Yes, Emma’s “death” was also a birth. Her sudden release opened a gate. I have no idea where the path leads, but it is new and untrodden.
A few weeks after my husband Jeff died, I set up his “death chart,” and compared it with his birth chart. I wanted to give myself every opportunity to weave threads of meaning between the bookends of his life. The experience of seeing these two charts together was revelatory.
Two days ago I did the same thing for myself with Emma.
It helped to recall that she was born during a rare and powerful mutable grand cross that involved Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus. It helped to remember that before she even arrived I knew that she would require enormous amounts of stimulation, that she would be highly refined and nervous-system dominated, that she would be “accident prone.” Only six months ago, during a visit from my sister Mary, she and Mary’s little dog survived a horrendous, prolonged attack of three pit pulls. I wrote about that here.
Emma meets Sparky
Given the energy signature that Emma came in on, of course, she would go out quickly when she left, and most likely, enjoy a deeply thrilling, but relatively short life. And of course on that particular morning when the white Prius delivered her to the invisible world both transitting Moon and Mars would be involved, their transits setting off the explosive grand cross.
Six days after her sudden exit from my life, six days after her tendrils into every aspect of my being were suddenly yanked out, I am astonished by what appears to be a new capacity to process grief more deeply and more thoroughly than I could ever have expected. Only six days later, and I seem to be once again fully functional. Though the waves of sorrow continue, though the parade of images and situations of Emma still present themselves over and over, they don’t derail me. Rather, the waves feel like flower petals strewn from the basket carried by a child as she approaches her first communion. Emma going up to the altar, her life on earth not only sacrificed, but in the leaving, consecrated.
Emma’s friends, and even some who never met Emma, continue to reach out. One email especially, from a reader of this blog, opened the gates of love so wide that, sitting there in the parking lot of Target while reading it on my iphone two days after she died, my physical being could barely tolerate the sudden flooding of enormous joy. Here it is, from Dawn Barnesbatty, someone whom I had never met. Nor had she and I ever corresponded.
“Hello Anne, Its raw, I can feel the sorrow in your words. This is the first time I have TRULY felt/understood/known that a connection exists between all humans and it was your angel-puppy who has given me this extraordinary gift. I wish I could reach out and make it better.The only thing I can offer is some distance Reiki. If you think it will be beneficial for you, just reply ‘yes’.That’s all I will need in terms of permission.”
I informed her that her word for Emma, “angel,” reminded me that these dogs are often referred to as “angel cotons.” And of course, to her question, I replied “Yes!” I’m sure that her distance Reiki healings have helped to increase my capacity to move through the powerful primary grief process with Emma.
Before I close this post about Emma, and it may perhaps be my final one, I want to mention something that happened to my brother-in-law and sister, here on a prescheduled visit from Friday evening through Sunday morning.
First, you should know that whenever Emma crossed my path on her way from one perch to another, she would touch her nose delicately to my leg on her way through the room. As if to say, “remember, remember, stay open to Love.” There was no demand in this little characteristic maneuver, simply generosity.
Both Jeff’s and Emma’s departures were accompanied by what others would call paranormal phenomena. Anyone who has not consciously opened to the interdimensional blending that attends such sacred passages might not take it seriously. I had mentioned what was going on to my sister Kristin and her husband Matt, but did not sense that they picked up on the import of my words.
The second and last night of their visit, Matt was suddenly jolted out of sleep by the sensation that something furry was brushing by his cheek. His immediate thought was that it must be a mouse. (I had warned that a mouse had earlier been making noises inside one wall of that room, though my frequent applications of peppermint oil on the studs seemed to have repelled it.) Kristin woke up and they frantically looked for the mouse. No luck. They took the peppermint oil and liberally doused the room and tried to go back to sleep.
A few minutes later, Matt to Kris: “Did you hear that?”
Kris: “Yes.”
They both strained to hear. To Kris it sounded like female voices and footsteps moving up and down the hall. To Matt, the same, except he thought the voices were male. Kris assumed that maybe I was going through more grieving, and talking to myself as I walked.
In the morning, she asked me — and looking back, I’d say now that it was with a sort of studied casualness — how my night was. “Good!” I replied. “For the first time, I slept nearly all the way through! I did get up once to go to the bathroom, but went right back to sleep.”
Well, I must say, both Matt and Kris looked mighty surprised to hear what I said. This was their first introduction to realities larger than the usual three-dimensional one that imprisons most people’s minds and hearts in a vice grip of limited perception and understanding. And were they shocked! Matt told me that when he felt that furry brush against his cheek, he felt a stomach-stopping dread.
I would be fascinated to know the contents of their conversations on the drive home to Seattle. Emma’s spirit continues, not only to open hearts, but minds as well, to the mysterium tremendum of which we humans catch, at most, only the faintest of glimmers.
