I was initially hesitant to share this image and story, mostly because the emotion and level of raw clarity it brings to me, but in the spirit of the season I am giving it away and letting it go.
Part of this will undoubtedly sound unlikely and/or just me trying to reassure myself. But I’ve seen and learned way too much to date to NOT believe this kind of thing is real. It’s real, 110 percent of it, and I’ve barely scratched the surface on this stuff. And “this stuff,” as I’ve learned, is real to those who are open to it. Those who are closed to it (like I have been) are inadvertently blocking themselves off. This ties to the rainbow pictured here. Most people have seen a rainbow. But let’s be honest, these things tend to show up at the exact moment we need them to.
And that. Is. The. Point.
One morning a few weeks back — on the 13th anniversary of my brother’s funeral, no less — while in Atlanta on a work-related trip, I woke up having had a clear, undeniably vivid dream of him. I won’t go into details, but it was nothing short of a direct communication with him, that much I’m sure of. In the dream I remember grabbing him by the face and asking him point blank (aware in the dream that he is no longer alive), “Where the fuck have you been?!” It was an emotional moment. And his exact response was to say nothing and smile. I stared at him, then woke up.
This is not the first dream like this I’ve had of my brother since his death. All of them have been some form of communication, and in them he is always the same age as when he died, wearing the same clothes and hat. And, in all of them, he never speaks, always smiling and nodding with a reassuring expression as if he’s aware of something I’m not, and in that silence he’s trying to explain something to me. These dreams also always come to me at times when I need them most.
The following morning, I asked my intuition (as well as the universe and my bro directly) the following question: “If I were to let go of my fears and anxieties of the past and present, and just full-speed move forward with the writing and creative aspirations I have in me, will all be ok?” This was actually an experiment I tried from Pam Grout’s book E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality. (More on this later.)
Then, mere hours later, at the Atlanta airport, I was called to a window near my gate, where people were snapping photos, and I see THIS image above…this rainbow, at this particular time. And, of course, whatever that strange cloud formation is near it. This image still gives me chills.
Whatever your beliefs, I don’t consider this coincidence, I consider this call-and-response; I consider it synchronicity. It’s also not a particular coincidence I’m posting this right after my brother’s would-be birthday, and it’s a fitting ode to him and the lessons he has continued to teach me since his passing.
My point in all this rambling, after such a resistance-fueled hiatus from my creative work — one unavoidably tied to my longstanding grief over his loss, and the resulting anxiety (he passed during the holidays, so this time of year is always a bit of a joy-grief paradox) — is that I have learned, in crash-course style, in a very short amount of time, exactly how in tune we are, and can be, with the universe.
More important…and please don’t forget this part…is how much the universe wants to respond to us, wants to listen and help and guide us. It is just waiting for us to ask, to acknowledge that it is here for help. It is our home, after all. And goddammit didn’t I tear up thinking about this dream I had (multiple times, that day and since, admittedly), this soul connection with my late and only brother, and then, after all of this, I began to feel a widespread form of warmth empathy.
My love expands, and so does yours, in your own way. Share it. Fear is the conscious mind’s default alarm, and is almost always trying to distract you, to keep you from doing what you’re here to do, what you need to do for you and for everyone. Move past that fear. For fuck’s sake, be you, and only you, because that’s what the world needs, and will always need.
You.
(I am writing this as much to myself as I am to anyone reading this).
Much love to you and yours during this holiday season, arguably the most joyous of all.
Cheers.
