16/12/2022
This was hard to write...
Candace Green of Camden, Maine passed over to the other side, at the age of 73 on November 7, 2022 at 4:07 pm after enduring a massive stroke in her home. She was surrounded by family and friends as she passed at the Sussman House Hospice in Rockport, Maine.
Born the second of eight children, into a circumstance of extreme poverty and abuse on May 2,1949 to her mother, Evangeline Vinson Hanson (predeceased) and her estranged father Donald Green (predeceased); Candace and her two sisters Brenda Green Bubier (predeceased), and Georgia “Cindy” Green were raised by their Aunt Glenna and Uncle Peter Brasslett of Hudson Maine for seven years with their four cousins; Ronnie, Gary, Dwayne and Sharon Brasslett.
At the age of eight, Candace and her two sisters Brenda and Cindy returned to live with their mother and now step-father, Richard Hanson (predeceased) and subsequent five half siblings; Dale, Brett, Robin, Becky and RaeJean Hanson.
Candace became a young mother at the age of seventeen, when she married James “Jimmy” Robinson (predeceased) of Levant, Maine and had two children, “Jamie” (now Sven) and Denyse Robinson. Continuing in the expected trajectory of being born into extreme poverty and abuse in rural Maine, she and her two children endured myriad forms of abuse and after eight years of marriage, Candace divorced Jimmy and relocated to Hampden, Maine where she started her long recovery and began the healing of wounds her life had thus far inflicted.
Candace received her G.E.D., then went on to study Education and Psychiatry part time, while holding down three jobs including teaching English at Penobscot Job Corps and raising two children by herself.
In 1984 she received her Bachelor of Science in Education from University of Maine and went on to become the Director of the Co-Op Program at Brewer High School where she and her colleagues developed a pioneering Team Building program, called Adventure Based Learning in Experience (ABLE), where they brought adventure and team building into the classrooms of vocational and under privileged students.
In 1988, Candace received the Distinguished Teacher Award as she continually went far above and beyond any expectations of her vocation. Always civic minded, in her spare time, she volunteered and devoted a great deal of her time to the Maine Peace and Justice Center of Bangor where she was on the Steering Committee and could be seen at many a protest in downtown Bangor in the 1980’s.
Candace’s life took an extreme about-turn, when she had a Near Death Experience (NDE) in the Spring of 1990 while whitewater canoeing in the Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor. Pronounced dead several times, and for many minutes, Candace went, “to the blissful, serene light” and did not want to return to this Earth. She was brought back to life, but all of her hard work to create the life she was currently living suddenly made no sense to her. She ultimately took a leave of absence from Brewer High School and relocated to Taos, New Mexico where she connected with an Apache Holy Woman, SapokniOna Whitefeather, ”Grandmother” and became her student.
Apprenticing under Grandmother for twenty years, she learned several traditional ceremonies including naming ceremonies, in which she was first named, Yellow Sweet Medicine Eagle and later, Painted Turtle. A pipe carrier and healer via Usui Reiki, House Blessings, and following her teacher’s ways, Candace focused her attention on continuing to heal herself from all of her lifetime of trauma, as well as helping others in their quest for healing.
While in New Mexico, Candace was also led to many non native healing modalities that allowed her to effectively release her traumas, layer by layer. She trained in the field of Energy Psychology techniques including Healing from the Body Level Up, (H.B.L.U.), Tapas Acupressure Treatment (T.A.T.), Energy Freedom Technique, (E.F.T.), Neurolinguistic Programming (N.L.P.), Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (E.M.D.R.), and Guided Imagery just to name a few.
Candace took what she practiced on herself and incorporated her spiritual teachings and ceremonies, and began to help others with trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.). Her focus shifted to working with veterans and in 2009, started Cardinal Retreats in honor of her “soul friend” Liza who had passed during her shift to working with veterans.
In 2010, Candace began to participate in Angel Fire Veteran Retreats in Angel Fire, NM as the Lead Counselor and Program Director helping hundreds of Veterans and their spouses heal from the injuries of war. In 2011, Lisa Ling from the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) produced an hour long documentary, entitled, “Invisible Wounds of War” that highlighted these retreats and aired on 6/11/11 and 11/11/2011. A five minute preview of this documentary can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-XuL4YxCH0
These retreats culminated in Candace’s life’s purpose, and she put her entire being into them; body, mind, spirit- and it began to take a toll on her. She moved back to the Bangor, Maine area and led many more retreats at The Green Gem and beyond, helping individual clients until the various strokes she was having, caused vascular dementia and she needed help with everyday tasks. In 2019, her daughter Denyse, brought her back to Camden to care for her. In her last four years, Candace was very uncomfortable being on the, “cared for” side of caring, and was quite stubborn, refusing any medical interventions.
Candace led a full, unexpected, winding path. Beyond resilient, a true Mainer, and stubborn as a mule dragging its heels in concrete, Candace Green was many things to many people. Candace was loved by all, especially her two children, daughter, Denyse Robinson(spouse Michael Lowe), her son Sven, and her beloved grandsons Dylan and Teagan Lowe. Sister Cindy, daughter Denyse, grandsons Dylan (16) and Teagan (15) were all there, by her side, as she passed over-holding her, and allowing her to pass over to the light in her own time, carrying her sacred numbers with her all the way through to her passing at 4:07pm on 11/7/22. Returning home, back to the Source. We all miss you Mum, Nana, Candace. Aho!
Denyse, and Candace’s beloved student, Jennifer Morin of Brewer, Maine, will host a gathering in honor of Candace Green’s passing on Sunday, May 7, 2023. The ceremony will be a sacred fire and a chance to connect and tell stories of Candace as you knew her. All of the details of this ceremony will be posted in early Spring on Candace’s Cardinal Retreats page https://www.facebook.com/cardinalretreats
In lieu of flowers or any other “sympathy gift”, her family asks that you allow yourself to engage in an act of kindness to someone with all of your heart. Every day.
Cardinal Retreats
