The Journal of a Spiritual Seeker, Sorrow, Joy and Hardship
Hello Seekers,
A lot of these journal entries are about death because, as I was writing them, I was in various stages of the transition process with people and animals I love very much. I’ve talked about this before, but if you’re new here I’ll try to provide a brief recap. In September of 2016, my dad died and then three weeks later my dog died. Within a month or so, my mom and I started taking care of the grandparents of my heart, my great-uncle and great-aunt, who were suffering from cancer and dementia respectively. At the same time, my best cat friends and my darling Little Dog were all getting quite old and each developed some serious health issues. By October of 2017, a lot of my life revolved around helping these five survive another day.
Since then, they’ve all died. Uncle Don left the physical on Dec. 31, 2018. Eight months later, Aunt Roe passed. Almost a year to the day after Uncle Don had gone, my dear little cat Beece passed away, Mouse followed in mid-March and Little Dog died at the end of July. All five within 19 months. My three dear animal friends within seven months. It’s been a monumental couple years for me.
So much of what I struggled with through these journals was a fear of these guys dying. And now they all have.
As I was promised, none of them really left me and through the experience of their deaths, I can say with a lot more certainty that I understand that energy is everlasting and that our love connects us through oneness to those we have loved in this life and in others. I understand now that we have to allow our relationships with death to evolve, because our suffering is based in a misunderstanding that we are separated from those we love by death, when the opposite is actually true. We are more connected and that connection is purer and less convoluted after death. But this is so much easier said than felt.
Just the other day, I was communicating with Little Dog and went deep into my sadness that I can’t see her cute face or cuddle with her fuzzy little body. And she pointed out to me in the bossy way that she has that I am the one blocking the communication by continuing to exist in my sadness. That she’s still here, and she’s actually more able to help than she was when she was a dog, and that the more I allow the love to flow through the connection we share now, the easier the flow of communication will be between us. So I’m working on it, and she’s being patient with me as I do.
Be gentle with yourself around your grief, and allow yourself the space to feel your feelings without getting trapped by them.
With love and so much light,
Jodie
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Message from the Light, Oct. 7, 2017
It’s been a challenging few days, but you must remember to take joy in life around you. That is your greatest ability and the one that will carry you through grief and sorrow when it does come.
Take every moment as a gift, embrace the love, let it wash away the fear. Be present in every moment fully, allowing where you are to be a place of deep contentment and love.
Love is not something to fear losing. Instead it is something to rejoice in having. For love is energy and energy never dies. Love stays with us and lives in us.
Shifting dimensions and transitioning realities are not death either, as you are thinking of it now. Pour the energy of your sorrow into life, into love, into creating a sense of peace. Allow light to wash over you, filling those places and spaces that were occupied by fear and grief. Embrace life and love, take great joy in these moments of life.
Don’t live sorrow, for that is just another form of loss. Don’t live sadness. Don’t embrace these darker places that are simply expressions of the unknown.
The inevitable is not this moment. Acknowledge the future is useless because nothing is certain. They say, “you could be hit by a bus tomorrow,” and that is true in a sense. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
Be where you are. Find peace in this moment. Don’t let love be warped inside you to become a vehicle for fear. Let it be light inside you. Let it wash over you and over every cell of your body. Let it fill the places where pain would reside. Let yourself give thanks for love as an expression of Light. A shared experience between two beings.
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Exercise: Begin each exercise by grounding and protecting. For more information on how, see this post.
Here’s a fun photo of Little Dog trying to scale my entire wardrobe from my tidying up adventure a couple years ago.
When Uncle Don died, Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up had just come out on Netflix. First, I binged it and then I began to pull everything out of every closet and ask myself if it sparked joy. I released a lot of old things — thanking them first as she recommends — and organized my physical space in an attempt to gain emotional and mental clarity. It helped.
I encourage you to do something to physically move the energy this weekend. It doesn’t have to be a massive clearing out (like we have planned!). Maybe you can just go for a walk or reorganize a closet or rearrange your couch cushions. As you do whatever it is you’re going to do, get grounded and bring the spiritual practice that Marie Kondo teaches us in her work to the task at hand. What sparks joy? Are we ready to release that which doesn’t, thanking it as we let go?
We’re all collectively grieving this year, and so many of us are personally grieving as well. As you do whatever things you do this weekend, bring that grounding and protection into it, and notice how moving the physical moves the energy on deeper levels. What do you find yourself releasing, with gratitude, as you go?
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A brief note: This journal and its exercises are simply a means to help you find your own flow. There is no pressure to follow them exactly or read each and every one. It does not need to be read in order either, so if you miss one, don’t feel like you’ve failed or fallen behind. These messages are here to hold space for you as you discover and evolve within your spiritual practice.
This is the first volume of The Journal of the Spiritual Seeker, and I’m presenting it here on The Devic Connection website, serialized over the last 10 weeks of 2020, with weekly roundups via email (you can sign up in the box at the bottom of this page if you’d like to receive these.) If you’ve just arrived here and would like to start from the beginning, here’s the link to the first post.
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We all need help with clarity …
Sometimes, things come up in the healing journey that we can’t quite manage by ourselves. I’m fortunate to have people I can call on to help me gain that clarity. And I’m also in therapy, which helps immensely with processing the psychological and mental health issues. If you find yourself getting stuck on this journey or having something come up that you need some guidance on, please do seek help. An internet search can help you find a qualified mental health practitioner for those psychological issues. And if you’re looking for help from the Light on the spiritual questions, I have some availability for readings. (Read more about that here.)