Mary D’Agostino is the owner of a Holistic Healing Arts Practice called Heart of Gaia Creative Healing Arts, where she employs her gifts as an intuitive guide, a spiritual counselor, a soul medium, a reiki teacher and practitioner, and an educator in the Intuitive Arts to generate healing and transformation for her clients. She is also the author of a riveting, historical fiction/fantasy that is the first in a trilogy titled Into the Forest: A Maiden’s Journey, and she has another book titled 111 Days of Divine Intervention: A Mother’s Healing Journey coming out this spring.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- The healing, spiritual growth, and rebirth Mary experienced after her youngest son died in a tragic car accident.
- The powerful intervention of Spirit in Mary’s life.
- The incredible adversity Mary has overcome in her life and the miracles that have appeared in her life.
- The many ways Mary helps people to heal.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS MARY:
- How did you find out about your ancestral heritage as a Healer and a Seer?
- In what ways do you believe that society’s views of death and the bereaved need to change?
- Why do you call Love our greatest teacher?
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Mary D’Agostino: The Powerful Intervention Of Spirit, The Miracles That Have Appeared, And Spiritual Growth, Healing And Rebirth
I’m delighted to have this opportunity to interview healer and teacher Mary D’Agostino, who will be speaking to us from Fort Collins, Colorado, where she enjoys her 5 grown children and 6 grandsons. Mary is the owner of a holistic healing arts practice called Heart of Gaia Creative Healing Arts, where she employs her gifts as an intuitive guide, a spiritual counselor, a soul medium, a Reiki teacher and practitioner, and an educator in the intuitive arts to generate healing and transformation for her clients.
She is also the author of a riveting historical fiction fantasy that is the first in a trilogy titled Into the Forest: A Maiden’s Journey. She has another book titled 111 Days of Divine Intervention: A Mother’s Healing Journey, that’s coming out. I’m looking forward to asking Mary about the healing, spiritual growth, and rebirth she experienced after her youngest son died in a tragic car accident. The powerful intervention spirit in her life, the miracles that have appeared in her life, the many ways she helps people to heal, her books, and more for what is going to be an enlightened, fascinating, and uplifting interview.
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Mary, a warm, loving welcome to the show.
Thank you, Irene.
My pleasure. Let’s begin our interview with this question. Please tell us about your youth and your early internal knowing that life is so much more than it seems.
I’d love to. Started way back then, huh?
We’re taking you all the way back.
All the way back to my little girl self. I was this little child, the oldest of eight kids. I had quite a responsibility right away, and I was up for it. I was that child that wanted to get things done and figure out life. I was raised Catholic. We went to Catholic school and were taught the rules of that religion. I had this knowing that came to me. I remember one time in particular when I was in fourth grade. We were being shown God, this angry man in the sky and judgmental, and I thought, “That is not God. I know God. God is this loving being.” I just kept it to myself.
I had a very strong connection with nature and trees. I got to live near a field when I was a kid. I spent hours connecting with the sky and the land and felt such a strong connection to something greater that was right there for me. Also, with angels because I was taught about angels as a child with my religion, and I felt them. I saw them. They were with me.
Did your religion teach you that they were with you, or did it teach you that they were celestial beings in the sky somewhere? You actually perceived them with you.
It was that prayer. A lot of kids prayed back then and it was the angel of God, my guardian dear. I always felt them with me when I prayed that. I felt the presence of my angels. I thought they were there. There was a picture hanging in my bedroom. It’s a very popular picture. I don’t know who the artist was, but it’s two children crossing a bridge and a big angel watching over them. I felt like that was me. I always felt they were with me, not some far-off place, but with me.
Now I need to ask you about your son Brandon. Could you please describe his accident and share it? You had quite a spiritual experience when he passed, right?
Right.
We sprung away from your childhood right up the ladder.
Through my various experience, I opened up to the spirit and so on and so forth. Brandon is the youngest of my five. I have four sons and one daughter. He was 24, and this was in 2017 when he was killed in a car accident. I’m going to tell you the story by going a few days before his passing and it was January 11th. The number is 111.
A friend of mine had sent me an angel meditation. She said, “You might like this. It’s the archangels.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” I listened to that meditation. During the meditation, I had a very strong, uncomfortable feeling. The guidance was the angels, as I said, that was with me that’s pushing me through a portal of light. On one side was a column of one on the left, in the middle was a column of light here, and then another column on my right. It was like my heart was pushing me forward. It felt like a tight squeeze, like, “I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to do this,” but the angels were guiding you in this meditation. It would be okay, and I could do it.
I wrote about it in my journal. Going through this portal and the angels were supporting me, telling me everything would be okay, and this was a part of my plan and my process. I thought that was very interesting. It was a little bit disconcerting, but also very trusting of the guidance that I was receiving. Over the next several days, that was January 11th, I was in an altered state. I do that in my practice and in my life. I meditate.
On Friday, January 13th, I had a couple that I was in session with intuitive healing and reading. That was around 7:00 PM. In that session, I had a vision. I had permission to share this from them. It’s in session. It was a vision of a huge goddess angel in the night sky. She was taking stars out of the sky and putting them on the Earth, and then she was taking them off of the Earth and putting them back up into the sky. I shared that vision with my client, and the couple was like, “That’s a beautiful vision.” We didn’t think it pertained to them. That was a good vision. Fast forward, it was the evening. I went to a very deep sleep. Before I went to sleep, I took my phone out. I was looking at pictures of Brandon and his last birthday, and there was a beautiful kid.
It’s coincidentally. I was relaxing. I picked my phone up, started looking through my phone, and saw those pictures of Brandon and his little nephews, my grandson, singing Happy Birthday. It was dark with the cake lit by the candles. It was the cutest thing. I felt this deep sense of peace and sadness too. Brandon had been through quite a lot in his life and struggles and challenges, but he was in a good place. As the mom, I feel like he’s doing well now and at peace somehow.
I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning to phone calls that Brandon was missing. His fiancé had been trying to call me and text me all night. I had gotten none of those texts. When she texted me that morning, I thought Brandon was known to not respond to her sometimes. I went onto his Facebook, and I said, “I want to see what he’s up to. Maybe he posted something.” I saw a short video of about eight seconds that he had posted live on his Facebook page. It was a picture of a dashboard of a Maserati. It was him, but there wasn’t any face. It just showed the dashboard of the car and the speedometer went from about 2 miles an hour up to 111 miles an hour and then stopped.
When I saw that, I knew I had that mother knowing that he had gone through that portal of light. I had that knowing or feeling, and I heard it too. I heard his voice, my guides, and my angels saying, “He went through the portal.” For a split second, I was relieved in a way, and then my mother’s instinct kicked in, and I was terrified. I started talking to Brandon as if he was right there. I said, “Where are you? What’s going on? I need to know.” I heard him again. I could see his face, his shining bright smile, and he said, “I’m okay, Mom.” His face was surrounded by water and sparkling energy. I took that and then went on to search for what happened to him. My other children, his father, and his friends all started looking.
He had worked at a luxury car dealership in Denver. He had taken a car out, a Maserati, that evening. Around the same time, I had that vision in my session. He was speeding down a side road where they would often take the cars out. They were allowed to do that. They weren’t allowed to speed, but young men with sports cars. He was speeding down the road and he lost control. He ended up flipping many times and flew 120 feet. I didn’t know this until much later but he flew and landed upside down in a ditch. There was a pond and there was some water. It was very little water and it was so dark and no lights.
A couple of hours later, when he didn’t return the car, his colleagues went out looking but they couldn’t see him anywhere. They couldn’t find him. He was there. The next morning, while we were frantically trying to figure out what had happened, he was found by a jogger who was walking by. They found him, and he had passed. Later that day, we were all informed. We all had to go 60 miles away and go to the sheriff’s office. We went in there and they told us. That whole 111 and that message was something that happened a month later.
I would like to share this because it’s such a powerful message for others going through the loss, the grief, or trying to understand what happens to our souls. About a month later, I was out walking after his passing. I started to talk to him and he said, “Mom, would you like to know what happened that day?” I started talking to him, but I’ve done that all my life with my children. My mind is telling them what to do when they’re grown people.
111 Days of Divine Intervention: A Mother’s Healing Journey
They’re hearing you.
Sometimes, they listen. I said, “Yes, I want to know what happened, but don’t tell me anything that is going to be too hard for me to hear.” He is like, “No, I want to talk to you about it.” I said, “Okay. I’m going to go home and sit down. I’m going to listen and write what I hear.” He was very agreeable with that. We went home. He shared with me what happened. It was through connecting the dots of my experience before he passed, the day that he passed, and the messages I got.
Afterward, there were many synchronicities like the light outside of our home. The streetlamp, the day after he passed, started blinking off and on continuously. It would only do it when me or one of my children were outside. Saying hi to Brandon, it would start flashing. It did it for months. Every time we’d come home, it would start flashing like it was nighttime.
This is what happened when he passed. He said that, “Here’s how it went. I was driving and along came this giant angel. She snatched me right out of the car. She lifted me up and held me in her arms. I thought it was you, mom. She looked and smelled like you and she felt like you like I was coming home.” I knew that because my kids come home and they’re like, “I’m home. What’s to eat? Can I have a hug, Mom?” I felt that when he was telling me this.
He said, “She held me and we watched the car for a moment. She took me somewhere. She held me and told me how much she loved me. I still thought it was you. I think it was you. I felt the connection like when you love me, and that love goes on and on. She was your love and my love, and all the love that I ever felt and gave. I felt this warm glowing. It’s where I’ve been returning to over and over. I remove myself from it, I visit places, and then I return. I can’t really ever leave it. It was all a part of the plan to light up this love again in our family. Make this love the strongest, more like remembrance. We forgot, but you didn’t, Mom. You never forgot love. You fed me, love. You gave me so much love. Thank you, Mom. I need to receive the love now.”
It’s my turn. That’s the incredible spiritual experience that held me, nurtured me, and gave me hope. The thing is that only I knew that I was meditating on that 111 and what I received. I didn’t share that with anyone. I wrote it in my journal. To have that 111 number that my son showed me goes beyond. Right, Irene?
Absolutely, it goes beyond.
It defies logic.
There were also other divine interventions, synchronistic events, and miracles that you experienced. Do you want to mention a few of them? You were really online.
It was almost as if I demanded it. I was like that with him in life. It’s like, “If you’re going to do these crazy things, you need to let me know that everything is okay, or that there’s more to life than meets the eye and so on and so forth.” There’s this one. It was Mother’s Day, and it was shortly after he passed. He passed in January, and this was May. We were all gathered, my kids and I, in the backyard and were so sad. We try and keep each other lifted and upbeat. We’re sitting in the yard having a picnic. I said, “Let’s have a picnic.” My daughters-in-law are with me around a table, and the young men are at another table, and we’re starting to eat.
I thought of Brandon and I got really sad. I started to cry a bit. My daughter-in-law, who was sitting directly across from me, says, “Ma, look.” I was like, “What?” There was a tiny white feather floating down, and it landed on my shoulder. There are no trees around or no birds anywhere near. She got up and went around and picked up the feather. Actually, this feather is very similar to what I received a couple of days ago on his birthday. She took the feather and showed it to me. I looked at it and all my kids were staring at me wide-eyed. I said, “You can’t make this. You know what’s up. Thank you, Brandon.” That was one miracle. I’m lost.
He’s giving you a bunch of signs.
The light flashing was uncanny that it was him. There definitely have been many signs. He comes through the hawks. We have a lot of hawks here in Colorado, but none of them come and act the way that hawks do around us. For example, a few months after I went to go to the crash site, I didn’t exactly know where it was but I said, “It happened here.” I went on a journey to find it and was in the wrong place. This isn’t a hawk. This is an eagle. A bald eagle was flying circling where the actual crash site was. It was right across the little street. I got up and walked over there. At the crash site, I found a white feather.
I found a couple of rocks. Every time I go there, I find something in the shape of heart rocks. I did some healing on this site. I put crystals in the water and other things. Brandon was there with the eagle circling. I went walking next to where the area was. It’s a drainage area that will probably never going to be built on. Adjacent to it is a park and it’s a historic landmark. It’s called Fly’n B as in Brandon Park. His nickname is B. It was the most amazing place that he could have picked. I could hear him again saying, “I had to pick this for you because I knew that if I didn’t, you’d be mad.”
It was very true because it was Fly’n B and he flew to the other side.
Yes, he did. He was a big skateboarder. A few days before he passed, he posted a picture of him and put the words, “I’m flying home.”
I have to share you with everyone reading because you have overcome such incredible adversity in your life, Mary. How are you able to overcome the many daunting challenges you faced, which include teen motherhood, two divorces, having a child born with a congenital heart defect, his health issues, domestic abuse, and the sudden death of your youngest son Brandon? How did you see yourself? How did you come to be whole sitting in front of me going through all of that?
When you put it all together, it’s really quite daunting. I did it one step at a time. One of my mantras is one day at a time. I always had that strong faith that there was something else going on besides the hardships. There was a bigger picture or a plan. I always felt that I was going to be guided, protected, loved, and watched over from teen motherhood up. What also happened for me was I asked for help from guidance and the divine and life.
One step at a time. One day at a time. Click To Tweet
That was a heads-up when you saw the angels. You perceived them when you were a kid because it seems to me you were a teen mother, but meanwhile, you already knew that there was something else.
I did. I look back over it. As you asked the question, I was sharing the many synchronicities with a friend. When I became a teen mom, which was not my plan, I was going on for greatness as a young woman in the 1970s. I was going to do it all. My mother-in-law and father-in-law were amazing. They took me in. I was like one of theirs. My mother-in-law introduced me to meditation and human consciousness in the early 1980s. She was quite the maverick. I just happened to step into that, and she saw me.
She said, “Come on, Mary. We’re going to do this.” Every step of the way, I have had angels on Earth step in and pursued that too. Through the hardship, I want to call it my will or my stubborn Italian whatever. It was my strong belief in the connection that this is a divinely inspired universe. I met with these people. I also met great people that were not that way. There were also those helpers, healers, and connectors that had hearts of gold like you do. I feel that it was through my will, connection to spirit, and always wanting to transform and find the goodness in my life.
It sounds like you had angels on both sides of the veil. You had angels in human form that helped you. I’ve had that experience, too, from the other side. Tell me about the healing and the path of resilience you took after Brandon’s sudden death, which led you further into your spiritual growth and rebirth.
I became determined at that point. As I shared about the experience, I felt like it was such an intimate gift that I was given. I felt like I helped him cross and I was there with him. Every day, my focus was on connecting to the spirit and healing this grief. I learned about what grief is through my own experience.
You have so many times that you have been grieving.
Honestly, I don’t think I ever stopped to grieve anything until the loss of Brandon. I just kept building and taking care of my children and myself. I kept building my life and didn’t have time to stop and grieve. Although the years preceding Brandon’s passing, it was a lot about his own well-being, safety, and health. When he passed, I had to grieve. My body was not going to go on. Instead of not understanding or wanting, I learned everything I could. It all made sense to me that this was the greatest loss and that I knew what to do for myself.
I would find helpers again and healers. I would tend to my healing and my grief. I had to create some strong boundaries with people who may not have understood what I needed. I had my rituals like waking up in the morning, meditating, connecting to spirit, journaling, and walking in nature. I’m being diligent with taking care of myself and finding those who would support me in it. I had this vision. Clearly, it took me down. Some days, I could function but it was just this fog.
I remember having this experience of seeing this portal again. Going through, it was this horrible feeling of grief, darkness, sadness, terror, and “What do you mean he’s gone?” I know he was with me in spirit, but his physical body is gone. That felt visceral for me as a mother. A mother having had birth five times, it’s like, “Part of me is gone.”
I felt that I needed to find that part of me, and that part of me was in spirit and also here. I went through that. I saw myself going through the darkness, and on the other side was joy. It gives me the chills. I was like, “I’ll do it then. I’ll feel those feelings. I’ll get support. I’ll grieve, moan, and cry. I’ll do everything I need to do.” What I know is going through the experience leads you to light, greater love. The way I was treating myself, too, is with great love and compassion for my loss. That I feel is very important.
It sounds like part of your rebirth was to learn about self-love.
That’s my big message. As a child, although I felt the love of the divine and the angels, the self-love was not there. It was not taught to me. It was actually the opposite. It’s like, “You’re not worthy. You’re not good enough.” I had to get out those big guns and say, “No, I am worthy.” I have to take care of myself. If I don’t self-care, self-love, self-appreciate, and self-accept what has happened, I won’t get through this. I turned it up high.
I want to turn our conversation to your book. Everyone, I loved her book. Mary wrote this ribbing book titled Into the Forest: A Maiden’s Journey, and it’s the first book in a trilogy. What inspired you to begin writing this book? In what ways did that strange group of women define the religion of the times, the lovely maiden Elizabeth, who launched for truth, freedom, and happiness, and the metaphor of the forest drawn from aspects of your own life? Everyone, I can’t encourage you enough to read this book. It was wonderful.
Order Into the Forest – A Maiden’s Journey
Thank you. What inspired me to write this? I went through a divorce in 2002, and it was a devastating divorce. It was my second marriage. I had been married for quite a few years and had my children. I kept getting these images in meditation of these characters. I knew that it was a past life. I thought, “Let me find out what they’re doing.” I felt that I could heal.
There was something with this story and the telling of this story that would help me heal my relationship with my soon-to-be ex-husband. I started to write the story. I wrote it pretty quickly and then published it finally. It went through its own journey of self-love, just like me. My book itself went through many journeys because, back then, you needed to have a publisher. You couldn’t self-publish. The maiden, Elizabeth, is the main character. She came to me, and I know that she was a past life of mine.
She was unbelievable. What a strong character. You had that strange group of women. Is that stand-in for what you do with people with Heart of Gaia?
Yes, it is. They were a strange group, weren’t they? Knowing for me, I knew who these people are. I know what they do. She connected with this strong-willed young woman and said, “I’m not going to be living a life that everyone else tells me I have to live. I’m going to find myself, my spirit, and my light.” She found it in the forest and met these women. Those women definitely live the way I live now, except I don’t live in the forest.
You gather people together for healing and that’s what they did.
Yes, I do. They’re connected with their healing gifts and who they are as people. They never separated from that. They were never taught differently as many of us were. I believe we’re born with knowing and intuition and then it’s taught out of that.
We’re born with knowing and intuition and then it’s taught out of us. Click To Tweet
We’re conditioned. It’s not good. How did editing it bring you a deeper understanding of life and death and help you with your second divorce?
I didn’t know and it was really interesting because the book foreshadows. It was written in 2002. It helped me with the divorce because it allowed me to connect with my power. I was in a marriage where he was controlling and manipulative. It ended up that I had to get out and go find my women of the forest. I was determined to do that. Editing and writing it helped me to connect with those aspects of myself, the maiden Elizabeth, the healer, the women who were connected with their power, and the villains. They were bad, but they were my way of expressing that this is what happened to me. This is how I felt.
This was real. I told it through stories so that I could heal and find my power and my voice. It’s my voice that was suppressed during the marriage and before. In both marriages, I was that woman with so much power and passion but was told conditioned to hide it and don’t rock the boat. Writing the story, editing it, and then publishing it. 2020 has been great healing for me and a connection with those others in the audience and in life that is also on that path so that they can know how powerful they are. It’s their birthright to seek that and live out their truth.
I have to ask you, the father, Gregory, who was made impotent by such evil forces. Who was that in your life? Was that you?
There’s something about when you do archetypal work or dream work. Every person in that was part of me. He was modeled after men I knew, not my husbands. They were different characters in there. Also, the masculine that’s selling your soul to forces that try to control you. It’s what happens when you sell your soul.
That was very obvious. I felt for him.
In the second book, it does continue. You might like what happens in the second book.
Will Gregory survives?
He was still there.
You’ve mentioned about 111 Days of Divine Intervention: A Mother’s Healing Journey. That’s coming, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that at another time. Is there anything you’d like everyone to know? Would you like our audience to mark it and watch for it?
I want to tell you what I did. It’s 111 days of divine intervention and stories of divine intervention, like what I have explained and inspiration to help others. What I did is I created a podcast. I called it 111 Days of Divine Intervention, and I did the first episode. While writing the book, I am communicating and gathering people to listen, hear, and wake up their own divine interventions. You can look for the podcast 111 Days of Divine Intervention.
Go to my website, get on my email list, and I send out updates. I would love to also hear other stories of divine intervention, especially through death loss. As you do with Grief and Rebirth, it’s giving such hope and a new life to those of us who have lost loved ones in such a tragic way. There’s life and hope. Check out the podcast, we’ll see how that goes, and the book will be out. If you go to my website, you can get some information on it.
Walk forward to grief and rebirth. It is the most important journey of your life. Click To Tweet
Now you have this Heart of Gaia Creative Healing Arts, which is divinely inspired by the right people and experiences showing up at exactly the right time. I’m going to combine it with another question I have because you’re an intuitive guide, a spiritual counselor, a soul medium, a Reiki teacher, and a practitioner. Tell us how, like this show for me, Heart of Gaia Creative Healing Arts is divinely inspired by the right people and experiences showing up. The second question is, how do you implement the modalities you use to facilitate healing empowerment for people going through transitions in their lives? Do this from a distance? Can anyone in our audience go Zoom with you, dial you up, or whatever? How do you help them?
Another divine intervention. Years ago, when I was going through that divorce, writing my novel, and deciding how am I going to make a living, I would have been a mom for so many years, and I decided to do some volunteer work at Children’s Hospital in Denver. Since my son was born with a congenital heart defect, he is now a teenager and doing okay. I thought I want to give back to all those wonderful, amazing people. I signed up, but nobody contacted me. Months went by, I was like, “I want to help.”
Finally, I got a call from them, and it was a woman from the March of Dimes. She said, “We’re creating a pilot program here for the parents who have children in the ICU. We’d like you to teach or facilitate a journaling workshop for them.” I was like, “I had never done that before in my life. Why did they ask me?” I had been an avid journaler all my life since I was a little girl.
How did she know?
I don’t know. This is the divine intervention. I said, “Yes.” This is what I do, by the way. When the spirit knocks, you say, “Okay.” You don’t know exactly how it’s going to work, but you say yes, I suppose or you go kicking and screaming, whatever you decide. I said yes and I did present, but the parents are in trauma. I did that, but then I had people asking me to do it here at home. That’s how I create it. I started holding workshops for journaling, personal growth, and empowerment using my intuitive gifts. I learned Reiki and happened to have a counselor that I sought out after my divorce.
She was a reiki mental health professional and a reiki practitioner. Back in the day, before anybody knew about Reiki in California during my hippie-dippy days, I learned about Reiki in the early ‘80s. It all came together, and I started my practice. It grew over the years into what it is now, where I offer healing sessions. I use Reiki and intuitive guidance. The modalities are intuitive guidance and energy healing.
You are also a soul medium, right?
Yes. I call it soul medium because I connect as I did with my son Brandon and others throughout my life and for others. I connect with the essence of soul and cast a loved one. I will give whatever messages are needed and knowing that they’re there, so I do mediumship readings. It’s a mixture of the modalities, but it’s a very potent and powerful healing session of connection to loved ones and to your own spirit guides if that’s what you want or if that’s what’s needed, and the healing too. I do distance. I’ve been doing distance since I started my practice. I have clients all over the country, like North America and some in Europe. It works well. I’ve always done distance. I had no problem when it had to go all virtual. I also hold groups. We do the women of the forest. We gather and do intentions.
Do you do this on Zoom also?
Yes, I do it on Zoom. I also do journaling. I still have the core group of journalers. I’m offering something now. It’s a 30-day self-care ritual through journaling. You get an email every morning with a journaling prompt and one guided meditation per week. It’s to support you in your self-care journey. I’m starting on October 1st, 2021. It’s all virtual. You can do it on your own time and you don’t have to have a meeting. I like to offer those ways to connect.
People with their transitions, you help them to heal. Your personal and professional life is taking you deep into your own ancestral heritage as a healer and seer. We know you’re a healer and seer. How did you find out about this? Can someone call you up and say, “Can you tell me about my past life or what was going on with my ancestral stuff?”
I love that you focused or that you brought that up. I do readings in the Akashic records. I like to think of it as a library with all of our big books. It’s the wisdom of our soul in every lifetime we’ve lived. We can go into that, and you can ask, “Who are my ancestors? What is my purpose here? Who am I connected with in this life? Who am I to be?”
I discovered through the records and writing my book that I have actual physical ancestors. Many of my past on loved ones have been herbalists in the Southern Italy area. I have my ancestors from Great Britain, and I also have indigenous North Canadian indigenous. My grandfather was from the Huron Wendat tribe.
Some of your intuitive abilities come from him.
It’s so interesting because I have all of those ancestral connections. I believe we all do, and we’re all yearning for, “Who am I and what are my gifts?” When you connect with your gifts, it’s very natural. You do not always understand them, but I’m sure they’re calling you. I can help you connect with them.
You can help identify what they are. You can also give some background from the Akashic records as to what some of the issues are, where they’re coming from, and all that kind of thing.
Absolutely. It’s a lot of finding the issues and going, “I get that now why it’s that way.”
Mary, why and in what ways do you believe that society’s views of death and the bereaved need to change?
There’s so much richness in all these questions.
I did my homework.
You sure do. You are the best. You are so amazing. What I’ve found from my own experience is that our society treats death like a disease. It’s like, “Death is a disease. You got to not talk about it and get around it.” When someone you love dies, get over it. I do feel that that’s the cultural way. I was raised that, “Don’t talk about death. It’s scary and sad.” I found it to be quite the opposite. Death is actually a part of life and it is a transition. We’re all going to go through it.
Divine Intervention: Death is a part of life. It is a transition. We’re all going to go through it.
We’ve all been through it a few times.
Yes, we have, and that is something we know what it is. I’ve heard this, and it’s like, “It is in us. We know how to grieve the loss of a loved one or support each other in that.” One of my purpose through my work and my being is to change the way we look at death and allow it to give us. Its blessings. I go to the root of my ancestral peoples. There was a celebration, a great reverence, bereavement time, and an understanding of what you’re going through physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We need a community to be completely supportive of us. I found that many people showed up, but then there were the closest people that I thought would be there that weren’t because of so much fear around death and the big feelings that it brings up.
It also changes relationships depending on how people relate to death, what happened to you, your fears, or whatever. You change and your situations around it change.
I found that people are afraid to talk to you sometimes because they think they’re going to catch it or they don’t know what to say. I bring it back to self-love and compassion for yourself and others. It’s so important for how we treat grieving and death. Often, there’s so much more to it than even the religions have shared. It’s like a big secret, but it’s not.
There is a spiritual saying that we cross over and transition, or are you talking about something specifically?
What I was talking about is what we’re taught through our religions about death. It was like, “This is what happens. You have to be good, and you’ll go to heaven.” There’s so much more than that. That’s limiting. There’s so much more to explore about what really happens to our souls and who we are as souls while we’re alive. When we die, it all is part of the story.
We cross over with all of it. I know that. Mary, you call love our greatest teacher. Could you explain how life is both a healing and adventure, which you’re talking about and a sacred journey that awakens us to our true potential and the truth of who we are, which is love? Do you say it teaches us through our love of others and our love of ourselves?
I’m going to go to the teachings of the religion I was brought in. I don’t know if I knew that love would conquer and heal all. When Brandon passed and even before that, I just thought, “I’m going to believe that love is a healing balm. The love of my family, my children, and nature would guide me.” The love that is beyond the human, but it includes the human, I want to have more of that in my life.
It’s a way for me to share that there are a lot of opposites of love, like the fear and even hate of an evil that is happening. Years ago, the focus was on love and being that loving person but not to your detriment. It’s the power that is to be used. When you need to speak up, you speak up. When you need to turn the other cheek, you do.
That’s about learning discernment to me. It’s another lesson about learning discernment.
Discernment with love at the core will help. It is a guide and a healing agent.
Divine Intervention: Discernment with love at the core will help. It is a guide and a healing agent.
You, of all people in the universe, what is your message about healing and walking forward from grief to rebirth that you’d like to share with our audience, and how do you define rebirth, Mary?
My message is to walk forward to grief and rebirth. Very clearly, it is probably the most important journey of your life. It is the journey of my life. Taking one step at a time, finding the helpers and the healers, and trusting your own inner belief, however tiny it is, there is love at the core of everything. That is how I walk forward and how I assist my fellow travelers. I call everyone my fellow travelers. It’s like, “We’re going to believe in the power of love, healing, hope, and inspiration, and we’re going to walk forward and take one step at a time.” That has been my saving grace. I’ve walked through many griefs, and I hold that hope for rebirth, which is, “What do I want to have my message be?”
It is to believe in yourself, love yourself, and share that love and growth. Our souls are here definitely to grow and learn. If you can connect with that in any way and it makes sense, then start asking what that might mean for you. What does it mean to have soul growth? I could find those answers through the divorce and the loss of my son Brandon. I knew he had grown his soul, and I was to grow my soul. Rebirth to me is to transform the pain, suffering, and trauma into love, and healing, and manifest it into what you have to share. We need each other now more than ever in our planet.
There are so many ways to connect with amazing people like you that are doing such amazing things and sharing the works of others through your show. It’s like, “This is not my purpose, so I’m very clear that this is who I am and what I want to share.” I work with people in all kinds of ways, connecting them to their soul, purpose, ancestors, and healing, and then healing their energy. However, it’s about bringing moments of peace, grace, and comfort that we can believe in so we can keep going. You can look back and go, “That was truly a miracle that I was able to walk through each day and transform that deep pain and suffering and alchemize it into gold and gems.”
It’s beautiful. Now everyone wants to connect with you. Tell them how they can connect with you. Do you have a special offer for our audience? Tell it out. Give it to them.
You can connect with me on my website. I have a website for everything I do and my books are there.
Is it a website that’s called Into the Forest, or is it website Mary D’Agostino?
It is my name, MaryDAgostino.com. Go there and you’ll see all of my offerings, my sessions, my books, my gatherings, and the journaling specials that I’m doing. If you want to mention that you heard me on Irene’s show, I’ll give you a nice extra special amount of time in a session.
Everyone, you got to give her a call.
You get an extra, probably double. Irene knows we like to talk.
As long as it’s going, you want to hear it.
I don’t like to say discount because it’s not a discount. It’s an extra added bonus.
That’s fabulous. Half an hour could become an hour.
I’ll add 30 minutes to a session that you book.
That’s wonderful. Everybody, pay attention. Mary, what would you like to tell everyone about finding joy in life from your perspective?
All of that said, I’m a mom at heart and a grandma. I always return to that. My healing and transformation have been through children, the birth of my daughter at an early age, the death of my son Brandon, and all the health things. I always find joy in the special moments that I get to be with my kids and my grandkids. I look in their faces and take that in. To me, when it’s all said and done, that’s going to be what I’m remembering. It brings me so much joy to look in their faces. To say, “I really love you.” As a grandmother, I’m enjoying it because I can lay it on deck. I don’t have to worry about raising them. I find such joy.
I have to tell you a joke. A lot of people say to me, “Children are the price you pay for grandchildren.” I also have grandchildren I adore. I don’t have to discipline them as much or any of that. I just enjoy them and give them back.
I’m telling you, it’s the best thing ever. That’s how I find my joy and through the simple things. That’s it, whether it be the beautiful leaves. Right now, I’m in awe of the colors.
It’s beautiful in New Jersey. I can imagine what’s going on in Colorado in the mountains. It must be stunning.
I find joy in those simple things, and that fuels me.
That’s wonderful. Mary, you are such a special healing beacon of light. I applaud your passion for sharing messages of love, hope, and inspiration from spirit through your wise and intuitive counsel, your practical insights, and the healing energy you so generously share. I commend you on your sacred personal journey of grief to rebirth and the grace-filled healing difference you’re making in so many lives. I’m sure that your remarkable book, Into the Forest: A Maiden’s Journey, will speak to many hearts and souls in our audience as it did to mine. Thank you from my heart for this inspiring and uplifting interview. Make sure to follow us and like us on social at @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. As I like to say, to be continued, many blessings, and bye for now.
Guest Links:
- Mary’s holistic healing arts practice: Heart of Gaia Creative Healing Arts
- Mary’s book: Into the Forest: A Maiden’s Journey
- Mary’s Website
Host Links:
- @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram
- Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Irene Weinberg on Twitter
- Irene Weinberg – Grief, Rebirth + Healing Podcast on YouTube
