Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
As an Author, Angel Healing Practitioner and bereaved mom since 2005, through guest interviews and coaching, I share great content that is informative, inspiring and practical to help anyone who has suffered a loss, or other adversity, manage grief and heal. Topics focus on loss, grief advocacy, grief support, healing, personal growth and consciousness expansion for holistic wellbeing.
Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
Ep. 119 🌸 Forgotten Grief: Breaking the Silence on Sibling Loss 🕊️
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💔 In the United States alone, nearly 62,000 children and adolescents lose a sibling every year. Yet sibling grief remains one of the most overlooked and unacknowledged forms of loss, despite being one of our most significant and enduring relationships. Too often, the grief of a bereaved sibling is overshadowed by the attention given to parents and spouses, leaving siblings feeling invisible in their pain. In this episode, my guest Maribeth Swan and I open up a conversation that is real, raw, and long overdue.
Maribeth knows grief from the inside out. In 2000, she lost her younger brother to suicide at the age of 25 — a fraternal twin to her surviving brother, and a loss that cracked her world open and led her toward a deeper connection with death and loved ones beyond the veil.🕊️ A debilitating accident in 2018 further changed her path and drew her into the healing world of flower essences.🌸 Today, as a Flower Essence Practitioner and Intuitive Counselor, Maribeth is dedicated to helping others navigate loss and develop a more reverent relationship with Nature, bringing them closer to their own true Essence and healing.
In this episode, we get real about sibling grief and the silence that can be just as painful as the loss itself. Topics include:
•Why sibling grief is one of the most overlooked and unacknowledged forms of loss
•The unique and lifelong bond between siblings and why its loss hits differently
•How loss reshapes family dynamics and the challenges that follow
•Afterlife communication, signs from loved ones, and the comfort of mediumship
•The role of spiritual practices and nature in finding peace and healing
•Why talking openly about death and grief matters more than most of us realize
•How Flower Essences can support emotional healing during grief
•The importance of community and support in navigating the long road through loss
Based in Massachusetts, Maribeth alchemizes her own essences, writes a monthly New Moon newsletter 🌙, composes music on her dulcimer, and is endlessly passionate about the wisdom of plants.
Whether you are a bereaved sibling yourself or someone who loves one, this conversation is for you. Sibling grief deserves to be seen, heard, and honoured and that starts with breaking the silence together. 👨👩👧👦
🎧 Listen or watch now and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
💛 If this episode touched your heart, please leave a review and help us reach others who are walking this path alone.
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Website:
https://afsp.org/
📚 Study References:
Hulsey et al., 2018: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30513272/
Science Direct, 2022: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088259632200118X
🌿 Connect with Maribeth and explore her work at:.
https://swanessence.com
More resources from Vonne are available at:
https://vonnesolis.com
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Vonne Solis 0:00
We're going to be talking a little bit about sibling grief, to the extent that you want to talk about and share it. Is a topic that I've had nobody come on my podcast and talk about. It's a grief all on its own, and for me as a parent, it's like, God, what's happening to my adult child? Everything I've read about any kind of sibling loss is that the surviving child or children think it should have been them that died, because they see their parents in so much pain.
Maribeth Swan 0:33
When I found out I was coming home from a band practice, I'm also a musician, and my parents and my roommate were standing outside waiting for me, and I knew. I knew then. And what was so.. you know, it takes you, it takes your breath away, it's so severe. And I'm not a mother, a biological mother in this life, but we do, as siblings, share DNA, and we share that common experience of having been raised in the same household. And some say, and I'm not saying this to offend anyone, that the sibling connection can be deeper than the parent child connection, and you really feel like a part of you has been taken.
Vonne Solis 1:25
This is The Grief Talk Podcast with Vonne Solis, helping you heal after loss and life's hardest hits. My guest today is Maribeth Swan. She is a custom Flower Essence practitioner and intuitive counselor who is trauma-informed through experience and education. After the death of her younger brother by suicide in 2000, Maribeth became more attuned to loved ones beyond the veil. Drawn to working with the bioelectric medicine of flower essences through herbalism, and after a debilitating accident, Maribeth serves populations coping with loss. She believes developing a more reverent alignment with nature brings us into deeper relation with our own true essence. Maribeth alchemizes essences in her home state of Massachusetts, writes a monthly new moon newsletter, enjoys composing music on her dulcimer, and educating others about the wisdom of plants. Audience, welcome to Maribeth Swan. Maribeth, please just pop in quickly to say hello.
Maribeth Swan 2:33
Hi, everyone.
Vonne Solis 2:34
Maribeth and I feel like we're old friends. We've communicated for a couple months, and it took a while for us to get together on this podcast, but here we are. And audience, this is going to be fun, but also serious, because Maribeth, as I said in the opening, is a flower essence practitioner, and she is an Intuitive Counsellor, Coach. Are you counsellor? Do you call yourself?
Maribeth Swan 2:59
I say Intuitive Counsel.
Vonne Solis 3:01
Yeah, Intuitive Counsel, and I have never talked to anyone, Maribeth, that has worked with flower essences for healing. So this is a new area for me to learn about, and I'm so excited because I am a gardener and adore flowers, and so we're going to be, you know, dedicating a part of this podcast all about that. But the other thing that sort of binds us together, and you were just saying before we hit record, is that Maribeth lost her, a brother, who was a fraternal twin, to suicide in 2000 and I lost my daughter to suicide in 2005 and that's a bond that it's an immediate connection, isn't it, Maribeth?
Maribeth Swan 3:45
Absolutely. It's a club no one wants to be in, but
Vonne Solis 3:48
Right.
Maribeth Swan 3:48
It's an immediate kinship.
Vonne Solis 3:50
Exactly. And so we're going to be talking a little bit about sibling grief to the extent that you want to talk about and share, you know what you want about that. It is a topic that I've had nobody come on my podcast and talk about, and it's, you know, and it's that it's a grief all on its own. And for me as a parent, it's like, God, what's happening to them? What's happening to my adult child? And it's not that necessarily your experience, and what happened to your family is going to be exactly what happened to ours, but ours was so fractured. We have stayed together, but it was forever changed on July 26th, 2005. And I will say this: everything I've read, and then I'm going to turn it over to you, about sort of siblings when there is a suicide, and, and, or even any kind of sibling loss, is that the surviving child or children think it should have been them that died, because they see their parents in so much pain. And they kind of think, especially, if they're young, and my son was 13, and he did feel this way. He actually said one day to me, about a month or two later, "It should have been me that had died. You're so sad". And I mean, like, that's just heartbreaking. However, I'd read a book, so I from a psychologist, so I kind of expected it, and so it didn't, you know, I mean, it was awful, but it is a reality, and they hide and keep things buried deep inside for years and years and years. And I also don't think the parent is the one they're going to turn to and talk about their bereavement and their grief. I mean, it hasn't happened in my family, and I feel kind of.. hmm, I want to say the right word here, but I feel kind of like, well, my son shouldn't know everything I feel, and I'm going through. So it's not that I try, I have tried to hide it, and of course I'm much better 21 years later. But there's still that part that I feel, because if he doesn't want to hear about his sister, because he's still so mad at her, or whatever. Whatever, I don't really know what's going on, but the, you know, the anger from the 13-year-old and the betrayal and all of that, then I feel like I don't get to celebrate her with him, you know, as we've learned to do.
Vonne Solis 6:14
Not yet. And so I'm waiting for that day, because that
Maribeth Swan 6:18
It's coming.
Vonne Solis 6:19
Is it?
Maribeth Swan 6:20
Yeah.
Vonne Solis 6:21
Okay, so that's what we're going to sort of talk a little bit.
Maribeth Swan 6:24
About seven years. It may take a little while for him.
Vonne Solis 6:29
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 6:29
About seven years or so. Five to seven years.
Vonne Solis 6:33
Yeah. And you know you're not wrong when you say an age, because the last piece I want to just throw in here a little bit before we go to the first question, is that I read a lot about what I could about parent bereavement back in 2005. Ah, books, like any book I could get on it. It didn't matter how the child died. I just wanted to know what the parents a few years in had gone through, what I could maybe expect, and you know, a lot of it was like bang-on right. It was right. I ended up being the author of three books, and you know, to help other parents, because it is true that as we trudge along and go through things, you know, we, we, it, the ... and this wasn't about what I'm doing in the grief. It's about the actual grief itself. Kind of what it does and one of the dads, the bereaved dad, said something really strange happened at ten years, and it kind of felt worse. And so, while I wasn't waiting for that, that's exactly what happened at ten years. It was like something kicked in and went, "Oh my god, this is forever, this is real, like she's not coming back.
Maribeth Swan 7:43
Okay, that's what happened to you at ten years?
Vonne Solis 7:45
Yeah, yeah. And now it didn't, it wasn't, it didn't like ruin my life or anything, but it was yet another, it was like a shift. And so it.. I was so grateful to have these sort of signposts along the road that I went, yeah, I'm not alone. This is, so there I really believe that there's.. I don't want to say standard, but commonalities that we experience in certain types of grief, and while we express them differently, and they may come to us at different times and in different situations, like, you know, but sadness and sorrow and trauma and shock, they're all kind of the same. You get what I'm saying? So that's why I'm kind of like, we can learn from each other. So I'm going to dive in, and I'm going to invite you to,
Maribeth Swan 8:39
I already have things to say, but go ahead.
Vonne Solis 8:41
share. I'm just going to turn it over to you, and you start where you want. Tell us who your brother was, whatever you want to say about his passing, anything you want to say about sibling grief, and your own personal experience. Over to you.
Maribeth Swan 8:53
Okay. Well, my brothers were born when I was two and a half, and I was very close to them, because my mother had three children under three at home. And when I was old enough to handle it, she would hand me one baby, and she would have the other baby, and the baby that she would hand me was my brother Jamie, because we just got along better. He liked, he didn't cry as much as my other brother would when he was with me, and I always felt connected to him. One of my brothers, Jeffrey, who's still with us, has brown eyes, and Jamie has blue eyes, had blue eyes like me, and I always just felt very connected to him. And we knew he wasn't well, he was struggling with his mental health. He had been in and out of some mental hospitals, and he really wasn't taking to the program, so to speak. And I didn't know it at the time, but in retrospect, he did say goodbye to me. He left me a message and said I really love you, Maribeth. And when I found out, I was coming home from a band practice, I'm also a musician. And my parents and my roommate were standing outside waiting for me, and I knew, I knew then. And what was so you know, it takes you. It takes your breath away, it's so severe. And I'm not a mother, a biological mother in this life, but we do, as siblings share DNA, and we share that common experience of having been raised in the same household. And some say, and I'm not saying this to offend anyone, that the sibling connection can be deeper than the parent child connection.
Vonne Solis 10:52
I agree with that. I agree with that.
Maribeth Swan 10:54
And you really feel like a part of you has been taken.
Vonne Solis 10:58
And can I just say, that's the way it should be. And a long time ago, years ago, I read a book on souls and contracts and things like that for people who are into that, and they said in that book, this woman - I don't even remember her name, but she was majorly an author of soul work and whatever, healing and all that stuff, and understanding the soul contract, and they said our kids don't come here to work things out with mom and dad. They come here to work things out with each other. And other people too, but there is a sibling bond. And and I, we're stopping on this point just for a second, because this is where I think the grief gets stuck for some siblings, and I have even met people in their 70s who lost a sibling when they were a kid. They never got over it. Never. These were all guys, all men, by the way. So, I'm not sure if they integrate healing quite as much as us women. But anyway, so to your point, so yes, you, you've lost something probably I, I don't understand, because I've never lost a sibling, see?
Maribeth Swan 12:05
Well, I wonder if you had this experience. So, the day afterwards, I remember waking up, and my two best friends came and picked me up, and we went down to the beach. I'm from Cape Cod, and we had - I was at my parents' house, and I felt like I could feel him everywhere. I could sense him in the wind. I could sense him in the waves. I could sense him in the seagulls. I could sense him in the plants and the sea grass. I could just sense him everywhere, and it's as if he went from being contained into a body to being the effervescence of him was everywhere.
Vonne Solis 12:45
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 12:45
And that was was comforting to me. I also, you were, you were speaking to the ten years being something that upset you. I have a very dear friend who had lost a brother very young. Not to suicide, to a motorcycle accident, but when it happened, it's almost like you feel you're holding your breath. Just it was your or you're arrested right in the moment, and he said, "Maribeth, don't even try to wrap your head around it for ten years. And when he said that to me, I exhaled, and that has been one of the greatest gifts that I have been able to share with anyone who's lost someone. But don't try to wrap your head around it for even ten years. And, and the thing that everyone will say when you've experienced something horrible is time heals all wounds.
Vonne Solis 13:40
Ooooh.
Maribeth Swan 13:40
I know you've heard it. I know you've heard it.
Vonne Solis 13:42
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 13:43
That to me is a complete fallacy.
Vonne Solis 13:45
Yes.
Maribeth Swan 13:45
And the wounds is the wounds, and it doesn't get smaller. We grow around the wounds, hopefully in healthy ways. But that wound to me, that wound doesn't get smaller. The wound is the wound, and and it becomes maybe more deeply integrated into your being. You find peace with it. And as you were saying earlier, I can't remember if we were recording or not, about having a direct phone line to your daughter.
Vonne Solis 14:09
Yeah. That was before I hit record, but it's true. I have a phone line directly to my daughter through my AirTag. Yep.
Maribeth Swan 14:24
I have loved ones, and I was a hospice volunteer for a little while.
Vonne Solis 14:30
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 14:30
And I've had beings who've crossed communicate through electricity.
Vonne Solis 14:35
Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. Well, a little, a little side note, though, is that you see, this started on her 20th anniversary, around there. But I did a little test two days ago, okay? Because I'm at eighteen calls, I'm at eighteen. But you know it's, and I've talked on this in another episode on the on the podcast about a month ago. You know, these things can happen from Afterlife. You know, and when, then we can still go, Did that just happen? Like, is this really happening? Is this really happening? So, on my birthday was yesterday, and, and so we won't.
Maribeth Swan 15:10
Oh my gosh! That's my brother's birthday.
Vonne Solis 15:14
What?
Maribeth Swan 15:15
April __ is my brother's, are my brothers' birthdays.
Vonne Solis 15:19
Yeah, mine was yesterday. Okay. So, on, okay, so yeah, we're connected, and I'm getting chills. I'm getting chills. I actually kind of feel your brother here, because I am an Angel Practitioner since 2006, so twenty years, and I, my whole body's just chilled right now, like goosebumps. So I think he's here. I think he's here with us. Anyway, so hi Jamie and Tris. Anyway, so I wanted to say, so listen, I've known since last July, because the calls come - I'm not going to talk a lot about it on my AirTag around important dates, or and last July was her angel anniversary. So she called twice during the week between her angel anniversary and what would have been her memorial. And so it's like, okay, and then she called at Christmas, and you know, and just, just things, and then something big. My son got a new job, and she called, and you know, or I'll be like, geez, you know, hon, if you can pop in, I really miss you, and then she'll call. Like, not that instant, but maybe within a day. So on Sunday I'm like, you know what, hon? If you can call, like, I would love it. But if you can't, it's okay. I know you're busy and doing your stuff in Afterlife, and whatever. An hour later, I'm lying on the couch, right? My husband comes out of the bedroom, and he's showing me his AirTag, because she now calls on both AirTags, and it's ringing. And, and, so, and it's a very special tone, a very special ring tone. And yes, I googled to see if AirTags are supposed to make that sound, and no, they don't. They do make four or five, like when your battery is going to go in this, that, and the other. And by the way, his battery's been on low battery for a couple months now, and she can still get through on it. We haven't replaced the battery. Anyway, so I kind of missed it, like he got it, and there was about two rings left. So he goes back, and I go, and I leave my AirTag on my night table now, like you would a phone, and I pick it up, and she rings me and lets it ring eight times. And it was a fainter ring, but it was kind of like to be sure I got it, because I had just put in the request an hour earlier, and that was my birthday call.
Maribeth Swan 15:19
That's beautiful, and you know, the letter, the number eight, I'm sorry, on its side is infinity.
Vonne Solis 16:05
Oh yeah, on its side, yeah. Oh.
Maribeth Swan 16:07
So the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention here in the United States, that's their symbol, and they sell jewelry with bracelets made. My mom has one of infinity single symbols linked together.
Vonne Solis 17:56
I've always wondered why she let it ring eight times.
Maribeth Swan 18:00
That's my guess.
Vonne Solis 18:00
Wow. Okay, thank you. So, you know, listen, it's.. I'm gonna stop trying to disbelieve. Like it's her.
Maribeth Swan 18:12
No. I'm a.. I'm a believer. I'm a deep believer.
Vonne Solis 18:15
Yeah. So, but going back to the sibling grief and locked away, okay? So, it's like that's something that my son is only starting to accept that it could be her, you see? And listen, he's a smart, smart guy. And I've raised him in metaphysics, and for all he might say to me, yeah, yeah. Like you know, and creating your life and all that, and which he has a perfectly beautiful life that he's created. That's the kind of thing where instead of it being like cool, you know mom, like, yes, I hope she calls me. It's more like okay, cool, with a raised eyebrow, and that's the piece of it that I have to kind of gently tuck away as a mom, and go, geez, I just wish we could all celebrate her. We're very small family. He's our only like it's just our tight three, and my sister, and you know, and so I just wish that we could all be on the same page about that, and he would welcome her into his life. I'm sure she would visit him too. Anyway, the closest I've gotten to him sort of acknowledging a presence is recently he said someone's watching over me, and I just said, "Well, it's your sister, and but we can't get a dialog going.
Maribeth Swan 19:31
Was he close to any of his grandparents?
Vonne Solis 19:33
No, no. He doesn't have any.
Maribeth Swan 19:36
Anyone else on the other side who might be connecting with him and keeping an eye on him?
Vonne Solis 19:40
No, no. It will always be her, because I ask her every day to look after him, watch out for him, and so I know it's her. You know how you just know. If you know it was Jamie, I know it's her. And she gave us a double rainbow, like within two hours of us find you know, going to her home when, she didn't live with when she passed, but the cops were all there, and all that, and then a beautiful double rainbow. And then repeated it on her memorial a week later, when it was like 35 degrees out, and there'd be no rain, so come on, right? And, and angels, like cloud angels, you know.
Maribeth Swan 20:17
Right. I have another, we have another synchronicity because when my, we released my brother's ashes into Cape Cod Bay, he was a surfer and he loved the ocean. And when we were releasing the ashes, there were little rainbows coming up in the spray of the ocean. Constant little rainbows the entire time.
Vonne Solis 20:38
My daughter's ashes are also in the ocean, okay, where we live. Like, but it's not a bay, per se, but yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 20:48
You feel whenever you're visiting the ocean, you're visiting them. As I said earlier, I also feel that he's everywhere, and he sends me little signs, and my phone will start playing some song that was his favorite song. Or, when we were little, I loved this song from Grease. I Got Chills, you know, The One That I Want.
Vonne Solis 21:08
Yep.
Maribeth Swan 21:09
And I walked into CVS a couple weeks ago, and immediately the song started playing.
Vonne Solis 21:15
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 21:16
Little things like that. And some people may say that I'm cuckoo, or, you know.
Vonne Solis 21:21
Well, they wouldn't say that as much as they might go, it's a coincidence.
Maribeth Swan 21:25
Right.
Vonne Solis 21:25
But it's synchronicity, and synchronicity is something that I think is, and I've had guests on who work in energy, and a woman who channels Einstein, and it's, you know, and it's like synchronicity is the magic. And you know, if we can't allow the magic into our lives, then what's the point?
Maribeth Swan 21:44
I'm the same, I'm of the same mind.
Vonne Solis 21:47
Yeah, and here's the thing, like you've been in this 26 years. So, how did the passing, suicide, the passing of Jamie like affect you, and personally? And do you think it altered the trajectory of your life in any way?
Maribeth Swan 22:09
Oh, for sure. I don't even know that I would be doing the flower essence work. I mean, that came through another situation, but he, his passing was this initiation for me, really, and over time, and I cannot tell you how long it was, I really came to see it as a gift, because I was very comfortable in talking about death. It took a little while. I'm a big believer in support groups and dialoguing about what you're experiencing and sharing that, and this foundation I mentioned, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. They would have conferences where a lot of different people would talk, and they would have maybe a priest and a rabbi, because there's this religious judgement that happens depending on what religion you're a part of. I had an Italian grandmother who the church said, you know, he was not in heaven.
Vonne Solis 23:10
Yes.
Maribeth Swan 23:11
He was done going to church because they didn't know what they were talking about. And at the meetings you would separate into groups, and a parent of a sibling of a child of a partner of, and so you would sit in a room with, say, 40 people who had all lost their brother or their sister. And that to me was incredibly empowering and unifying to be able to share that experience, and of course, your hearts are all broken, but you're not alone.
Vonne Solis 23:48
Was that suicide-specific support?
Maribeth Swan 23:51
The American American Foundation for Suicide.
Vonne Solis 23:54
Oh, so they're going back a long time, decades, probably, but but they offered, they offered sibling support?
Maribeth Swan 24:03
So they, so you would attend a conference, and the first part of the conference would be lectures from different people, and then the second half of the conference would be, you'd separate out into support groups, where you would,
Vonne Solis 24:14
yep,
Maribeth Swan 24:15
sibling of, parent of, child of, partner of.
Vonne Solis 24:18
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 24:18
And so you would sit in those rooms and share your experience.
Vonne Solis 24:23
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 24:23
And feel, you know, you were this equalized, searching for a way to process it. Like, how do I process this? No one can identify with what I'm talking about. Everyone feels so sorry for us, and their hearts are broken, and as soon as his name is mentioned, they start crying, and you know it was just so devastating, and I heard you say about your daughter's memorial. My brother's memorial was April 1st. He died on March 28th. And I remember our minister came to our house, and he loved Van Morrison. And um, the minister, my brother reminded me, actually, I think, suggested we play an Eric Clapton song, and my brother said, How about a Van Morrison song? And we played Into The Mystic, but it was the first time I'd ever been at church that it was a popular song. So his presence seemed just so powerful in that we could bring that experience to everyone, and there were hundreds of people there.
Vonne Solis 25:26
We actually, it was very stigmatizing when she died, and we had only about 35 to 38 people on a boat, and we had a river memorial on the St. Lawrence River. And um, I didn't even get her ashes for ten months, like I couldn't even pick up her ashes, so we just put carnations in, but it was on a boat, and the captain was absolutely wonderful, because they'd never had a memorial. But you know, she was 22 and your brother, how old was he when he died?
Maribeth Swan 26:01
25.
Vonne Solis 26:02
See? And then people just feel sorry for you, and people don't know what to say, and we even had family that wouldn't come. It was like it, and that felt really isolating and stigmatizing. I felt like there was.. we lived in the country in the log house on 10 acres, and I honestly to God, for the people that did know, you know? Maybe heard about it, you know? Like I felt like we had this great big black mark on our property. It was not a, it was not a warm welcoming hundreds. No casseroles. Everyone stopped coming around. I lost friends. Like it was really almost debilitating. It was almost debilitating.
Maribeth Swan 26:50
I'm sorry.
Vonne Solis 26:51
Me too. Because it made me write my first book, but which took five years. But so that's why I'm saying to you. I didn't have a really. the only suicides that got in the, you know, big attention were ones that were, say, coming from recognizable names, and this is the Ottawa area in Canada. I'm in Canada. I now live on Vancouver Island, and have done for ten years, but this was back in the Ottawa area. And so on the one hand I'm really grateful it was so private. We didn't even have an obituary for her, and I just told somebody this the other day, because you couldn't say suicide, right? And not even to this day do you see suicide in our Canadian obituaries. Maybe. I read them for years and never saw it. But I couldn't, I just didn't know how to do an obituary, and what was I going to say? And in the end, it all just got away from me. And so, in the end, I just didn't even do one. And so I felt like I, for years, like I had done her such a disservice, because people were making judgements about mental illness.
Maribeth Swan 28:00
They still do make judgements about mental illness.
Vonne Solis 28:01
Yeah, and that really ticks me off. I don't like that. And so, for years and years and years, and even to this day, I've been very, very protective of her. I've never done anything on social media, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever about her. Like, you know, oh, it's our anniversary. No. And nothing. And, and so I thought, if people want to know about her, they can go read my book, you know. Like, go, go look at my books. I've got two books dedicated to her, and people, and they're for bereaved parents, essentially, so you know, so, and they, and people do look at them, but you know, read them. But you know, the point I'm making is, it was, I was caught in such a, an experience where I was glad I didn't have hundreds of people gawking at us, right? But then on the flip side of it was like, doesn't anyone care? It was really weird.
Maribeth Swan 28:52
My parents, I grew up in a very small little town, Sandwich, Massachusetts, and my parents, my mother was a realtor in the town, my father had been an educator in the town. He'd owned a business in the town. A lot of people knew who we were.
Vonne Solis 29:05
And so is that why hundreds of people were at Jamie's memorial?
Maribeth Swan 29:09
Yes, because so many people knew my parents, and then also my brother's friends, and my friends, I mean, people came, you know, from out of state. A lot of people came in to support and be and be there and hold us in this net of of love while we were in shock. I mean, you're in, as you, I'm sure you recall, you're in shock.
Vonne Solis 29:31
For months, for months I was.
Maribeth Swan 29:33
Months, yeah, two or three months at least.
Vonne Solis 29:36
Yeah. And let's not forget the trauma piece. I actually developed PTSD from it, but it took, and I'm not saying that lightly, for all the people who are struggling with PTSD, and it all be, you know, maybe almost, and I'm saying this with respect, but you know, when it kind of became a very sort of trendy thing to have PTSD a few years ago. No. I'm talking about like, um, you know, like, I wasn't diagnosed for nine years. I was diagnosed in, in 2014, so nine years later. And do you know, here's another fact. I read that it can take up to 10 years to be diagnosed with PTSD. 10, another 10 years. Anyway. I do live with it. I don't expect that it's ever really going to go away. That disorder for me, because I just, I'm not willing to take on the work it would require to get rid of it, so I just manage it, and it's much, much, much, much, much better. But here's another point I just want to throw in. So, did you have like really bad dreams? Do you think anyone in your family, like, got PTSD? If, like, you can be traumatized and not get PTSD. So were you all in shock and trauma?
Maribeth Swan 30:45
Ye s. And you know the males, my dad and my brother, especially my dad, had a harder time talking about it. My mother and I talk about him all, you know all the time.
Vonne Solis 31:01
Oh okay.
Maribeth Swan 31:02
What's, I don't know if you ever went to seek out any mediums. I never had before Jamie passed, but I did after he passed.
Vonne Solis 31:14
Yeah. I was already like immersed in that work for 23 years when she died.
Maribeth Swan 31:19
Oh, okay.
Vonne Solis 31:20
I was already like already, and I am a medium also. I can do that work myself. And I trained with James Van Praagh for a week in 2015 and I was already an angel practitioner, so I worked 10 years channelling angels for folks. So that's why I think the gateway, the portal, is so easy for her to come through. Because now I'm 40, 45, 46 years into it, like you can't close the portal. If you open yourself and you know you're a channel and things like that, like it's so easy for them, and what I was going to say is the digital stuff makes it even easier than the electricity. Because we had wild electrical things going on for two weeks, right after she, like, passed. Right after, and she also came to me, and this is a piece that I do talk about in the book, and I don't say it too often, but see, there were a couple details that the police only shared with my husband about her death, and I never talked publicly about how she died. I just don't, and they wouldn't tell me. They wouldn't tell me. So, guess what? She came to me in a dream that first night and told me. So, I confronted my husband the next day, and by the way, he is her stepdad. So, her biological father died five years later, and right about the same year my mom died, five or six years later, maybe he died a year after my mom died. So I did lose my both my parents and and her biological father and her best friend, all within five years after her death. So it was, we had quite a run of loss over that that period, and one just impacted the other, impacted the other, impacted the other, but I never probably really grieved any of the other losses. See? I probably never even grieved my parents. I don't think so. I just don't think so.
Maribeth Swan 33:08
But similar, we lost my brother. A few months later, we lost my aunt, and then five months after that, my grandfather passed. So we lost someone from every generation within a calendar year.
Vonne Solis 33:21
Yeah, and I think that, like, I've always said this, they seem to kind of come in threes, almost. And it's happened even in my husband's side of the family. So, my husband and I have our son together, and we've been married 35 years. So, it also was a different aspect of grief that we don't get - we don't talk about too much, is step grief, step parent grief? We don't really talk about that, and so we had different experiences around the loss of my only daughter. And then when her biological father died, that was the end of the line. It was like, done, done. And so it was a really weird, like, there was a lot to process over the years. And then I'd say by 20, I'm just like, even 19, I'm kind of like, I'm done with this. Like I'm actually even moving out of the grief space to write my next book. I got one more book coming out of me, and I'm just moving out of it. It's not, I will always be there for what needs to be said and done, but I prefer to live in the living space. And I think her contacting me all the time on the AirTag has helped me do that. See what I'm saying? Because you can, you can believe in Afterlife and even have some experiences, but the thing that's different for me is it's regular now. It's regular contact, just like, just like getting a phone call from my son. Oh, it's just she can't talk to me.
Maribeth Swan 34:47
Well, she speaks in the way that she is able to through the dimensions.
Vonne Solis 34:51
Correct. She speaks her own language, and we don't need to speak. It's just popping in and saying hi. So that, I don't know how many people get to experience that. Definitely millions, definitely. They're even studying it. By the way, in Canada, they actually did a study on, to your point about having music on your phone and stuff. Research has been done proving communication on cell phones from Afterlife. So.
Maribeth Swan 35:16
I didn't know that, but I.. it's...
Vonne Solis 35:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And,
Maribeth Swan 35:20
That's basically in general. I mean, the lights, the phone.
Vonne Solis 35:24
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 35:24
I would be listening to a CD in my car, and all of a sudden static would go back and forth and back and forth, and it wasn't the radio I was listening to. I was listening to media. And I would say, I would feel him sitting behind me in the car. And I would say, is this you, Jamie? And it would go back and forth, and back and forth, forth, and just to say, yes, I'm here.
Vonne Solis 35:48
Yeah. So, the point of this audience, not to leave you behind in this wonderful conversation Maribeth and I are having, is that the signs are there. I just think digital, and we're becoming so engrossed in it, right? Like, it's probably easier for them to give us stuff on iPhones, computers. Well, I haven't had anything on a computer, but you know, it isn't just about the electricity going off anymore, although they can still do that. And we had many, many things like that over the years, too, you know, where, say, the phone, the landline. Remember landlines? Would ring, and it was the area code from where she used to live in Toronto. And you know, or you know, like just, just something that would, would be, wow, symbolic of, say, a specific year anniversary. And you know, so there were things that have always, always, always occurred over the years, but for us, and I'm just saying, for us, we've seemed to have found she would have loved the Apple products, by the way. And so she seems to, and I only got an AirTag two years ago, never, never had one before, I bought one two years ago. I finally relented, and went, okay, fine, I'll track my luggage. But it's - we've discovered it together, as this is the easiest way just to pop in. So it works for us, you know? There could be others. If anyone else is out there and they're doing this, leave me a comment. Nobody really comments on my shows, but leave me a comment, so I don't feel so alone, you know.
Maribeth Swan 37:19
Because I work with the plants and with nature, I do have to say I know of many people who have an animal totem that show up as their beloved departed. You know, you know, birds or rabbits or a fox or a deer.
Vonne Solis 37:35
Yeah, yeah, and we had all that too, but I never really had an animal totem. Like, for me, I don't even know what it is, cause I just never went down that path. But yeah, we had the birds and the, you know, hummingbirds and weird things, and I think once we had a hummingbird swimming in our bird bath. Like, what hummingbird does that, you know? Some stuff like that, but we've evolved. And I'm happy where we are, you know?
Maribeth Swan 38:04
I'll just tell you a little, I also study Peruvian shamanism and the medicine wheel, and the hummingbird is associated with the direction of the north, and the north is the direction of the ancestors and of the stars, and of reconnecting to where you came from. Which is that we came from the stars, and that we return to the stars. And the hummingbird is the animal that signifies that.
Vonne Solis 38:30
Yeah, because a lot of people bereaved, I think, do look to the hummingbird as a sign, you know, and...
Maribeth Swan 38:37
I've heard a lot of different birds, cardinals.
Vonne Solis 38:40
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 38:41
Rabbits.
Vonne Solis 38:42
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 38:43
Owls are very popular. I can't say with my brother there was one specific animal either. I just, he's, he's everywhere.
Vonne Solis 38:52
For me, it was always, if this is really weird, something's happening. If you can't make sense of this, and you're trying? Something is definitely, definitely happening, and we just need to be open to it. And I'm talking, and it's really hard in early, I just want to say this, and how you felt about this also. In your very early bereavement, especially if you're, if you don't have a spiritual practice, you haven't been open to this, and you know, whatever. Brand new, but I think almost everybody, if not everybody, wants to know their loved one who has died is safe. That's what I really, that's what they want. Are they okay, or where'd they go? Well, I don't know if it's about where they went, so much as, are they safe, are they okay, are they okay? And that's why the signs are so important to people. Really, really important to people. And I met so many people who wanted a dream visit, an astral visit. Just a, well, they wouldn't call it astral, but I want a dream, I want, I want, you know, and I'm like, well, you have to really be open to it. You have to, and to have a visit, an actual visit, it's not really a dream. It's an actual astral kind of visit, and where you're in the, in this state where your energies are sort of coming together. But some I met, I met people, they were so frustrated that they, that they felt they never got signs. They couldn't dream about their loved one. They felt, I wouldn't say abandoned, but they just really wanted that experience. So I'm just saying, be open to it, and you're probably already having them and not seeing them. That's what I always say.
Maribeth Swan 40:24
Well, I think that's definitely a possibility, but as I said before, this was the reason why I sought out to see a medium, because I was concerned about how he was and where he was.
Vonne Solis 40:36
Yeah. So who'd you.. well, you don't have to say the name of the medium, but what happened?
Maribeth Swan 40:41
It was a Native American man, and he had told me to bring something of my brother's with me. And he had worn this oil skin hat that was, I don't know if it was from Australia or New Zealand, but he had given me the hat before he passed. And he, the medium, was telling me about where he saw him, and he was on the top of a mountain, and when I pulled out the hat, the medium had goosebumps, you could see them on his arms. And he said, you know, he's here. And he said, just keep praying for him, keep praying for him. And what I have heard, and somewhat read, is that for people who cross at their own hand, it takes them a little longer to be able to get into their Oversoul and be in a place to really open communication with this side.
Vonne Solis 41:42
So I hear you, and I think that's probably true for some souls.
Maribeth Swan 41:50
Who I mean, you were an angel practitioner and a channel.
Vonne Solis 41:52
My daughter didn't have that, She immediately, so I actually became an angel channel, angel. I trained with Doreen Virtue in April of 2006. So my daughter died July 2005. So, in April 2006, for those who do know Doreen, at that time she no longer does this, but at that time she was probably the, the person in the world that was known for her work with angels. And she's all over her, you know, bookstores and whatever. She's since taken a different path, and I wish Doreen Virtue much, much, you know, you know, happiness in her different path. She kind of went more down the religious path, and whatever. But, during that time, so there were 400 of us, I think, that were quote training to be an angel practitioner, so I was already like primed for this. My sister had gotten me into angels the year before. Thank God, thank God! Because I was already kind of playing around with it? The idea, and doing some readings with, you know, angel cards, stuff like that. But, when, when Janaya died, it was like they were my go-to. They saved my life, Maribeth. They saved my life.
Maribeth Swan 43:12
I believe it.
Vonne Solis 43:12
Now I did other things too, but no drugs. No Valium, no alcohol, nothing like that. But I did Holosync, which was these, the sounds in your.. it was a.. it was a company at that time that you know you went through these progressions of, you know, sound that you couldn't really hear, subconscious, and it was just sort of meditative. So I really got into that whole world. Physically, I was doing a bunch of really, really, really weird stuff in my life, like working at a, at a gas station store in our village, and trying to survive. I was in major, major, major, major trauma survival brain. For years. To be honest, until 2018. 2017, 18, when I actually decided to really look at PTSD and trauma, and I went down that path. And that put me in touch with all the physical things that I had to come in contact with, and get down from up here. That dimension, right? Which was wonderful, and working as a channel for 10 years, and all of that. Like I'm almost living up there. Trying to balance it with all the physical stuff, so it was a really weird experience for me. But, what I'm just trying to say is that when we're so busy, you know, trying to just survive, we, we miss all these opportunities. Miss, can't see them, don't choose them, whatever, to to kind of have this connection that we all have it within us to be a medium. I just want to say that.
Vonne Solis 44:49
Because when I was in 2015 and for whatever reason, I'm like, okay, I need to go down to California for a week and work with James Van Praagh and Lynn Probert, who is a major medium from the UK, so they put on a clinic for a week, five days, and all 100 of us in that room were mediums, and there were some people there, Mary Beth, that didn't even know why that they were going to learn how to be a medium, they thought it was something else. I heard several people say that I didn't know I was supposed to be a medium here, I thought we were going to do this, this, or that, and I'm like, it's James von Prague. What do you think? Every single person brought people through for five days, all day long. And by the way, I did bring one suicide through for a friend, a best friend, and that was really interesting, bringing a suicide through. Okay, really interesting. But I also had mediums, so that was my world. So I was connected to mediums who were also angel channels who brought my daughter through at that course, and they were, they weren't there to study, they were actually like working, you know, with us students, and they would have messages from her, and so on. So I never really had to go and seek out anybody. But going back to your mediumship, what did you learn from that visit with this with this medium? Did it give you peace and comfort?
Maribeth Swan 46:17
That's the word, is peace. Yes. I felt much more peace after after I was with him, and he wasn't the only person. What was interesting, I had a voice teacher who would see when people crossed since she was a little girl.
Vonne Solis 46:33
Wow.
Maribeth Swan 46:34
She would know when people had crossed, and she would go and say to her mother, like, Pappy is over the wheel of the jeep, and her mother was like, "What are you talking about? And her grandfather had had a heart attack, and died while driving in his car. And on April 13th, while I was studying with her, she left me a message, and she was from, I think, from Alabama, and she was just the most mellow person, and she left me this very charged message that I needed to come to her house today. It had to be today. It was April 13th. Today, today, today, you have to come to my house. And I went to her house, and she said, Jamie woke me up out of a dead sleep, and this has never happened to me before. I see people are crossing, people from the other side don't come and contact me. He was, you know, she was sleeping, and he was trying to get her up, and she was like, you know, leave me alone, and he wouldn't let her sleep. And it has to be today. She won't believe you unless it's today. And she had all of these pages written out for messages that he had for us. And one of the things we had been doing was gathering on the day that he passed every year to commemorate his loss, and what he said in those pages was, you need to stop gathering on that day. It's keeping my energy trapped here.
Vonne Solis 46:34
Yes, yes.
Maribeth Swan 47:21
So it's really hard in my family because his twin brother, it's like we want to honour him on his birthday because he's here.
Vonne Solis 48:14
Yeah, so are you able to, are you able to do that? Because we're not digging too deep into what this did to your, what Jamie's passing did to your family, let alone his twin, because I have already read about twins that or watched documentaries. If one's gone? It's like part of them is gone. Absolutely.
Maribeth Swan 48:37
I think that's how my brother feels. He doesn't talk about it really openly, and I don't want to speak for him.
Vonne Solis 48:43
Just in general. Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 48:44
It was devastating, devastating.
Vonne Solis 48:46
Yeah, yeah. I can just imagine, like, just imagine being a twin. I've never even been around twins, to be honest. So, it must have been pretty cool growing up with twins.
Maribeth Swan 48:55
Except it was two on one all the time, and,
Vonne Solis 48:58
Oh.
Maribeth Swan 48:59
you know.
Vonne Solis 49:00
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 49:01
They were annoying, but I also, you know, loved them dearly, because,
Vonne Solis 49:07
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 49:08
I felt also like kind of like their second mama.
Vonne Solis 49:12
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 49:13
I had helped feed them and what not.
Vonne Solis 49:15
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 49:17
And they, you know, it was like having a little baby, of course
Vonne Solis 49:20
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 49:20
I was not doing the majority of the caretaking, but absolutely, it was, it was fun and unique, and, but they, they're not, they weren't identical. So they were fraternal, so some people, some people couldn't tell them apart, which to me was crazy, and some people you wouldn't even know they were related.
Vonne Solis 49:38
Yeah, and we won't go there. All I'll say is that may be a blessing, and I don't know, but it's, it's, we're not here to talk about that, but I am giving respecting, and just a shout out. That's probably the wrong word, respect, honouring. I'm honouring your living brother, your surviving brother, because he will be carrying his own thing that you know, we each carry our own thing. But I just still want to honour that I see that, and other people watching this or listening to this episode, Maribeth, are going to see that, because they will have had the same loss, a twin loss. And again, it's not really, and especially in the, in the suicide, because you know, listen, there's loss and bereavement, and then there are niches. We say niche, and I know you guys say niche in the States, but there are pockets of bereavement that other people, like I would never go to a Mothers Against Drunk Driving, otherwise known as MADD. I wouldn't even be allowed into the support group, or a, you know, parents of a murdered child. I would never be allowed in that support group. And for suicide, we have far less than you in Canada. Far less than there was zero support for our 13-year old. Zero, zero zero. Because to go to a suicide, we had one suicide support group in the Ottawa area at that time, but you had to be an adult to go. So there was nothing for him.
Maribeth Swan 51:05
For a child. I'm trying to think if there were any children at the conferences that we went to, and I don't remember any.
Vonne Solis 51:11
Yeah, you know.
Maribeth Swan 51:13
And I have to speak to the strength of my parents. There were some people that that we met, because my parents didn't go. My mother, I think, went once, and my father didn't go. My brother and I went, but that people were keeping their loved ones' rooms the same, as you know, almost an altar to them, and not changing anything about it. And I feel like that traps you in that time frame. And there, there, maybe for a little while it stays the same. I remember it, us taking a long time to go through his things. That was really, really hard.
Vonne Solis 51:52
Well, did Jamie live at home when he passed?
Maribeth Swan 51:55
He was living at home. He had been living in California, but for several years, but he was living at home. Yes.
Vonne Solis 52:02
Okay, okay. And so we like, my daughter wasn't. Janaya wasn't living at home, so I didn't have that. I didn't have a bedroom to preserve.
Maribeth Swan 52:13
Okay.
Vonne Solis 52:14
But I know of people who have done that, or people who know friends that have done that, and you're and I, again, no judgement, but I would have fallen victim to really being trapped in, you know, just I don't even know what. It, in all honesty, I will say, I kept a bag of laundry for several years in a shed.
Maribeth Swan 52:38
I still have one of his T-shirts. I have artwork that he made.
Vonne Solis 52:43
Yeah. But you're, you're making a really good point when you just said a few minutes ago with, with Jamie getting this message through your vocal coach. That one of the messages, I need them to stop doing this. It's it's tying me here. And that I do believe that our grief will tie them to our pain. They're still free, but they can't have this joyous, glorious connection to us that can become fun.
Maribeth Swan 53:15
In the same way. So, I'll tell you a crazy story. My parents were moving um, and we're having a challenge selling the house where we were living, and we went out on a different day to celebrate him. And we went out on this boat into Falmouth Harbor, and all of these things went wrong with the boat. The motor died. They tried to bring over another boat to move us on to the other boat. The seas were too rough. We couldn't do that. They had to bring in two tugboats to pull us into to harbour. And when we came back from that journey, which was supposed to be an hour, and I think it was almost four, there was an offer on the house. And it was, you know, instantaneous, of like, see what will happen, and my parents may not experience it in that way, but I sure did. I was like, 'Wow, okay. We listened to him, and now things will start moving to move.
Vonne Solis 54:11
Yeah, yeah. And, and by the way, that log house took us two years to sell. Two years, okay? We were, I wasn't ready to let it go, and you know, and so another.. and and audience. This is just a note, and Maribeth, you comment too. When, when we're trying to force something to happen, it for me, it never works. Get out of our own way. Well, it's kind of having them come to us. They also.. it's like, get out of the way, so I can come and see you, or leave you a sign, or please hear me. And if I learned anything at James's clinic, it was that they're lined up to see people who can bring messages for others, and you know, but like I said, everyone has this within them. And so I never ever ever advertised that part of my ability when I did channelling. I strictly did angel channelling, and if people came through, they did, but it is a much lower vibration, humans coming through. Humans who have passed coming through, is much, much different than channelling angels. And so, for me, it was kind of like, ooh, I don't like this energy. I don't like it, and it took me about two and a half days to kind of get comfortable in that mediumship clinic, because it was like, you feel them. Like you literally feel kind of what they were like as a human, and whatever energy they were carrying.
Vonne Solis 55:41
And Jay, and so I will say from that, I learning from that clinic with James and Lynn. Yes, people, it is true. People do have to have some recuperation when they cross, but this is not just related to suicide, folks. You, like my daughter, my daughter passed, and she was free right away. She didn't, we didn't deal with any of that. She was free right away. But others, you know, they have to adjust their energy, and you know. I believe I believe in life review. I definitely believe in life review, and you know, maybe we have some things to work out. I read from somebody who does this work, a few years ago, is that we ascend to different levels in the afterlife, we'll just call it vibrations, okay? Vibration. And if you're ready to do more and you're more advanced, no matter what you did on earth? We are souls at a certain advanced level, and when we cross, we have jobs to do. The work doesn't end, and we, we, if we're higher at a vibration, and we go, and we cross, and we're vibrating where you know, and I'm just explaining it the best I can, as human form. Sort of vibrating at this, this one sort of speed, if you will, vibration. You could go down levels, but you can't go up. It's kind of like going, say, if you're doing your Bachelor's, and then your Master's, and your PhD. As a PhD, you could go in and pop in and maybe coach the Master's or sit in on a class, or whatever, but you can't go from, you know, a BA or even a Master's and sit in on a PhD class. Kind of like that. Anyway, I don't do work in that area, but.
Maribeth Swan 57:21
I understand, and because flower essences are about vibration, I'm big on,
Vonne Solis 57:26
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 57:26
according to frequency and vibration.
Vonne Solis 57:29
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 57:29
I would say I have checked in with a medium every few years or so.
Vonne Solis 57:33
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 57:34
Every three or four years, and I've had some, two really dear friends of mine pass and the medium that I work with now, my brother is always the first one there, every time that we connect. He is right there. One set of grandparents, usually, and you know, sometimes there's a friend waiting. One of my friends who'd passed, I asked if he could visit, and the medium said, we'll give him a minute. He'd only passed several months before.
Vonne Solis 58:03
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 58:04
He'd had kidney disease, and you know, he came in with the best of spirits and making jokes, and it's just amazing how someone can really translate, depending on how powerful of a medium they are, can really translate, they're really, you really feel the connection, and how the person speaks, and how they..
Vonne Solis 58:25
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 58:27
or words that they use, and you just know that it's them.
Vonne Solis 58:30
Yeah. When you're in that zone, and like, so for me, I always got an image of what they look like. What they were wearing, their clothes, and stuff. And then you could feel, and then just feel them and including one kind of dirty man who was the boss of someone, and he was like, like, literally flirting with me. It was our last reading of the week, and I was like saying to this guy, I don't know who this guy is, but I'm, you're down at a marina, and I see, you know, boats, and you've got some kind of business, and I think he's your boss, and I had his name. I even gave him his name, he goes, "Oh yeah, that's him, and I said, "And by the way, he's really kind of flirting with me, like.
Maribeth Swan 58:30
Inappropriate.
Vonne Solis 58:33
It was just weird, I could tell that he had been a bit of a big flirt, and he goes, "That's him, that's him. And anyway, they had had to run an import export business, you know, down on a dock in a marina. And so, but so that's why I'm saying it's like, be careful, and you know, like, be careful if you want to get into this, because number one, you can't necessarily control who comes through. And a big mistake that some people make, audience, is that you'll go to a medium and you only want to hear from one person. That's it. And then you think it doesn't work if you don't hear from that person, and actually, angel channelling was very, very similar that way. Sometimes people wanted proof of a loved one gone with me channelling angels, and you know, and you could do it, but sometimes they just, you know, are prevented almost, or they are preventing themselves from coming through, for whatever reason. We don't know why. Maybe people really can't handle information. But I will say, if you're lucky enough, and you have this connection, like you do with Jamie, and he's around all the time anyway, and they have no time. It's like you were saying at the beginning, it's infinity. There's no time. So my daughter calling me on the 12th of April? That's okay, I'll take it. It's my birthday, I don't care for her, the date doesn't even matter to them. Like that's just it. The date doesn't matter. And like all the human constructs we have, they go out the window. It's just all energy and vibration. And so that's what we have to kind of understand and see them as in a way.
Maribeth Swan 1:00:47
Right. Well, here in the physical plane, we're looking so much for this pattern recognition in physical form.
Vonne Solis 1:00:52
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:00:53
My father is a mathematician, and so I was raised with numbers, and it's kind of funny. I was born on my mother's birthday. My father was born on his father's birthday, and my brothers were twins, and so we were all fire signs. We all shared a birthday with someone in our family, so this synchronicity...
Vonne Solis 1:01:16
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:01:16
I've had all my life.
Vonne Solis 1:01:16
What's that all about? Did you ever figure it out?
Maribeth Swan 1:01:19
No. I don't know.
Vonne Solis 1:01:20
It's (indecipherable).
Maribeth Swan 1:01:21
I don't know that I figured it out, but I definitely started studying astrology when I was very young.
Vonne Solis 1:01:25
Oh.
Maribeth Swan 1:01:26
Because I was so fascinated with the patterns.
Vonne Solis 1:01:30
Yeah. And you need to sort of be mathematically minded to study astrology, do you not?
Maribeth Swan 1:01:37
Oh, without a doubt.
Vonne Solis 1:01:38
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:01:38
Without a doubt. It's.. it's, you know, images on top of images on top of images, and I didn't go, you know, crazy deep into it. I mean, houses and planets and signs, but I think people look for patterns to recognize. It gives them a sense of security. I mean, people, when they've lost someone, they're just looking for something to help ground them I think, into themselves, because they don't - they're, they're moving around without that anchor, because of what their loved one, who they were in their life, and the role that they had with them.
Vonne Solis 1:01:53
Yeah, my Einstein channel, Barbara, With. I've been talking a lot, and mentioning her a lot in recent episodes, because she's just so important. She's channelled Einstein since the 80s, and she was at.. she goes to these Science of Consciousness symposiums and speaks and stuff. She spoke in July in Barcelona. Anyway, she says we're meeting them in our imagination. That's not to say we're imagining them. No. We're meeting them in our imagination, how we imagine they're looking and sounding, but that's not, that's not the form they're in when they're coming to us. And I think all of the audience, we all know that, but it's hard to kind of picture, well, what are they? And I don't know, because if someone says to you, they're just a vibration, but it, it's, we have to find the comfort. A comforting way to picture them when we understand they're not in that form anymore. And I don't actually even think about it too much. I don't, but it's true. When I understand, oh yeah, I'm imagining her. Of course, whenever the AirTag rings, I obviously picture my daughter at 22 when I last saw her. That's how she comes. That's how I'm imagining, I'm imagining she looks to me, but I know that's not what she really looks like. I know she's just vibration, energy.
Maribeth Swan 1:03:01
Well, I don't know. I had, I had a massage therapist once who had studied with shamans, and my brother's name was James. My father's name's James, and his father's name was James. And I was on the table, and she said, there are two men named James here, and one is very old, and one is younger. And one is with a dog that's brown and white with a red collar, and one is with a dog that's black with a green collar. So it was very physical, and that was my grandfather with his Springer Spaniel, and my brother with our black lab. So it was a very physical vision that she had. I think they can appear to different people in different ways.
Vonne Solis 1:02:15
Oh, they have to, because they have to give us, those of us who are channelling or reading, they have to give us an image of who they are. And I once did a psychic fair, psychic fair, literally for four days, and this woman - I'll be brief, anyway - she came to me, and she was in about her, I'd say, 70s, and boy was she angry because she had gone to medium and psychic after psychic, and whatever, for proof of her mother being alive and okay on the other side. And so she sat down, so I sat, you know, down with this very, very angry woman, and the first thing that came to me was this gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous woman in about her mid-30s, and so I was telling her about this is who, this is who's coming through, and I don't know what the message is, all I don't remember that, and she was so, so, so, and that's not her, that's not my mother, my mother, that's not my mother. My mother wouldn't be that, you know, my mother would be much older than I, and so then I said, well, and I don't even think I asked her, I think she just volunteered that her mom had actually died when she was about 35 or 36, so she had felt abandoned as a small child, you see.
Maribeth Swan 1:03:01
Yeah, there's a lot of anger with people who've lost their parents.
Vonne Solis 1:03:01
Yeah. And so I said, well, this is your mom coming through at the age kind of she died, and that's because she was, she never reached being old, so she can't present to me in the way that you want her to. She's coming through at the age that you last saw her. And believe it or not, that you know changed that woman's she instantly changed. Instantly, instantly, instantly changed, and I wouldn't say it was a miracle, but I hoped it put a stop to her searching. Because again it's this proof that she's okay, and it gets very complicated, folks. I get it, if you've lost a parent. Because you know what they say? They say that losing a child or losing a parent, and I'm going to say now, because of talking to you, a sibling, these will be the most, the three most very difficult and traumatic losses for us. I added the sibling. I never read that. It was like a parent losing a child or a child losing a parent, but I am going to throw in, I believe that the sibling loss is equal to that as well. You've got your own things to deal with, you know. I really believe that.
Maribeth Swan 1:06:56
Thank you for saying that, because...
Vonne Solis 1:06:57
I mean it.
Maribeth Swan 1:06:58
that's a challenging loss. And I have supported a few clients in their 80s and 70s who lost siblings who wouldn't imagine the amount of pain and how challenging and just devastating it was. But I also think when you lose someone when they're older and if you, as a sibling, you've known them your whole life. You know, the longer you have with the person, it can also be more challenging. Like my grandmother died when she was almost 96 and I had her for so long that, you know, her presence was such a staple in my life from my whole life that it, it was, you know, devastating in its own way.
Vonne Solis 1:07:41
Well, I'm not a grandma yet, and you know the intent, the intent is that I will be one day, not my intent, but my son's. But at any rate, I also understand that a child-grandparent relationship is way different than a child-parent relationship, and they can be incredibly, incredibly special. And I've come to accept that, you know, if I am one in this life, it'd be amazing, and if I'm not, then I accept that as well. But these.. the other thing I just want to say, in sibling grief, we're going to turn to flowers in a minute here, but what I wanted to say.. we're setting this up beautifully, understanding the pain and trauma a lot of people go through. But in terms of still sticking with the sibling grief and older people, I, I have met people or heard them talk or seen them say in an article or something like this when we're talking about suicide or other things, but in this one particular case, if if you've lost a sibling and you're a kid and you're only eight or nine. And in one case I'm thinking of is this this man who was responsible for his younger brother and he didn't watch him walk home from school and that kid fell in a puddle and died. Okay, so he's carried that responsibility into his 70s, right? Because the parents were devastated by the loss, so they didn't function as a family anymore the way they had, and that's a little piece I want to turn to quickly, just quickly here. You lose your family, you lose your sibling, parents have lost a child, the grief is different. In many cases, parents can.. it's not that we forget about you surviving children. It's just the pain is so deep and so raw we don't know how to deal with the kids, the kids' grief, especially the how, if they're young. Nobody can recognize it. They don't really recognize it in schools. There aren't enough therapists available to deal with, you know, a loss. It's really complicated, and I, God, I don't even know what it would be like today, but I just know we went through hell trying to get help for our son, and in the end we didn't even get him help. If I was looking back today, what I would try to do is get family therapy all together, so that our son didn't think something was wrong with him, and he was a target. Because he kept it quiet, and he lived a double life, so he didn't tell any of his schoolmates his sister had died.
Maribeth Swan 1:10:05
Oh.
Vonne Solis 1:10:06
He didn't tell anyone, right? And by the way, we informed that school, and you're going to say it was a terrible school. Well, he did, you know, actually leave that school, and he went to a Catholic school. We're not Catholic, but he wanted to go to a Catholic school for the rigidity and uniforms and all that kind of stuff, the structure.
Maribeth Swan 1:10:25
Same.
Vonne Solis 1:10:25
So we told the principal that his sister had died at the end of July, and you know, they didn't even tell the teachers, they just said that he had lost someone in the family. So he was acting all weird. This was in grade six, right, sixth grade. He was acting all kind of strange, and the teachers finally called us in, in around November, and said we don't know what's going on. I said, "Well, what's going on is his sister died at the end of July, and they were shocked. Shocked. And then he got all confused about, did he want help, didn't he want help? It was a nightmare, Maribeth. It was a nightmare, even thinking about it. And so my greatest fear was that he would, you know, grow up really, really, really, really screwed up, but as a matter of fact, I think he kind of channelled that grief. Tell me, what you think about this.. into success, and like really driven, and probably parked it, probably parked the grief. But, and probably privately has his own whatever he deals with. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing. But he never let it take him down. Like I actually have somebody who's a bit of a friend, casual friend, who son turned her, like lost one son out of three children, and the other son became a drug addict. Couldn't cope. So it's all different ways that you young people, young adults, children cope with a sibling death that parents miss. You want to say anything about that?
Maribeth Swan 1:11:55
Well, yes. Well, you know, you go off. I was in my 20s, I,
Vonne Solis 1:12:00
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:12:00
way back to I remember taking, I want to say two months off of work and going back, and you're kind of going through the motions, and you feel almost not even in your body. I ended up having a lot of digestive issues, and I was seeing an osteopath at the time. And they're very holistic doctors, and he went through my diet with me, and I had to stop drinking coffee. I had to stop eating dairy, and learned that your pH, you know, your body's balance is your pH, and if you have enough anxiety, you can turn a balanced pH into an acidic pH.
Vonne Solis 1:12:44
Okay.
Maribeth Swan 1:12:44
So, my anxiety was turning my body, I mean, I had a healthy diet, but I had to stop eating all dairy products and drinking coffee for several years, or else I was just so sick to my stomach all the time because of the grief and the anxiety. So, that was my body physically telling me, like, you can't do this. We can't handle this. There's too much happening in here for us to process, you know. You need to, I think that's maybe when I started, I was a vegetarian for a little while, also perhaps when I was a vegetarian as well. But I think it's also you're trying to keep the person alive by talking about them and I feel like it happened more one on one in my family. Definitely with my mom, and I talked about Jamie a lot, and then my brother Jeffrey ended up coming to live with me, and so we were roommates for five years. And that was incredibly healing for us both to be able to just share and cry sometimes, and not talk about it, but just understand we were sharing this experience. Of course, me not in the same way, because I wasn't his twin, but we were very close.
Vonne Solis 1:14:02
That's amazing. I just want to put a plug in, so my son does have a half-brother who's from my husband's first marriage, and there's 18 years between them, and but they're quite close, and I am so, so grateful for that. Well, well, we're not close to the first set of children. There was a son and daughter. I'm incredibly grateful that my son has formed that relationship with his half-brother. Half-brother, full brother, doesn't matter. He at least has one sibling that he relies on quite a lot, and they see each other two or three times a year, because we live in different provinces. So siblings are, yeah, siblings are great. So, how the family.. we don't have enough time to, you know, talk about all the things in the family, but ultimately, would you say it changed your.. did it change? Did Jamie's passing change your family dynamic? And have, have, have your parents, I want to say, ask this, just in general, the family, has it do you think it's come through the.. I don't even know how I want to ask this, Maribeth, because when I look at my own family, we've.. it's always a, it's, it's always, it's a work in progress.
Maribeth Swan 1:14:03
Well, it's, it's, it changes form in such a dramatic way, right? The person that was here, and they're not physically embodied anymore.
Vonne Solis 1:14:03
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:14:03
They're always in your heart.
Vonne Solis 1:14:03
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:14:03
Like, energetically you're always connected to that being. I remember just having so much empathy for my mother, and just how it could feel to have brought a life, as you did, into this world, and and then to have that life no longer here at at such a young age, and...
Vonne Solis 1:15:17
Yeah, and it sucks when they choose to go. And that's when you go to a, like, a bereaved parent group? It can feel really, really awful when they're, like, just, you know, in terrible pain. I only went to one for a year, the bereaved parents, and I know they have Bereaved Parents of USA, and we have something similar here, but anyway, Compassionate Friends we have, and I would look at their pain, and I'm in pain too. I'm in the same pain that they are in, right? But then when you tell how your child went, then.. and I go, 'Well, suicide and there's like I'm the only one. One other time there was another mom there who had lost her son to suicide, and it's kind of like, 'Oh, thank God. Because it feels like you know their choice to go is different than an accident, or it was usually an accident or illness, because, like I said, these were not The Compassionate Friends. Nobody came that in my year that I was there monthly that had had a child murdered. They had their own support group. And so kind of felt like I just.. I don't even know what to say, but it felt like I didn't deserve the same, and I'm just saying what my mind's telling me.
Maribeth Swan 1:15:29
Oh, I hear what you're saying.
Vonne Solis 1:15:31
The same kind of sympathy or empathy, because your child could still be here. Ours couldn't, because it was an accident or it was an illness. And they didn't make me feel that way. The stigma of the suicide did. Today I wouldn't do that, but back then, when you're.. and also, I don't even know. Do you think that in the States there is a changing perception or a lessening of a taboo around suicide? Like, can you talk more about it?
Maribeth Swan 1:15:47
Well, I'll say the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, they now have created walks where they raise money for suicide awareness. I've just always been someone who is very open in talking about it, because if there is this deep stigma around something, it's not going to improve if you don't talk about it.
Vonne Solis 1:18:09
Right.
Maribeth Swan 1:18:10
Also, from where I'm from on Cape Cod, the Pilgrims, the Quakers, you know, it's all right there, and there's a definite message in the history to not talk about grief in general.
Vonne Solis 1:18:24
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:18:25
And so this kind of stiff upper lip of not talking about grief, and I think you know, my, my parents are right before the baby boomers, but it's just you didn't talk about your emotions. That was something that you dealt with on your own. And I think the more you can be in dialog about it, which is why I love the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, because you could go and talk about it with other people who knew exactly what you felt.
Vonne Solis 1:18:53
Yeah. I'm a boomer, and so is my husband, and it was stiff upper lip in our generation, but even before us, so we're talking now, people in their 80s, 90s? You didn't even say the name of your child ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again. And I remember meeting an older lady when I was, oh, so 40, how old would I have been? Just a minute, maybe in my early 50s, and had gone back to work, and she was working in a dry cleaner or something. And I don't know, we got talking, and I found out that she had lost a son, like I don't know, 30, 40 years earlier, and I was the first person she said his name to. Right?
Maribeth Swan 1:19:42
You're changing that. But with this podcast, you know, the more we talk about it, I mean, I was very drawn to that time, that passage of time of death, and I was very close to my grandfather. And when he passed, I remember being with him. I can't remember, if it was the day or the day before that he passed, but seeing him, and then going back afterwards, and seeing him after he'd passed, and it's like, well, this energy definitely went somewhere, cause he's not just gone. You know? Energy is conserved. He was in the body. Now he's not in the body. And I felt very called to work in hospice and help people cross and help families who were helping a loved one cross, and just what a magical time of life it is. Because you become very psychic and you start seeing people who are from the other side, and...
Vonne Solis 1:20:39
Are you talking about the person who's transitioning? Yeah, I've, I've, I've talked to a hospice chaplain. I had her on the show, and I've talked to other people. It's so sacred. So, did did you see a number of people cross yourself?
Maribeth Swan 1:20:54
I wasn't with them specifically when they crossed, but I would go and sit with them and get them to talk about their lives, if they were verbal still. If they weren't verbal, I would ask the people who came to visit them to tell stories about when they met them or favourite memories of them. And because hearing is the last sense to go.
Vonne Solis 1:21:16
I didn't know that. Hearing is the last sense to go. I didn't know that.
Maribeth Swan 1:21:20
Go. Yes, so even if someone cannot hear you, they can. And I had done with someone that I knew, actually she was in hospice, and that was she partly inspired me to go into hospice. I wash, I knew she wanted to be buried in a linen that was soaked in lavender, and I had this sari that someone had given me from India, and I washed this sari in lavender oil and water. And I wrapped it around her, and she had, I think, eight people or so visiting her that day. And, I got them all to talk about when they met her, and she, they were just these wild stories. I had met her through the boutique where I worked, but of her riding a motorcycle and having a shaved head. And her daughter was there, and it was just this wild, wild, you know, these amazing, beautiful stories. And I would whisper to her if she, you know, repeating what the people had said. And when I left, I said to her best friend, "You know, are they giving you any idea about how long? And they said, "Well, she doesn't have the - they call it the death rattle, so I think it'll be a couple of weeks. And I said, "Okay, I'll be back to visit her. And within about four hours, he texted me and said she crossed.
Vonne Solis 1:22:44
Wow.
Maribeth Swan 1:22:45
So I would have that effect on people in hospice. And I would - the nurses would call me in with someone who they felt was ready, and I would spend several hours with them, and and get them, if they were verbal, as I said, to talk about their lives, or when they met their husbands. What they did, and then I would get an email the next day from the coordinator saying that they had crossed.
Vonne Solis 1:23:08
I'm getting this image that, especially when you said she rode a motor, a motorcycle. Shaved her head, and I'm just getting this, you know, image of just absolute joy, bliss, freedom, happiness, and man, that's that's the energy you want to go out on, right?
Maribeth Swan 1:23:25
Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Vonne Solis 1:23:27
What a blessing. Let's turn, we could talk forever about this, but enough, audience, I hope we're giving you enough stories and talking about, you know, little bit more surface here, but not to, you know, suggest that Maribeth and I, or parents. Others of you, we go through real tough trauma, shock, pain. And it's going to be different for everybody, you know, how long the journey is for you. I suspect elements - I'll just say elements of the pain will be with me until I'm not on the planet anymore. But it's sure tempered with the joy of all the things we've talked about here in this episode so far, Maribeth, like the visits, and just the belief in there's something more. I call it ongoing consciousness. The fact that we will be reunited, and, and to allow yourself to be open to maybe have that connection and that relationship in a new form happen before you're on your own deathbed. And you know, why wait to connect with them if you can connect with them, and Maribeth and I are testament to having had years, years, years, decades-long relationship with you, with Jamie and me, with Janaya. And, oh, by the way, my brother's name is James.
Maribeth Swan 1:25:02
Yeah.
Vonne Solis 1:25:02
Anyway, I forgot to tell you that. I forgot to tell you that. Let's turn to your flower essences. I know you did have an accident that led you to that, but I feel like you were probably even.. I was going to ask you. With the grief that your bereavement, your grief, do you think that also played a part in eventually, you know, a few years ago landing you as a Flower Essence practitioner?
Maribeth Swan 1:25:29
I think there are a lot of different things. I was told by a medium, I will share that a dear, dear friend of mine went missing right after the accident and was found having crossed and we were looking for her. And I was connected to a medium who helped the police look for people, and for free she helped try to find people. And she.. I shared some of my personal story with her, and she said, "Oh, you were grounded. You weren't listening to your gifts, and I wasn't working with flower essences yet. She said, "You know, you were grounded. I'm getting your.. you were grounded because you weren't using your gifts. And I had not been playing in a band for a while, but I really didn't know what she was talking about at all. And what happened.. I was in this accident where a table collapsed underneath me while I was sitting on it, and it damaged my tailbone and my pelvis and my spine. And I was on a bunch of prescription medication, and eventually my stomach basically exploded, and I had to go off of all of it and go on to all botanicals, but they don't cover the pain quite as well. And I found myself being angry and being mean because I was in so much physical pain. And then I had a dream about the flower borage, and borage is a star-shaped flower. Are you familiar with borage?
Vonne Solis 1:26:54
No.
Maribeth Swan 1:26:56
It's a periwinkle blue, it's a star-shaped flower, and its vibrational message is courage. And I had taken flower essences a few times before after a heartbreak with a boyfriend, and I carried this flower essence around with me, like it was my blanket in my purse. Because it would feel calm me down immediately.
Vonne Solis 1:27:15
Is it like an oil, or what is the flower essence?
Maribeth Swan 1:27:18
That's a great question. So, a flower essence is bioelectrically imprinted water. They're made, the imprint of the flower is usurped through sunlight or moonlight into the consciousness of water. So it's imprinted water. And then you remove the flower from the water, so it is not a physical medicine. And then, much like homeopathy, it is diluted from a mother essence to a stock essence to a dosage essence. And you stabilize it with alcohol or vinegar or glycerin, so you don't have to keep it in the refrigerator. But it is medicine for our nervous systems. And it is the more sensitive you are, the more apt you are to feel the vibrations of the flowers.
Vonne Solis 1:28:07
So, how do you take a dose of it? Is it like a droplet?
Maribeth Swan 1:28:11
In a vial subcutaneously underneath your tongue. You can also put a few drops in a glass of water and sip it slowly. You could put it in your bath water and enjoy a bath, because our skin is our biggest or organ. They don't have to be taken around food, and you need to get it into your body at least three times a day. The first thing when you wake up in the morning, right before dream time, and then somewhere in-between. And because it's electrical, you need to bang that bottle against the palm of your hand before you take it to wake up the charge. And you want to keep the vibration as pure as possible, so if you accidentally touch your lip or your mouth or something when you're dosing yourself, you just need to run that dropper underneath cold water and just clear the vibration, because you're wanting to keep the potency and the purity of the vibration of the essence as much as possible.
Vonne Solis 1:29:08
Straight from the bottle to under the tongue.
Maribeth Swan 1:29:11
Under the tongue.
Vonne Solis 1:29:12
Yeah, cool.
Maribeth Swan 1:29:13
Exactly.
Vonne Solis 1:29:13
Wow.
Maribeth Swan 1:29:14
And for people who've lost someone, I mean, I've worked with several suicide survivors now. Some people who found their loved ones, or that's how their loved one crossed, or just traumatic deaths. One of my clients' husband had a heart attack. He was in the shower, he fell, and he died right in front of her. And she couldn't sleep. She was having headaches and nightmares and flower essences helped her get her life back. And they're the most gentle of medicine. There are no contraindications. It doesn't matter if you're on another kind of medication, it's not going to interfere with anything you're taking, and they're just so gentle. So I had a dream about borage. Borage, there the medicine of borage is courage, and I started taking borage, and I started having dreams about other flowers. And then I decided that spring, I want to make my own flower essences. And I make my own flowers from seed, and make my own essences. And I started doing that, and gifting blends that I made to different people, and then one day someone called me and said I have someone who wants your phone number. And I said, for what? And she said for a flower essence consult. And that will be seven years ago this fall, and it's, it's the most beautiful work. I feel so grateful to have found it, and I would have never ever found it without the the accident.
Vonne Solis 1:30:43
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:30:44
My capacity for my sensitivity, and how intuitively I use kinesiology, layered with muscle testing for yes or no answers about which flowers will best serve someone at that time. I'll do an intake with someone, and different flowers will come to me and I'll write them down, and after the session I'll do a short meditation, and then use kinesiology to test for all the flowers that came through to see which ones are most beneficial for for the client at that time.
Vonne Solis 1:31:12
Yeah, so here's a quick question. So you're growing a lot of your own flowers?
Maribeth Swan 1:31:17
I grow my own flowers, and I have some practitioner agreements with some farms where I source some of the essences that I don't grow.
Vonne Solis 1:31:25
So I gotta ask, do you have a greenhouse? Like, how are you growing these?
Maribeth Swan 1:31:28
I don't have a greenhouse? No, I have, I have a garden. I have a raised bed that my friend's husband built me, so I could, I don't have to kneel down on the ground. I've gone around to all of my neighbours to make essences from flowers in their yard.
Vonne Solis 1:31:44
Wow.
Maribeth Swan 1:31:44
I've also made some crystal essences. A couple of years ago, I was really sad in the winter here in New England, everything's so cold. And so I have about 35 mother essences.
Vonne Solis 1:31:56
Wow.
Maribeth Swan 1:31:57
But I utilize, you know, over 100 of them easily.
Vonne Solis 1:32:01
Yeah, yeah, and by the way, I just want to shout out, so your website is it swanessence.com?
Maribeth Swan 1:32:10
Correct.
Vonne Solis 1:32:10
swanessence.com for anybody wanting to check it out. I did want to ask quickly, what's the difference between, say, homeopathy? And remember when I said way back when we were talking earlier in the episode, there was no drugs, no alcohol for me. But, my mom at the time, who was alive when Janaya died in 2005, was studying with a homeop homeopathy practitioner. And he, they, he made a concoction for us right away, probably for shock and trauma, and I stayed on that for months. And so.
Maribeth Swan 1:32:43
Was it a flower essence?
Vonne Solis 1:32:45
Well, you know, some of homeopathy does come from flowers, but I don't remember. But it was just a special, you know, concoction that he put together for us. But those weren't drops, you could get drops, but you know, they were like pastilis and that too.
Maribeth Swan 1:33:01
Right, right.
Vonne Solis 1:33:02
But how is how is flower essences, flower essence therapy different from homeopathy?
Maribeth Swan 1:33:10
Well, a flower essence is a, it's the bioelectric imprint of it.
Vonne Solis 1:33:14
Oh yeah, that's it.
Maribeth Swan 1:33:15
With vibrational, and it's in water. The water is holding the vibration that's usurped through the sunlight or the moonlight. All of the elements are in there, right?
Vonne Solis 1:33:26
Yeah, yeah. Does it change our vibration when it goes under the tongue?
Maribeth Swan 1:33:30
Okay, so the couple different answers for that. Number one, it's one at the way that I work, I make my essences. I alchemize them on a dedicated altar. They receive a sound bath, either Tibetan symbols or a singing bowl, and a Reiki prayer, and they sit in a crystal grid with a with a prayer for that specific client, for the flower essence to have the highest and best outcome for the client. And then sometimes that essence, depending on how much trauma, or I also treat some people who have some chronic illness, how what they've got going on, it may stay on my altar for two or three weeks before the essence tells me it's ready to go to the client. I have made some essences for children. Children who had temper tantrums or had car sickness, and an essence for a child is ready in about 20 minutes, because children are just so ready to receive. But, I believe in the Law of One, and that Source, God, Universe, however you want to describe it, it's all part of The One. And so every person we meet, we're meeting another aspect of ourselves. And every plant and every animal is another aspect of ourselves. So when you take a flower essence, you're just being reintroduced to an aspect of yourself that you have forgotten that you're connected to. And so it's not something where you need to take this for the rest of your life. You know, you may need to take them for a few months and the body really acclimates, and then what will happen often is that whatever I'm working with the person on that, they will, that will be healed, and then something else will come up. Like, okay, sleeping , or whatever but now I'm having these thoughts about my father, my mother, my brother, you know, whatever something else might come up. It's just different for everyone, but flower essences can support literally anything.
Vonne Solis 1:35:28
Yeah, no, I totally believe it, and use natural stuff when I need stuff. But that is a shout out to even.. so I never heard of flower essences. Like flower essences when Janaya died, but the first thing my mom did was get us on homeopathy for the depress, the shock, the shock, and probably the trauma. And I don't remember how long I was on it, but it beat alcohol, you know? Like I wasn't gonna get, get like drunk, or Valium, Valium. Like I just want to sleep. So it did, I think it really had an absolute effect. Just like, so I believe in flower essence. I have not worked with it, but it's a natural remedy, and I love what you're saying about the Law of One. You call Law of One. A lot of the episodes I'm doing right now are to do with all of that: Source, consciousness and reconnecting. A reminder that we're here all to connect with, as I'll just say a Law of One today. Call it Source, call it whatever you want, but that's what we're here. And our vibration is, I just had a physicist on, and his episode aired last week, so some end of March folks, if you're interested. His name's Randy Lyman, a physicist. Okay, so scientist, and he's been at this stuff for decades now, and working with, you know, the idea of the physics behind everything. But he actually says every, and he's right, and I'm probably gonna like botch this, but he sort of like says, in terms of true physics, nothing has any form until we give it that form, and I'm probably not saying it exactly the same way, but when you look at every single thing around you, whether it's the most delicate of a flower, or you know, your 100 inch TV, it's all made of the same energy, just a different vibration.
Maribeth Swan 1:36:24
Different vibration, right.
Vonne Solis 1:37:25
And, and how it comes into form, and some would go, well, it's because we're seeing it, and we immediately create the form, which is why things can maybe disappear. Like, I'm not going to get into the science and physics of it all, but you get what I'm saying. You get what I'm saying.
Maribeth Swan 1:37:40
I have to give a shout out for the flowers, because...
Vonne Solis 1:37:43
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:37:44
A flower at full bloom is happening so briefly. It's such a fleeting moment. Which is why the medicine is so powerful. Because I'll go out to make thinking I'm making an essence of a so Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily's vibrational message is to help support the feminine and masculine forms.
Vonne Solis 1:38:06
So what someone would take tiger lily flower essence for what?
Maribeth Swan 1:38:10
If you're in a struggle in a business or some kind of organization, which is the not necessarily male versus female but masculine energy predominantly, and they need to bring up the divine feminine to work within the structure. I thought the plant was ready for a flower essence, and I had all my materials ready. And I go outside and say, Are you ready for me to make an essence? And the plant says no, because I communicate with the plants, and I give an offering when I'm going to make an essence. Maybe it's a song, maybe it's a sprinkling of an herb, but there has to be an exchange and an acknowledgement of the medicine that they're offering so freely. But they, they may say no, not today.
Vonne Solis 1:38:56
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:38:57
No, it's not the right day, it's not the right energy. It's, and I always listen.
Vonne Solis 1:39:03
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:39:03
I always listen because I want to keep receiving the messages if it's a yes or no. I will just also plug other than swanessence.com I have a newsletter, a new moon newsletter that goes out.
Vonne Solis 1:39:16
Oh yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:39:17
Every month I have a new moon in Aries on Friday, and we're having all these planets are in Aries. There will be seven planets in Aries, so there's a lot of charged energy, fire energy out there right now.
Vonne Solis 1:39:30
So, do people go, can they go and sign up for, subscribe to the new moon newsletter on your website, Swan Essence?
Maribeth Swan 1:39:38
Yes.
Vonne Solis 1:39:38
Okay. Just a quick question. Do you, when you work with somebody that's obviously not in your area, what do you do? Do you mail them these bottles? What do you do?
Maribeth Swan 1:39:48
I mail, I mail everything.
Vonne Solis 1:39:50
So, Maribeth, I think we've given people some kind of messages that they're meant to hear. Did we cover everything we could have covered about bereavement? No. There's so much. All I all I want to say. I feel like you're a shining example of getting through trauma. I'm all about having people on the podcast that have gone through their stuff but are doing something so inspirational to bring joy and healing to others, and that's what you've committed your life to doing.
Maribeth Swan 1:40:25
I do want to say, you know, as far as you know, how we get things passed down of not expressing our grief. Cry your tears. Your tears actually have special protein in them. Your sorrowful tears that help heal you by releasing them. And I've studied a lot of different shamans, Malidoma Somé being one of them. He's from Nigeria, I believe. And in his village, if you didn't, when someone crossed, you had to come to the village and cry. And if you didn't come and cry and weep, you were excommunicated from the village. And when they had the funeral celebration, the celebration of life, the more noise that was made, the more it was talked about, the more their life was celebrated, the more power it was given for that soul to ascend.
Vonne Solis 1:41:17
Yes.
Maribeth Swan 1:41:18
Such a beautiful message to talk about it, and that's also how we keep our loved ones alive. And we let the love that they had here shine out of our lives and our eyes by taking all the best components of them and bringing them into ourselves, so they're continuously being expressed.
Vonne Solis 1:41:37
Yeah, so beautiful. And while you were talking, I just want to say a couple things. So, death is celebrated in almost every other place in the world, other than the Western world, and I can't speak for Europe, but certainly in North America, we're afraid of it, like you said. We stifle ourselves. We're embarrassed and ashamed to cry. When we can celebrate, and it's like you said, in that, in that one village, or in India, and they all come together. And the village, the community, and even if you're in a city, it's still a community of people that come and weep and mourn and celebrate and send that person off. And, um so the thought came to me as a little exercise, if we were to think about how we would want to be sent off, our remains, whatever those remains look like, right? Do you want to have people boohoohoo and crying and morbid and sad and everything, or celebrating? And this is not to say a celebration of life, where we forget the pain, but weeping with joy, you know? Like, so understanding and just sending us off in a way that we're not sad we're leaving the planet. Most people, and you might speak to this briefly on palliative, that leave the planet, they're ready to go.
Maribeth Swan 1:43:08
Oh, they're so ready to go. Often people were hanging on just because there was one family member who couldn't let go, and this family member gave permission that they would leave the body. But I don't even believe in, in quote unquote death. We leave the body and we become a different form of energy, and I have to bring up my, my Italian Nana again because she lived till she was 96 and she had buried almost all of her siblings. She buried all of her siblings, she had buried her husband, a grandson, and so many friends, and she refused to wear black to funerals. And she would wear gold lamé, like gold shoes and hats with flowers all over them, and just really just dress up, and she's like, "I'm celebrating the life this person lived. Why am I going to be so sad? This is life. And she said, "Don't you dare wear black at my funeral, and I wore a dress that had flowers all over it. Surprise.
Vonne Solis 1:44:08
Yeah, yeah, surprise. And so I think, I think one of the things that a recurring message that's coming across in our talk together, our time together today, is to not be afraid of death. It's going to happen, and that's a cliche, I know it's going to happen, whatever. But when it does happen to you, and especially, I just saw in media yesterday, or the day before, this family paying tribute to their little six year old girl who had been hit on a crosswalk. You know, so sometimes when they have very specific, like you're the only one. The one, the only one person that gets hit, you know? Like something, so when, and you know it could have been anybody, and you know, so I want to say, as humans, we all die at different ages and under different circumstances. It for me, it, and I'm just saying, die in terms of leave the human body behind, okay? That that part does die off, just like a flower dies. So the human shell dies, but we do not. And you're never, none of us are ever going to stop death of the human form at whatever age. Babies die, children die, old people die. If you're lucky and you want to live a long, beautiful, healthy life, maybe you will, maybe you won't.
Vonne Solis 1:45:27
By talking about it, preparing for it. I'm a big, big, big one on estate planning, and I've done some episodes with estate planners on this show, folks. Get your stuff in order. Celebrate that you're living, but if something happens, you know what the person would want. And, what you and I have talked a lot about, Maribeth, is this idea that I've already said a couple times, you've said it as well. We, we're ongoing. We're not the relationship, the relationship isn't ending. Yes, it takes time, and it's painful to learn how to have a different relationship, but there are deaths of the human form that don't kill us and traumatize us. I never was really upset at either of my parents going. Like there's no other death that's really bothered me, to tell you the honest truth. And if I hadn't had Janaya like be the one to go first, she was my first introduction into death. Maybe Jamie was your family's first too, that's kind of a hard knock. Except my grandma had died, my mom's mom had died when I was like 13, and I just didn't really, really understand it that much. Do you know what I mean? I was 13 or 14 or something.
Maribeth Swan 1:46:47
My mother's parents had passed before he passed.
Vonne Solis 1:46:50
You know. When you're a kid, it's kind of like it's almost esoteric. It's like, well, I don't know. Anyways, it didn't impact me, like it didn't destroy me. So I have had to kind of come from the worst that there is, as have you, and sorted out in our head our relationship to quote death of a person in human form. But then, also embracing, which is not easy to do. Embracing, as you said earlier, I believe you said you saw Jamie's death, correct me if I'm wrong, as a gift. Am I right about that?
Maribeth Swan 1:47:20
Yes. Eventually, yes. That wasn't right away. Maybe it was 10 years out, but it gave me language, the experience, and the language to support other people, because it's such this taboo topic.
Vonne Solis 1:47:40
Yes.
Maribeth Swan 1:47:41
That I was, people were so comfortable talking to me about it.
Vonne Solis 1:47:44
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:47:45
It wasn't something that freaked me out at all. It happens to us all.
Vonne Solis 1:47:48
All the things you've done related to death, talk about it. Go on the support thing, do palliative. Now work in flower essences to help, help, help. The theme is to help and support, and that is huge, and you might not have been doing that if you, if you hadn't lost Jamie.
Maribeth Swan 1:48:05
Absolutely.
Vonne Solis 1:48:06
So I'm not saying to the audience here, find your lesson, find your purpose from a death. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is, if you're so inclined to consider it, it's the, I think that there's no other way we can sort of embrace our healing, for lack of a better word. Coming to the agreement and the awareness and the acceptance that we are a Law of One, and we're all going to the same place, and we're all already in the same place, just in different vibration. So that's kind, that's kind of what our message has really been throughout this thing. It's not just about surviving the worst, it's about what are you going to choose to do with your survival.
Maribeth Swan 1:48:58
Absolutely. And I wanted to mention one more thing, and I don't know if you have them in Canada. This started in England. I know we've gone on a long time.
Vonne Solis 1:49:06
It's okay.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:07
Called death cafes.
Vonne Solis 1:49:09
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:09
Have you heard of them?
Vonne Solis 1:49:10
Oh yes. And I would love to run one, but I have too much to do, but I'd love to run one.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:17
But they're wonderful. I've attended a few, and they're just really educational, because so many, everyone has basically a different view about it, you know. Some people say, "My husband died and he's gone, and that's it, and I don't believe in the afterlife, and...
Vonne Solis 1:49:31
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:32
and and then some people are more like you and I, who see the energy as a continuum, and then the soul as a continuum.
Vonne Solis 1:49:39
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:40
And I just encourage everyone to look, there's a website. It was started in England by, I believe, a man who lost his wife, but to either attend a death cafe or just to try to bring it into conversation.
Vonne Solis 1:49:56
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:49:57
They're so eager to talk about babies and birth and of course, that's a wonderful, magical time of life, but so is so is leaving the body.
Vonne Solis 1:50:06
I was just gonna say it. It's, you know, it's like when you lose a child, it's actually the same wonder and awe, and when I say wonder, I mean that in the shock and like what just happened, but it gives you so much to think about the rest of your life, and it can give you purpose. It can give you almost the equivalent of birthing that child, and your whole life changes. I'm telling you, how you end up thinking in terms of unconditional love and love for that child who has gone at whatever age, if you're a parent. I'm just speaking from the parent part here, it's equal to the birthing. It's so impacting. And I'm not saying that I'm ready to look at the magic of like the suicide of Janaya, but I know it's been there because I'm experiencing it, experiencing it now with our relationship, how it's evolved. So, in human time, it's taken 20 years for that to happen in my life. In her, in her existence, it's a flash. Boom, right? Snap your fingers. I don't snap them very well, but snap your fingers. For her, oh, but well, she probably already knew this was going to happen years ago.
Maribeth Swan 1:51:30
Well, I can't.. I'm sorry, I can't remember where this came from. It was.. it was an author who said, you know, before we get a body, it's like we're waiting to get on a bus. And there's the bus driver sitting there with a clipboard, and said, "Okay, you want a body, okay? Well, you're going to die by suicide at this age, and you're going to have a little brother, and you know you're going to leave a mother, and you're going to do this for work and that for work, and you're maybe you're going to get this sickness or that illness.
Vonne Solis 1:51:58
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:51:58
And be here this amount of time, and that you contract and agree.
Vonne Solis 1:52:02
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:52:03
Before you come in to be in a body, and that's a big part of your soul to come and be in a body. And so,
Vonne Solis 1:52:10
Yeah, yeah.
Maribeth Swan 1:52:11
when you leave the body, you're going to join your Oversoul, and it's this homecoming, but that things that are transpiring here, we knew about. We just go through the unknown, remembered gate, as T.S. Eliot describes in Little Gidding, a set of poems that you know, we go through this gate of amnesia, right, when we're born, and we don't remember what it was like before we were in this body, or most of us don't. And then when we leave this form.
Vonne Solis 1:52:42
It's done, it's done in and I totally believe in contracts 100%. And I knew, I knew as soon as my daughter died, I, you know, what? I'm going to say this, and it's going to sound weird, but I think I was always kind of waiting for her to go. At some level, I knew she wasn't going to be here for a long time, and other parents will say this about their children. They'll just have an innate feeling. And her and I knew our contract right away. Now, I didn't want anyone else to tell me it, unless they were a practitioner, but I knew our contract right away. And I've known it all along, and so that's what kind of motivated me to not let her part of the contract to be the one to leave the planet, okay? She's the one that in this life decided to leave the planet, but we are living two other timelines as mother-daughter where a death happened, just different type of death. And I had a reading that was so powerful with Barbara With and and and she works with the Party of 12 and channels Albert Einstein and others and it was such a magnificent reading. That's really what helped me get my real like focus and and understand. And they said in that reading, which was in October 2024 that she was coming back to me, but it'll not be in the way you imagine or think, so don't even try to look for it. And it was just a few days after that I had language, symbolic language in purple ink all over the back of one of my pajama tops. Which was the pen I write with her, a letter to her every year, and I sent that off to Barbara, and I said, What do you think? What do you think? The iPhone's, you know, identifying this and you know, filing it as language, and she goes, I've never seen it before. So that was the first physical where I had all these - they almost looked like V's all over the back of, well, you know, about that much in purple ink on on a pajama top. Imagine that. Do you know how difficult that would be to make markings like on a pajama top?
Maribeth Swan 1:54:48
V for Vonne?
Vonne Solis 1:54:50
Well, maybe. They like.. they.. yeah. I mean, who knows? But it was, and they're very precise. It was very precise, and there's no way. And I'm first.. like, did I scratch my back? But, no. Anyway, so that was the start of it, and then the whole AirTag thing happened, and so I just realized not too long ago. Maybe this is what The Party meant by we're having she's coming back to me. So where I can actually give it the human construct, however you said that we want this pattern. We want this proof in human because we're so restricted what we can see, what we can interpret. We have only an nth, nth, nth of, you know, it reminds me of Artemis just going to the moon. And when they saw the blackness. While Einstein says that all that blackness is our consciousness, and I believe it. And that we originate from the center of the the earth from a black hole. And the gravity, and all of this, the gravitational waves, and everything forms with our energy and vibration, and creates us into human form, and there's holograms, and this, that, and the other. It's really complicated stuff, but in the end, maybe that is what is it, what happened.
Vonne Solis 1:55:59
And by the way, Albert Einstein, the story about that is when he died, he figured everything out mathematically that he couldn't get in human form and was looking for humans to channel his work. And Barbara has written two books specifically about Einstein, and I can't even get through it. And I've said to her a couple times, Barbara, with great respect, I said, I know you didn't write this book. She's a musician, and she said composing was very binary, very binary, and she was chosen as a channel in her late 20s, probably because of that. And she just, as she said, she answered the summons to her work. And I love that, because we are summoned to the different types of work that we do to share and help others. But it's real, people. Like it's real that there are lots and lots and lots of people who are are working through us. You know, angels work through me, so you know, for me to say, and I would never say to you, oh, that sounds really weird. Vibration in flowers? Everything you described. No, I totally believe in it, because it'll be the somebody saying to me, well, they don't believe in angels, or you know, okay, that's fine. I'm not here to try and change your mind. It's, but they, they actually talk to me and work through me, and I don't do channelling for people anymore. And that was.. I strictly gave it up, because I was.. I'm retired, more or less. I'm supposed to be retired, and I just got really tired. But it's not to say I won't go back to it, but you know, I'm just saying, is if you want to believe in the magic of life, then you will have magic in your life, right?
Maribeth Swan 1:57:42
Agreed.
Vonne Solis 1:57:43
Okay. Folks, go visit Maribeth's site. Maribeth, her website, swanessence.com. I'm going to have the link in the show notes. Is there any last words you have? This has been amazing and so much fun.
Maribeth Swan 1:58:00
I just want to say, thank you. I'm honoured. I had mentioned to you that it's not something I've ever spoken about on a podcast. And I'm grateful to be connected and to engage in this conversation. And I hope more and more people feel more comfortable in talking about death and talking about suicide, and you know, just the forgiveness for how much, however you react. There is no wrong way. There is no wrong way.
Vonne Solis 1:58:29
Yeah, and we don't, we don't have time to talk to this, but I'm just gonna say a shout out for, for the whole thing about suicide is that, so the numbers haven't dropped, people on the planet have they? As far as I'm aware, they're not dropping.
Maribeth Swan 1:58:47
No. Suicide is, is for especially for young men, is increasing.
Vonne Solis 1:58:52
It's increasing. And in Canada, and I've talked about this a couple times on other episodes, we are one of the most progressive countries to offer medically assisted death. And they are looking to expand it, possibly in 2027 for mental health issues. I am not taking a position on this right now. The only thing I will say is that if we're going to do that, then we must stop condemning or making those who go by their own hand, criminal, or you know, taboo, or stigma, or whatever. So we just need to, like, it's a very convoluted thing, but medically assisted death is essentially suicide. That's what it is. So maybe we need to redefine suicide? And I, you know, it, we're not going to stop it. Do I think that we should do everything in our power to support each other? Yes, in our hard times. But the reality also is that not everyone is meant to or wants to stay on the planet. And I don't think it's for any one of us to judge anyone leaving, you know, especially I mean, I have an exception to, like, the teens and children. That I think we have a real problem, and we need to stop, because we have, as young as ten years old, die by suicide in our country, and you probably do in the Sates too, for bullying and different things like that. So that I think we have a big responsibility, and then the AI component. We have a responsibility to stop that. But what I'm saying is, when it's done, it's done, and it, and, and we can't judge others for what they're going through and stigmatize and I feel the stigma is lifting a little bit. I think so? I think so. Like, my YouTubes don't get banned because I have the word suicide in it, you know?
Maribeth Swan 2:00:56
Hmm. Did they used to? I was going to bring up the word judgement, because when you're judging something, you are also intrinsically judging yourself. And so if you're having a judgement about whatever it is, that judgement is first originating within you as that something is wrong. And when it's about someone else and their life, I mean, I'm not a proponent for it, but they didn't hurt anyone else. They hurt themselves.
Vonne Solis 2:01:26
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 2:01:27
And I just.. I, for one, when my brother passed, I was never angry. I was so sad that he was in a place where he didn't see any other way but to leave, and my heart broke for him for that, and in thinking about what he was thinking about in the days that led up to it. But I was never angry about it. And and one of the ways I process, and I have since a child, is writing things down, and I'm a musician, and I wrote several songs about him. You can find one on Bandcamp actually.
Vonne Solis 2:02:02
Yeah. I was just gonna ask you, do you have music online?
Maribeth Swan 2:02:05
I do have music online. I'm gonna be recording two singles this year, but I have music from 20 years ago up on Bandcamp under my name. The name of my band was Reckless Daughter, but the song that's about Jamie up there is called As They Seem.
Vonne Solis 2:02:22
Okay. Is Band Camp, I'm going to check that out. Is is it bandcamp.com? I've never even heard of that.
Maribeth Swan 2:02:31
So it's, it's the miniature modified. Yes, it's, it's where, when people make a purchase, the money goes directly to the artist, and that they take a very small fee, and they have special Bandcamp Fridays, where all of the money will go to the artist, but you can go and listen for free a few times.
Vonne Solis 2:02:48
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 2:02:49
Before they want you to...
Vonne Solis 2:02:50
Yeah, subscribe.
Maribeth Swan 2:02:51
Exactly.
Vonne Solis 2:02:52
Yeah.
Maribeth Swan 2:02:52
But that's where you can find my music.
Vonne Solis 2:02:55
So anyway, we'll close this off. It's been absolutely so much fun talking to you, and also informative. I learned a lot, and so thank you. Thank you for just coming on and just having a great conversation, and being honest, and just, you know, calling it like it is. I love that.
Maribeth Swan 2:03:16
Thank you, Vonne. I feel like we're sisters. I can't believe your birthday is the same day as my brother.
Vonne Solis 2:03:21
I know. I know. Okay.
Maribeth Swan 2:03:24
I'm just conspiring for this to happen.
Vonne Solis 2:03:26
Yeah. Okay, I'm going to stop recording.
Maribeth Swan 2:03:28
Okay, bye.