Look Forward, Said the Angel

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Contemplating Heaven ©Gemignani

TGIF

As mentioned in a recent newsletter, last week marked the second anniversary of my husband’s transition. I’m not gonna lie…it’s a sad and painful memory.

What I wasn’t aware of (yet) when I wrote that two weeks ago was that I had another anniversary coming up…to be observed on the day before the calendar date of his death, November 12.

Last year I had an extraordinary experience on 11.11 while preparing for his Celebration of Life ceremony being held one year after his death, due to Covid restrictions the previous year. I wrote about it in Mourning Has Broken.

In that post, I related how at exactly the same time as he drew his last breath the previous year, I experienced a physical sensation in my body that could only be described as a lifting or removal of pain. The longer I sat with it, the more I was confident that what I felt was his spirit returning to the Light.

This year on 11.11, I tried not to focus on watching the clock and expecting something similar. Whatever it was that happened had arisen unmanipulated by any romantic desire on my part to ascribe meaning to an event.

Sometime mid-afternoon last Friday, 11.11, I stretched out on my bed to relax and perhaps catch a few zzz’s. Yet before there was time to enter a dream state, I once again felt a physical sensation in my body, alerting me that a shift was taking place once more. This time I heard words: Stop looking backward. It’s time to turn your focus forward. There’s work to be done and you are not alone.

I didn’t realize until a few days later when I related the experience to a close friend that these “connections” transpired on 11.11, a well-known and recognized numeric symbol of Divine communication.

With a November 30 deadline looming on a work project, I had planned today to simply repost Mourning Has Broken with a brief update. Ha, my Muse planned differently.

First, this morning she sent me Cheryl Strayed’s newsletter, which I had previously been unaware even existed. The links I clicked on were all about grief, the kind of grief experienced when a loved one dies. The titles gave no clue to the topic, and I clicked through several before reading any one of them. At first I was not willing to revisit that pain via another person’s experience. Then someone’s words caught my heart and I took a temporary detour down the grief rabbit hole.

I forced myself to recover quickly, however; I have deadlines, after all.

Then I posed my query about what to add to my previously written post to make it relevant and timely to my morning Tarot reading with my favorite deck, Witch’s Wisdom Tarot by Phyllis Curott. What I received eliminated any notion of a quick add-on to something already written.

Here’s what I got:

Witch of Earth. This was a “jumper,” or card that falls out while shuffling. A jumper that arrives before any cards are selected means the entire reading should be viewed through the energy of this card. This Witch guards the Sacred Place of Knowing, allowing only those who are ready to see to pass. She represents courage, service, commitment, and purpose.

#8 Healing. A Major Arcana card associated with wounds, healing, and resilience. I could add my interpretation, but I don’t think I could say it better than the author: “It is said that losing love leaves a hole in your heart so large that you will hear the wind blow through it, but in time you’ll grow a larger heart around the hole. …Your wounds have opened you to a compassionate connection to Life. This connection will heal you and you will become the healer.”

#2 Initiation. Another Major Arcana card. This one represents purification, trust, letting go of the past, going within, and plunging into the unknown. (Not for the faint of heart, which is why the Witch of Earth appeared first.) It advises taking a leap of faith, letting what no longer serves fall away, and trusting that something new and beautiful will take its place.

8 of Fire. This card says, Wake up! It reminds us that every moment we’re alive offers a reason to celebrate our embodiment of the Divine—a gift to be cherished, not wasted.

I don’t think that I fully grasped the meaning of my 11.11 experience this year until just moments before I sat to write this post. “You are not alone” means I stand with many, and each of us brings our angels as support. No earth army in any form stands a chance against us as long as we keep our eyes focused on the beauty of what can be, what we can be—a vision that truly is within our grasp.