Recently, I spent 10 weeks, 7 days per week, 10 hours per day, sorting through 26 years of possessions, preparing to sell my Woodstock home -- infused, as it was, with countless memories of birth, death, fire, celebration, devotion, love, friends, inspiration, rites of passage, madness, dreams, dancing, bedtime stories, baby showers, live opera, dead mice, and ten thousand outtakes from the movie that seemed to be my life. I kept having to decide what to take, what to toss, what to give away, what to sell, and what to store.

Michelangelo, when asked how he created The David, said it best. "I simply took away everything that wasn't." Indeed! The statue was always in the stone. All he had to do was remove what wasn't. Less is more. Or as Dizzy Gillespie once said, "It took my entire life to learn what not to play."

And so, as I gave away, threw away, tossed, sold, and stashed, I got to experience the odd revelation of seeing what remained -- my own David, you might say, being revealed to me. What I noticed was this: no matter what form these objects took, they all served the same function: REMEMBRANCE!

What remains of my estate reminds me of what I truly value in this life. A FEELING! A sacred moment out of time. My souL's longing. God within. A wink from the Great Beyond. The experience of presence, contentment, and joy. The form it takes? Many Buddhas, especially, Hotei, the laughing Buddha. Photographs of Evelyne, Jesse, Mimi, and me when we were at our best. A 40-year old I-Ching. The Tao Te Ching. The poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Kabir. A child's drawing. A puppet. Many photos of my amazing Master, Prem Rawat. A black and white photo of my parents kissing on their wedding day. A picture of my sister, Phyllis, God rest her soul. My dog Chili's collar. An old turquoise beret. And several boxes of journals I have never been able to throw away -- the hieroglyphics of my heart on fire.

This is what remains. This. This is my David. The rest? Just stuff.

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