I've been weary of writing this passage but I have felt this compulsion for some time now. In fact, this draft sat unfinished for almost six months, until the Creative Force gave another little nudge and I succumbed. Disclaimer: I don't know everything; I don't claim that I do. What I do believe is that this information has been passed on to me for the specific reason of giving it a platform for people who find this information useful to have the opportunity to use this knowledge to help them with their grief, growth, and well-being among many things.

Please take the information that applies to you, that resonates deep within your soul and utilize it. Everything else, just leave behind, or maybe put it in a filing cabinet somewhere in the back of your mind to maybe pull out and ponder later. Whatever you choose to do with this is your decision; my job is simply to offer it to you.

This past year, in my life as well as the collective, has seen a lot of souls pass on to the next place. Many more than usual, I feel. I myself have had to let go of four people I love, and at least seven more that I've been acquainted with or have felt the ripples of their passing through mutual circles. Four of those have contacted me near or after their passing.
My first experience with death in this life was in 2001, when my baby brother Nico made his transition at the age of two. At first, as a six year old, I didn't really get it. It wasn't until his funeral service that I realized my brother was gone forever. I remember opening his casket for one last look and promptly bursting into tears, my cries piercing through the atmosphere of apprehension of the crowded church. My father took me for a walk outside while my step-father (Nico's biological dad) held my mom. I remember asking my dad lots of questions about where Nico might have gone. I don't think he really had the answers for my six year old comprehension.
That night was the first time someone visited me from the other side. Now, fifteen years later, this dream is still crystal clear in my mind. Nico sat atop a pedestal, amongst cotton candy clouds. He wore a halo above his head and wings on his back. He looked the same as in his recent human life, but without his disabilities. He spoke to me sweetly and told me these words: "It's okay Jaelyn don't cry, it's really beautiful here! I'm happy and I don't hurt anymore. There's lots of angels and they're really nice. I don't want you to be sad, Jaelyn. Now I can always watch over you and protect you from Heaven. I'll always be with you, don't worry about me. I love you." I still think about it all the time, and I can feel his presence whenever I am. It's the same uplifting vibration of love as when he visited my dream. There's no doubt in my mind this was a very real experience.
At the time my grandfather Al died, I was closed off from my psychic abilities due to the lack of nurturing them during my preteen years. However, he makes an appearance in my thoughts and dreams from time to time. My older sister said he visited her in a dream the morning my grandmother made her way to the pearly gates. Sitting in what seemed to be some sort of waiting room and looking uncomfortable, my sister asked him, "Al, what are you doing here?" He responded, "Just waiting for Grandma." He was right on schedule. 
On January 1st, 2013, my godmother Pip passed away fifteen minutes after my last goodbye. She was sick with cancer throughout her body, but it metastasized to her brain to the point where it overtook her. My mom called me to let me know that that day would most likely be her last day here. I went to her hospital room prepared with a tear-soaked letter. I read it aloud through a thickened throat to her decrepit body, not seeing any signs of consciousness from it but all the while, feeling her presence totally comprehending my words. I know she waited for me to have my goodbye before she passed on. Before I left I held her cold, withered hand and gave her permission to go. I left the hospital with tears on my face but understanding in my heart.

I had a period of a few years where death seemed to be relatively absent from my life - for that I am grateful. Being a teenager was hard enough without too much grief plaguing my energetic field.

November 23, 2015, I had my first friend my age pass. Somehow, this has still been the most painful loss to date. Although it's been hard, it's also been the easiest to understand. See, about a month before his unexpected passing, I began to be very interested in past lives and what's in between. I had finished the books Journey of the Soul and Destiny of Souls and attained an unyielding thirst for more knowledge. I knew deep in my heart that this information was crucial. I didn't know why, but my soul yearned to learn about what lies behind the veil. 

When I got two calls back to back early in my work day, my gut instinct told me something was wrong. When my sister called, I answered right away. 

"Jae..." she said.

"What's going on Bev?"

"Jae.... Erik passed away this morning." She was crying and I knew it was the truth.

Even writing this makes my body react with a ferocious panic, taking me exactly back to that moment when I learned that one of my best friends wasn't going to be around anymore. I literally dropped to my knees in front of my boss and my coworkers. I sobbed into the phone with my sister while gripping my heart, gasping for a breath of air to give me some release. My boss sent me home, worried that I needed support from loved ones. I spent the rest of the day soaked in my own snot and tears, curled into a ball on my bed and wailing without restraint. I was tormented by the fact that our last conversation was two days earlier via Facebook, where he wrote to me saying, "Yooo I would love to see you soon I’m so depressed and lonely ahhhh call me if you’re free later,” and all I responded was, “For sure, keep your chin up Erik it’s not all bad.” I never called him. The next day he messaged me again, calling me by his favorite nickname, “Jaebird what are you doing?” to never receive an answer from me. I had my own reasons for not responding, but that didn’t stop the guilt.

This guilt felt like a train had hit me, then mauled by a grizzly bear and then chewed me up and spit me out into a swamp of my own shit.

In my frantic attempts to calm down, I would realize I had been holding my breath for God knows how long. I would exhale, only to have another thought race into my head and send me plummeting back down into the bottomless crevasse that drowned me in guilt and grief.

I desperately tried to call out to him. I knew he would be able to hear me. But there was nothing. I felt no such warm essence come visit me. Instead, every time I thought of him and tried to connect, I was overcome with anxiety, panic, fear, confusion. I realized he hadn’t made it to the Light yet. He was still in “limbo”, if you will. It wasn’t just my own anxiety, panic, fear, or confusion I was feeling – it was his too. There was no shaking this, until all of a sudden, a day and a half later, I felt a huge sensation of peace. It was a feeling similar to that of an epiphany – euphoric, tranquil, and resolved. His voice flooded in immediately. He asked me to write to his mom and sister. I was nervous, and revised my message many times, scanning it over and over to make sure I wouldn’t twist the knife in their hearts.

I wrote,

“Leigh and Krista, I don't know where to start or what to say but I'll do my best  I understand if you do not want to read my message or respond, especially at this time, but I felt Erik's energy compelling me to reach out to you. First I want to offer my sincerest and solemnest condolences to your family. There is NOTHING comparable to this feeling. I lost my brother when I was younger and it is surreal. There is no magic button to make the pain go away and no words can truly alleviate the pain of losing someone. Especially someone like Erik with so much vitality, humor, sweetness, compassion, and so much more. I naively thought since he had survived so much up to that point that he was invincible and he could overcome anything, but we are all human and we all reach our limits of what we can handle. This life was not all easy on him and he had many hard lessons to learn. But that is why we come to live a life here on Earth - to learn from our mistakes and ascend into higher consciousness, to feel pain so deeply that we have the capability to love at its highest vibration and intensity, to correct karmic cycles from former lives and to become better than we were last time. Erik always told me that he would do something great with his life because he had survived so much. He did do something great. He blessed all of us with his vivacious soul, made us laugh so hard tears came to our eyes and our guts hurt, he showed unconditional love and compassion, and was always putting others before himself. He loved with an intensity that I promise to exemplify in my own life. I am honored to have known him at a level that many did not ever become familiar with.

But what I really wanted to communicate to you ladies is that he has not disappeared into the void but his spirit is at peace, he is traveling freely without his burdens and he is watching over you. I have been doing a lot of healing work in my own life and have found information that has made this tragedy much more understandable from a spiritual perspective. I would really honor the chance to be in your presence at any point during your healing process so I can pass on information that could be useful to you and your healing, and really just to hold space for our grief together. When words fail I have found that just holding someone's hand can speak more powerfully than any eloquent speech could.

I give you all my love through this difficult time. I am sending positivity and light to help your family . Love & Light.”

I finally exhaled when his mother responded to me. She wrote, “Jaelyn this was amazingly timed and I would love to talk to you. Erik did speak through you. I am so grateful for your message!”

The next day I visited their beautiful ranch, nestled in the valley’s bed. I got there before they returned from viewing his body, and at first it was surreal being back there and not having Erik’s big beaming grin to greet me and take me on some silly trip to laugh at how much his turkey looked like a “fugly” dinosaur or try to convince me to jump into their freezing cold pond. Instead, he gave me the most spectacular sunset to watch. I witnessed the entire thing with an angel by my side.

When they came home, I was again overwhelmed. Here was his entire family, and I mean entire immediate family. Both parents, his sisters, his cousins, his grandmother… I had a moment of What the fuck am I doing here? Who am I to tell this grieving family that Erik’s death was in Divine and perfect order? Who the fuck do I think I am? I suspect Erik gave me some of his Leo strength, because those thoughts washed away with the first hug. They proceeded to tell me about their phone conference with a psychic, a woman who Leigh had synchronistically read an article from just days before Erik’s death regarding souls who don’t move all the way into the Light right away. What they told me next was absolutely astonishing, but in my heart I was totally affirmed in my feelings.

Erik passed away in his sleep due to an overdose of morphine. I saw the crushed pill still sitting on his bedside table, waiting for forensics and detectives to take it away for testing. Only half of it was gone. However, the half that he took was enough to end his life. This, combined with his depressed mood, had his energy at such a low vibration that when he passed, he did not have the strength or energy to move into the Light. Instead, the psychic said he went “down”. As a clairvoyant, she found him in a dark void, laying on the ground, still sleeping. His guides were there, but seemingly angry with him. They were protective, but not supportive. They merely watched over him, not strong enough to lift his energy for him.

The psychic couldn’t hear what, if anything, was being said, but witnessed his “waking up”. He was frightened. He didn’t know what happened, or where he was. He extended his hands out in front of him, flipping them around. His hands found his face, trying to rub feeling into it. His anxiety grew as he began to realize how grave of a mistake he had made. The psychic intuitively knew that she needed to call in a lighter being to help ferry him to the other side. She watched as they had a conversation, and this higher entity brought him through the mortal realm into the family kitchen, where members of his family sat around the table on the phone. She told them where he was in the room, and what he was doing/communicating to each person seated. Each member of the family can confirm that they felt his presence inside that room as he made his rounds to everyone. When he was finished, this angel brought him into the Light as he waved goodbye with a smile on his face.

Sometime during or shortly after this, my message came into their inboxes. That was Divine timing if I had ever experienced such a thing.

So, here I am talking to everyone about the soul’s journey, where I feel he might be and what his purpose may have been. Really we just talked about everything. We spoke for over five hours, subjects ranging from sharing funny memories to speaking seriously about what went wrong and how he ended up lifeless in his room. No matter what we talked about, I was shaking the entire time. Quivering like a leaf, like I was freezing cold, but I was perfectly comfortable temperature wise. I attributed this to the feeling I get when I channel, and felt relieved that Erik was giving me the right words to say.

We all then went to his bedroom to release the energy that got clogged there. When I came to the threshold, the energy was so strong I physically couldn’t move my body over it. I decided that we should begin the ceremony outside his room, then move in once we had created the atmosphere we needed to be strong. We lit a large white candle (white candles help transitioned souls find us, and find the Light) and spoke our prayers to him. I used white sage to clear out the stagnant energy that had been building up in the tiny room; I saved the bed for last. As we did our ceremony, you could just feel the negative energy cut away. Cobwebs of depression and loneliness stuck in the corners. My attention turned to everything else left in there – the primped and ready new cook uniform he recently got to start his job at the ski resort, his various magazines, piles of dirty and clean clothes intermingled. I smiled at the thought of him sitting up in his bed late at night, rewatching Jim Carrey movies again and again and surfing YouTube for the thousandth time for that video that would make him laugh endlessly.

When it was finally time for me to go home, I peeked into the room for one last look. My heart smiled when I saw that Oakley, his dog, and both of Krista’s animals were sleeping on Erik’s bed. They wouldn’t cross the threshold before our ceremony.

Driving home I was feeling honestly great – I felt that I had done the job Erik wanted me to do. I asked him to play a song on my iPod. I have done this practice many times to get the simple answers I need for my questions, whether I ask my angels or a deceased friend. First he played “Heart Like A Lion” by Rebelution – everything about Erik was lion-like, from his ferocious strength, to his fearless attitude, and his uncompromising loyalty to those he loves. The lyrics are as follows:

”A heart like a lion, a burning like fire
Waiting just to be set free
A heart like a lion, a burning like fire
How can I bear captivity
Some they tell me I'm a fool, a fool who walks this road alone
So afraid of making changes, remember that nothing is carved in stone
Oh tell me why we are so afraid of the secrets locked within our souls
Everything that we're made of is dying just to be exposed oh yea

[Pre-Chorus:]
So don't turn your back on yourself, cause there's nowhere to run
You know your life ain't a practice run
It's time to wake up your mind oh yea
For maybe tomorrow will never come or maybe it will but by then it's too late uh huh
There's nothing left to do but cry
So now you cry but you don't know why, and now you cry but you don't know why

[Chorus]

So what you want to be now well it's time to realize
That everything you need now has been right in front of your eyes
Don't point your fingers and blame, remember it's never too late to change
Don't point your fingers and blame, remember it will be okay

[Pre-Chorus]

You better get up, you better get out, you better get up and turn your life around,

You only live once, so better act now

‘Cause you never know when it’s gonna come back around

 

{Chorus}

 

It spoke for itself. I need not give you my interpretation, because I feel the message is clear. Next, he played “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.

                                                                                                ~~~

It wasn’t more than a few weeks since his passing when he came to me in dreamtime. It has happened a handful of times since. Each time he appears now, he gets better at communicating and “dreamweaving” as I like to think of it. But my most prominent experience with him I was completely conscious. In fact, I was meditating alone in my room.  It was a guided meditation, and I was prompted to create a garden for myself. This garden had many, many types of flora, some I’m sure don’t actually exist. I had a small waterfall trickling next to a forest of flowering cannabis. I sat down on a bench that appeared next to these features as the guide told me to connect to the feeling of inner peacefulness and absolute, pure love. Now, he said someone wanted to visit me here, and that they had something they wanted to say. At first I assumed that this being would be one of my guides or guardian angels. It wasn’t until after I stopped the meditation that I realized this being was newly appointed to both positions.

Erik appeared through a patch of sunflowers. Appropriate, to say the least. He walked towards me smiling, and when he got close enough, he greeted me with my favorite nickname, “Hey Jaebird! I like your plants,” looking towards the towering cannabis plants behind me. He was casual, like this wasn’t a big deal, but I could still feel the excitement emanating from him for the opportunity to see an old friend. His energy was light, tingly, and warm. Immediately I stood up from my bench, looked at him to make sure the image didn’t change, and wrapped my arms around his ethereal body. At this point, I was so far away from my physical body. The only way I knew I was still connected to it is that I was sobbing and I could feel the wet streaks flowing down my cheeks and my heaving breaths; everything else had dissolved. When he hugged me, my entire body electrified with the energy I can only attribute to unconditional love. Everywhere had tingles, and it felt like my molecules were moving at a rapid frequency – the frequency of love. I remember how when he hugged me in this place it was so overwhelming; this wasn’t of my imagination. This was not some fantasy I created for myself to bring him back to life. This was a transcendence through the barriers of this dimension to meet…somewhere else. He held me while I cried on his shoulder. I wasn’t sad, I was actually ecstatic. Here was proof that he is existing elsewhere, and that it doesn’t have to be a goodbye forever.

He didn’t stay long, as this huge emotional response weakened my deep meditation and we telepathically communicated that it was probably time to move on. “Don’t be sad, Jae. I’ll see you again soon,” he said. And as easily and effortlessly as he had appeared amongst the sunflowers, so too did he dissolve again, leaving me with a whole new tray of emotions to sort through, and an irreplaceable experience I will never, ever forget.

                                                                                                ~~~~

It’s taken me a long time to get where I am in this post. If you’re still with me, thank you. I honor your drive to understand more. So, I’ll lay it all out as the way death has shaped my experience in this life.

Death is just like taking off some clothes. When you leave this life, it’s not supposed to be scary, or daunting, or mysterious. You only leave this planet when you have completed the goals you were meant to do, or you need a break and to rest at Home until you have enough strength and will to try again. We come back life after life to tie up old karma. Karma is any residual energy that was created in a last life or this one that is holding us back from transcendence. Before we are born, we meet with our guides, our soul groups, and the High Council to discuss the lessons we must go through, who will help us along our way, and the meaning for it all. We are already aware of what’s going to happen to us – maybe we lose our spouse, or live through a near-death experience, or have children with someone who seems all wrong for us. These all are in Perfect and Divine order – losing someone gives us the opportunity to learn how to let go, or understand death; a near-death experience may show us how valuable life is, or set us back on the right track; having children with someone who’s all wrong for you may be tying up karma from a life where maybe you and this person were once enemies, and to settle the score you have to create something positive from it.

Everyone’s experience is different and unique. But when it comes down to it, we are all the same being having a googleplex of experiences – we are all Source being manifested in many, many varying forms. That’s what is so beautiful about all of this. We all carry the “God particle” within us, and that is the bottom-most level that we are all connected by, but we get to experience life in so many diverse ways in order to complete karmic cycles for the collective.

So when others pass on, it simply means that they have overcome the challenges they were sent here to do. Their karma is completed, and they are now free to move on to other challenges or just kick it up in the clouds, surf the stars, or help guide us while we try to navigate our own stormy seas. After all, death is only sad for those left behind. Grief is only a physical emotion, known only to this planet. That frequency does not exist in higher dimensions. All of us go through some sort of grief in our time here and that is a very beautiful thing. Grief grants us the opportunity to let go gracefully, to appreciate what remains, and also achieve even higher highs from experiencing the lowest of the lows.

So, my friends, I encourage you to feel your way through the grief. It’s not about throwing it to the side and saying, “That’s just life”. It’s about rooting into our darkest, most painful emotions so that when we are ready to rise up and open to the Love of Source, we have been humbled and are then ready to take what we learned and apply it to the rest of our experience. Just think of the lotus and how it roots itself deeply into the muck at the bottom of the lake. Only once it has risen through the transformative waters and popped out on the surface does it bloom, opening its petals to the Light. It never cuts itself away from its roots – that’s what is holding it there. But the nourishment it receives from Source is enough to overcome the struggles of before.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” - Buddha

 

 

 

This passage is dedicated to all my loved ones on the other side:

Nicholas Sebastian Peters 7/12/1999 - 12/12/2001

Al Richardson & Laura Richardson

Pip 1/16/ - 1/1/2013

Erik Halsnes 8/6/1995 - 11/23/2015

Shelby McCall 3/28/1995 - 4/4/2016

And to my friends and aquaintances that have passed away this year.

Chris Grimes

Shaq Torella 

Jordan Jacobs

Eian Stamp

Murphy Roberts

Jacqueline Teutonico

Travis Welton

May you all find the peace you were looking for, and help us to do the same.