What if We Entered the Veil

In my last newsletter, I wrote about grief as the human veil—the veil between us and our deceased loved ones, between us and the world around us, and between who we were before our loss and who we are continually becoming after it.

Since then, I’ve felt called to explore more deeply this first veil: the space grief creates between us and those we love who have died.

What does it mean to live on this side of the veil when someone we love is no longer physically here?

What does it mean to embrace the human veil of grief?

And might there still be ways of experiencing connection, presence, and relationship beyond what our eyes can see and our hands can touch?

When I think of the words, “grief is the human veil,” I imagine a boundary of sorts—a veil that may prevent, or at least distort, our communication with our loved ones who have died.

The most obvious veil is that they are no longer physically present. But when grief is so deep, so pervasive, so powerful that our emotions are consumed by heartbreak, how on earth can we be open to communicating with the other side?

In fact, as I just wrote the words how on earth, I was struck by the resonance of them. How on earth?! It can be so hard, here on earth, to learn and embrace a new way of connecting when our hearts are broken.

And yet, we must honor those broken hearts because grief is a normal, natural, undeniable human response to a love that has been deep and strong. It is not something to avoid or overcome. It is necessary. It is the expression of love continuing in the face of loss. And while the emotions of grief may temporarily act as a veil, limiting our connections to our loved ones on the other side, they must be given their due.

So, we are all the better for embracing the veil of grief—for entering our grief, engaging with our grief, surrendering to our grief, and ultimately, uniquely transforming our grief in partnership with our loved ones.

These are the invitations of the Conscious Grieving™ model and the heart of why Mindful Metamorphoses offers a Sacred Journey With Grief Retreat.

We cannot move through the veil without first acknowledging it and learning to adjust to it, much as we adjust our eyesight when a veil falls in front of us. Imagine a white out of snow or a torrential rainstorm.

Our truth needs to be spoken, honored, and witnessed. In this way, we begin to learn how to see through the veil in a different way—not through the distortion of overwhelming grief, but adjusting our view for greater clarity; not through confrontation or avoidance, but through acceptance of what is.

This is not a process that can be rushed. And it is not linear. It is an ongoing process, one that continues to unfold. And I believe it is through embracing this process that the veil ultimately shifts and our sight becomes clearer.

Some say that more than 75% of us experience an ADC—an After-Death Communication—and the prevalence may be even higher as more people become comfortable acknowledging and talking about these experiences. Many of us know these moments to be incredibly comforting. They can show up in so many different forms: lights flickering, messages through license plates, a familiar song or smell, serendipities of all sorts. And sometimes, simply—or not so simply—a felt energy.

That energy might show up as goosebumps (or, as my friend likes to call them, “Godbumps”), a heart shape that suddenly appears, a particular cloud, an orb in a photo, a feather, a hummingbird, dragonfly, or butterfly. The list goes on.

I once had a dream that felt unmistakably like a message—a visitation from my son, Graham. You know those dreams that feel different? They are so vivid that you can feel them while you are dreaming and remember the details with an uncanny clarity.

This dream came after months of having the same recurring dream about our searches at the lake.

In those dreams, there was tremendous angst: breaking through the ice, searching, longing to find my son. But after several months, something shifted.

In the visitation dream, there were still many of us—perhaps a hundred people. We were still searching. We were still in the water wearing our waders. But this time, we were actually beneath the water, lined up.

And this time, there was no angst.

We were waiting our turn to see Graham.

When we reached the front of the line, assistants on either side of a ladder would hoist us up. And there, at the top, we would see Graham face to face.

When I awoke, I felt the message loud and clear: I needed to elevate—to elevate my consciousness, my spirit, my life—in order to connect with my son.

And assistance was available.

I have been committed to that deeper level of connection ever since.

But how do we elevate our frequency?

Just like grief, this is deeply personal. For me, it often begins with opening myself to connection. Listening. Believing. Trusting. And claiming my truth when my body and heart say, This is a sign.

It means taking the time to genuinely thank Graham when I experience these moments, and sharing the magic with those who are open to hearing it.

It also means intentionally seeking connection with him. For me, this can mean diving into experiences he loved, going to places he enjoyed—or even places where he struggled—and reading his words. It means embracing not only the beauty and the love, but the heartbreak, too.

And sometimes, it simply means being present to whatever life presents.

Because I have no doubt that Graham—and what I have come to call my “team of light,” those in spirit whom I believe support me—have orchestrated so many of the new connections that have entered my life.

I experienced this recently at the IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies) conference in Seattle. It felt as though every single interaction was meant to be. And simply being in a space with so many people deeply immersed in the fields of near-death studies, after-death communication, and spiritually transformative experiences was mind- and spirit-blowing. In fact, the energy is still so palpable inside of me that I could barely sit still long enough to put this all into words.

Once again, I found myself wondering:

What if these connections are not random?

What if, as we learn to embrace the veil of grief, we become more able to see through it and to recognize what has been there all along?

If you feel called to explore this path—to sit with the veil, to become more open to the connections that may exist beyond it, and to receive gentle support as you find your way toward that ladder of elevated consciousness—we invite you to join us for our Sacred Journey With Grief Retreat in Belize, February 21–28, 2027.

And if you’d like to learn more about this journey, the Conscious Grieving™ model, and the Mindful Metamorphoses team, we invite you to join us on October 1 at Una Vida for our free presentation, Grief Is the Human Veil, from 5:30–7:00 p.m.

Perhaps, together, we can learn to see through the veil—not to erase it, but to see what becomes possible when we allow our hearts and our spirits to adjust to a new way of seeing.