 | The Phoenix Rising - by Judy Giovangeloposted by Erika Dillon, Full AccessFriday, August 14th 2009 @ 5:50 AM  (1 ratings) |
The Pheonix Rising - Painting by Kaitlyn O'Donnell
Losing Ben has been the greatest challenge and most amazing experience of my life. I have spent the last 10 weeks since his death in complete amazement, awe, acceptance, grace, guidance and deep grief. I feel like I am living in two different realities simultaneously. Which is, of course, is part of the experience of living in the world of opposites in this life school I call Planet Earth.
On one hand, I am a mother, grieving deeply for the loss of this beautiful, empathic, creative, energetic, lost boy of the world. I miss the sound of his loud and present voice bouncing through my kitchen each day saying “Hey, maaah! What’s up!” I miss the touch of his arms finding solace in the embrace and love of his mother when his day felt too heavy to carry. I miss the daily routine of pushing on his stressed filled body to release through sound his empathic absorption of the world’s suffering. I miss the touch of his short cut head that felt like a soft ball of fuzz. I miss that SO much! Mostly, I miss his beaming smile and huge energy! I even miss how impossible he could be and how he took up more than his share of space in my home, my car or any place we happened to be in the daily routine of life. I spent the first 12 years of my life trying to control him into a structure that didn’t serve him. Finally, after years of trial and error, I immersed myself in what felt at times like a very messy Petri dish of life circumstances in the Gio household. Through it all, I learned to respect his space, trust his process and treat him as the aware, conscious being that he was.
Ben pushed all the buttons - mine, his father’s, his siblings’ and anyone else who was placed in his path for their own learning. I have said many times that Ben has been, and continues to be, my greatest teacher. My relationship with him has now shape-shifted into something much bigger than my mind could even fathom. From the moment I witnessed his lifeless shell on the table in the hospital room, I have felt his presence, heard his voice and have been lead by his spirit. He told me immediately upon entering that room to get ready to embark on a journey together that was planned long before either of us incarnated into the earth plane. He assured me that nothing could have stopped the events that came together to create the “perfect storm” for his stage left exit from this earthly experience. In the early stages of contact, I thought I was making it all up in my head.
That afternoon on the day of Ben’s death, I began to be surrounded by a myriad of family, friends, colleagues and healers. I was immediately scooped onto a healing table in the early hours the day following Ben’s death, by a friend who is a gifted massage therapist. As I lay on the table, my naked body broken open with grief, I asked Ben to give me a sign that he was still with me. I saw in my third eye a vision of Ben as a giant winged light being coming down from above and wrapping me like a cocoon in his loving wings. My sobbing, aching, heart broken body was able to release my early grief into his loving embrace. He was giving back to me what I had done for him for years.
Moments later, I saw him as Ben, taking my hand and bringing me to a giant ball of light. He kept saying, “Look at this mom! You’ve got to see this, it’s amazing!” After my session, I came down to the new shift of folks coming to share in our loss and my husband Tom took his turn on the healing table with the massage therapist. Later I learned that Tom experienced the same vision during his healing. He asked Ben to come to him and help him with his grief. Tom’s description was the same as mine.
Several hours later, my friend & colleague, Lisa Campion, who is a gifted healer, teacher, psychic and medium, came to see me. She told me that she had connected with many people over the years through her healing practice who have been involved with suicide. She told me that Ben’s death was very different than most suicides she had witnessed. According to Lisa, he left with purpose, no karmic threads, clear and clean. He left his body with the greatest of ease and release and that he was a “Rising Phoenix”. Since then I have seen him in my mind’s eye when he communicates to me almost like an opaque academy award with giant wings. This is the way I have described him. I recently saw Lisa again for a healing session and psychic reading. I hadn’t seen her since the day she came to my house when Ben died. As soon as I lay on the table, she told me Ben’s presence was in the room. She described him as a giant statue like bird with enormous wings. The first thing he asked her to say to me was “Hey ma, can you give me a little credit now for how hard it was for me to fit into that itty bitty costume for as long as I did?” My answer to him in that moment was “I got it buddy, say no more!”
Since my healing with Lisa, the messages have become even stronger. We are in constant dialogue. I asked Ben the day before I wrote this essay to show me a sign that I was on the right path (as though he hadn’t given me enough already). I looked up into the sky after 28 days of rain. The sky was bright blue with the big white puffy clouds that morph into all kinds of shapes when you watch them. I kept my eye on one particular cloud for a few moments as I was walking along. Before I knew it, the cloud became a Phoenix. I have the picture to prove it. I came home and sat down at my desk preparing to document my experience of the past 24 hours. I opened my email to discover the latest crop circle in England that was discovered on June 12, 2009. It was through my fascination with crop circles many years ago that lead me to my work today and the vision of CircleWorks Community Resource Centers which is the foundation currently becoming a reality through Ben Speaks Louder Than Words non-profit charity co-created by Ben and me. I bet you can’t guess what the crop circle was. Yup! You got it! It was A PHOENIX RISING!
