Spirit Formerly Known as Malcolm Pt. 1
This past weekend marked 6 months since Malcolm was born still. It was a loaded time for Fitz & I as we finally took the time to ceremoniously spread Malcolm’s ashes with one of the apple trees that we planted in his honor. We rose with the sun, starting the ceremony at 6:15am, the time that he was born.
The sky was bright pink & orange as we spread the dried rose petals from winter bouquets, in a circle around the tree. We took turns spreading his ashes within the circle of flowers before weighing them down with sacred plant water. We stood and sobbed as we set the intention of allowing Malcolm’s ashes to be turned into new life, while honoring his short physical life. We lit a candle and let it burn until it went out on its own as we took a walk in the woods listening to the early morning birds.
It only feels right that I start sharing more about my relationship with Malcolm. Today I am bringing in, what some would see as, a “woo woo” vibe with the intent to share about the energy of the child that I previously associated with Malcolm, the sweet little baby body that I grew. However, like many things in our lived experience, this story and this child are dynamic.
There are layers to this experience. There are layers to my existence and layers to the existence of our sweet child. And let’s not forget, there are layers to processing this loss. Today, I am opening up the space to let our focus switch from one lens to another, going beyond the physical pregnancy & loss experience.
As I have come to understand myself as a highly intuitive individual who has grown to better utilize my "4 Clairs'' in an attempt to optimize my life experience, energy work has been a key player. Previously, it was something that I did inconsistently. Reiki session here, deep meditation session there. However, through my pregnancy, I not only became Reiki L1 attuned within days of Malcolm’s conception, but I was seeking out weekly & daily energetic healing independently, in practitioner groups, booking appointments, etc. All of this on top of consciously watching what I was eating, how much I was staying active, and aiming to get enough sleep.
In my lived experience with this pregnancy and the stillbirth of our sweet babe, energy work has been foundational as a tool for physical, emotional, and mental wellness. When I say energy work, I am talking about the acknowledgement, awareness, & active participation in the healing of our own energetic body. In some cases, it also includes the energetic bodies of others.
Have you noticed the layers here yet?
While I had worked to connect with my future child, or “spirit baby” as Walter Makichen refers to them as in his book, Spirit Babies: How to Communicate with the Child You’re Meant to Have, I had few experiences with our sweet spirit baby prior to the pregnancy. A year before I became pregnant, I laid on the floor of what Fitz & I now call “The Baby Room”, meditating & receiving reiki and was able to receive the visual of a little blue flame. I knew then that it was my first awareness of this child.
As 2021 began, I was working really hard to heal all layers of myself from some trauma that I was holding onto. Healing so that I felt “in the clear” to bring a baby into the world. As Fitz and I decided that we wanted to actually “try” for a child, I dedicated myself to a ritual of meditating with the intention of drawing that spirit baby close, to compliment the proactive prenatal vitamin & leafy green consumption.
Again, layers of intention and action required here.
I had signed up for Reiki L1 Attunement with my friend, Chloe, thinking that I would use this to rewire my brain for my own healing and maybe along the road, it would feel right to share this practice with others. As a part of the attunement, there are several rituals, one being sound bowl integrated chakra attunements.
When attuning the Sacral Chakra, represented by the color orange and symbolizing our creative expression, pleasure, and emotions, I saw this beautiful ancestral guide who had come to visit in meditations before. Along with other visuals during this time, I very clearly heard the message, “You are the mother. You always have been.”
This first settled in as a wonderful message to rewrite my engagement with Mother’s Day, having layers of “Mother Wounds” and it inspired me to change my traditions to honor many maternal beings in my life.
A couple of weeks later, I had a dream where that same ancestral guide paid me a visit. Standing there with strength, in an industrial loft apartment, as her long and curly red hair flowed in front of her shoulders, she approached me and handed me a baby doll. She said, “If you just cuddle it and love it, it will come to life.” So ensued the next several moments, which felt like hours, of me holding, cuddling, and loving this baby to life. I watched as movement and life came forth from this doll. The baby’s fair skin and strawberry blonde hair melted my heart. As this dream progressed, Fitz and I went to sit down for dinner with others as I was holding the baby. Someone asked, “Whose baby is that?” As I went to respond saying, “It’s hers”, this ancestral guide cut me off and said, “It’s theirs.”
I woke up from this dream feeling like it was a message from spirits and that I was being gifted with that cuddling and loving as a vision of my future. As I decompressed that morning via text, I just let it bring a love and happiness to my day without thinking twice about it meaning anything other than for me to feel good.
I moved on with my day, went to Nature School, then realized (after months of meticulously tracking my cycle) that maybe I should have started my period that Monday…and it was Wednesday. I took a pregnancy test, lit a candle as I got in the shower, and thought to myself, “I am okay with whatever result comes from this.” Fast forward through 15 minutes of me scrubbing off caked on mud from my legs and singing to “2010’s Club Bangers”, sure as shit, that test read, “Pregnant”. I quite literally laughed out loud and thought to myself, “Blessed be the fruit.” Of course, I had to hold space for the Handmaids while finding out this news for myself.
If you know me well, you will not be surprised that I tricked Fitz into going into the bathroom to read the test by telling him that he had a zit that I wanted to pop for him. From there, we let sharing the news of our pregnancy come up naturally, being sure that we kept the news close through the first trimester.
By the time I reached that 12 week mark, I had already gotten to know our sweet spirit baby a little more. This spirit baby had such a balance of masculine and feminine energy, that the spirit never wanted me to see it as more of one than the other. The spirit showed great boundaries and need for privacy as I tried to connect over and over again, and the baby only showed up in little glimmers of a beautiful green light.
At around 7 weeks, I was a part of a group reading with a palmist, Debe, who is also a psychic. I had an independent reading with her before and thought she was a good gift to provide for my friend’s Bachelorette Party.
During my turn in the reading, which was the last of 6, she had picked up on my pregnancy without me ever mentioning it. Then she went through my finger prints, telling me all about my life lessons, my love line, traits in my identity, and then she moved to my child lines. As she read my child lines, she kept twisting my hand to better see under her little battery powered lamp and large magnifying glass. Then she pauses and says, “Well you’ll have two kids, maybe three. One of them hasn’t decided if they want to be here yet or not.”
She went on to add, “Are you thinking of “Hope” for a baby name?” I was like, “Uhh, no.” As she looked off toward the wall, seeing & hearing things that the rest of us could not, she said, “Well the word ‘hope’ is coming through strongly for this baby. Maybe it becomes important for you later?”
At the time, this felt very different than it feels now. Like I said, layers.
Stay tuned for Part 2. In the meantime, give yourself a few minutes to enjoy Artist Formerly Known as Prince’s, Let’s Go Crazy, as an homage to this wild journey of living, dying, and what’s beyond.
