Ilan Shamir and http://www.yourtruenature.com
Advice From A Tree
3
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The Mysterious Singing Bird
In an after-death communication, I am comforted when a mysterious bird lands on my front porch to serenade me with its beautiful songs.
It was Friday, May 28th, 2010, a day I remember well. It was two month after Christian’s death and I was still very raw with emotion from his shocking and untimely departure. I was alone in the house at the time, sitting on the couch… just crying my eyes out. My grief was so severe, I thought I might have been having a nervous breakdown at the time. I remember wondering if I would have to be hospitalized for my despondency and suicidal thoughts. The pain was exhausting.
Suddenly, without any explanation, a calm stillness fell over me. It was very noticeable. I stopped crying, and for that brief time, I felt no pain whatsoever. Taking advantage of this blessed reprieve, I laid my head down to get some much needed peaceful rest.
As I drifted off into the stillness, I could tell that I was neither asleep, nor awake… but very conscious still. I could feel Christian trying to communicate with me. His presence was strong. I know he was trying to comfort me, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying. Concentrating hard to discern his message to me, I listened intently. And, as I listened, I was brought out of this twilight state and into the awakening awareness of an unusual, but sweet sound of a bird singing. Perplexed at what I was hearing, for it was so close to me, I got up to see what it was.
The Mysterious Singing Bird and my cat
Just outside my glass storm door, a beautiful bird sang to me as he sat on my front porch! It was amazing! This bird just sat there, while me and my cat looked and listened to its lovely songs. He even let me get some close-up pictures! He stayed for about 2 hours, just looking cute, while singing away. Then, without further ado, this beautiful sweet bird flew up to the roof, then off to the side of my yard and out of sight.
Grateful for this Godsend, I smiled.
Ceramic Bird Gift from Christian
As I sat on my couch, scratching my head about what had just happened, and how this was even possible, my eyes were directed to the fireplace. There, inconspicuously positioned, a ceramic bird sat, perched upon the mantle’s ledge. Confused, I thought, “What a coincidence!”
Then, I remembered… just one month before his death, Christian gave me this ceramic bird for a gift!!!
Commentary- Christian, trying to communicate and comfort me, put the symbol of the ceramic bird he had just given me, to good use. Tying the ceramic bird together with the real bird was a very nice touch on his part. It is true; the singing bird did comfort me by getting my mind off of my grief for a while. But… perhaps even more of a comfort to me was to know that Christian was alive and well, and had just come for one of his reassuring visits!
This serenading bird has never returned, but it made me smile that day. Even now, whenever I think about this mysterious bird, it still makes me smile, as, 3 years later, smiling has become much easier for me.
More Pictures-
My cat watching the audacity of that bird
The singing bird
The singing bird
Higher-Self Communication
There are times in our lives when we want or need to talk to a particular person in order to complete something of importance, BUT, actually doing so… may seem too difficult for us, if even impossible. Reasons for this lack of communication may include:
- Not knowing the person well enough, so approaching them could be awkward or even embarrassing.
- We speak different languages.
- We’ve lost contact, with no way of locating them.
- This person may live too far away, and maybe, even so far away that they are no longer on this planet.
- The person we want or need to speak to isn’t in a good position to be contacted by us, or… if we did contact them, perhaps they would refuse to speak to us, or hear our message.
- Or maybe… it is even our own pride that prevents us from speaking with them.
- The one we want to speak to is an animal.
But, it’s possible that this is the most difficult one of all…
- It could be that the issues between the two are so sticky, that every attempt to sort things through leaves those involved with an attitude of defensiveness and frustration, causing both to walk away while throwing their arms up in the air in sheer resignation!
You may have experienced this before. Completely discouraged by the many attempts to communicate, but to no avail, and now… you’ve finally given up the thought and hope that this issue between the two of you could ever be rectified.
But… whatever the circumstances are, it ends the same; you are left with the sense of the incompletion that continually hangs over your head, just begging to be resolved and put to rest.
More than likely, what you really wanted or needed to tell this person was something that you never got a chance to say; for example: to give an apology, to ask or accept forgiveness, to straighten something out, to make a request or to give them your love and/or blessings? Or maybe, you just wanted to be heard and were uncertain that you ever were in the past.
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Grief and Mourning Distinguished
Grieving statue -Photo credit: unknown
“Grief” and “mourning” are words that have been used interchangeably to mean the same thing. But, the fact is, there really is a very important difference between them.
Grief is an emotional reaction/response to loss. Grief tends to follow a common pattern of emotional states, such as shock, confusion, denial, anger, sadness, rage, depression, isolation, to name a few, and…not always in that order. If grief is experienced fully and allowed to unfold naturally, the process gradually leads one to some sort of acceptance and peace with the matter. The grief process is the brain’s way of dealing with a matter it can’t completely comprehend in the moment; so it takes time to sort through it all, be patient with yourself. If a death has been sudden or completely unexpected, comprehension is even more of a struggle, for we operate as if death is somewhere, clear out there, far off on the horizon. The truth is… we really don’t know how far or close death is to us.
Loss is not just about losing someone we love, to death. We may experience intense loss from losing a relationship, our sense of self, our job, our home, our freedom, our health, our dreams or a limb, among many other things that we hold precious and important. Whether great or small losses to us, these examples can seem like a death, that will require a certain amount of grief and mourning, to be determined by the individual who is experiencing the loss. But whatever the loss, remember to give yourself some space to heal properly. Many emotions will surface, to be explored. From my experience, feeling these emotions is much easier than trying to survive them by pushing them under. Buried emotions never rest in peace; like zombies, waiting quietly and thought dead, they will raise themselves up again at the first chance of provocation.
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Still here…
Christian’s Gmail Thumbnail
Around 2 months ago when I was looking through my gmail, I noticed something strange about my thumbnail picture on the left hand-side of the screen. It wasn’t my picture anymore! As I put my cursor on it, it expanded the picture and I was able to see that, although dark, it was a picture I’d seen before of Christian playing his guitar. This was a familiar site that represented him well.
Deciding to change it back to my picture, I clicked on the thumbnail photo and selected, “change picture.” Then, I went into the pictures on my laptop and chose the one of me I wanted. When I checked back on my gmail account, 
it was my picture again.
It wasn’t until a week or so later that I put the cursor on top of my thumbnail picture with the intention of expanding it. When I did, there it was! Christian’s picture again in the expanded image!
After that, when I was on this Griefandmourning.com site, I noticed that if I put my cursor over the “google plus” icon on the upper left side of the page, there was Christian’s picture also! I guess this is fitting, since this whole website/blog is pretty much inspired and dedicated to the memory of him. Having his picture show up was interesting to me. I guess this is just Christian’s way of telling me that he is always with me and a reminder that he is close by.