My Soulmate on the Other Side, appearing as a Flash of Light | 3/19/22
I was deeply depressed, giving in to days lying horizontal on my bed, completely numb and fogged out. I spent the first half of the year, 2019, dating narcissists and experiencing all the hurt, pain, and psychological danger that came with it.
I didn’t know to avoid narcissists until it was too late, in two back-to-back relationships with big, tall, charming, terrifying, rich, sexy, older men.
I knew I was in a bad place. Something was very, very wrong, causing me to attract these dark, diseased relationships. It was troubling that I had found not one, but two false kings.
A big, red flash lit up my bathroom. I knew immediately it was Corey. Sprits had visited me before, but never like this.
Corey, my hometown lover who had died 4 years prior, must have been troubled, too, as he flashed in, lighting me awake. His energy felt intense - like he wasn’t fucking around.
I ran out of the bathroom, fell to my knees at my altar, face in hands, and sobbed.
I heard Corey telling me to cut the shit. To stop wasting my time with these mother fucking monster losers. Enough is enough. I deserved so much better. I was worthy of more.
I cried and cried, knowing he was right. I knew I needed to do better. And yet, I had no idea how. Waves of sadness washed over me. I felt sorry for myself. Grief welled up deep inside as I yearned for Corey to still be in his body so he could be with me in more than spirit and energy.
I opened my journal, asking Corey to write with me, through me, so I could hear more of what he had to say.
His words filled the page, telling me that it’s okay, that I’ll get through this. That I’m not alone. I sobbed and sobbed, deep in my darkness, deep in my grief, while also feeling immense comfort and strength.
The potency of the experience, of seeing the red light, of hearing/sensing Corey, of feeling his energy move my hand across the page, made clear three things:
I had never seen a spirit light that intense and immediate before - I must be in a seriously bad place for him to conjure up this massive, energetic intervention.
Corey was with me, undeniably. The kindredness I felt towards him when he was alive only intensified when he transitioned to the other side. Our connection seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. While there were barriers to us being together long-term when he was alive in this realm, his transition to the other side was allowing much more support and connection that wasn’t possible when he was in his beautiful, perfect, and chemically-addicted body.
Something had to change.
The problem was, I had no idea what to change. I had already broken up with the narcissists. I had started trauma therapy. I was doing cleanses to heal my chronic pain and give my body a break. I was barely drinking alcohol and even attempted a dick detox - even if I failed that miserably.
But what else? What else needed to change?
At that point in my life, I was picking. Looking for wounds and then picking, picking, picking. Spiraling about everything that was wrong with me. Wanting to fix fix fix. Swimming in a self-hatred shame puddle stuck at the bottom of the pit of everything wrong. Vines tangled on my legs, cementing every way I was broken. I cut myself down deeper and deeper, pounding into my suffering, attempting to hammer and bleed and bruise it out of me, so that I would no longer be so fucked up.
The problem was, it only made it worse. Bleeding heart without a lifevest. I was married to my muck.
Five of Swords
The Five of Swords from The Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Yoshitani (above image) depicts a crying Isis, kneeling at the bottom of the card with her face in her hands. She’s mourning her beloved, Osiris, whose body is dismembered under the ground beneath his evil, jealous brother Set, who sits on top of the throne that he won by murdering King Osiris.
The card shows Isis in her darkest moment - cold, defeated, alone. Not able to look at the pieces of her beloved, shrinking inward instead.
If you know the story, then you know that this scene is only a moment in time and that Isis ultimately rises. She comes together with her priestess sister Nephthys. They grieve together and perform magic over Osiris’s body, piecing it back together, all but the missing phallus. They fashion a new male member for him, and their magic brings him back to life. In his resurrection, Osiris joins Isis in love, having sex with her once more before returning to the underworld where he reigns benevolently in eternity.
As fate would have it, this final consummation results in a child. Baby Horus grows up, defeats his uncle Set, and takes back the throne, restoring the kingdom to light and honoring his parents Isis and Osiris. Isis, too, returns to a place of prominence, reverence, and power.
What can be learned from the Five of Swords and Isis here? Well, aside from validating that having sex with spirits is a thing, the tools and lessons of movement, magic, and waiting emerge.
Be Like Isis
Had Isis stayed in her despair forever, baby Horus would not have been born, and Set would have ruled much longer and caused even more harm. Instead, Isis confronts her darkness head-on. She stands over her husband’s body, the symbol of her loss. She stands in hope and reverence, honoring and holding space for something beautiful to emerge from the pain without pushing it away.
Instead of picking, she transforms.
Isis and Nephthys stand over the darkness of Osiris’s dismembered body, alchemizing the pain to cultivate love, energy, and lifeforce while holding a vision of what’s possible, of what could be. They do this with such focused intention and high vibration that Osiris comes back with enough life force to give Isis a baby.
After Osiris recedes back to the underworld, Isis waits. She stays in the shadows, in a place of safety, to gestate. She births and raises her child. She gives herself time for recovery. She heals.
When her child, her creation, is strong enough, he steps into the light. Horus conquers Set, takes back the throne, and restores order, allowing for a new path, a new beginning. Allowing Isis again to take flight.
Commitment and Trust
Isis does not abandon herself, her beloved, or her child. Instead, she tends to them by focusing on her own health and healing. Just as Osiris is granted a resurrection, her pouring into her own self allows for her own kind of resurrection, too.
Now, when we think of Isis, we think of the most divine, powerful representation of the feminine in the world - the winged goddess.
We think of her divine union with her beloved Osiris, of her golden son, Horus. We think of her power, beauty, and family as her legacy, not her initial defeat.
She was able to rise again because she honored what happened, took a stand for it, accepted help, and then rested while the universe realigned in her favor.
For me, this was necessary, too.
Whether my Osiris darkness was the depth of my depression, the wounds of my sexuality, or the loss of a soulmate, I needed to follow the same process.
I got up, out of the depth of my self-pity, respecting and holding space for what happened, and then moved the energy. I learned to cultivate new emotions, alchemizing into a higher reality. I stayed close to myself while walking away from many people, places, and things that weren’t serving me.
I focused on my healing and wellness, not in complete darkness, but in sacred shadows that protected my sensitivities. In places I could rest, recharge, renew before the birth of my own creation (my business) was ready for the light.
A year and a half after my business came into the light, I’ve learned how to take even more time in sacred solitude, letting parts of me be visible, birthed, while others continue to emerge and heal. I choose more rest and focus on my wellbeing, like Isis did, as I move through energy and resurrect old parts of me.
Join Hands
Who then, is my Nephthys? My helper, sister, partner in crime? Who is the sacred being who stood and still stands with me over the pit of my darkest suffering, so that I can be transformed, rebirthed, and renewed?
I’m grateful to have had many Nephthys’s, many partners, higher powers. I’ve collected different healers, coaches, lovers, and friends to join hands with over the years so I can make magic and move through.
And even though Corey has been my Osiris, he’s been my Nephthys, too, stepping in as a spiritual soldier, showing up with red light, shocking me awake, asking me to stand on shaking feet and join energetic hands over the depth of my darkness as I rise as my own High Priestess, slowly watching the hardest parts of myself melt and molt into something useful, something new.
I’m grateful to experience spirit in this way. As real true allies. I’m lucky to be aware of how spirit is on my side as I walk from near-death, toxic everything, and the darkest soul nights into a completely new reality where I still, some days, fantasize about suicide, but know deeply that I will always choose this life. In my heart, like Isis, I choose to rise. I choose to be alive.
I’m walking slowly now. The belly of my soul still pregnant with more. My creation hasn’t been one golden earth child, but instead, many different creations. It’s also been lots of false starts, teases, too. A constant state of renewal towards positive change. I trust that if Isis was safe enough to birth Horus with Set still on the throne, I, too, am safe to continue with my own. Because I know I’m not alone.
When Corey shows up now, he doesn’t bring the harsh red alarm. The emergency is over, that switch has been turned off. I’ve done enough work that I’m able to coast more as I learn to love in the light.
As I, too, take flight.
