GAR Raina Irene | Because Of Josiah

Raina’s memoir is titled Because of Josiah: The Sacred Alchemy of a Mother’s Unending Bond with her son in Spirit. It was her son Josiah’s sudden departure in 2017 that shifted Raina’s awareness, taking her on a dynamic journey from heart-shattering grief to the stunning realization that their bond is unbreakable and still thrives. With Josiah serving as her teacher, Raina has learned to recognize, interpret and respond to the messages received from loved ones in Spirit. She now works with mothers who also have children-in-Spirit, helping them to understand that communication with their child is not only possible but happening all the time.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:

  • Raina’s relationship with her son Josiah before the devastating phone call that turned her world upside down.
  • What Josiah communicated to Raina when he reached out to her from the Other Side.
  • The many signs Josiah has given Raina to let her know he is still with her.
  • How Raina began communicating with Josiah through automatic writing.

SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS RAINA:

  • How has your heart, your soul, your spirit and your life become stronger because of Josiah?
  • How did the question “What is the gift he left you” challenge the alignment of your mind?
  • In what ways do you now work with mothers who have children in Spirit?

 

Watch the episode here

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Raina Irene: A Mother’s Unending Bond With Her Son, Both On Earth And In Spirit

 

I’m delighted to have this opportunity to interview Raina Irene, a heart, soul and spirit practitioner whose memoir is titled Because of Josiah: The Sacred Alchemy of a Mother’s Unending Bond with Her Son in Spirit. Raina will be speaking to us from Yucaipa, California. Raina was aware of the spirit world early on in her life.

When she was a teen, her older sister went to spirit, greatly impacting her views on life and what was afterward. In her early 30s, after her father transitioned, she began an even deeper exploration into the afterlife. However, it was her son Josiah’s sudden departure in 2017 that shifted Raina’s awareness, taking her on a dynamic journey from heart-shattering grief to the stunning realization that their bond is unbreakable and still thrives.

With Josiah serving as her teacher, Raina has learned to recognize, interpret and respond to the messages received from loved ones and spirits. She works with mothers who also have children in spirit. Helping them to understand that communication with their child is not only possible but happening all the time. I’m looking forward to talking with Raina about her grief journey with her son and spirit, her healing circles, why she believes healing is important to everything we do and more in what is surely going to be an inspiring and touching interview. Raina, a warm welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. Let’s start with this question. Please tell us how the loss of both your sister and dad impacted your views on life and what was afterward before your son Josiah transitioned.

When Joanne went to spirit, she was 30 and I was 15. As a young girl, I looked up to her as a goddess, watching her put on her makeup. I didn’t understand how that happened so fast and how she could disappear from me. My parents were left to deal with that. Back in the ‘70s, we didn’t talk about things. We didn’t go to counseling. My father, who was a physician, also was like, “I couldn’t fix my daughter. She had lupus.” Back then, there was no cure like they do now. They can put it at bay.

I had to look on for an exploration for myself. I was 15 in the ‘70s and we got a little tiny wild but that lasted a minute and a half because that wasn’t going to fix anything for me. My brother married this gal named Becky. Becky had an older woman who did Oracle cards. She did them with a deck of cards like regular cards. I began going to see her and I thought she had the funniest last name. It’s a quick story.

All my children thought, “Mrs. Elkins, that’s so weird.” No relation but I ended up marrying an Elkins and my children were all Elkins. It was very ironic. I started to search and inquire. I would dream of sand dunes and wake up knowing that it was something spiritual. I was always looking for that higher perspective on everything. With that deeper perspective, as an adolescent, sometimes it’s hard to get to. I can look back and see what I was doing. I had no clue. I worshiped around my father and it was devastating as a young girl.

Was it a sudden transition?

No. His lung capacity use was failing and then finally, it failed. He was 72. You don’t expect your parents to ever go anywhere. You think, “They’re invincible. They are human.” I struggled. It took me a good six months to come out of that one. I had moved out of state too so I didn’t know anybody and said, “My name is Raina. My dad died.” I was looking at small children and I was like, “I need you to be here. I need your guidance still.” I kept looking to him for that wisdom. I would ask him something. I felt what dropped in my head was that’s my dad. I kept looking for that.

You already had the belief that he was still with you.

I don’t believe in hell. I didn’t think that he was going to go anywhere else but right next to me. It’s just, “Where are you?” Something has to be greater than this for sure. My sister and he had to be right here. I then lost my brother. I kept searching for all those answers everywhere I could.

Your son, Josiah, was an inquisitive child, a talented artist, performer and healer. You got a devastating phone call about him that turned your world upside down. What was your relationship with him before that phone call?

It was 2 or 3 phone calls a day. He was my baby.

He was your youngest child of three.

He was funny and always wanted to hang out with me. We always had this very close relationship. I’m fortunate with all three of my kids. 2 days before he turned 20, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was already into circus arts. He’s very artsy already. By then, he had gone to Cal State to do theater design. He went from this Orange County yuppy to the evolution. The spiritual growth that came from that diagnosis was phenomenal. I too had that same road that I traveled so we were able to have these amazing conversations.

I would travel down to Orange County or wherever he lived. He would think, “I’ll take you to this health food store and I got to take you on this trail. You’ve got to try this remedy.” In turn, I was also saying, “Josiah, guess what I heard about? You need to do this.” He was a bohemian nomad on a quest. In that quest, I tagged along mostly via phone call because he was traveling so much. We were very close and connected. He was open to what I had to say.

What a blessing because at that age, usually, most kids are saying, “Mom, leave me alone. I’m going to do my thing. I don’t want to hear it.” They’re busy separating.

He was a Leo. He was stubborn and had his agenda for sure. He has his quest in life. If he wanted something from me, he was open to that.

Cancer threatened to take him away but instead, it was an encounter with the tree. Do you want to tell us that story?

We kept cancer away. I say we because I felt very enmeshed with him. For a good seven years, he was having issues but they were minor. In the last couple of years, it got intense. We were plugging in things to heal. He had this way of taking his illness and making sure. He dealt with it spiritually so that he could connect physically with it. He would get these ballots and he would get ill and then get better. It was miraculous. You’re magic. The last summer was brutal. It was probably the worst situation I had seen. I already had emotions around like, “You are leaving me. You’re going soon.”

You’re starting to grieve already with those feelings.

You don’t want to put that belief before you but there’s an undercurrent that arises. There are some things you can’t deny. It’s not what I wanted but I didn’t know. I don’t care how psychic you are. You can’t predict that. He had been down at the house and was talking about borrowing his friend’s motorcycle. My husband’s like, “The last thing you need is a motorcycle.” He wanted to buy that motorcycle. He didn’t tell me that he was going to go ride a motorcycle but he was all alone. It’s bizarre. I guess that’s a good enough word. He came around curbing and hitting a tree. Nobody was there.

GAR Raina Irene | Because Of Josiah

Because Of Josiah: You don’t want to think that you don’t want to put that belief before you, but there’s an undercurrent that rides; there are some things you can’t deny.

I don’t know what happened, except what he showed me after. I believe this. I wrote about it and it’s in the book. I don’t know why he looked to the left. That’s what he did in my mind. He saw that portal and there was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen. He was like, “I’m an optimist. I’m going that way.” The irony as I went through all those drawings and stuff was I saw trees in everything. We’re all connected to the trees and life. He had the kabbalah tree of life tattooed on him. He made this tree behind me. The irony is that he went back to where he came from. I had to make some peace with that. The motorcycle hit the tree.

It physically took his body but it’s sounding like his soul was already leaving. That was his time.

I do it up the arms like, “This is going to happen.” All of a sudden, this happens. I was sandwiched in this energy of like, “What happened here? What’s the deal?”

This happens even though you were already grieving him if you lost him to cancer but you listen to this other way. Your grief is heart-shattering, how you deal with that. Do you want to talk about that? What it was like for you when Josiah reached out to you from the other side to let you know he was not only happy and healthy but was healed as a whole on the other side?

The very first thing I got was an instant message. He wanted to call me. They told me he was in a motorcycle accident. I ended up having to call this hospital up in San Jose. I’m up from Northern California in the suburb. The doctor said what he said and I don’t know what he said because I phoned my husband. I turned into a mist. I reappeared outside. I walked into the backyard. The truth of the matter is what I wrote in that book. All I said was, “Where are you? You got to show me where you are. I cannot do this without you so if I don’t know where you are, I got to go with you.” I laugh now but it wasn’t funny.

It’s true that so many people reading this can relate to what you were going through.

It was hysterical. I’m sure I fainted with all the things that happened like making phone calls, telling his dad and all those things. It was hard but I knew that we were so connected. There was no way that he couldn’t be here. It wasn’t going to happen. In the immediate moments, it’s hard to see anything because you don’t have any eyes. Everything dissipates upon you. It wasn’t long because first of all, when I was writing the book and I heard about it, he showed me, “Mom, do you remember me calling you right then and your feelings?”

I know that he told me he was leaving. I was in the middle of the crowd so I didn’t recognize that. It was a few days later when I was outside and a friend said, “There’s a magenta glow around you and rose oils.” It’s the highest vibration of love. A butterfly came. It’s tremendous. Everyone left. My husband went to sleep and my sister went home. It was the first quiet moment I have. I came back to my healing room where I am now. I said, “You have to speak to me. How are you going to speak to me?” I felt called to pull a couple of decks of cards. One of the cards was this woman with roses in her hair and a magenta glow around her.

I watched some afterlife thing. I can’t remember what it’s called. They talked about when children leave, they had a magenta glowing. It blew my mind. I’ll find that if you get a hold of me, what that is. The next day, there was a butterfly in the tree that we called over that stayed there and showed us. I could see there was a blemish on the right side and one of the legs was gone on the left. My daughter took a picture and the blemish was a heart. All of a sudden, I was in this energy of, “He’s showing us that the impact was on the right. Something happened to his leg.” We were all in unison in this story.

He looked beautiful but you could see that it happened to the right. I told my son, “Look at his leg.” Sure enough, his leg was wrapped. I was like, “You’re communicating with me.” It went from there. That day after the butterfly, I had a dream about him. He was in my dream. He showed me all sorts of story language. It was a crazy dream but the beauty of it was I was able to analyze the dream and get the information he was trying to say to me that he hadn’t fallen that far. He was watching me and he looked like he did when he was in high school. His sunglasses were on.

It switched scenes and a little boy came up to me at about nine-ish and said, “Can I stay with you? There’s no choice. You have to.” It’s so amazing. The next morning, I woke up and there were dimes in my shoe in the closet and on the massage table, all litter to the house. In his service, there was a whole story around the birds and everything. It was crazy.

He’s giving you so many signs, which is what you call the Alchemy of Josiah. There’s a specific sign you continually get, which is the number 22. What is that about? There have been so many ways you’ve gotten that sign.

He left on the 22nd so that’s his ascension date, 10/22. I wasn’t going to put together any sign from that. I would do it on his birthday, 8/19, but it kept happening. I kept seeing the 22. It was such an alchemy around these mini horses that I went and brought. Her name was Mary. Mary Magdalene has some significance around the 22. His middle name David vibrates to 22. There were all these different Merkabah that vibrates to 22. As I was seeing 22, people were coming into my life to tell me another reason why I’m doing this is vibrating to 22.

Standing somewhere, I would be talking another 22, look down and it would be 22. As I was being aware, I was like, “That’s what you’re showing me, 22.” As I kept going, when I would see 10/22, I began to start to pause for that whole minute. I would stop moving. “I love you too.” I would start to give this energy around it myself. He would wake me up at 10:22 and show me things. It became a way that he could say, “I love you.” The next time I have seen it, I would say, “I love you more.” We had a dialogue about that. 22 is about the light of love. It was all about love, light and energy. I was flabbergasted by all that. As I was writing it out in the story about 22, I was even more blown away like, “What am I writing here?”

It’s amazing. It’s such a blessing and it’s so reassuring. It’s comforting.

It’s like a text message as we did.

“Mom, I love you. I’m getting the best. I’m letting you know I’m right here.”

There are days you’re not going to notice 10/22, 1/22 or 2/22 but most days, I do. I always see it. As we put our awareness to something, then we are able to see it better, bring that to us and feel more comfort. Is this the way I want it? No, I want a real text message. I want him walking in the door and all those things. He has affirmed to me that he’s here. His karma was done. That’s a story that you have to bring to you. You have to dial that in towards you and then give it back to the world so that you can feel that and feel some comfort in that.

It contributes to your journey. If there’s an overarching theme to all of this, how has your heart, soul, spirit and life become stronger because of Josiah? It had ramifications that leaked onto you that were supposed to be.

One of my friends said, “What if his leaving catapulted such a healing within you that wouldn’t have happened unless this happened?” I don’t want to be this open but it forced me to look at things from a perspective higher than I would have. I had to dive in and say what I said before. This was his journey. I said yes to this. That was the beginning. We saw up in the ethers because that’s what he does. If I believe that we have the children and the things we have, we choose a lot of this for our sole purpose. He had a sole purpose. I have a sole purpose and I had to dive deeper. I had to find ways to understand the incomprehensible.

I’m relating to your story because it happened to me with Saul. With the messages that I got and all that’s happened, who wanted him to leave? The book, the show and all that comes from it and help so many people. I know that there was an overarching theme and a purpose but when you’re going through it, who cares? You want him back.

That doesn’t mean because I wrote a book that somehow I’m all better. Healing is a journey. It’s not a plateau. You don’t get to it and ride it out for the rest of your life. You have to work towards that. There are days when I’m still frustrated on the ground because I love him. He was my baby. We love the people we love. We are always going to miss that physical presence. He’ll then show me something. You have to heal. There’s no magic remedy. You have to do everything in old things to find that way up out. There’s no way out.

Healing is a journey. It's not a plateau. You don't get to it and get to just ride it out for the rest of your life. You have to work towards that. Click To Tweet

If you choose to, it takes you on your path to do your healing work and then things evolve from there. Josiah left you a gift. You had a question about what gift he left you that challenged the alignment of your mind. What was that about?

I have a friend who said to me within the first 6 or 8 months. They were still very boys in those 6 or 8 months. She says, “What’s the gift he left you?” I had to stop, pause and think to myself, “What do you mean he left me?” I had to process that information. The gift he left me was himself for 29 physical years. There was such gratitude for that like, “Thank you so much for choosing me and choosing me again.” Unless we don’t have to do this again.

As I’ve gone on, there are these droplets of wisdom and appreciation for life in a different way. The things that would have me have so much angst or something. I would get all flustered over it. Things don’t seem to matter like that anymore. He gives me the gift of understanding. The gifts haven’t even dropped them all in yet.

Your friend did you a big favor because she changed your focus. She got you to frame it in a different way. What a wonderful favor she did with you for that. This fascinated me. You connected with Josiah through medium after he transitioned, which was new for you. Please share the highlights of that experience with us. Tell us how you began communicating with him via automatic writing. That took you to study in mediumship for yourself.

I had already studied mediumship quite a bit. I found someone that didn’t know me to give me a mediumship reading. I’d have to look at the timeframe but it was over a year or right around a year somewhere.

You waited a year before you contacted him through a medium and meanwhile, you were getting your signs.

I’m doing my things. I wasn’t too much on social media. I have some beautiful medium friends here. I went to one of her circles and she didn’t know Josiah. She started to talk about him and told me some stories. I went right early on but I wasn’t looking for anything external for some reason. After a year, I contacted one gal. She was in London but she didn’t remember who I was. She got the day when he was born. She’s got these different colors. I had been dressed and I could hear him say purple. I’m like, “Do you want me to change into purple?” She started talking about my aura and the colors around me.

They were all purple and violet. I stood up and go, “That’s weird.” He’s the only child I have that I had a split person from when he was born. I had stuck him behind the book back there. She started saying, “What’s with his left foot?” I’m like, “I don’t know. It’s something permanent with his left foot.” “Did he hurt his foot?” She’s asking these questions and I’m like, “He did hurt his foot though. It was probably left.” I look and go, “Wait a minute.”

I picked up my computer and turned it on. I said, “There’s this left foot right there in ink.” How much more permanent is that? I picked it up and brought it over. I was mesmerized by her capability of tapping in. After that, I was like, “I’m going to try.” I got ahold of another gal. I did two others with people that didn’t know me. In the meantime, I was also going to classes on the mediumship.

I didn’t tell anybody when I was there. A lot of them were tapping into that. I was getting these messages while I was in these classes but I was also learning how to connect more for myself. I took classes online. I’m going to take the class again. I’m not going to stop. I’m going to keep moving. I took a little bit of a break finishing the book because you have to keep your focus on that.

It’s an intense experience writing a book.

I had to read it and I was crying. Reading my stories was intense but it’s done.

Tell us how you started automatic writing.

That came right away at Christmas. I sat down. Josiah played the flute and he has a friend, we called John, the flute maker who lives out in Joshua Tree. He would take his flutes on consignment to sell them for him. We had several of them I brought back so I could give them to him. My daughter had helped Josiah pick out the last flute. She took that flute to her house and didn’t want to give it back. I was like, “Give her everything.” I gave a lot of stuff to my kids too. She thought I was going to take it and I wasn’t. In the few that we had here, my older son started to play.

His name is Jeremy, right?

Jeremy would go back there and play it every time he came over. He was coming over more than once a week, to be honest with you. I was watching him and I said, “I need to get him updates.” I called John and I said, “You need to meet me. I’m going to keep one of these flutes for Jeremy. Let me see which one he wants.” I tricked him, “Choose your favorite.” I watched him and he said, “I think this one’s my favorite.” They’ll play a little differently. I met with John. I sat down and thought, “Let me write to Jeremy.”

I thought I was writing to Jeremy and it wasn’t even two months from the experience. I sat down and I was going to write him. All of a sudden, I was channeling Josiah. Josiah was writing this home to him. I finished it and looked down. I read it again. I’m sobbing. I was like, “What happened here? You got to write for your sister too.” I said, “Yes, I’m with him.” Sure enough, this other beautiful poem came through about him playing the flute for her. It was gorgeous. I gave that to them for Christmas. By then, I knew that I had tapped into something. I started writing love letters to him.

It comes through very clearly in the book. Do you still do automatic writing with him?

Yes, since I’ve finished the book. I’ve taken a sabbatical on everything. I’ll write a little thing and I could write another book.

Raina, you are called a heart, soul and spirit practitioner. How did you receive that title? What modalities do you use? We know you can do automatic writing but what other modalities do you use to connect people with their healing energies?

When I was going through all this, I had a mind, body and spirit practitioner. I woke up one night with the word heart. There was a grief bonder.

Before you get to that, please tell me what modalities you use to connect people with your healing energies.

When I do a reading for someone, I get information but I work with them to tap into their information. We can go seek out unless we tap into our strength and inner wisdom. I do some inner wisdom groups. My goal is so they can tap into their inner wisdom. They’re coming up with the answers within themselves. That makes you stronger. It’s way better when you figure something out on your own than when someone tells you.

GAR Raina Irene | Because Of Josiah

Because Of Josiah: Tap into your inner wisdom so that you can come up with the answers within yourself because that makes you stronger. It’s way better when you figure something out on your own than when someone tells you.

They probably don’t even know that they have this inner wisdom until you help them to access it.

It depends on the client. A lot of clients are coming to me and they’re saying, “I need validation.” I’m like, “Let’s tap in.” We then go from there. Ninety percent of the time, it’s always, “You know this, don’t you?” “I do.” It helps them to move through. Maybe they were going to go to the left and they’re like, “I don’t know if it’s left or right.” In their heart, they knew they were supposed to go left. Chatting with me makes them dig that out and that’s the wisdom of it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t know. I knew. I want to guide you to get to your answer.

You also work with mothers who are children in spirit.

I started a group called Lullaby Letters. I wasn’t looking for groups. I wasn’t online. It was messy right around then. I heard, “You need to start a break.” I was like, “Hang on.” I heard Lullaby Letters. I could feel the spirit saying, “You’re saying lullaby and these signs you’re getting.” They move. They come to soothe us. Purse over the shoulder. Alice Cooper’s eyes came to the computer and created this group called Lullaby Letters, Letters from Our Children in Spirit.

I already had several women that I had already met throughout the year. I invited them into the group. I’m starting to hold what I call Sacred Mama’s Tea Talks. I’m going to talk about cell memory because there’s a cell memory that happens in our body around certain times and situations happening. I facilitate a little talk, which is casual, and then one-on-one to help guide and understand the signs that are happening.

Sometimes we don’t realize that if we’re driving down the street and we see 4/44, that’s an angel sign or a spirit sign. Maybe that’s your number for your child, husband, mom or whoever is in spirit that you want. Those signs are happening all the time. I am always looking at Wiseman’s plate because there’s a story within the energy of where you happen to go and what you happen to see. If you’re aware of that, you then know.

I would imagine that there might be mothers reading who might want to join your group to be able to better connect with their children in spirit. You also have healing circles that focus on inner wisdom and healing grief. Tell us about those.

My healing circles are going to start back up. They were COVID shut down because they were in person. A lot of that is about a little training on psychic development, intuition, angels, the afterlife and helping my soul sisters tap into their inner wisdom. Grief is a new energy. We always are dealing with grief. There’s the grief of divorce. It’s an ongoing story of lifting us to a higher vibration where we can process information clearer when we stay in that lower muddy energy to come out of that chronic grief or blame or should have or could have, all that stuff of guilt that we can do on ourselves.

GAR Raina Irene | Because Of Josiah

Because Of Josiah: We are always dealing with grief. It’s an ongoing story of lifting us to a higher vibration where we can process information clearer than when we stay in that lower muddy energy.

The things we learned from pre-conditioning and pre-programming transformed when you’ve been through something like this. You believe that healing is not one thing you do but everything you do. Please explain this. Tell us why healing should be important for every single one of us.

It’s not one thing you do. It’s everything you do. If you do nothing, you stay in that lower muddy, chronic grief in your body, mind and heart. Everything’s going to take its toll on you. A lot of people feel like, “If I go to a medium, I’m going to be all better.” You have to learn and go in directions that bring you joy. I say this a lot. There are words about grief that have not been created. We have a language that we have to speak because it’s the words we know.

You want to go and find different ways. You can go to a medium but learn a little bit more about the afterlife and spirituality. Learn about reiki, botany, painting and things that interest you. Grief has a way. It’s like someone picked you up and threw you and you are like, “That’s hurting.” That’s what happens. Rebuild yourself. When Josiah left, I thought to myself, “Who are you without him?” We are always in a place of re-developing, re-identifying and reinventing who we are. We forget when we go through life that like a child, we love to color. Whatever they want to do, their imagination is through the roof.

Find those ways with anything that interests you. I mean anything in the spiritual realm especially but even in this physical place we live. Try it. It doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. If you’re like, “I always wanted to paint a picture,” paint a picture because everything you do builds that within you. Those little tiny accomplishments become a big building block holding you up for the rest of your life. I want to go back to heart, soul and spirit practitioner.

Those little tiny accomplishments become big building blocks of holding you up for the rest of your life. Click To Tweet

I woke up three nights in a row. The first night said, “Heart, soul, spirit.” I thought, “Heart, soul, spirit, that’s pretty.” I went to the computer and googled it, “Heart, soul, spirit.” A picture came up with this necklace on it, which was Josiah’s. It said, “Heart, soul, spirit.” I grabbed the picture and put it on my group. I changed it from mind, body, spirit to heart, soul, spirit right then and there. I felt Josiah had given me that. That’s how I retitled myself.

Raina, what are great ways for people to connect with you? They may want to get work with you for the mothers who are children in spirit. They may want to join one of your healing circles and get your book. What are the best ways for people to connect with you?

You can go to www.RainaIrene.love. You can go to Amazon. If you’re in the United States, you can get the book from me also. It shows two things. I have an Oracle deck that I created with Josiah’s art. That’s Sacred Alchemy: Connecting You to the Ones You Love in Spirit. I always tell you about that. It’s the four mandalas that he had created. He created many but they’re the pictures that I found.

How do people work with those cards? Do they spread them, choose certain cards and see what comes up, which is a message for them?

There’s a little instruction on the front. I love to do this and I like to let them fly. You can spread it out. You can randomly cut it in half. You can pull it or any way you choose. What I believe with Oracle decks is there’s a nudge. You can get up every morning and pull a card. Bond to bond, heart to heart, my spirit is connected to yours. Get a message.

Any way you choose, you can use them to share with other people if that’s something you do. It helps you connect. They have a lot of the messages that were in the book. Josiah showed me this full deck and downloaded the messages for me. There’s a tab that says Sacred Alchemy and you can order them both there. I have Lullaby Letters on Facebook. You’ll see that it says Sacred Alchemy before it. You’ll see this picture on the top part.

That’s beautiful. I love the way he put the heart in the tree there.

He surprised me with that and sent it to me. This is his circus wheel because he did circus art so he would spin in this thing like a penny. I have a lot of cool videos of him on that. Also on the website, there are all the signs that I talk about in the book. I couldn’t put all the pictures but it’s on my website. You can connect with Lullaby Letters if you want places where I do all my woo-woo.

Raina Irene, what is your tip for finding joy in life? You’ve gone through all of this and been able to find joy again.

It’s remembering that you’re still here and they’re still here. A lot of times, I stop and pause. I said, “What would Josiah, my mom and my dad want me to do?” I know the answer. When I know the answer, I know that I can move through it and do whatever it is. It is finding things that give you peace. What we need is peace. Our hearts have been shattered.

GAR Raina Irene | Because Of Josiah

The Sacred Alchemy of a Mother’s Unending Bond with Her Son in Spirit by Raina Irene

In that oriental Japanese, they take a shattered piece of glass and weave liquid gold through it. When it’s done and they look at it, it’s more beautiful. Everything we do to find healing and peace and remember love always is liquid gold. It’s healing that piece of our hearts. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt or we don’t cry. It doesn’t mean we don’t have episodes but it means we’re moving. We’re giving back to the gift that is the people that we love.

Raina, what a blessing and a gift Josiah still is to you. He is helping you to help others. Your book, Because of Josiah: The Sacred Alchemy of a Mother’s Unending Bond with Her Son in Spirit, is a deep and soulful memoir of your life at heart as a mother. I’m sure it will touch the hearts of many in our audience with its honest look at grief and the power of healing after living through the unimaginable.

Thank you from my heart for this touching and authentic interview that confirms for each of us that our bonds with our loved ones continue after they have transitioned to the other side. Here’s a reminder, everyone. 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. Bye for now.

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