Dr Matt’s Newsletter August 6th, 2023 –Homeopathy and Hospice, Sister Lúcia of Fatima Part 3, Near Death Experience of Ingrid Honkala, and Mozart for Morning Coffee

Supporting healthy social interactions and a diversity of health choices

Here are the topics in this week’s newsletter: 

 1: Music of the Week – Mozart for Morning Coffee – Light fare from Mozart, interspersed among the topics that follow.

  2:  Hospice and Homeopathy: A talk on hospice and Homeopathy by yours truly, planned for this Tuesday, August 8th at 8 PM via Zoom. The Homeopathic Nurses Association (HNA) invited me, and you can attend with a “guest pass” by emailing Sue Roe at info@nursehomeopaths.org.  Nurses might like to become members of the HNA so they can attend similar events in the future, and younger nurses may like their mentorship program.

  3: Chapter 3 from Sister Lúcia’s book, “Calls from the Message of Fatima”, describes a second spiritual vision the three children had about a year before the major experience in 1917, and how it impacted her for the rest of her life. 

  4: The Near Death Experience of Ingrid Honkala.  Another spiritual experience that happened after someone “died”, with an excellent video interview. I have covered Near Death Experiences in multiple newsletters, and if you’re interested in a more direct learning experience there is a four day conference in Arlington at the end of August.  Let me know if you plan to attend as it would be nice to see some familiar faces. Here is a link to my newsletter July 6^th that gave more information on this conference. 

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Yours truly, one moment at a time.

Matt Irwin

1:     Music of the Week – Mozart for Morning Coffee

  My Dad was a classical violinist, and he helped me develop a love for Mozart.  He took me to Mozart’s operas and to see the movie “Amadeus” when it came out in theaters in 1984. We also visited Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg which is now a small museum. It is sad, and also amazing, that Mozart created such light and playful music, while at the same time struggling with life in so any ways.  Like Beethoven, he was a child prodigy who was driven by an ambitious father and never had a normal childhood.  Perhaps this is one reason he spent money lavishly, had poor health his whole life, and died young and penniless.

  Unlike Beethoven, who could spend ten years editing a piece before it was “ready”, Mozart seemed to let the music write itself.  Put simply, he made it look effortless, much to the chagrin of many in his musical community.  

  “Mozart for Morning Coffee” is a collection of violin sonatas and trios, which are alternatively quiet, lively, fast, and furious.  I have had the CD since about 1996 and have played it just about a hundred times.  Below are several of the sonatas, interspersed among the later sections on Hospice and Homeopathy, Sister Lucia, and the NDE of Ingrid Honkala. 

Mozart: Violin Sonata in C Major, K. 296 - III. Rondo. Allegro

   1: Hospice and Homeopathy: I was asked to give a presentation to the Homeopathic Nurses Association (HNA) this Tuesday evening, August 8th. You can attend with a guest pass and, if you are a nurse, you can join their association as a member.

  Although I have 20 years of experience in hospice care, and 20 years of experience using homeopathic remedies in my private practice, I have just about zero experience using homeopathy in my hospice patients.  A homeopathic colleague who is on the board of HNA asked me to give a presentation on hospice care and homeopathy, and I explained that I have not used homeopathy in hospice.  But she thought it would still be good to hear from me to discuss hospice care in general.  I came up with the idea to give the nurses a case and let them find a homeopathic remedy that matches . 

  I plan to invite some of the experienced nurses in their group to share their interaction with hospice and life-limiting illnesses, and I will present two cases of current hospice patients in our hospice program in Washington, DC.  One of them has improved on his own with good nursing and caregiving, and the other is not likely to improve making her a good case for homeopathy.  If you have questions about homeopathy, check out my webpage on it and follow the links for more info.    

  As stated above, if you are a nurse you can become a member of their organization and they would love to have you.  Sue Roe could answer questions about membership as well as their mentorship program. (email her at info@nursehomeopaths.org for more info).

Mozart: Violin Sonata in C Major, K. 296 - II. Andante sostenuto

2: Sister Lúcia of Fatima - Chapter 3: “The Call to Faith” and the Angel of Peace, from her book, Calls from the Message of Fatima.

  Here is a reminder of the opening sentence from Sister Lúcia’s introduction:

 “I address this to all those who have faith, and also to all who do not have the happiness of possessing this gift of God, because we are all pilgrims on our way to eternity, whether we know it or not.” (Page 35).

This is the third newsletter summarizing a section of her book. On July 25^th I covered Chapter 1 where she describes the simple agrarian Portuguese community she grew up in.  That newsletter also had a deep dive into the prequel to covid-19, HIV and AIDS, and some of the music of Portugal.  Last week, I covered Chapter 2 where she described a “Guardian Angel” that the children of Fatima saw several times.  Those events happened two to three years before the major spiritual event of 1917, and Chapter 3 describes a closer encounter that happened a year later, in 1916.

Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat, K.493 - 3. Allegretto

Around 1916 she and the children had a visit from a new angel which she calls “the Angel of Peace”. Unlike the previous one, this one communicated directly with the shepherd children.  Here are her own words describing the event: 

  “It was the spring of 1916… At least, I think it was. At that time, being a child I did not bother my head with dates. One day, when we three little Fatima, shepherds were on the slope of the hill known as the Cabeço, … We saw a young man approaching who seem to be made of light. He said “do not be afraid. I am the angel of peace. Pray with me”.  (Page 60).

  He encouraged them to pray with adoration for God, and to have compassion for people who did not feel God‘s presence in their lives.  

This was a profound experience, and after describing this brief encounter she spends several pages discussing how she found similar inspiration later in life from stories and passages of the Bible. For example, on page 69 she quotes the apostle Saint Paul “for by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” 

  Her book was written nearly 80 years after the events they describe, showing what a powerful effect they had. They stayed clear in her mind for many decades, just as with other people who have such experiences including Mother Teresa in 1946, and Ingrid Honkala when she was just shy of three years old. 

  Mozart: Sonata for Piano and Violin in G, K.301 - 2. Allegro

3: The Near Death Experience of Ingrid Honkala.

  Shortly before her third birthday, Ingrid had a Near Death Experience that opened her to the deathless nature of being.  It also opened a spiritual connection that stayed with her off and on for the rest of her life, which she describes in the video linked below.  Although this sounds rather nice, what made her story special to me is how eloquently and directly she describes the difficulties of living in the “real world” after her experience, including a very difficult “Dark Night of the Soul” when her first child was still a baby, something many women, and men, can relate to.

  Mother Teresa also had a lot of spiritual pain during her life, so Ingrid and the rest of us are in good company. But pain is not the same as suffering, and with water, sunlight, and healthy sustenance, we can grow Lotus flowers, as Thich Nhat Hanh likes to remind his students.  I wrote about Mother Teresa’s “Dark Night” in my newsletter on May 6^th, a newsletter that also documented the “negative efficacy” of covid vaccines and reviewed the evidence that social isolation protocols were the main cause of “excess deaths” during 2020 and 2021. I like to put the word “deaths” in quotes to emphasize a different perspective that may help us heal from grief and loss a bit more smoothly…

  I described Mother Teresa’s 1946 spiritual experience in my newsletter on March 25^th . This started her on her mission to care for people with incurable illnesses who were abandoned, usually due to the stigma of their illness, such as leprosy, tuberculosis, and AIDS. 

Mozart: Drei Stücke for Piano Trio, K442 - 2. Tempo di minuetto in G

  The people around Ingrid almost universally discounted her story as being the imagination of an attention-seeking toddler.  Even her local Priest had a negative reaction, saying "this is the Devil talking to you." Many of us may have had a similar reaction if we were in their shoes. However, things are a bit different now, with remarkably consistent stories like Ingrid’s being shared by people all around the world.

 While it is true that the adults around her did not offer any support, she also could not relate well with other children.  She kept her spiritual connection secret, and after many years like this she had had enough. She prayed to close the spiritual connection, so she could "live like a normal person".

Mozart: Piano Trio in G, K.496 - 1. Allegro

  You can listen to her tell the rest of the story in the video linked below. This includes the highs and lows she experienced after shutting out her spiritual side, until she eventually “reconnected with the light”, as she phrases it, after dropping to the lowest place she can imagine.  At that point, before reconnecting with spirit and asking for help, she had the idea of taking her own life. With help from her new spiritual strength as well as the guidance of a kind and wise psychologist, she was able to transform this suffering into wisdom. “Turning mud into Lotus flowers”. She started a new path as a spiritual counselor and healer.

Here are a few of the lessons she shares:

“Home is not a place, it is a state of being. Home and Heaven are here right now.“

“The beings of light said to me once: 'You think you’re thinking, but you’re really just trapped in your memories.'  … We become so trapped in our thinking that we cannot see anything working for us, and we miss the synchronicities.”

“One of my favorite practices now is to do walking meditation. I walk in the state of absolute awareness. I hear every bird, every leaf, I can sense the wind, I hear my steps. When you’re able to breathe right now wherever you are, you are in a state of Presence, and can see things with the eyes of clarity.”

  She reminds us that the present moment is all we have, and encourages us to appreciate each moment, including the “good, the bad, and the ugly”. This may seem “boring”, but it is also a path to salvation, one moment at a time :-)