I saw this post on Facebook it said” a magnificent killer whale named Tahlequahgave birth and caught the world’s attention.Her calf died only thirty minutes after being born, each of those blessed minutes a sacrament to the progeny of love.But the real reason journalists and photographers and millions of viewers followed this mother’s story, was her willingness to grieve unbidden, to become a thing utterly governed by kinship.After a year and a half of growing this enormous life inside of her belly, and the immense feat of labor, and a half an hour of looking into one another’s eyes, Tahlequah proceeded to carry her dead baby on the tip of her nose for seventeen days, traveling more than a thousand miles all throughout the Salish Sea. I imagine that if killer whales were not endangered, Tahlequah would have swam those seventeen days with a grand procession of many other glistening, black and white giants all across the ocean.Or perhaps she swam for one thousand milesto personify the loneliness of her grief in a world spiraling toward oblivion.And our savagery for not swimming alongside her; for taking pictures, for watching her exquisite ceremony on our little screens as if it were pure entertainment, as if that couldn’t be any one of us, carrying our dead children out into the dark and emptied streets.From ‘The Progeny of Love’ by April Tierney, Artwork by Lori Christopher 🐋Follow us on What I Want Story & Image: David Attenborough Fans.Via Hermanus Whales#avoiceforthevoiceless”

here is the photo that moved me

and here is the link to the post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/NohvQBufn7qFpWA8/?mibextid=xfxF2i

It got me thinking a lot about my personal grieving:

In September 2008, I could have been giving birth to my first child. It’s always in the month of September that I think deeply of this baby that was never born and how that grief still sticks with me to this day. Most people didn’t even know I was pregnant because I was waiting until the end of the first trimester to tell everyone about the pregnancy. I think a part of me knew that we might not make it.When I lost the baby, I didn’t talk about it so much that my jaw seized, and I was not able to open my mouth. Literally, my body was closing down because of the words I couldn’t speak, because of the grief I couldn’t share or didn’t feel like anybody would care. I went to doctors and surgeons for advice on my jaw. All of them told me there was no way to fix it, that they would have to use a sledgehammer to crack my jaw open and rewire it, that it would be months of care and recovery. But I knew intuitively that my physical pain was a manifestation of my grief. I reached out and found a Reiki healer. I’d never looked into anything like this before. I just followed the breadcrumbs from the universe and booked my first appointment. It was a distant Reiki session, and sitting in my bedroom in New York City, within forty-five minutes, I was able to open my mouth and speak and eat. It took me a lot longer to deal with some of the grief and depression, but that was the first step in my healing. * I am so happy to say YES I now have two beautiful children 11 and 13 who fill my heart with JOY each and every day!! ❤️ I still keep in touch with my heavenly baby. She is an angel watching over all of us. She does like to remind me – she was my first! 👼She put me on this path as a spiritual teacher and healer 100% ✨️🤍✨️It is because of that experience that I started becoming a healer and pursued Reiki certification myself. The mind-body connection is huge, and so often Western medicine forgets to connect the dots between grief and pain. I’ll never forget that moment and the path it led me on. It is because of that miscarriage and that lost baby that I am a healer today. Since that day, I have helped many people, and I feel so blessed and honored to be a healer and to help others.My mother’s death this March has been difficult for me too. There was no public gathering, place of mourning; and her church and her sister took the belongings, and her ashes. I will never really have anywhere to mourn the passing of my mother, nowhere to visit, nowhere to go. But because I am a spiritual healer with a spiritual background, I know that I can connect to her at any time. I know that my first baby, whom I call Gabriella, is with me all the time like a guardian angel. Even if death hurts, there is a point where you have to learn how to grieve and how to move forward.In the month of October, the veil is very thin. This is why Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day are traditional. This October, I will grieve my mother. She can now meet my first un born baby, and like always I will honor the dead. I will have an altar for her, and all my loved ones who have passed beyond the veil & I will pray. I will be open about the healing process because that’s the first step to moving forward. It is not easy. It takes time. It comes in waves. As long as we continue to live we will still mourn for those we loved and lost… until that is we pass and re connect in the Ethereal veil beyond space and time. And, I don’t trust it’s there- I KNOW it because I am a medium as well as healer. I know because our loved ones come through all the time. To say they are with us, loving us, supporting us. The story of the whale who gave birth to her baby that died has inspired me to tell my story. And possibly, by telling my story, I’ve inspired you to reach out, to get healing, to tell your story, and to know that you’re not alone.I would be honored to send you Reiki if you resonate with this message and feel it would assist you in your healing journey. Now is the perfect time to connect to those you love who have passed. Www.paigelussierjohnson.com.