28. Life After Life?

Let me take this question of life after life vs. road kill back to about a month after Gregory died for yet another conundrum.

Through a person I trusted deeply, I contacted a medium. Arlene (the medium) lived in another part of the country, was in fact traveling in an RV, and the person I had contacted had to call one person, then the person that person told her to call, then another, through about five layers of connections. This person I trusted did not know a lot about Gregory, and Arlene could not possibly link me to him or him to me, not with the best search engine on the planet.

The “meeting” was set: I would call Arlene at a specific time on a specific day. I had it in my mind that I would be super sharp, super skeptical and give this person no feedback whatsoever about what she was saying. My plan was to listen, listen, listen and see whether anything came through or not. She would get no verbal prompts from me.

At this same time, I worked for a publication, and as you probably know, they are bombarded with samples and review copies of everything. Our department pooled these odd bits together in early December and held a sale with bargain pricing. It’s not like you’re going to pick up a Danielle Steel novel or Bruce Springsteen CDs. Most of it is offbeat stuff. All the proceeds go to a local charity.

As it happened, this sale took place the Friday before my Sunday call with Arlene. I was back at work, barely. The sale was a nice diversion, and it was fun to get caught up as we flooded in from the hall and began swarming the tables. After 45 minutes, my booty consisted of a handful of Celtic CDs, a Dixie Chicks video and an obscure animated short.

Sometime later that day, my boss said, “Let’s go see what’s left,” and so we did. The room had really been worked over. I decided to concentrate on the stacks of books that still lined the walls, maybe to find a horse book for Helena.

I made it only a little way around the perimeter when I came upon a small paperback about communication with dead. Hmmm. I put it in my bag. A little farther along, there was a copy of John Edward’s first book, One Last Time. This was before he was famous. I had no idea who he was or precisely what he did, but at the top of the book was a quote from Raymond Moody that said, “Astonishing.” Having followed Dr. Moody since his Life After Life days, that made an impression. The tagline on the book said, “A psychic medium speaks to those we have loved and lost.”

I thought that rather peculiar; it made it sound like a book about relationships. Except, this Edward guy was a psychic medium. I started to put the book in my bag, then thought better of it. I didn’t want the people in my office who were tallying and taking our money to think I was obsessed with the topic of communicating with the dead. I put the book back. Halfway around the room, there was another copy. This time, I put it in my bag for keeps. To hell with what people would think.

When I got home, I put the two books side by side, wondering which to read first. Love Beyond Life by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski was “inspiring and thought-provoking,” according to a quote by pediatrician Melvin Morse, author of Closer to the Light, a book about near-death experiences in children.

Ultimately, I picked Edward’s book, and could scarcely put it down long enough to sleep. It told of his own dubiousness at his “skill” and how he put aside a career in public health to work full-time as a medium. The remainder of the book talked about what he does and how he does it, as well as how to spot fake mediums. He mentioned two other books he felt were reputable, and one was the Martin-Romanowski book.

First off, for these two books of all the books at the sale to somehow be overlooked was remarkable. Not only that, the Edward book was like a primer of what happens in a reading of the type I was about to have. My position of not giving any feedback would have ruined the session.

Indeed, Edward explained that he instructs people NOT to lead him with information, but simply to tell him whether or not a name or bit of information has meaning. It allows him to “feel” from the other side whether it’s right. A person might say, “Oh yes, I have a cousin named Harold,” and Edward will say, “That’s not who this is referring to.” (This, as opposed to a fake, who will then try to draw out more information about “cousin Harold.”)

In a personal appearance I later attended, again before he was a psychic superstar, Edward told about the name Orlando coming through for a specific woman. He and she went through every possible permutation of meaning, and both became extremely frustrated when nothing “fit” for the insistent entity coming through. Finally, one of them said, “Disney World?” Jackpot.

So – from the chance second visit to the sale, the chance sighting of two of the best of three books on the subject of this kind of mediumship, the chance of reading the one that would best prepare me for my own reading – what are the odds?

And what a difference it made in the reading.

This is the stuff that makes my brain ache, and sends me running back to the Robert Monroe books.




Image by Vladimir Kush

27. The Yin and Yang of Life After Death

Only days after posting that dark blog, I went to dinner with Dee. It was as if the universe, in its infinite wisdom and glee, licked its lips, rubbed its palms together and said, “Now, let’s hit her with the yang to her yin. Let’s see how she feels about that.”

How to explain Dee. I’m not sure why I was drawn to her (or her to me). At the time, we worked together, and I could sense tremendous untapped power in her. Not the sort of egotistical gluttony that drives the worst of politicians. Nor the self-absorbed power of a femme fatale. I’m talking about a presence and substance. Something not physical.

Blonde, Nordic, solidly built, Great Plains-born and bred, she was button-down bright. Yet she trembled with fear that she might do something to endanger her salvation. (Some part of me was certain this would not be the case.) She was – and is – a committed student of the Bible.

Over the years, as we spent time together, the strangest thing would happen. Our conversations would invariably turn to spiritual topics, and we would dialogue in such a way that each provided the other with spiritual balm. I can hardly even characterize these conversations. For me, words would just spill out of my mouth, without thinking, from places I couldn't readily source. And from her, I sensed this uplifting radiance, this unfolding expansiveness. It was comforting to be a moth drawn to her flame.

So days after posting that dark blog, Dee and I got together.

We each, as it turned out, had something special to share. She wanted to tell me about something that had recently happened to her, and I wanted to broach the topic of winking on before winking out. I was a little afraid that she might begin to proselytize. Try as I might, I have never been able to embrace the born-again concept. As I told her, I was “born again” at 10 or 12, walked to the front of the church, dropped to my knees and accepted communion. Nothing happened. I’ve spent a lifetime since, seeking the truth about human existence, corporeal and spiritual.

Dee shared first. She began to tell me about her experiences with Margaret, someone she had never spoken of before. I don’t want to trivialize what came next. Dee explained to me how Margaret was her spirit guide, a presence she had experienced since childhood, who manifest as Western Indian in appearance. In her most recent encounter, Dee explained, Margaret had taken her through a spiritual initiation ceremony. I was quite familiar with this in the context of more alternative approaches to spirituality. I never, ever expected to hear of such a thing from my dear friend.

To listen to Dee, who had initially been fearful for her salvation, speak of an experience that can only be described as transcendent, was remarkable. I said to her, “You cannot imagine the appropriateness of your telling me this just now.”

Then I shared with her much of what I wrote in the previous post. She offered no fear, no recrimination, no push to make me be like her. Just openness, acceptance and love.

This is the sort of thing that holds me ‘twixt and ‘tween. Can this have been a coincidence? I did not have a clue Dee had ever had any such experiences. I had no clue that she had a spirit guide. I would never have even raised the topics of spirit guides or initiations with her because they fly so far afield from traditional Christianity. So it’s not like I elicited this, or planted some suggestion, or provoked it. And, she doesn't read the blog.

Yet, it's the sort of maddening thing that happened often immediately after Gregory’s death. Tantalizing, maybe-spiritual messages. Coincidence upon coincidence. Are they just the magical thinking/interpretation of finite creatures?

Dee would say now that she and I entered into a contract before birth to do something specifically together – learn a lesson, perform a service – in this lifetime.

I cannot say this is wrong. Or correct. The stone-cold, sober truth is that we shall only know the truth of all of this upon the event of our own death. Or, perhaps we shall enter eternal slumber and not know at all.



Images by Vladimir Kush