Author's Notes

When we long for a life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds, and diamonds are made under pressure.

– Peter Marshall

Author's Notes

When you are a beginner, it is your choice whether or not to be intimate with God. When you are called to walk the mystic’s path, it is not.

Author's Notes

There are things we imagine. And there are things thrust upon us in our imagination.

Letters to The Divine

“Several Times in the Last Week”

Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
And several times in the last week, God Himself has even come to my door
Asking me for your address!
Once I said, “God, I thought You knew everything. Why are You asking me where
Your lovers live?”
And the Beloved replied, “Indeed, Hafiz, I do know everything.
But it is fun playing dumb once in a while. And I love intimate chat
And the warmth of your heart’s fire.”
Maybe we should make this poem into a song, I think it has potential!
How far does this refrain sound, for I know it is a Truth:
Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets
Trying to find you.
And several times in the last week, God Himself has come to my door,
So sweetly asking for your address, wanting the beautiful warmth of your heart’s fire.

– Hafiz

Author's Notes

Choose Ascension

The choice I am making today, of giving up on something terrible for me that I can no longer keep within my control, turning it over to a God with a personality, has resulted in my ability to see the God without a personality. There is a simple system of laws that will not conform to anything other than what He has put in motion. Continuing to feed an addiction will simply do that. Feed it. Impersonal. But in finally recognizing that as a fact, a law of nature, I can resign in the knowledge of it. Then. Then. I feel the intimate God.

He is The One who is pleased with me. The One who wants to walk with me, be by my side every day. Whisper in my ear, things I don’t know and should not know. Secrets between He and I. Things, little glimpses of what I can have. Things He will give me. What I can become as long as I understand His laws, and that He is not attached emotionally to my choices, but observes them. However, when I choose well, and turn to Him once more, there is only abundant love inside of me, and an expansion of what is my self.

Kya

Blank

I feel the warmth of the Divine holding me, my angel and his friends close to me, and my mother comforting me. I feel no pain, only a slight confusion. I am in a daze. Pain is reflected in my eyes though, like when I lost so many before. I believe I will feel grief later. I am not grieving yet. I am still in shock. As my father said to me when my step-mother died, “I don’t feel anything. I just keep thinking she went to the store and will walk though that door any minute.”

Kya

The Golden Eagle

A golden eagle circled over the backyard on Saturday. He never once moved his wings. Just silently soared over Kya for several minutes. She turned white on Sunday.

Angels

Why have you left me?
“Strength.”

What do you mean?
“To make you stronger.”

I don’t understand…
“If you are going to represent me. You must do it correctly.”

Kya

Strength

There was one other thing. I cannot remember exactly when it happened. Sometime over the weekend. I laid down on the floor and begged and begged again of God why he was not coming to me.

I heard clearly. Outside of my head this time. “Strength”. Then more tears. Still not enough. Why, why, why?! “To make you stronger.” More clarity I insisted. “If you are going to represent me. You must do it correctly.” That last sentence may have been different, but that was the gist of it.

The voice was nondescript. Not my own. Not Auriel’s. Just a plain voice.

Kya

The Piercing and the Peanut

Why did I write that post? “It is over.” How could I say goodby to God and then have Him take my Kya from me? It was less than 24 hrs later that she got sick. I knew she had to go. Go to live with Grampa. I find it so strange. It couldn’t have been a punishment. I don’t believe that.

Monday morning I woke up to a horrible feeling. It wasn’t a feeling that I had felt before. But there was an understanding that the inevitable could not be put off any longer. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and sink into disbelief once again, but my angel laid by my side and placed his hand on my shoulder to delicately wake me.

I had prayed fervently over the weekend. “Auriel, please speak for me to God. Deliver Him the message that I need Him to come back! I need consolations. I need to feel peace. Please! Please! Please!” And then, “I need angels. Lots and lots of angels. Send an army.” Auriel remained very close to me. Standing by my side. Always touching me. But God did not swell my heart with bliss. I figured, He knew best. Maybe if He had come it would obscure the circumstance and imminent grief I needed to feel.

But as I lay there, in my bed Monday morning. I felt something different. God came to me with a sharp piercing of my heart. I felt lifted up and I cried out in my mind, with every fiber of my being, “I love you so much!” What a simple thing to say. And I cannot describe here the reality of it. Certainly I said more. I said everything in that instant. He withdrew suddenly. Then, again. A stabbing right into my heart! I remember feeling, thinking, speaking, “I give you everything! Take all of me!”

I just absolutely cannot describe it. I won’t even try. I can say, the piercing was not painful, but not sensual either. I felt as thought He reached inside my heart and drew me up close. It felt like my insides were pulled out of me, up to heaven. I was inside of Him and He was inside of me.

After the second piercing, which only lasted an instant, my thoughts on that being that experiencing anymore of His closeness would cause me to explode, I became aware of a warm light surrounding my bed. My eyes started to open fully and I could see them. About a dozen angels by my bedside forming a semi-circle around me. They were blurry. I could not see their faces. But they were there. In the light.

Auriel pulled me out of bed and I got the impression that the others were his friends. I thanked them for coming. I sensed that they were in awe of his and my relationship. Nothing so serious as envy did they feel, but perhaps a hopeful wanting of what we have, that they could have someday.

They were alway there, throughout the day, and into the evening. Kya passed so peacefully. I felt semi okay. I didn’t want to see her after though. I didn’t have to. I was hit with a serious allergy attack. One of the debilitating ones. I could not help carry her. No way. So I got out of it. Auriel hard at work once again.

As I fell asleep that night. I asked for a sign that my dad had her. I had been trying to talk to him all day. I thought, just a robin drinking from the bird bath. A squirrel maybe. I felt a little irreverent asking for one. After all, my faith is strong enough now that I don’t need such things. So this morning threw me for a loop.

I decided to plant the angels wings (flowers) out front and when digging up the dirt I found something… A peanut in the shell. Just like the kind my father used to eat. He was obsessed with them! It was his addiction. What more can I say. I never ate them. There is nothing more direct then it being a peanut!

I feel much better now. I told my angel last night that I would never doubt him again. I am sticking to that!

PS: I’m keeping the eagle feather.