The Hidden Blessing of Grief

Grief sucks.

There is no way around it, really.  When someone dies, whom you love deeply, it hurts in a way that punctures your soul and leaves it weeping... sometimes permanently.

I want you to know, however, there is a hidden blessing and wisdom in the process of grief.  I also know that you want to tell me to "shove it" about hidden blessings and wisdom while you are in deep grief.  Of course you do, but it doesn't make it less true... and eventually, you will have the choice to let your sense of loss continue to be defined as a dark void within you, or if you will fill that new empty space with something miraculous that affirms YOUR life.

My life path completely changed when my father was sick with cancer for 5 years before his death. He knew it was coming. We all did.  He had done his job already. I was a grown woman in my early 30's with my own life, but I think that anyone who has lost a parent will agree that there is never an age when you feel you don't need them. There is never an age when it feels okay.

In my circumstance, my father and I were always very similar.  I remember thinking that I was more like my father than perhaps any other human being on the planet.  He had an uncommon gift in the way he processed information.  Some would have called him a genius, or inventive, or creative... or whatever, you get my drift.  He had it within him to do something new and different, to chart some new course, to define or explain something in a new and unusual way that would matter to the world.  He knew in his bones that he had this looming, overwhelming potential.  And ultimately, his deepest struggle and regret at the end of his life was that he felt he did not accomplish whatever it was that he was put on the planet to do.     

That's the ticket, isn't it?  Are we here to do something?  Is there some unremembered life purpose that we have, which is written in the marrow of our being, that haunts us with some familiar song we can barely hear?

 I think the answer to that is, "yes". 

My father's sickness and death made the song of my own life path so loud that I'm not sure how much of a choice I actually had to ignore it.  Death has a way of clearing the dross, and bits of silly nonsense, which we seem to think is important, right out of the way.  I mean... totally.  Mortality also seems to make it necessary to consider a ~spiritual reality~ as something authentic.  So, without much background or framework in formal religion, I found that when I reached out to a spiritual reality... that it absolutely reached back to me.  It didn't just reach out to touch me.  It swallowed me whole, chewed me up, and spit me back out onto a completely different course.  It felt like that too.  It wasn't gentle.  It was a "holy-shit-get-the-license-plate-number-of-the-truck-that-just-hit-me" kind of not subtle.

It was the most important "path correction" I hope I will ever need.  I don't want to do it again.  It hurt like a Mo Fo and I'm still finding places within me that require healing and care because of it.  Always a process, this evolving stuff, eh?  Chip, chip, chip away at it.  Eventually, the Art in the Stone will emerge from all the trimmings.  I believe that, even if the process leaves me exhausted sometimes.  Who am I to question the way it is done?  I just wish it didn't hurt so much sometimes.  I wish that for me, I wish that for you... but we have to work with what we have.  Sometimes what we have in front of us is a world of pain.  It is our choice what we do with it.

Grief offers us a choice to examine the course of our own life path, to ask the question, "At the end of my life, what will I regret?" 

The answer to that, I believe, is that you will regret not doing what you were put on this planet to do.  You will regret not making amends, not forgiving others, not expressing your love and passions, not expressing your unique potential as God gave you. 

So, the most important thing you can do to honor the person you love who has died and left you this precious gift of crisis and trauma...is to find out what you were put on this planet to do, then get to the business of doing it.

In the cocoon of pain and loss, you have a clear line to your own spiritual reality.  There is such tremendous power and support here.  Reach out for it... surrender to it... let it consume you completely and cast you on whatever strange shore Divine Wisdom knows is right for you.

It's going to be a bumpy ride.  You will feel unhinged, and at times, crazy as hell.  Just keep reaching.  Keep surrendering.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other and fight with every ounce of your being to have courage when you want to run screaming from the building.  

I can't tell you where you will end up... that is between you and God. 

I can't tell you that you will feel endless waves of bliss and peace, even if you do find your life's path and follow it as sincerely as you can.  Pain is one of the best catalysts, it seems, for change and evolution.  The Divine can wield this tool with brutal precision when we aren't listening to more gentle persuasion.  

I can tell you that your life will never be boring again and that the fire in your belly, the passion that fuels your ride, will have its own rewards.  You will need very little from others that you cannot access from within.  You will care much less about what other people think.  Score.  You will be living a life that is authentic for you... and the normal human duck-and-hide from what is important.... just falls away.

Allow your grief to give your life back to you.  The window of opportunity is greatest in the moments of your greatest pain.  Reach for it.  Ask for help.  Surrender. 

Thanks Dad, for giving me the gift of living this wild and weird, but authentic life... of being on a path that I know I will not regret at the end of it.  I may not be doing it perfectly, but I am doing it.  I'm doing it with every ounce of my heart and soul...and every once and awhile, I discover more of myself hidden in some corner I didn't know existed, until it did. 

It has not been easy... but it has been worth it. 

May you be comforted and cared for in the Highest Possible way. May all those who suffer find solace. May your grief bless you with whatever shift in perspective you may need to truly live your life's purpose. May you receive what you need to support you in your Highest Good with as much Ease, Grace, Mercy, Compassion, and Love as possible.

Amen.

Christopher and I have a brand new website and blog. :)  I'm going to leave archived blog articles up in here, but all new articles will be published under the new site.

Our new website is here:
http://www.etemetaphysical.com

Our new blog, which we have integrated together, is here:
http://blog.etemetaphysical.com/

Creating a Transition Gate for the Dead and Dying

Happy Trails Symbol for Transition



Ghost Busters?

Nah, you don't need to do that.  Helping stuck spirits move along to the next appropriate place in their progression is actually not that difficult.  It was one of the first protocols that I hashed out about 14 years ago.  I was still pretty new to the process of energy work and whatnot and had a father dying of cancer.  I went on a quest to find a symbol for "transitioning spirit" and didn't find one.  So, I asked to receive one and... well, the Happy Trails non-traditional Reiki symbol for transition sorta slid out of me on All Saints Day, November, 1998.   I did use it successfully on my father to help him transition, but then found out that this symbol and process is also good for moving along ghosts, if you believe in that kind of thing. 

More funny history... I posted this symbol on my website at the time with some rudimentary instructions, and low and behold... 14 years later, if you Google it... it's all over the place.  I actually snagged my original jpg off someone elses site. (Figured that was okay since I actually drew it.)  I think someone is selling Happy Trails Reiki attunements somewhere.  Interesting, considering that they want to give you a lovely Reiki lineage certificate with it.  They do actually post me at the top, which was nice of them, but the people who claim me in their lineage... yeah, I have no idea who they are.  If you paid for Happy Trails Reiki at some point, I apologize that I wasn't better at sharing it for free, which was my actual intention when I posted it on my website.  It literally never entered my mind that someone would cut, paste, and make you pay.  *shrugs*  Whatever.  Not my karma issue... I hope.

OK, so let me remedy this now... since I have a friend who needs this kind of coaching right now...and I had someone else that needed it earlier this week.  So, seems kinda "up".  Might as well just blog it and be able to direct folks to the information from now on, without y'all having to pay... uhhh...whomever them Reiki Peeps are. 

Here are some easy instructions.... you don't actually even need to use the symbol.  The intention set is fully set and sealed and can be easily called upon without any need to draw symbols.  Back in the day, symbols were how I rolled with intention.  Nowadays, it seems more useful to just go to the intention set itself.  If you want to use the symbol, knock yourself out and go ahead and use it.  I'll add the step for Spirit Direct Attunement for it, if you would like to do that.  If you've ever taken Reiki from me before, you already have been attuned to this symbol in the Reiki process. 

Directions!

If you want to attune to the Happy Trails symbol above...

1) Connect with God, your Higher Self through God, and the appropriate Spiritual Helpers through God. (I find it better to let God assign the Spiritual Helpers, but if you have a particular religious or spiritual belief system, go ahead and use the Helpers that you normally work with so long as you add "through God" to your request, please.)

2) Say, "I request to attune to Happy Trails, so long as it is appropriate and in my Highest Good, now please."

3)  Let your Spiritual Helpers do the work.  There is nothing to "do" but "receive".  When it is completed, say, "I request to Bless, Optimize, Stabilize, Amplify, and Seal this work under God, now please."  Saying "thank you" ain't a bad idea either. 

OK, you're attuned. 

(That will be $50 please..... NOT.)

Calling a Transition Gate

1) Connect with God, your Higher Self through God, and the appropriate Spiritual Helpers through God.

2) Say, "I request to initiate a Transition Gate on behalf of any Beings who may need it, so long as it is appropriate and in the Highest Good, now please." 

The intention is for the Spiritual Helpers to go and gently fetch, clear, cleanse, purify, and bring healing to whatever Being might be stuck that needs some help moving along.  As well as to clear the area of any lingering yuck, and pretty much bring as much Light and Love into the situation as possible.  You can intend to clear a house, a neighborhood... a site being featured on a paranormal TV show while you are watching it, whatever.  You aren't doing the heavy lifting, the Spiritual Helpers are doing the heavy lifting.  YOUR JOB is to be a Free Will Advocate for Divine Intervention to happen.  The Divine Intervention part ain't your job, so don't worry about that part.  It's over our pay grade.

3)  When you feel the shift in the space say, "I request to Bless, Optimize, Stablize, Amplify, and Seal this work under God, now please."  Again, saying "thank you" ain't a bad idea here either.

If you want to print out the photo and use it as a concentration point, whatever... go ahead.  It's a tool, you can use it if you want.

If you want to set up a Transition Crystalline Grid... I would update my original rock suggestions to include... Lepidolite, Rose Quartz, Selenite, Angelite, Apache Tears, and Mangano Calcite. 

Maybe I'll do that for August's Crystalline Grid, since it seems like work that is up at the moment.

Ok Darlings... there you go.  Who you gonna call?   Ha, yeah... God and some Spiritual Helpers, basically.  You just use that beautiful God-given Free Will to ask for Divine Intervention to happen for those poor souls.  Who knew it was that easy, eh?

And thank you for doing this work.  Wouldn't it just suck ass to be stuck inbetween dimensions, feeling like you've been abandoned?  Yuck.  Too sad.  Let's help our brothers and sisters without bodies get to where they need to be going.  It's only right.

Oh right................ if you do this work, ask your Spiritual Helpers to send a Transition Gate and interactive assistance to any "ghosts of yourself" through time too.  Gather yourself up.  You'll feel better.