I am a friend of Charmaine's; our friendship spanned more than a decade. We started out sharing Dreamtending, and her open willingness to participate, her warm demeanor, and her generative and optimistic attitude as well as her willingness to acknowledge her vulnerabilities while clearly determined to be an active participant in spite of some physical limitations all drew me toward her. A welcoming presence, over the years we kept in touch with emails, and phone calls. We shared big and little insights, feelings, ups and downs of life, the details of ordinary times, as well as dream images, hopes and plans for the future. I found the messages that were waiting for me at the end of a hard day at work to be filled with kindness, like a person offering a hot cup of tea when you are weary, and I found myself looking forward to her notes. I found Charmaine to be always in my court, encouraging, affirming, believing in me, even when I felt pessimistic, stuck or tired and self-disparaging. She allowed me to be myself, and at the same time, encouraged me to begin to think differently about my own strengths toward confidence and unapologetic appreciation for my gifts. She revealed her own story over time, and I came to know that her optimism and determination that she showed so readily was hard won. I came to appreciate the dramatic in her, and the playful, as she signed her emails in orange script (except for St Patrick's day, when it was green!), and named her car after the Haitian deity Rzulie, goddess of love and beauty and appreciation for the sensual feminine aspect, and was downright gleeful when she obtained a new kaleidoscope. I saw her soft heart for the point of view of others, in the way she would be first unhappy with someone she didn't agree with, but then soften to thinking that they had their point too. I saw how she saw beauty where others sometimes saw only a problem, showing itself in the way she would snoogle with her rescued shiatsu dogs Saturn and Boomer, laughing at how she was 'schmaltzy' about them but having a santa photo taken with them, just the same. Each in turn, they were beautiful in her eyes, because she loved them. I came to appreciate her stories about her early upbringing an her early challenges as the necessary 'road of trials' that Joseph Campbell taught was part of the heroic journey. I heard her talk about her need to make sense of her knowing that she was intellectually gifted, yet had not been able to live out that dream as she graduated from high school, and as was true in the late 1950s, buying into the collective dream of being a wife and mother. Instead, she found herself overwhelmed in a world of babies and diapers, making ends meet with work in an interior design office while her husband Howard plowed forward with his intense academic efforts, a path she would rather have been doing herself. It seemed to me that this was such an important part of who she was that having to set her academic pursuits aside for a time that (combined with a vulnerability in her) caused her to lose herself for a time. But it also became a fire burning in her deepest longing to go back to school, and led to a Masters in folklore at UCLA, and a Doctorate in Mythology, at Pacifica. She was always grateful for having had her daughters in spite of that early hard time, and took great delight in their accomplishments. At the time when I first met her, she was redoubling her efforts to extend herself to deepen and heal the relationship wounds that she felt had come of her not having been able to continue to be a primary parent in their earlier years. She articulated to me both great gratitude for her husband and his wife Marcia giving them what she was not able, and a great desire to also give what she could uniquely contribute to their well being, now, as an adult. She was happy to take them out to eat, and relished a good piece of chocolate, too! I was lucky to stand under the umbrella of her desire to share herself, my age being in the generation of her daughters, but because of the way we had become friends, less fraught with the complications of mother/daughter dynamics (it probably also helped that we lived a few thousand miles apart, and could just enjoy the best of ourselves and each other without having to deal with the grittiness of daily life, which so often obscures the essential spirit of a friendship with someone else). In some ways, she also stepped into a role for me that I needed when my own mother had died, and I realized much later that Charmaine had some of the same best qualities of my mother, with her optimism, bright curiosity, and her sense of adventure and trust that things would work out somehow. She also shared my interest in Psyche, and the Invisible World as it manifests in our dreams. Charmaine was interested in shamanic worlds, mythology, politics, Jungian ideas, cooking, and the creative arts in general, including especially poetry,drumming, music and art work. She showed courage in thinking outside the box, letting her interest and curiosity lead her, rather than letting fear cause her to shrink back. This was one of the most important lessons I learned from her! She took on the challenge of Pacifica Graduate Institute's graduate program in Mythology, and immersed herself in the process of learning with other colleagues, each unique in their ways, but somehow part of a group not unlike zebras--far-sighted, intuitive, communal, and each an individual, but looking out for each other. She relished her participation in the group and felt privileged and happy there. She took back her maiden name in order that it would show appreciation for her parents' having made it possible to attend, signing her PhD thesis "Charmaine (Grey) Lava." She was rightly proud of her truly exceptional contribution created from her work with Dr Grillo, whom she valued as a lovely and tough minded person who demanded excellence from her. She focused her interest on Haitian Voodon practices where the unconscious was allowed to erupt in a ritual space and with support from the community, but was contained; she wondered how that might be a model for managing other experiences of the unconscious in it's unruly aspects. She was warm in ways that allowed others to love and extend themselves for her, in these past few years in particular. She was grateful that she was able to find generous spirited people who helped her to attend a meditation group at a local Sangha, she continued to explore her feelings, needs and problem solving possibilities with people who pitched in, going the extra mile to visit in her home when she could no longer go out. I was amazed at the way she continued to acknowledge her ability to adapt, even when her last year was filled with letting go-- of her health, her ficus tree affectionately named Walter, her house on Alexandria, her dog, her dream of continuing to write, and hoping to teach, even her ability to dream and read. She continued to appreciate her daughters Adie and Janet as they stepped in more and more to help her find places to live and be cared for as her health declined, even while sometimes they met with some resistance initially. At those times, she was asserting her independence, and all the while letting the seeds of a new possibility work on her. They became more and more anchors for her as she experienced a confusing and challenging time,doing a remarkable job, right to the end. And now, more than anything, she would want me to speak for her in channeling her parting message: 'I did my best, I know it was not always what you'd hoped I could do, or wanted, but I tried, in ways I knew how. I lived my life with vitality and resilience, and I found my way, one step at a time. I was so lucky, and am so grateful for the ways you have cared for me in my life, and I hope you know that you were important to me, in ways you will perhaps never know. Please remember me with kindness, and know that I loved you, too." Charmaine, I miss you! Safe travels, my friend, into the Great Mystery. -mary jo