My Personal Journal
From experiences and research, I tell my stories.
Ghosts … Hauntings … These conditions always challenge our notions of reality, and hence, our sense of security. It is easy to become frightened when it appears a being of the non-physical sort can impact this realm through sounds such as rapping, tapping, voices, even music. And, depending on the intensity, take it to the next level and influence physical matter to move – closing doors, opening cupboards, and stealing objects. But what does all this say about us — about consciousness itself?
With scientific results in the fields of quantum physics and consciousness research giving clear glimpses that Time is not one direction only – that the past and the future are indeed co-existing with the present – what does that posit about such ideas as evolution and expansion? The simultaneous Time concept indeed challenges us to consider new possibilities, thus opening up new doors and forcing us to re-examine some time-honored (pun intended) concepts and beliefs.
This holiday season will be trying because it forces many of us to practice an enforced type of separation. But for those that have passed into the world of spirit, it will not be nearly as hard for us who can communicate via internet than it is for them. For those on the Other Side, whether victims of the virus or not, whether passing away in 2020 or 1955, the separation is much more stark.
Just because somebody has the ability to perceive messages from the world of spirit doesn’t make a death any less painful. That came into sharp clarity this week as my wife and I lost our final cat, Cosmo. I say “final” because he was the last of four cats we had since getting married over fifteen years ago. Our house has always had furry animal companions, yet no matter how much planning you do (“After he passes, we will do this…”) it doesn’t prepare you for such grief.
For Cosmo, he interacted with us in every part of our lives at home, as most pets do. If I was at the drawing board, he was always two feet behind me, curled up relaxing and then getting up to demand some attention about every 15 minutes. For my wife, he would join her for yoga routines – slipping in underneath her while doing downward dog, or climbing on top of her while she laid flat on the mat. We had our morning rituals, we had our playtime every night of “aliens” – where he would chase the outside front door light bouncing off my watch onto the coat closet door. He knew it was a game that we shared, as he would often meow at me to get off the couch and get over into the hallway to play the game. He was a very social cat, often talking in complete sentences with his meowing. You could talk back to him, and he would respond in turn. He was much more like a sidekick rather than an aloof cat looking only for attention on his terms.
And then one day, after sixteen years of this life together, he was gone.
We knew something was up about a month ago, when he suddenly wasn’t eating the way he used to. Then he got Horner’s syndrome – where one pupil is a little smaller than the other, and the third eyelid ends up covering half the eye. Normally, Horner’s doesn’t produce appetite problems, which was really the main thing we were having challenges with. Then last weekend, we noticed a mass was deforming the right side of his neck. It wasn’t a good scenario. For the most part, he was still interacting with us with a good amount of energy and vigor, though he wasn’t (and potentially couldn’t) eat the way he used to. He had to be starving.
We took him into the emergency vet on Monday to try and determine what the growth on his neck was, if this was contributing to his appetite suppression, and if there was any treatment – or heaven forbid – we had to make a traumatic decision. On some level, Cosmo had to know the heartbreaking difficulty making that choice would have been, so he made it on his own. Turned out the mass was cancerous. During the examination, like a ticking time bomb, the growth “exploded” on its own, releasing a toxic amount of histamine throughout his system, killing him instantly. If it hadn’t happened at the vet, it would most likely have happened at home by the end of this week.
Again, grief happens no matter your ability to perceive impressions from the Other Side. Oddly, two weeks earlier while I had opened myself up to prepare for a mediumship reading on Zoom, I noticed the spirit of my other cat, Jasper, immediately in my field of spirit awareness (I wrote about his passing last year and the messages he sent immediately afterward here). It surprised me, as he had never done that before. I took it as a sign that he knew things were happening with his brother, but I don’t think I was ready to deal with the message “I’m here to receive him.” Now I know that is why he was there.
Through this loss, I’ve paid close attention to my grief. It comes in many different shades. One moment, there has been a sense of such blessing – the joy of having had an amazing and wonderful life with Cosmo (and our other furry animal companions); at other times, it feels like my soul just wants to explode from my heart, as the pain is so intolerable. Our spirits do become so accustomed to having that presence and personality there… Spiritually and intellectually, I know Cosmo is still there, quite alive… Yet during those moments of grief I find myself crying out “Where is my boy??” Our psyches, our minds, our souls are habituated to the relationship and we never want it to change.
But we cannot stop evolution. One thing I’ve learned over years of doing mediumship is that relationships still remain. Even more, these relationships can continue to evolve and grow, but it is different than what we’re used to. Jasper has let us know several times that he is with us -- he’s appeared in dreams, thrown deliberate images our way to say “HELLO! I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN YOU!” – heck, he’s occasionally intruded on a couple of readings with clients. I suspect Cosmo will do the same.
But there will always be grief at the passing. It is a recognition of the depth of love in the nature of the relationship.
My wife and I are empty-nesters now. Though we could immediately run out and adopt another pet, we’ve decided not to. We want to cherish the life we’ve had with our furry family – in our minds, they cannot be replaced, so we are choosing to hold off on trying to put a band-aid on our pain and placing an unfair burden on another animal to bury our sorrows. No. I think the best way to honor the life we have had with our pets is to accept the grief that comes in losing them. The greatest love should naturally result in the greatest pain when that transition happens. That is truly the depth and breadth of what love brings.
Life will not be the same. It is not meant to be. When I was finally at a calm moment enough to make an attempt at meditation on Wednesday, a quick message came through:
“You have been given a new canvas in life for which to paint upon. However… you don’t have to pick up the brush right away. Only do it when you’re ready. And when you do, you only have to paint one line at a time. Let there be space between each stroke.” In other words, honor the grief. A lifetime of love from our animal companions is an immeasurable gift from the Great Spirit… It takes time to reflect upon it, to allow its breadth to work its fullness within the dimensions of our soul.
When you are disappointed, especially at not reaching a goal, how are you responding? For some, they react internally “Because I did not achieve this, I must not be worthy (of love, security, whatever).” Now, this might not verbally run through their head (or perhaps it does!), but it is emotionally felt.
We have heard over and over again that we are co-creators. Many of us are quite familiar with the tenets of the Law of Attraction. Yet to me, the truth is that not only are we dealing with a Natural Law, we are dealing with a Great Mind – one that is eternally larger than us, but also incorporates us into its neural networks. We are encompassed within – and therefore have access to – this immense creative wisdom.
Spirituality – and all the corollaries that go along with it – requires more than just lip service, it demands contemplation. At its core, the concepts of love, compassion, harmony, oneness (as well as others) are more than just words and what they are trying to describe; rather, they are states of being. Spirituality means “of the spirit,” yet when we see what is happening throughout the world (and the United States in particular), it is clear that regardless of having a church, mosque, or other kind of spiritual temple on every street corner, spirituality has been mostly ignored or relegated to “when it’s convenient.”
Unending patterns of unrest. When I sat back and contemplated what’s been happening in the world – rise of authoritarianism, pandemic disease, 120,000+ dead Americans, economic collapse, politicization of wearing masks, protests surrounding abuse and inequality – I could not help but notice the continuing crescendo of forces pounding at the doors of our spirits. At times it seems like all of this has come to devour us.
I believe it has. And it must.
