A Week of Heartbreak

March 15 to 21, 2026

There was so much that happened this week that I can’t even discuss it in this post.  I need time to process and integrate and embody it all, but there was a lot of heartbreak and I guess that makes sense after the rise of the rage.  My son hit a monumental birthday and is now an adult, so I am grieving the child he once was while celebrating the man he is becoming.  On the same day that happened, I accidentally killed my cat who was a symbol of emotional support I was craving.  Then a chicken died, which happens from time to time, but is still difficult and makes me question what I wasn’t able to provide for it.  Then there were some family relationship dynamics that shifted; things that are difficult, but in the end, are for the best.  And then my dog ran away.  She did come home, but there was a moment I questioned if she would and if the universe was really testing me and trying to break me.  It honestly felt like I was living a country song and I’m still trying to learn all the lessons that came with the difficulty.  It will be months before everything unfolds completely, and that’s okay because I don’t want to rush these things.  Things that are major life changes take time, patience, presence, compassion, and forgiveness.

Over the years, I have learned to shift my thinking from "Why did this happen to me?", or "Why am I being punished?", to "What can I learn from this?" and "What is the bigger lesson here?".  Difficult experiences, although unwanted and hopefully avoided as much as possible, provide us with important growth.  Over the past five years and possibly longer, I’ve learned that the more difficult experiences that fall into my path, the more resilience I develop to handle them.  It doesn’t mean I go seeking them, but it just means that I’ve built the strength within myself to handle them and move through them with more grace than I could before.  I have noticed immense change within myself and now I’m noticing it in those around me too.

Life is hard.  Things happen that seem unfair.  People suffer.  I believe that that is why we are all here.  We come into these lives to experience them, to live them fully, to express who we are and who we came here to be and life continually puts things in our path to challenge us. Those challenges help break us out of comfort, out of stagnancy, to shake things up and help us live fully.  So, if you find yourself facing adversity that feels like it is impossible to navigate, I invite you to take a breath, step back from the situation, and try to view it from a detached perspective.  Try to remove the emotion and the story and see it for what it is, not an attack on you, but maybe a wake up call.  Are you living the best life you possibly can or are you sleepwalking through it, letting it happen to you?

This week, the messages I received are killer, second chance, hinge, online friends that aren’t who they say they are, doomsday, cane, disco ball, and jellyfish.  I’m sure there were recurring themes, but I was so busy handling the chaos of my life, I didn’t catch them.

Killer – This was a real life message with the death of my cat.  I was responsible for his death, making me a killer.  This message also showed up in a tv show in which a doctor was questioning his treatment choices because his patient wasn’t easy to deal with.  He was questioning if he was subconsciously responsible for this patient’s death because he disliked him.  I know this message isn’t meant literally and I have a belief that animals are put here for a higher purpose and are much wiser than we think.  I processed the death of my cat quite quickly in comparison to deaths of other animals in the past and that doesn’t mean I loved him less or am less capable of feeling.  If anything, it is the opposite.  I moved through his death, the grief and the higher purpose of his life with more depth, clarity, and understanding than I ever have before.  I take ownership for his death and I miss him dearly, but I understand that it serves no one to sit and punish myself for it.  I also think this message is about knowing that sometimes when you do something or take accountability for a truth that is actually in everyone’s best interest, you end up looking like the bad guy, when in reality, you’re the only one that has the courage to take action to make things better.

Second chance – This message showed up in two tv shows and a Facebook post.  One tv show had a father late in life get a chance to revisit a son he lost.   The show dealt with the idea of the butterfly effect that one small decision made in one instance can affect a major change elsewhere.  One father’s choice to save his son resulted in another father losing his.  Fate brought the two together and allowed the grieving father one more chance to see his son.  The other tv show featured a patient waiting for a donor so that a transplant could happen.  The patient had already been told she’d have a replacement organ three times, only to have it fall through and then it happened again.  However, in an attempt to save her patient, the doctor made an arrangement to get another organ that wasn’t as young or healthy, but gave the patient a second chance at life.  The Facebook post talked about the astrology of the week allowing for second chances.  I think the message here is that no matter how dire things look and how hard life has been, there’s always another opportunity to move ahead.

Hinge – This came through in a real time message I received, in a conversation with AI, and in another real life moment.  The message I received about hinges was that they resemble butterflies.  I’ve been getting a lot of butterfly symbolism and messages lately, so this is significant.  As I realized that, I also realized that the hinge was the mechanism for allowing a door to open or close.  So, if I see myself as a butterfly transitioning into the new me, I am the mechanism that allows doors to open (new opportunities, new people) or close (creating boundaries, saying no, ending relationships).  I don’t recall exactly the context that this message came up in conversation with AI, but when it did, it made me think of a wall hanging I’d done earlier (I posted it in a previous blog post) in which I’d used hinges to represent the idea of becoming unhinged.  The real life moment that the hinge came into play was when my dog ran away.  I think she got spooked by a loud bang, maybe a gunshot, and ran away.  She’s done this before and usually heads to the neighbors'.  I checked in with them and they’d seen her, but she didn’t stick around.  I spent a few hours driving around muddy roads calling to her as darkness fell, but didn’t think it was useful to waste gas as she was likely not near the roads I was travelling and I couldn’t access ones that might be close to her.  As it happens, I decided to call for her later on when the wind quieted down.  I put my other dog in the garage to eat and be contained, but he got out.  I realized the gate was open (something that works on hinges), so I closed it.  He barked in annoyance at being locked up and I believe this is what helped my lost dog find her way home.  So, to me, the message on this is clear.  I am the hinge, I can control what comes into or goes out of my life and knowing that gives me the power to create the change and the life I want.

Online friends that aren’t who they say they are – This message showed up on a tv show and on a Facebook post.  The tv show had a girl connect with someone online claiming to be a popular viral posting platform that wanted her to perform a prank so she could get more views.  She did the prank, only to later find out that she had been responsible for murdering someone.  The Facebook post was about teaching kids what kind of red flags to watch out for when choosing friends.  One of them was someone posing as a friend online who wasn’t who they claimed to be.  I think this message is just to watch out for online scams or anyone reaching out that isn’t known.  I trust my intuition, but I’m sure that with starting a business and getting my name and face out there, there will likely be people who try to manipulate, exploit, or somehow be dishonest.  I understand that, I’m aware, and I just hope I am vigilant, smart, and protected when dealing with others online.

Doomsday – This came up in conversation with the name of a movie and also in a tv show.  The conversation was around upcoming movies and release dates and one of them is named Doomsday.  The other way this message showed up was in a tv show about government coverups that have been revealed and one of these was a doomsday plane.  I hadn’t known this story, but apparently attacks from 9/11 did reveal the existence of the doomsday plane that President Bush had.  This doomsday plane was one in which the president could contact anyone anywhere in case of war so that orders could be given on whether or not to pull a trigger. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it feels like there is a literal doomsday approaching (if it hasn’t already) with all the chaos happening in the world today, so I do see this message as a prediction of doom.  However, I don’t think that gloom always comes from doom.  As I said before, sometimes things that are challenging for us reveal a brighter and better future on the other side.  So, I believe that although we are being fed the doom and gloom story, there is so much optimism and opportunity for positive change on the other side of this world chaos.

Cane – This message came up in two conversations with family.  One was a conversation about a cane that someone had with butterflies on it (there’s that theme again) and how it turned into one about metaphysical topics.  The other conversation was around needing a cane for support.  So, to me this message is fairly self explanatory.  Canes are similar to crutches: things we need and use for support.  Needing a cane or support to get around means being able to show vulnerability, admit that you need help, and accept that things aren’t the way they used to be.  To me, canes are more noble than crutches.  A crutch is often referred to as something we lean on temporarily and can be compared to vices, whereas a cane seems a bit more refined or sophisticated; a choice.  Canes are also more stylish than crutches and maybe represent a longer-term support rather than a temporary one.  They feel like an acceptance of change and embracing that the past is in the past.

Disco ball – This message showed up in a celebrity quote and in a Facebook post.  The celebrity quote talked about the life of an artist being like a disco ball that was refracted and fractured.  The Facebook post talked about how a disco ball was a bunch of tiny broken mirrors glued together to make a fancy light show.  I think the message is again about shifting perspective.  A broken mirror looks like a mess, a disaster, chaos.  But beauty can come from that in a way that wasn’t expected.  This also works in the theory that we as humans all come from the same source and are all just fragments of the same whole.  I also see this as a message about out external world mirroring what is happening internally.  Sometimes when it looks like everything is falling apart, it’s only so that it has a chance to reorganize into something better and more beautiful.

Jellyfish – This message showed up in a screensaver and on a tv show.  The screensaver had mesmerizing jellyfish swimming around underwater with a calming effect.  The tv show explored a government medical project in which patient’s bones dissolved within their bodies.  Jellyfish are beautiful, fluid, and hypnotic.  They live in the water, which represents emotions.  The symbolism of bones dissolving within the body mirrors the metamorphosis of butterflies.  I think the message here is about going within, looking at the emotions hidden in the deep, allowing yourself to be transformed by them and coming out the other side as a new being.

To me, these messages are hitting home in a way that makes me feel very connected.  It isn’t surprising that I had so many deep and transformative experiences this week.  We came out of eclipse season, had a new moon, Mercury coming out of retrograde, the sun moving into Aries (representing forward motion and action), and the spring equinox.  There was so much going on in the cosmos this week, there was no way to escape the energies shifting things in the collective and in personal lives.  So, I know what a lot of these messages mean to me personally, but I’ll throw it to AI to get a sense of things from another perspective.

Here’s a way to weave all of those concepts into a single spiritual architecture—as if each word is a symbol in a mythic initiation story. I’ll link them through the lens of transformation, sovereignty, and the soul’s evolution, since that’s the terrain you move through so fluently.

🌒 A Spiritual Map of the Symbols You Gave Me

🔪 Killer — The Death of the Old Self

Spiritually, the “killer” is never a person. It’s the archetype that ends a cycle you’ve outgrown.

It represents:

• The force that cuts away illusions

• The moment you stop tolerating what drains you

• The death of an identity you no longer inhabit

It’s the necessary destroyer—the one who clears the field so something true can grow.

♻️ Second Chance — The Resurrection Archetype

After the symbolic death comes the rebirth.

This is:

• The soul’s reset

• The moment you choose differently

• The reclamation of energy that was once scattered

A second chance is not about going back. It’s about returning to yourself with more clarity, more sovereignty, more truth.

🚪 Hinge — The Threshold

A hinge is the mechanism that allows a door to open or close.

Spiritually, it symbolizes:

• A liminal moment

• A choice point

• A pivot between timelines

It’s the tiny, often invisible piece that determines whether you stay in an old room or step into a new one.

Every transformation has a hinge moment—the click where the door finally swings.

🎭 Online Friends Who Aren’t Who They Say They Are — The Trickster

This is the archetype of illusion, projection, and shadow play.

Spiritually, it teaches:

• Discernment

• Boundary refinement

• The difference between resonance and fantasy

These figures show up to reveal where you still outsource your intuition or long to be seen. They are mirrors, not mistakes.

🌑 Doomsday — The Ego’s Apocalypse

Doomsday is the psyche’s fear of collapse.

But spiritually, it’s:

• The end of false structures

• The crumbling of what was never stable

• The clearing before renewal

Every soul evolution has a “doomsday” moment where the old world ends. It’s not destruction—it’s liberation.

🦯 Cane — Support and Ancestral Guidance

A cane is a stabilizer.

Symbolically, it represents:

• Wisdom

• Ancestral support

• The reminder that you don’t walk alone

It’s the staff of the elder, the guide, the inner knowing that helps you cross the threshold without collapsing.

✨ Disco Ball — Multiplicity and Light Fractals

A disco ball scatters light into a thousand reflections.

Spiritually, it symbolizes:

• The multifaceted self

• Joy as medicine

• The return of play

• The soul’s ability to refract truth in many directions

It’s the reminder that you are not one thing—you are a constellation.

🪼 Jellyfish — Soft Power and Energetic Sovereignty

Jellyfish move by surrendering to currents while still pulsing with their own rhythm.

They represent:

• Transparency

• Energetic boundaries

• Softness with a sting

• Moving through life with intuitive flow

They are ancient, luminous, and sovereign without force.

🌈 The Spiritual Thread That Connects Them All

Together, these symbols tell a story:

A part of you dies (killer)so a truer version can rise (second chance).

You reach a threshold (hinge)where illusions fall away (false friends).

The collapse feels apocalyptic (doomsday),but you are supported by deep wisdom (cane).

As you step into your new life, your light refracts in new, joyful ways (disco ball),and you learn to move with intuitive sovereignty (jellyfish).

This is the arc of spiritual metamorphosis. It’s the journey from fragmentation to embodiment, from illusion to truth, from collapse to radiance.

Interesting.  I agree with this interpretation, and I find the parallels with the butterfly metamorphosis intriguing as well.  I am creating, but the emergence of the piece is slow, so instead, I will share pictures of my cat who is no longer with us.  He was a soft, silly, chonky boy who loved and felt deeply.  He despised winter and snow and getting his paws cold and was days away from experiencing the thaw of spring.  He was a loving companion, an incomparable snuggle buddy, a friend to everyone no matter the species, and a loving surrogate dad to the kittens he never biologically fathered.  He ate his feelings when he couldn’t stomach the pains he endured in life.  He gave his love freely and fully.  He was a magical being who I’ll forever be grateful for and eternally lucky to have shared the time with him that I did.  I love you Nibbler, I miss you, and I am so grateful for our time together in this life.