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Laura Jane Divine
September 9, 1954 – August 12, 2022

I am deeply saddened to tell you that Laura has died. After an almost two-and-a-half-year push hands practice with metastatic breast cancer, she died as softly and gently as she had lived. Having cancer was never a battle for Laura, it was a place to deepen her practice, a place to be with What Is, a place from which to discern the next step, the next treatment, the next moment of softening and receiving, and then moving forward. “Here now,” she would often say, “Here now.”

Laura has rejoined the wider consciousness and may you feel her energy, her unique, kind, loving energy in the days and decades ahead. May you feel it in this moment as you read these words. Close your eyes for a moment. Here now.

Laura was an immensely talented, brilliant, and deeply loving Co-Founder of Integral Coaching Canada and the lineage of this school lives on in the loving and skillful management team, incredible teachers, embodied faculty members she touched, and our global community of Integral Coaches™. Integral Coaching Canada was Laura’s biggest bucket list item, capping off her life of contribution...supporting the development of human beings and alleviating suffering in everyone she touched.

She was so deeply moved by those who continued teaching, training, and working with our students around the world. She was grateful to students who continued to bring Integral Coaching^® into the world in so many ways. Laura watched a video in June of a recent ACM graduate speaking about the effects of this first module. The happiness on Laura’s face was something to behold. And then in July we received a video from the latest graduates of the Master Certification Module who each shared a personal message with us. I cannot tell you how profoundly your words reached us. Thank you for this most meaningful gift to Laura near the end of her time here with us.

I will never know another Laura in my lifetime. Cali (our sweet puppy) and I will miss her forever. My heart will ache for her until I take my last breath. Laura leaves behind her loving mother-in-law, Carmel and beloved “in-laws and out-laws,” Sheila (Jack), Moe (JC), Tracy (Chris), and Lauchlin. She is predeceased by her parents, Ray & Jane, and her brother, Craig. She leaves behind her brother Keith (Robin) and her darling nieces and nephews, Sam, Maeve, Maggie, Tashi, Kayla, Diana, and KC as well as cousins, friends, colleagues, the whole global ICC team (thank you Val and Linda for all your precious love), students and coaches around the world. Oh, she was so loved!!

I want to tell you something: Laura continued her practices until her final breath, and I would like to thank Lenzie and Ruth who provided her with deep support and friendship in her living tai chi practice through these decades and poignant past months.

Laura’s practice supported her to the end. I cannot even begin to tell you what it was like to witness her these last months. Sitting like a buddha, though she could no longer cognitively bring about the form, the form appeared naturally in her. Decades of meditation showing up on its own. In breath. Out breath. Decades of tai chi showing up on its own. Life does life. Finding ground all the time. When feeling lost, she would ask, “Where is Joanne? Where is ground?” She would find herself again. The ground of being, my darling.

Please join with me in this metta prayer for Laura whenever you feel her arise in you, but especially in these next few days as she journeys on...

Laura,
May you be well
May you be peaceful
May you be free.

In lieu of flowers, donations to Breast Cancer Research would be deeply appreciated. A private gathering will be held with immediate family members. But if you want to remember Laura, plant a tree. She would love that the most. “You will hear me in the wind in the trees,” she said.

I will love you forever and may we someday enjoy sundowners together in Plettenberg Bay,
Joanne

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