this: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/silver-spring-md/judith-duerk-10112597. And I just collapsed into tears. Oh, my beloved Judith has died. Oh.....

And, of course, Judith was not just beloved to me. Over the course of her life, she touched countless others. So many! She was known as author, psychotherapist, teacher of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, leader of women, gifted musician, and mother and grandmother. Judith was a wise, courageous, beautiful woman who will always be held in the hearts of all of us who knew and loved her.

And now she is gone. I continue to grieve. And, at the same time, my heart is filled with the deepest gratitude and love... and with the sound of Judith's soothing voice and the felt sense of her soulful wisdom and love. So much lives on....

* * * * *

My original copy of Circle of Stones: Women's Journey To Herself

It was May 10th, 1990 when I first saw Judith Duerk speak in Portland. She did a reading from her new book Circle of Stones: Women's Journey To Herself. I'd been so eager to meet this woman whose work was touching my heart so deeply.

 

Only a few months earlier, a friend and co-worker had recommended Judith's new book to me. She was so enthusiastic that she brought in her copy for me to see. And all it took was a few glimpses into its pages before I felt the strong pull and knew that I needed this book. I went from work that very day and purchased my first copy of Circle of Stones. And once my three young sons were tucked in bed later that night, I sat down and read it from cover to cover... and cried and cried. 

 

My heart broke wide open!

There still are no words for how deeply touched and changed that I have been since the first moments that I opened the pages of this extraordinary book and also the one which would follow. Something so powerful was being thawed, opened, awakened, and shifted within me. In the beginning, I didn't understand it. I just knew that this was BIG. And now here I was getting to see and hear Judith speak in Portland for the first time. 

Grace and synchronicity was also weaving its way increasingly through my life in those early years of my sobriety, healing, and awakening. Shortly after Judith's evening presentation in Portland, later in May of 1990, I found myself among 22 other women staying in a lodge on Mt. Hood participating in an intimate weekend long retreat with Judith. I was terrified to go. Terrified to be vulnerable and trust, to open and share, to feel and need, and to venture beyond the familiar into the unknown. And I knew that I could not pass up this amazing opportunity that I had been offered. I couldn't. 

This first retreat experience with Judith in the beautiful forests of Oregon was one in which we engaged in deep sharing, witnessing, and listening. For 2-1/2 days over twenty women took turns speaking into the silence and giving voice to what needed to be spoken and held. This gift was incredibly powerful. Life changing. It was also one of countless initiatory experiences that would follow.

* * * * *

My 3 young sons, Matt, Kevin, and Brian with our Golden Retriever at Timothy Lake. Mt. Hood is in the background. 1990

On Christmas Eve of 1990 my phone rang. I answered and was totally surprised to hear Judith's voice on the other end. I hadn't had any contact with her since the spring retreat and didn't know if we would maintain any contact in the future. But here she was speaking to me from her home across the country in Maryland. 

Judith spoke. She shared that she had called information to get my number after it came to her to call me. She said that she knew that I was a young mother of three sons. And she knew that I would not be hearing anything from my own mother over this Christmas holiday, a mother whose mental illness fueled a deeply painful estrangement. So Judith simply shared that it came to her to call me.

That phone call from Judith meant more to me than any words can say. My eyes fill with tears in this moment of remembrance of what it meant to be seen, held, cared about, loved... And even more so in the absence of having a loving mother myself...

That was both a beginning and a continuation of what would be a heartfelt and soulful relationship that would span decades. Over the years, I participated in several weekend retreats with Judith, including organizing and planning one retreat myself in which I brought Judith back to the Pacific Northwest. It was so special to have her meet my sons and come stay at my home before and after the retreat. 

That would be the last time that I would see Judith. Over the years we still continued to maintain our contact through letters and phone calls. And Judith last offered her deep support to me during the traumatic time of the legal battle to gain guardianship of my mother and bring her to live out the last years of her life near me and her family here in the Pacific Northwest. Judith's support, understanding and wisdom, and compassionate and loving heart has been a deep gift to me and to so many others. 

It was also only over the last several years had our mutual communication diminished. Which was okay. The love we shared lived on. And always will.

* * * * *

The second edition of Circle of Stones

 Excerpts from Circle of Stones

 

For many years, Judith led small intimate gatherings of women in retreat across the country and also in Canada and once in Russia. Out of these experiences, countless circles of women were birthed in which we spoke into the silence of what we carried in our hearts that needed to be seen, witnessed, and held with compassion and caring. And it hasn't just been adult women who have benefited from all that has emerged through the work and wisdom of Judith Duerk. I've also heard of Circle of Stones being used as a valuable resource by therapists working with young girls and with men (substituting the words "man/men" in place of "woman/women"). 

 

I am moved now to share several excerpts from Circle of Stones: Women's Journey to Herself...

Judith writes:

How might your life be different if, as a young woman there had been a place for you, a place where you could go to be among women... a place for you when you had feelings of darkness? And, if there had been another woman, somewhat older, to be with you in your darkness, to be with you until you spoke... spoke out your pain and anger and sorrow.

And, if you had spoken until you had understood the sense of your feelings, how they reflected your own nature, your own deepest nature, crying out of the darkness, struggling to be heard.

And, what if, after that, every time you had feelings of darkness, you knew that the woman would come to be with you, and would sit quietly by as you went into your darkness to listen to your feelings and bring them to birth... So that, over the years, companioned by the woman, you learned to no longer fear your darkness, but to trust it... to trust it as the place where you could meet your own deepest nature and give it voice.

How might your life be different if you could trust your darkness... could trust your own darkness?

Sleeping Goddess At the Lost Gardens of Heligan, England

Long before the patriarchal period, in many places on earth, the goddess was worshiped. Woman in the train of history has been orphaned by the death of the Great Mother, has suffered loss of connection to her own beingness, lack of sense of legitimacy and belonging in the universe or in her own individual life. Woman can draw comfort from an image of the Great Mother reaching out to her to fulfill and to bring to manifest form in her own individual life that of the archetypal Eternal Feminine. Woman, with the help of the Great Mother, can leave the collective way to find her individual way, for somewhere deep inside she knows that she must leave to become herself.

 

    How might your life be different, if, deep within, you carried an image of the Great Mother, and, when things seemed very, very bad, you could imagine that you were sitting in the lap of the Goddess,

      held tightly...

           embraced, at last.

     And, that you could hear Her saying to you,

           "I love you...

               I love you and I need you to bring

                     forth your self."

   And, if, in that image, you could see the Great Mother looking to Her daughters, looking to each woman to reveal, in her own life, the beauty, strength, and wisdom of the Mother.

   How might your life be different?

My twin brother John and myself, 1952

   How might your life be different for you, if, early in your life, the first time you as a tiny child felt your anger coming together inside yourself, someone, a parent or grandparent, or older sister or brother, had said, "Bravo! Yes, that's it! You're feeling it!"

   If, the first time you had experienced that sharp awareness of ego, of "me, I'm me, not you"... you had been received and hugged and affirmed, instead of shamed and isolated.

   If someone had been able to see that you were taking that first baby step toward feeling your own feelings, of knowing that you saw life differently from those around you. If you had been helped to experience your own uniqueness, to feel the excitement of sensing, for the very first time, your own awareness of life. What if someone had helped you to own all of this... to own your own life?

 

   How might your life be different? 

 

  

   How might your life have been different, if, when you were a young woman, the first time you felt feelings of depression, an older woman had come to sit with you? If she had come to sit with you, as someone had come to sit with her the first time she had feelings of depression? To simply sit, quietly, perhaps wordlessly ― to sit with you, during your dark time?

   And how might your life have been different if the woman had accepted your feelings of depression? Had accepted them so completely and fully that you began to feel safe with them. If there had been no judgment and no questioning... no attempt to make you smile, to betray your feelings, to deny your darkness. If the woman had simply sat in silence with you, with your pain, and in the darkest moments had been able to reflect it to you... to reflect to you your pain... to witness.. attend... and by her quiet respect for it, to help you learn to respect it... your own pain and depression... to witness, attend and respect your depression... and to see that just as the woman had faith in it, you might also have a glimmer of faith that there was meaning and truth in your darkness.

   How might your life be different?

Photo by Molly

   How might it have been different for you if, on your first menstrual day, your mother had given you a bouquet of flowers and taken you to lunch, and then the two of you had gone to meet your father at the jeweler, where your ears were pierced, and your father bought you your first pair of earrings, and then you went with a few of your friends and your mother's friends to get your first lip coloring;

    and then you went,

         for the very first time, 

              to the Women's Lodge,

                  to learn

                       the wisdom of women?

   How might your life be different? 

Art by Frank Howell

   How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you? A place for you to go... a place of women, to help you learn the ways of woman... a place where you were nurtured from an ancient flow sustaining you and steadying you as you sought to become yourself. A place of women to help you find and trust the ancient flow already there within yourself... waiting to be released...

   A place of women...

   How might your life be different?

* * * * *

 

This amazing, totally amazing journey of awakening from the trance of so many painful illusions was in part nurtured over many years by Judith Duerk. She played a significant role in empowering me to learn how to:

• Remember what I have forgotten
• Connect with and trust other women
• Be vulnerable and grow increasingly honest with myself and others
  
• Accept, embrace, and love myself (and others) right where I'm at
  
• Tend to my tender heart in turbulent times
• Hold both grief and gratitude
• Better understand, learn from, and transform shame, depression, and harmful ancestral and cultural patterns and beliefs
  
• Find balance in the remembrance of beauty and blessings, joy and laughter, and connection, compassion, and love
  
• Recognize, nurture and honor the Great Mother and Sacred Feminine within myself and others
  
• Strengthen my capacity to be in the world fully embodied with my eyes and heart increasingly open, rooted in our Earth Mother, connected with the web of life, and strengthened by my spiritual practices
  
• Cultivate and deepen my capacity to care for my precious self and to be of service to others
  
• Recognize and strengthen my gifts and ripen into the holy wholeness of who I truly am

Judith's deep wisdom, compassion, and love will always live on within me... and within the hearts and lives of countless others. Forever grateful. 

 

And now I get to pass her legacy, her many gifts, onto others. The circle continues and widens and grows. Thus this loving tribute to a woman I hold with such great love and the deepest gratitude. Thank you, Judith.

 

May we all connect with the wise and loving teachers 

we need to awaken. Bless us all on our journeys.

💗

Molly

Judith Duerk