A Gentle Prick With A Sword Wrought With Love

A message of gratitude from across the veil

Two angelic wire fairies I twirled, complete with swords. No prizes for guessing who they are?

I woke a few times in the wee hours of Tuesday morning just past. The third time, I flicked on the light and wrote down the returning visitation of phrase, a gentle prick, a sword wrought with love. I recalled no other detail except this fragment of a dream. I trusted that any further clarity would present later. It is apparent that this has evolved into a frequent pattern of receiving messages and more often confirmed through physical phenomena.

I well knew what those phrases referred to. I was also well aware that I needed to get up for work in three short hours, so promptly put on a guided meditation and duly resumed sleep.

That evening, whilst entangled with the spectrum of colours and movement of the fire, I opened my notebook to consider the phrases. I had no conscious impetus to revisit the specific event of John’s death in these personal essays. Despite being posted 6 months ago, the content for The Event Of Dying: An Act of Intimacy, was written 3½ years ago. Nevertheless, I had been nudged.

With an uninterrupted flow, a poem streamlined onto the page. I spilt of a tear or two; not only from the words per se; also from the memory of the duality of the experience — trying to be present for John, as his intimate partner —  whilst also being the event manager — observer and administer of morphine injections.

Please understand that there was no conflict in the event of how John died; the reciprocal gifts are soulful, thus eternal. To conceptualise an experience at an intellectual do-ing level and then to know that experience at an emotional-physical be-ing level is indeed part of the human experience of contrast. This of course speaks of more than assisting the dying.

My curiosity peaked as the poem evolved onto the page. I was certainly not alone. What I was scribing John was writing and I could see how the poem was speaking for him — for me — for us. A more restful sleep was had Tuesday night.

My five day weekend starts on a Wednesday. Propped up in bed, I enjoyed being able to linger with my routine; heart-starter coffee whilst dilly-dallying with an assortment of books and social media. I listened for the native bird-song and watched as the light of day started its illumination around the edging of the blind.

I felt  John’s energy-body before I noticed his signature  swinging of the blind. I delivered my usual vow of love; gratitude and thanks for the blessings. I knew his visit was confirmation of the poem.

Done with the procrastination, I purposely ventured outside to complete some chores; stacking 2 tonne of fire wood and pruning — OK, hacking — the 2 olive trees. I am a wanna-be gardener.  All of our inner-city gardens had been those that are typically paved with an array of terracotta pots.  I was appreciative to be grounding myself and reacquainting with the garden I had neglected over the last year of seasons. Grateful for having soaked up some Winter sun, that which had a tinge of Spring about it, I inwardly committed to giving the veggie-boxes a better-go this year.

Late afternoon I met two local women for our regular strumming. We have a giggle whilst attempting to coordinate the often unrehearsed playing of our respective stringed instruments. I was invited to nominate a song for us to add to our playlist and Gillian Welch’s, Everything is Free, fell from my lips. My favourite verse being:

Every day I wake up — Humming a song — But I don’t need to run around — I’ll just stay at home — And sing a little love song — My love and myself — If there’s something that you want to hear — You can sing it yourself

Whilst again ensconced in front of the fire that evening, I started playing with the line structure of the poem. Early to rise, early to bed. Around 8.30pm, tired from the day’s labour, I opened the music library on my phone. Scrolling for the Revelator album, I opened Everything is Free. When Welch’s song finished, on came John Prine’s, She Is My Everything, from his Fair and Square album. I was bent over the bathroom sink by this stage, toothbrush in hand ready to swirl away the day’s residue. Smiling, I called out, Thank you, I thought I could feel you. No matter I didn’t need to sing out anything, thought communication being telepathic! I could picture John laughing, Go to bed!

Ablutions done; I went to gather notepad, pen and phone when another John Prine song started playing, I Remember Everything. It was released posthumously, two months after Prine’s death in 2020 and therefore sits solitary in my digital library.

Another spill of instantaneous tears in the clarifying and confirming realisation; the impetus behind this poem. Now, you’ve got me, I smiled blotting my eyes with a scrap of paper towel, swiping the music off before John could add to his repertoire. As explored in a previous post, John’s synchronicity of song is another of his tools for delivery and confirmation of messages.

I woke up Thursday morning with further clarity re the poem and context for this post. As mentioned in Grief: Her Fair and Foul Weather Friends, John lost his ability to speak early. As with approximately ¼  of cases, MND had manifested in his throat. Therefore his capacity to speak had ceased around 7 months before he died. Around the same time I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Well, your thyroid is totally fucked, (verbatim) pronounced my GP when looking at the bloods.

No fucking wonder my throat chakra was blocked. There we were, unable to say the things one might discuss, in those last months? I certainly refrained from expressing my fears to John, I didn’t want to further burden him. Despite being the one dying, I knew he didn’t want to further burden me either. The protection was reciprocal.

When there is no hope, and the fuse already lit, there is no need to discuss a shared future that already is non-existent in its current physical bodily form. Just like all the other physical lasts John experienced — we experienced.

We still connected and communicated our love, it was that we couldn’t physically speak that was the stressor. What I imagine we might have put words to, we were already doing, in a fashion of sorts. As I describe in the above mentioned post:

John relished political banter with friends. He would indulgently type a pearler for our collective amusement. To show them he was still with us. We all inwardly mourned John’s loss of speech. We spoke for him in conversations; he conferred or refuted with soulful eyes, framing a smile or smirk. He developed flicking movements with his pointer finger; his baton, conducting us to conjure humorous rebukes. We colloquially took the piss out of ourselves and each other; for John, for us. Our laughter gave him a chorus, we all took delight in our tacit submission.

The first message I received upon waking Thursday, was directly related to last week’s post and my initial visit to Moira nearing 12 months after John’s death. What I didn’t convey in that post, when stating Moira sang a line of a song John had given her, was the direct interpretation he offered her. John wanted Moira to express his gratitude to me, in enabling him to die at home.

In The Event Of Dying: An Act of Intimacy post, I mention the mysticism of the night before John died. Moira went on to detail John’s recount of the music we played and the wonder of that last night together.

John wanted to also acknowledge the nexus of the emotional toll and the love infused in the event of his death.

In the 30 hour event of John’s death, there were two aspects of self at play. The mysticism we experienced the first night I know was our teams of guides, guardians and angels encompassing us in unconditional love. I detail that in the aforementioned post.

The last day was a another version of surreal. There was my human self, administering the injections and managing John’s death. Simultaneously, I could  feel I was observing myself. I have since come to understand that my Soul and my Team were helping my human aspect to manage that stretch — the toll. As with John’s Team, who were also assisting him with the transition.

This leads to the second message I woke up with Thursday. This one I sense came from my other Guides, it was broader in its scope.

It was the reiteration and expansion of a message I have written of previously. Our souls are multidimensional. Our human experience is one aspect, one fragment of our soul. When we incarnate into a human life, the core of our soul remains in the ethereal realm from whence it was seeded. The aspect that comes with the human experience resides in our body. However, it always remains attached to our more expansive soul — the energy-body.

Each soul has its unique energetic-signature (body) which creates simultaneous experiences, in many dimensions and realms. We are not privy to the immensity of this in our human aspect.

Thus, when we feel the energetic-signature of a member of our soul-group, it awakens memory in our being. In our human form the multidimensional memories we can access are stored and felt in our body chakras. Our intuition. When we experience visualisations of loved-ones in dream-states, they are presenting their energy-body in its physical form of the human body, that which we were familiar.

Furthermore, the Guides extended a truth Moira had revealed to my, mad-mate Bron, in a more recent reading.

If a soul has incarnated into another human life (physical body) before we die, then the soul as we knew them in this physical form will still present their expansive energy-body as a visualisation we can identify; as they do when we see them in our dream-state realities.

Once we die, we no longer need the visual representation as we are completely aware of our essence and recognise each other in our fluid energetic-body state. In whatever dimension or realm we incarnate we take the same energetic signature. Hence, we are never alone and always met by those we knew in this incarnation when we die, because our Soul is everywhere it wants to be, all at once.

We are always truly free — This is Universal Truth.

Thank you John, for nudging me to plug a gap you saw in our story. It was a privilege to give you the care you so deserved; I would do it again — and again.

With love and gratitude, my learning continues. John and team, thank you for the guidance. I love you.

And so it is.

Wrought Swords Of Love

Heart’s lamentation

rattles unsteady

the virgin hand

which snaps

the potent vial

to stick my lover

with a gentle prick.

A tracing smear

of initiate blood

shields a foray

of observance to

unfathomable passion

henceforth confirmed by

the ceremony of death.

Needles extending

their arsenal from

day to night

—        those wrought swords of love —

until breaking dawn

draws its curtain

on the choral of angels.

Hitherto continues

punctuating patterns

of devotion

upon his skin

spiralling timelines

of gentle pricks

I pierce my lover.

A ritual of

acceptance to

silent surrender

affects a farewell

with those

whose presence

speaks to absence.

Night befalls the return

of a heralding of angels

accepting a releasing

passing of the baton

with a final gentle prick

accompanying whisper

and a tender kiss.