A Special Kind of Rose

(I am not sure who to credit for this image, but it's beautiful)

Roses are revered for there beauty and romance and their healing properties regarding love. However, my heart is connected to a different kind of rose.

This morning I finally felt like I came out of the very dark hole I was in. This hole I was in was called the Void. I got drop kicked into this space (I was avoiding the “go in there willingly or you will wish you had” reminder). All that changed with the news a longtime friend committed suicide. I felt the crap brewing for about 5 or 6 months. My strength to resist things astonishes me sometimes. But this, I did not see this coming.

In a span of 2 months, I lost 2 friends and drew firm lines in the sand where others were concerned because I deserved more but it meant more loss. It’s great to realize you love yourself finally, but it’s another to still grieve the loss of the living.

Next thing I know I found myself freefalling into the Void and I think I hit every sharp object on the way down. I finally hit the ground a few days ago. And I hit really damn hard.

In this space of utter darkness, you can see nothing, so it behooves you to have your senses on par, or you will run into all kinds of shit. What I met in there was the depth of my grief and despair. This grief was a big ass monster who went right after my heart and took me out at the knees simply because it could. Not gonna lie… in the worst of it I didn’t care if I lived or died. I was done. Over the last several days I asked one of my deceased friends to show me messages to give me a sign I wasn’t alone. It sent me further into the Void, yet comforted me… but all I could do was sob. The songs were written by some of my favorite artists, both who had taken their own lives ironically.

Last night I finally was able to hear Spirit again (for myself) and I asked what the heck was going on, as I felt there was more going on than simply grieving.

“Shamanic Death” was what I was told. It fit. I also knew years ago this was coming. Funny how I forgot until today.

With Shamanic Death, the old you dies while you live in the same body. It is beyond painful, to say the least. It is similar to the dark night of the soul, but Shamanic Death is a hard ass initiation of sorts. Everything in your life changes. I knew it stemmed from embracing my shamanic healing abilities. I needed to be cleared of all of the lower vibrational crap in order to move forward. Today I finally feel like my psychic conduits are open and functioning properly. It’s no fun when they work for others, but not yourself. You cannot feel your own guidance, and when you are struggling, that only adds to the suffering.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I looked at a plant a friend had given me many years ago, at a time when I was in the middle of a prior shit storm. It’s called the Rose of Jericho… or the Resurrection Plant. It can survive in the harshest conditions for an unknown amount of time without any sustenance. It looks like a dried-up wad of grass. But something caught my attention. I grabbed it and picked it up and I noticed the magic within it. I felt like I connected to its soul. I grabbed a little bowl of water and placed it inside and while I worked, I watched it begin to open and spread itself out. The center of it began to turn green with life once again. Mind you, this little thing has not seen water since 2016 (btw, this is the perfect plant for me… I can’t kill it!!) and I am watching it come back to life.

My etheric Shaman Elder spoke to me and said “Do you see how you are like the flower? It is shriveled up and protecting itself from the world because it is harsh. But when the right amount of love and meaning is given, it blooms with life”. Everything I had gone through in my life, all the losses flashed quickly in my awareness, and everything suddenly made sense. Suddenly I understood what I was going though… the loss, the pain, and the Shamanic Death Initiation. A part of me is gone now. A part of my life, my past is dead. I recalled a convo I had with a dear friend this morning. She said to me “The path of death has led you to You”. She couldn’t have said it more perfectly.

Where there is grief, we should stop for a moment to really look at it. Embrace it.

Grief is Lightning. You cannot prepare for its strike. You cannot minimize its power or know when or where it will hit. Lightning is the movement of Spirit with force that creates great change (illumination). The prayers of the grieving are considered especially strong by shamanic communities. When someone is grieving, they have nothing left to fight with or to protect themselves with, therefore they are the most connected to the Heavenly realms than ever. When we are grieving, we are in a space of nothingness. The past is gone so we have nothing but memories to hold on to. The future does not yet exist, so all we have is the rawness of the present moment. There is nothing to grasp onto yet.

How many of you are feeling this way? That you are in this in-between place? We are undergoing our own individual initiations, or resurrections right now. We are changing, we are releasing, we are upgrading. We are cleaning and making room for the new that has yet to come.

We go through some dark crap, and during those times we pull into ourselves and away from the world. The world we knew no longer exists. We exist, but our realities seem jacked up, familiar in some ways, unfamiliar in others.

It’s no coincidence I fell upon an old gift today. The Rose of Jericho, or the Resurrection Plant has a special medicine to share. It removes negativity and restores life. It brings peace and harmony. When it sits in water, you can use this water as a form of “holy water” to use for cleanses and to shift energy and to give a special blessing.

I am thinking maybe I need to pop that sucker in the bathtub tonight.

With proper care, we too can resurrect and bloom again, even if we felt we couldn’t.

You can find hope after feeling hopeless.

There is beauty after the pain.

With Love,

Becky Costello, Psychic Medium

Dancing Elk Shamanic Healing

www.rebeccacostello.com