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Writer's pictureEmilce Suarez-Lipton

Endings And New Beginnings: Death And Re-birth. Part 1



I have not written in a while. Perhaps because quite a bit was moving through me during the last four months. Movement was also flowing rapidly and I felt that I needed time to integrate. 

Since the end of the Spring, I have been seeing crows everywhere. I would notice them not just near food and waste sources, but also while driving, perched on stop signs, and near my balcony and office window. I imagine that they were always there, but I wondered why I was noticing them more. Is there a symbol, a message that I am bringing to myself through the awareness of these birds?


I mentioned this question to a friend and she shared that she had a negative association with crows. She only saw them as scavengers. They reminded her of death and darkness. I then remembered that when I was a child, I heard that spotting crows repeatedly meant that someone close to you was going to die. Then, I was reminded about the classic Hitchcock movie and the multiple ways in which crows have been depicted in the media as dark or alludying to death and fear. Yet, the more I stared at them, the more I liked them. I felt compassion and gratitude for them. They clean up! I thought. They contribute to the alchemical process of energy. From matter to dust to matter, energy flows. The life-death cycle. I felt an energy of love and support rather than fear. Thus, I asked myself, is there more about the life and death cycle for me to explore here?


There was another pattern I became aware of during the last four to five months. When I looked at the time, I saw 911. I would see 9:11AM and 9:11PM several times a week. I also saw 911 in scoreboards, license plates and route signs. My husband and my daughter know how often I see 1111, 333, etc in addresses, license plates and when looking at the time. We all laugh about it. Yet, this 911 thing was new. Similarly to the crows conection, my first association was negative: “emergency”. Then, as I took a deep breath inviting a broader perspective, I noticed other connections. The number 9 reminded me of the pregnancy cycle and other cycles marking preparation for something. When I was a child, in Colombia we had “La Novena de Aguinaldos”. Children would gather to sing Christmas songs and recite prayers 9 days prior to Christmas. We also had Novenas for multiple religious holidays. When my grandparents passed away, our family gathered with friends and neighbors for 9 days. It was believed that the prayers and chanting of loved ones during these 9 days would support the soul’s transition to the other side. 


As I made these connections, I decided to google it. And there it was, “911 in numerology is associated with endings and beginnings”, “an invitation to embark on a journey of deeper self-discovery” “shedding layers of old self and embracing a more authentic version of who you are” 


Then, I remembered that my 49th birthday had just passed. Up until then, I saw 2025 as the year of an ending of a chapter and the beginning of a new one. My 50th will be “the big year”, I thought. My daughter will go off to College. I will likely move, perhaps also welcome menopause and co-create exciting things professionally. However, as I tuned into the crows and 911 symbolism, I realized that the period of an ending of a cycle and begining of a new one was already in motion. I felt like soon I would begin to experience a sense of completion and of a clean slate sort of speak.


Two days after my birthday, I got sick with a stomach virus. It must have been the first time in my 49 years of life that I experienced something like that.  I guess I’d been lucky to only experience indigestion. A few hours of digestive symptoms followed by a quick relief.  This thing was much more intense than that. I had fever, I had shivers. My body felt very weak. It was hard to even reach for a glass of water. I did not function for a few days. It then became clear to me that I was purging more than just a virus. This awareness helped me move through it with acceptance, openness and love for myself, and even for my stomach bug. I said, “yes, whatever is to move through and cleared out of my system, I allow it to be”. The severe symptoms only lasted a few days, but I did not feel completely back to myself for two weeks. 


During this time, I sat deeper in meditation and I noticed old patterns and not so loved parts of me and of my history coming up to the surface for me to be present with so that I could clear them.  I had a few powerful sessions with a beautiful healer for ancestral integration. After the first week, I began to notice that energy had been freed up. I was  also deepening my connection to myself, to the core of who I am. 


Now I can see more clearly how this year has been profoundly about welcoming myself more and more. About welcoming all the parts that make the whole of me and of integrating that which I unconsciously kept in exile. That which I and/or others denied and judged. Not only the psychological parts that formed during my development, but also aspects from other lifetimes. I received a clear invitation to consider the purpose in all I’ve co-created regardless of form and to integrate it into who I am from a place of neutrality.


Although I knew that this work takes a lifetime, I could sense that as I allowed more integration, something deeper was emerging within me. I just never anticipated what that would be like.


Thank you for reading. Part 2 continues next!



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