Pearls Of The Heart By Renee Ranke

We are in the midst of a unique time in history. 

The last several years have been challenging. A global pandemic ushered in racial and political tension and divisiveness, natural disasters, wars, conspiracy theories; and at the core of all the things that are going on in the world lies grief. 

I am hard pressed to think of someone that I know who has not lost someone that they love or care about in the last few years. As humanity struggles with finding its way forward in this new energetic; how do we find a way to lift ourselves up amid grief? 

Pondering this question, I received the image of a pearl. 

A pearl is created when an intruder, a grain of sand or a bit of floating food, slips between the oyster’s shells and embeds itself into its soft flesh. To protect itself, the oyster covers the irritant with inner layers of its own shell, a substance called nacre, until a gem is formed.

A pearl. The only gemstone that comes from a living creature. 

The oyster takes the source of its pain and coats it with beautiful layers of its own internal shell, its own essence, to dull and lessen the pain. The thing that has caused the pain never goes away. Instead it becomes the beautiful core of a precious gemstone. A core that may no longer hurt as intensely as it did, but a core that will always remain.

Like the creation of a pearl, our journey through grief is one that is birthed from pain. But, also like the pearl, the result can be something beautiful and precious. 

The ancient Japanese believed that the tears of mythical creatures, like nymphs, mermaids, and angels, were what created pearls. 

There is also an ancient Islamic legend about Adam and Eve after they were cast from paradise. Eve could not see Adam and, thinking she had lost him forever, she wept and wept and her tears flowed into the ocean and were transformed into pearls.

If Eve’s tears transformed into pearls, is it so far off to think that our own grief can also be transformed? Each of us who walk with grief travels a unique, painful, and often solitary road. And yet, it is a road that almost everyone must walk at some point in their lives.

What does the creation of our precious Pearls-of-the-Heart look like?

This shared and lonely pathway begins with pain. 

When we talk about the passing of a loved one, this pain feels more intense than the ‘grain of sand or bit of floating food’ that the oyster experiences. It feels more like a shard of glass or a dull knife being continually thrust slowly and painfully into the heart. That is the core of this pearl. 

My husband, Ken, passed away unexpectedly. The night that it happened was my own Armageddon. There weren’t four horsemen or a plague of locust. 

World War 3 hadn’t begun. 

There was no nuclear strike. 

Yet my entire world had been destroyed in one unexpected moment, and suddenly my life felt like a barren desert, an apocalyptic wasteland.

I remember feeling as if I had been shoved to my knees and could not get back to my feet, and that feeling continued for quite a while. I am not sure how I got through that first night. But I did get through. And I got through the next night and the next and the next. I got through, in the beginning, by just going, going, going.  By not allowing myself to stop, to think, to feel.

That is the beginning phase. The core of the pearl. The period where you believe that you will be destroyed by the pain if you allow yourself to feel it completely.

It seems as if your life has ended, and you will just continue forever on auto pilot.

And in a way, your life has ended. You are stepping into a new reincarnation that you did not want or ask for. 

This is the period before you realize that your tears, like Eve’s, have the ability to create a precious pearl. You don’t even begin to think that this ugliness could birth something beautiful in the cracks of your broken heart. 

You just keep moving so that you don’t have to feel the pain. 

For me this period lasted for about a year. For some it may pass more quickly, for others it may last much longer.

Eventually the layers of the pearl start to form around that shard in your heart.

You slowly begin to understand that grief is the price you have paid to love. 

The precious memories of joy begin to form the first soothing layer around your grief. 

You allow yourself to gingerly touch that spot in your heart sometimes. 

You smile when you think of them or when you find a card or note that they wrote to you. 

The overwhelming emotions of guilt, fear, loneliness, worry, and sadness still come over you in waves. But you are willing to step into them a little bit more as they become ever-so-slightly less overwhelming.

You begin to recognize that even these heavier emotions are precious gifts reminding you that you have experienced incredible love. 

And the layers continue to build. 

As you start to feel through and release the all-encompassing, heavy, painful emotions; you begin to allow yourself to open to the signs that your loved one is trying to send. 

I had a cell phone my husband gave me, that allowed handwritten with a stylus. Not long after Ken gave it to me, I discovered that you could change the color of the ‘ink’ and I excitedly drew a big pink ‘Renee + Ken’ heart. My husband was not overly impressed, so the pretty pink heart was forgotten about, and I began using the writing feature only for grocery lists. 

One afternoon, not long after Ken had passed, I grabbed my phone to put it in my purse and up popped the big pink heart. There was no logical reason why it should have appeared. If the phone had accidentally opened to the notebook app, it should have opened to a grocery list. It had been several years since I had used the app for anything else and I had totally forgotten about that heart until it suddenly appeared in front of me again.

Sometimes the signs may not be as obvious. 

Immediately after Ken died, I had to get a new car to replace the lease vehicle in his name.

I have glasses that I only wear when I drive, and I always had the habit of pulling them off when I stopped the car and tossing them into the drink holder. 

On the day that I got my new vehicle, I pulled into my driveway, turned off the car, and threw my glasses in the drink holder as usual. Suddenly the sunglass holder on the visor popped open. I closed it quickly and then stopped for a moment to look over at the passenger seat. I had a vision of Ken sitting next to me, looking at me, opening the sunglass holder with a touch of a sarcastic smile, and saying “Renee, look they actually make something for you to put your glasses in”. 

I started putting my glasses in the eyeglass holder on that day and it never popped open by itself again.

Often these first signs may not be immediately recognized. I swiped away the pink heart on my phone and slammed the sunglass holder shut. I knew that both of those things were slightly strange, but it took me a moment to acknowledge how important they were. 

Even that initial hesitation allows the process to begin. 

You may think that you are crazy and are just searching for a light in the heavy storm clouds of grief. You may feel as if you are diving into the ocean of imagination to bring back your lost love. You suspect that you are making it all up. 

But something is beginning to happen. 

Even by questioning these signs you have begun the process of adding the next comforting layer of nacre to continue the assembly of your pearl. 

You may begin to look more closely at your beliefs. What happens to us after we leave these bodies? You search for answers. You search because you must know if they are okay. You search because you need to understand if they could possibly reach out to you. You search because you need to understand if they are standing next to you or if you will be seeing them again.

The next August, I was driving home from work when Lily Dale popped into my head. Several years before I had read a young adult series by Wendy Corsi Staub that introduced me to Lily Dale, NY. The tiny hamlet in Western New York State had been a Spiritualist camp in the late 1800’s and was still home to mediums today. I had been fascinated and told Ken that I wanted us to visit someday.

Two days later, I left for Lily Dale. 

I remember talking Ken nonstop as I drove, “You better show up. You better show up. If I get there and I only get a visit from Grandma…I am going to be very upset”.  And my husband didn’t disappoint me! This was my first visit to a medium, and it ended up being an intense spiritual experience. The medium gave me a recording of the reading, and I drove home playing it on a loop and sobbing. Once the initial shock had worn off, I decided that if the Lily Dale medium could communicate with my husband, then I darn well could too. After all, he was my husband not hers! 

And so, I launched myself on a journey searching for answers. And that journey ultimately led to my becoming a psychic medium, spiritual healer, and metaphysical minister.

The layers of nacre continue to be applied, and the pearl begins to take shape. 

As you travel forward on this spiritual journey. As you learn, question, and explore. As you search for answers about who we are, and what happens to us after we leave these bodies. You might just begin to catch glimpses of some amazing concepts. You may begin to understand that we are separated from each other only by these bodies. These human shells that we are encased in make us feel so solitary and yet we are ultimately connected to each other and to something bigger. You may begin to understand that our souls need no containers to exist. Or maybe you will get more scientific and recognize that energy does not disappear, it just changes form. We can see this in water as it changes from a raindrop to a snowflake, from a drop in the ocean to a mist in the air. 

Separation is an illusion, and this too is a revelation that will lead to adding more layers to our precious pearl. 

While we are on this journey we experience things from the perspective of our own individual universe, sometimes forgetting that our own consciousness is part of a much bigger divine tapestry. 

The July after Ken passed, I went to Scotland to spread his ashes. My trip overseas began with a long layover in JFK. As I waited for my flight I shopped, I ate sushi and got a pedicure; all the while wheeling Ken’s ashes around in my carry on. As I was waiting in the nail salon for my pedicure, a lady with a Scottish accent came in and sat down next to me. We started talking and it turned out that she had also been widowed several years before. She told me a wonderful story about how fate intervened after the devastating loss of her husband, and she had ended up getting remarried to her husband’s American college roommate. She told me how both of these men that she loved were so different and yet her love for them both was all-encompassing. 

I left the salon with freshly painted toenails and an understanding that my heart still had the ability to love whenever I was ready to allow it.

Those first few years after Ken passed, I continued to find myself around widows; waiting in line at the grocery store, at the gym, at the casino. It seemed like any time there was a woman next to me, there was a pretty good chance that she was widowed. 

It took some time before I realized that this was a grand plan of Divine design. By speaking with each other, by offering love and support to each other, by recognizing that we were not alone; we are not only helping another person with their grief journey, but we were also applying another layer to our own inner pearl. Helping ourselves to heal the pain associated with grief and step into the gratitude that is the precious gem of our love.

Realizing that separation is just an illusion also ends up becoming the second most important layer of your pearl. Besides beginning to recognize that you are not alone in this and that there are oh so many others who are also experiencing grief. You also start to discover that your loved ones have never really left you. Their soul, their essence, is still as much a part of you as before they left their bodies. The only thing that has changed is the form that we experience them in. The relationship has not ended. It has become more pure, more truthful, more full of love. 

If understanding that separation is just an illusion is only the second most important layer of this pearl of the heart, then what is the most important layer? What is it that finally lifts the shadow of grief allowing the light of love to shine through? 

That most important layer of your pearl has quietly been being applied throughout the whole journey. This layer is about self-awareness. The knowledge that this pain, this process, this journey through grief is about more than just our loved one. In the end it becomes about finding ourselves. 

When we allow ourselves to stop fighting our emotions

When we look at things through a lens of love, rather than a lens of loss 

When we realize that our strength doesn’t come from being able to pay the bills, or mow the lawn, or fix the car, or just survive without our loved one

It comes from our eternal connection to them, to Spirit, to the Universe

It comes from having been allowed to love

It comes from gratitude for all the things that love created and from understanding that the initial pain of grief is only temporary

When we recognize that our grief is like an oyster creating a pearl

That which injures us becomes the core of inner beauty

Love is the most powerful energy there is and can reach you no matter where you or they are.

And there…. 

There is our pearl.

I am going to end this with a poem that came to me as I struggled with writing this. 

It is my gift to you. To all of you who are in the process of assembling your own Pearls-of-the-Heart.

Here is my hand

Let me walk with you

I know your pain

It is not mine

It is yours alone

But I have felt it

I know it

It connects us

Here is my heart

It has been broken

Light streams through the cracks

Like you, I once thought it fragile

Now I understand

It is made of steel

Forged with tears

Eternal and indestructible

Here is my Love

Someone reached out

To show me

Death cannot dim it

It can never be dissolved

Once given, it is forever

The strands reinforced

By having existed at all

My hand is their hand

My heart is their heart

My love is their love

We will walk together

And gaze towards the horizon

When you are ready, you will see

Across time and space

Love still stands right beside you

About Renee Ranke: Renee Ranke is a psychic medium, channel, intuitive teacher, spiritual healer, and metaphysical minister. But, most of all she considers herself a mystic who is always searching, learning, and growing. This pathway laid out for her after the unexpected passing of her husband, and in her ongoing search for metaphysical knowledge and spiritual understanding she has studied with various teachers through ISD Oneonta, Lily Dale NY, Omega Institute, and Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment. Her passion is helping others discover ways to align their physical world with the beauty and grace of their spiritual self.  
 

Renee's website: www.reneeranke.com  
 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mysticalmomentsReneeRanke 

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