Life Update

*Please note: this post was sent out on June 7th via my newsletter. I’ve since decided to share it here on my website.

I wasn't so sure when I would share this deeply personal life update but just today I really felt it would be quite supportive for me to do so. Before I go on, please know that I am currently navigating death and grief. I offer this as a gentle warning if you are not in a place to receive this. 

And if you are I hope you receive it with love, tenderness and respect for the birth-death cycle that we are all part of. I hope it opens you to the beauty and magic of being an infinite soul having a full-spectrum human experience. 

I’m sharing today not to receive attention or your condolences but because there are so many of you who I know would want to send love, light and prayers during this time. I simply don’t have the capacity to privately connect with each of you. Just as I would share and celebrate the birth of my children I must do the same for the death of a loved one. They are two sides of the same coin. 

And secondly - as a Priestess, Space Holder and Mystic I live by the truth that life is death and death is life. Honouring the seasons and cycles is part of who I am. Being fully IN the shadow when called to - embracing all of our humanly experience whilst also holding, with unwavering trust, the beauty and magic of our infinite divinity. If I am to truly embody this I must do so even when its painful.

I do not write this as teacher, a guide or a Guru, or an expert. There are no "lessons" I have to impart (although I can feel the silver lining that will one day be shared). I share as human to human, friend to friend, woman to woman... I share because that's what we do. 

+++

Let us begin.

Tomorrow my family and I will be officially sending off my Baba - my father - at his funeral. Returning to him home to the light of the divine mother-father.

My father, as many of you know has been battling for many years with kidney failure and the myriad of challenges that have unfolded when the body slowly weakens. I have said “goodbye” to him too many times to count. I have been “preparing” for the end for years. Literally. Anticipatory grief is a real thing.

As life would have it - with all its curve balls and coupled with my father's innate nature to be a disruptor - I was called home early from Bali. I left my beloved work with Lorraine after finding my replacement to co-host the retreat. I cancelled our family holiday. The inconvenience and financial cost was huge and yet the immediate visceral grief in my body told me that the time was now and nothing else matters.

I flew home and straight to his bedside in the hospital (that journey home deserves it’s own seperate post if I am honest) where he was in palliative care after covid and Pneumonia took his last reserves of strength. I literally ran through the airport, praying I would make it in time.

I did… I had 2+ days with him. My siblings and I sat by his bedside non stop.

Listening to his final wishes, hearing his wisdom.

Caring for him. Tending to his body.

Making him smile through the pain.

Remembering. Laughing. Watching.

Witnessing him slowly surrender. Make peace. Do his penance. Release his karma.

Curling up and breathing him in through salty tears. Holding his ancient hand. 

We said I love you a thousand times over. I'm still saying it, over and over and over. 

It was beautiful. It was painful. It was brutal. It was healing. It still is… and I know this is just the beginning.

He passed, peacefully, just after midnight on Sunday morning. He passed as the skies unleashed never ending rain. He passed with only one of my sisters in the room and when she had finally surrendered to sleep. He passed just as I had prayed he would. Finally accepting his worthiness to return home to love. I sat by the fire at 1am in the morning, howling in pain. Whispering his name. Breathing in a pattern I’ve never breathed before.

Shocked and accepting it, all at the same time. No amount of anticipatory grief can prepare you for the way your heart physically shatters and hurts. No amount of preparation can hold you as your guts twist with the news you were waiting for.

He spoke of the “beautiful, amazing place, all misty and full of white light” that he could feel and see before he passed. He could see all his children and grandchildren around him even when we weren’t in the room. He was surrounded by love and the presence of loved ones both here and through the veil. Finally, at the end, my Baba received the deep peace he deserved after many years of suffering.

My sister and I visited his body where I anointed him in Myrrh - the oil of transition. As a Priestess it felt right that I do this. Tonight as a family we will be with him again one more time where I will smudge his body with Frankincense, Myrrh and Copal, anoint his body and play the singing bowls to assist his soul to fully release the shackles of this earthly existence. This feels incredibly overwhelming but necessary. As does reading the eulogy I have written. 

I want nothing more than my Baba to feel fully at peace, held and cradled in the light of the highest love. I feel his presence and am receiving his signs and symbols constantly. Closer now than he ever was.

I feel deeply blessed and at peace and yet also heartbroken. There is Grace and Humility and there is Hrief beyond anything I’ve experienced in this life.

As we were meant to be away on holidays this week I’ve had alot of space from work and clients to completely honour this portal.  I’ve never felt more alive and present, more OK and at peace and more heartbroken and in grief. Waves rolling in and out. Some of the crash and others just ripple.

All of it at once, the juxtaposition of life as a divine human being.

I’m looking forward to saying goodbye at his funeral as I know that is truly the beginning of the next iteration of our relationship that will last a lifetime and beyond. I’m looking forward to returning to my work and to savouring this incredible gift of life.

So precious. So deeply magical and precious.

I am a private person and yet I am also not too shy to share the truths and realities of life - all the shades that we colour with. So please bear with me as I navigate this time - I may feel driven to share a lot, or a little, to share only about my work or nothing at all. I feel no obligations but I love this community so it feels right to offer this important life update.

Thank you for reading. For witnessing and walking with me. 

If you feel to please send my father, Len Obeid, your prayers and love. Send him home into the light. I will be holding vigil for 40 days to support his transition and any prayers you offer his way please know I am deeply grateful. 

Please, go and call someone you love about and tell them how grateful you are for them and how proud you are to know them and love them. It’s always a good idea.

I know that many of you have faced the death of a loved one and journeyed through grief. I see you. I honour and recognise all that you have felt and still carry within.