Years ago, I was invited to a lecture given by a Tibetan Lama. I enjoyed listening
to him, his accent was musical, the smell of incense, the sound of bells, the robes and his
mala all seemed to evoke a deep remembering.
It wasn’t until he answered a question from the audience that he had my full attention.
I don’t remember the question, but I do remember the answer. He said, “Bleeding
to death is one of the most conscious and favorable ways to die because you stay present
till the last possible second, and you can feel and observe the stages of separation we
undergo when leaving the physical realm.” This riveted me. I knew it to be true and yet
I had never heard anyone confirm it. My body vibrated with joy. Somehow it felt
validated.
When I was twenty-five years old, I hemorrhaged and bled to death after the birth
of my second child. I had what is now known as a NDE, a Near Death Experience. I’d
had a long, arduous eighteen-hour labor, and when my son was eventually born we were
both pretty battered. I was taken to a ward and left alone to rest. Welcoming the quiet
and the privacy, I thought I might sleep a little. But first I thanked my body for coming
through the ordeal at the hands of a young inexperienced doctor. I prayed for my tiny son
who was bruised and traumatized by the journey through my pelvis and thanked God for
delivering us both safely and giving me the strength and courage to give birth naturally
without drugs. I felt empowered; it seemed possible to do anything.
I decided to squirm and find a comfortable position to sleep as I was beyond
exhaustion. As I moved, I realized I was stuck to the sheets with something warm and
sticky, and I was so lightheaded that I couldn’t sit up to see the problem. Suddenly a
cold, electric tingling began to wash through me, and my field of vision was filled with
pinpricks of dancing light.
After a short while a nurse came in and looked at me. She seemed alarmed and
moved swiftly to check my pulse. I saw her raise my arm, holding onto my wrist, but I
could not feel her touch. Then I heard her yell, “Code Blue, this woman has no pulse.” I
tried to speak and realized I was unable to make a sound - I couldn’t breathe. I panicked,
desperately sending the signal to breath to my lungs, but with no response. My body was
shutting down and I had an intense feeling of claustrophobia. All my senses began to
close down one by one.
I heard a commotion in the hall. There was the sound of people running, yelling
instructions and pushing noisy machinery at what sounded like great speed.
This scared me. I was so tired. I didn’t want to see or feel what they would do to me. I
had just had enough.
This was where it became clear to me that death is in fact an exhale that can no
longer be followed by an inhale. That simple. I don’t think I had ever really appreciated
my breath before, but in that moment, I knew the true value of my breath. Your breath is
all that stands between you and death. A breath fully breathed is the Holy Spirit in
action, and when you consciously breathe you are in a state of Grace. I was ashamed at
how much I had taken my life-sustaining breath for granted.
In what I am sure was just seconds, I popped out of the crown of my head.
‘Popped’ is a good description, because there was an internally audible pop as I left my
body through the spot in my skull that in infants is called the soft spot, or fontanel.
The panic was over almost instantly, and I was floating around the ceiling of the
hospital room looking down on a body I realized was me. I felt no attachment to the
body, just curiosity. I looked smaller than I had imagined, and different. It wasn’t until
years later, that I realized we never see ourselves as others see us, we only see our
reflection in mirrors or photos. At that stage, I was a sculpture teacher doing a death
mask as part of a piece of artwork. As I took the mask out of the mold, I saw my face
from my deathbed, not the one I see everyday in the mirror looking back at me. It was an Aha moment.
As nurses and doctors ran into the room I realized I didn’t want to be there
anymore, so I traveled up and out of the building into the night sky. I felt free and
unencumbered, and was drawn toward the stars. I realized I could just float over the
treetops and go home to visit my family. But the call of the night sky was stronger. I
wanted to soar into space and be free.
I realized I was traveling at the speed of thought. All I had to do was think
upward and I would be moving until I changed my thought, or altered it. That was
amazing, and it took some getting used to. I felt the way my old belief systems severely
limited me. I realized my thoughts were instantly creating my reality, so I’d better be
clear.
I turned, looked back and saw Earth. She was a jewel suspended in space, so
beautiful! I loved Earth; in fact, I was more attached to it than I had been to my own
body. I felt bereft to be leaving Her, and I now understood what was meant by the
saying, “The Earth is our Mother. She is a living organism.” I had been too self-absorbed
to notice.
Then, wondering what to do in this new situation, I began to see my life played
before me, like a holographic movie. What I mean by that is that I watched it in three
dimensions, with all my senses employed; I was a witness to my own life, an objective
witness. I say objective because I felt the feelings of everyone involved and saw each
person’s point of view, not just my own selfish perspective.
The first scene that I saw was when I was about 2 yrs old, and I pushed my
neighbor off my swing, sending him home crying; and I felt good because it was MY
swing.
In another there was a young man in college who fell in love with me quickly
because he knew I was “The One for him.” His passion and intensity frightened me, so I
ran away without an explanation. I felt his pain. I’d broken his heart.
During this review of my life I saw another theme. By not telling the truth when I
was clear about how I felt, I kidded myself about sparing the other person or I avoided a
confrontation by pretending confusion. I was shown how damaging this was. It is like a
stone dropped into the middle of a still pond. The ripples go on till they meet the shore,
then bounce and travel some more, acting and inter-acting. The consequences are felt in
ways we can’t even imagine.
When it was over I felt confused. I said to myself, wait a minute, I didn’t see any
of my good deeds, not one time I gave or received love. And a voice said to me, “The
love you give and the love you receive are yours for all eternity; you only answer for
your incompletions - all the things not said or done.” What I had seen made sense; I saw
all my incompletions. Why hadn’t someone told me? I could have done it differently.
I also realized I was being shown all the paths not taken in my life. There were
many paths available, paths seemingly effortless, virtual super highways, straight and
well-lit with no speed limit, like the Autobahn in Germany. There were also twisting,
wooded paths with rest-stops, like the beckoning roads through the country side,
mysterious and dark, alluring because I couldn’t imagine where the path might end or
what adventures might await.
We often choose this winding path because it is the model which has been set for
us by our families. We don’t believe we deserve the clear, effortless path, or it will be
boring and uneventful, or it might be too visible, or not challenging or too adventurous.
Also we are afraid that if we take the direct path, we will arrive at God too quickly and
our lives will be over. Which, I might add, shows us how little we trust the Almighty.
This is one way we perpetuate suffering.
Then I was shown the times in my life where angels had been there to directly
help me. They wore many disguises and I was appalled at my lack of recognition, and
lack of gratitude, stunned at how loved and protected I had been in my relatively short
life.
At fifteen, I was in the hospital to have a cyst the size of a grapefruit removed
from an ovary. The operation had gone wrong, and while going to the bathroom
afterwards, my incision opened, letting me look in horror at my intestines.
I was re-clamped, but an infection set in. As I lay in bed, I wanted to die. It
seemed my life was only full of pain.
A presence appeared at the side of my bed in the dark and kept vigil. As the sun
rose in the morning and the rays shone in on my face, this presence said, “Have heart, the
best is yet to come…” Then he disappeared. I began recovering.
In another instance while in college, I had been away out of state for a
homecoming weekend and had to make it back to my dorm before curfew. There had
been a comedy of errors during my attempts to return: I misplaced my ticket; the plane
was late, etc. I had a one hundred and three degree temperature from strep throat, and no
money. I got into Port Authority in NYC and realized I needed nineteen dollars and
change to get a bus back to my college. I was sick and desperate when a man walked out
of the crowd, handed me a twenty-dollar bill and said, “Get back safely.” He was gone
before I could say thank you. He was an angel.
I was shown others and that these examples were just a few of many incidents. It
took me awhile to absorb all that I was being shown. It felt like I was being broken open.
Once again, traveling with the speed of thought, I found myself approaching what
looked like a tunnel. Naturally curious and also quite cautious, I stepped up to the ribbed
opening. The tunnel was tall enough to walk into, but it appeared to narrow as it
progressed. It was a dark color, brownish, grayish, pinkish, and felt soft, like velvet. As
I investigated, I was drawn to look to the far end, towards the brightest light I had ever
seen. The light was alive. Imagine a powder snow that falls off an evergreen tree into
the wind, and the sun catches it falling, each flake is a translucent rainbow sparkling in
the wind. That is what it was like, only more magical, because it was alive. I decided I
had to go and see it no matter what the cost.
As I arrived at the end of the tunnel and stepped into the light, I noticed golden
egg-like shapes of light moving. I can’t exactly say how I realized this, but within each
golden shape there was a recognizable person.
Off to my left was my Father. I was overjoyed to see him as he had died when I
was only twenty years old, and I’d missed him with all my heart. Daddy, I thought. All
thoughts were telepathic. That had been a natural way of communication between my
Father and I when he was alive. My father had severe Multiple Sclerosis and was
quadriplegic my entire life. As with many people, when something is lost physically,
something else is gained. He had a brilliant mind and I grew up talking to him without
speaking. I never knew how unusual our method of communicating was until he was
gone and unfortunately it became an ability of mine that had to be squelched. I found
that people do not like their minds read. It is said that all humans have the ability to
communicate telepathically, and I believe they do… The only thing that impedes
telepathy is secrets, lies, and withholds. These things shut us down.
My father was also standing. I had never in my life seen him stand or walk. He
looked vibrant and in the prime of his life and I was ecstatic. He was healed and we
exchanged a flood of love from heart to heart.
I noticed a line of lights behind him winding away into the distance and I asked
my Father, who are they? He looked at me gently and said, These are your ancestors…
They have come to greet you. Didn’t you know that you were the living hope of your
ancestors? What they couldn’t accomplish during their lives, they counted on you to
resolve. You got as far as you did because you were able to stand on their bones. I could
see my lineage stretched out in front of me and I was awed and humbled. I could never
feel alone again.
Then I shifted my focus to a light directly in front of me. I knew instantly it was
Jesus. I reached forward with my hands, sensing there must be a membrane, or some
barrier I needed to move through to come in his presence and felt a welcoming force
field. As I touched it, my hands began to transform into golden light, and it traveled up
my arms, my heart streaming love to Christ and receiving it simultaneously. It was
profound. I was melting, ecstatically, into golden light and all-knowingness, a peace that
surpassed all understanding.
As it turned out, this golden light must have activated my hands, because in later
years I realized I could ‘see’ with my hands. When I do hands-on healing, within the
sanctity of a session, it is as if my hands can detect any disturbances or irregularities,
physical or otherwise. This is one of the gifts I returned with and now use to ease pain or
to restore well-being when asked.
As the light reached my shoulders and was ready to arc across my chest, a voice
said, “What about your children?” I was disoriented and annoyed. WHAT? And then I
remembered I had a small daughter, and a newborn son. Who could care for them? As I
thought of my (then) husband, I saw the lives of my children, the lives that they would
have if I left them to be raised by him, and it wasn’t acceptable. In desperation I tried to
think of someone else who could raise my children. How about my mother? My mother
in law? My best friend? Again none of these possible lives were acceptable to me. My
children deserved more; they needed me.
I looked at Christ and knew, as difficult as it was to leave the light, my
commitment was to my children. I have to go back, I thought. At that very second I was
back in my body in the hospital, cold, in terrible pain, and deeply sad. The doctors and
nurses were giving me a transfusion. I have a rare blood type, and all they had available
was blood that had been frozen and not sufficiently warmed. It was horribly cold in half
my body and felt like a thousand bees stinging me. The other half of my body was
warmer, after the blood passed through my heart.
This is the power of Free Will. It is our privilege to be granted Free Will. We
decide, and that has tremendous power. How can we play victim in the face of this truth?
I still found it too painful to stay conscious, so once again, I left my body and
found myself in what looked like a round domed marble room, surrounded by arches and
filled with a heavy mist or fog. I was levitated into the middle of the room where there
were twenty-four teachers sitting in a circle around me. They were robed; and some
seemed to have hoods, some were bearded and as a group, they emanated the wisdom of
the universe. What in Heaven’s name was I doing in a group like this?
They told me things to ease my pain and taught me. I absorbed their teachings
eagerly, as if they were water for my thirsty soul. There came a point where they asked if
I had any questions, and I was allowed to ask until there were absolutely no questions
left. I was filled with a glorious silence, and felt whole.
Later, after I recovered consciousness, I remembered the teachings for about three
days. Then life seemed to overwhelm me, and the teachings faded into the background. I
know they are still a part of me and sometimes I come across a truth and I remember -
Ah, yes, I know that to be true.
I remained unconscious throughout the day. Finally there was a wise, elderly
nurse who took it upon herself to bring my baby into my room and let him cry at my side.
It was like his cry went through time and space, and found me, and called me back. I
heard his cry, and following the sound I fought to come back to my body, to hold him to
my breast and actually felt my spirit drop into my body with a thud.
This experience altered me. It set my life on a course of service and healing. It
gave me the inner knowing that we are all the living hope of our ancestors. It gave me
direct experience of life everlasting and it proved to me I am here by choice, to fulfill my
Soul’s purpose, that I am an individual and unique fragment of the God Force, and that I
will never be seen again in all the worlds in this form. Therefore I am precious,
exceedingly precious. It does not matter what I do; I am asked only to be the love that I,
and I alone, carry on this Earth now when I am so desperately needed.
I also realized sometimes death is the final healing. Since the fear of death keeps
many people from actually living, fear of death can consume a life.
In addition, I learned it is truly marvelous to be in spirit form, to be in my light
body, unlimited, all knowing, unencumbered. But it is only in our human bodies that we
can hold a newborn baby to our breast, walk on a beach at sunrise, make love, smell a
rose, or taste a strawberry. It is here in our bodies that the lessons of love are made
manifest. It is on this marvelous human adventure that we actually increase the God
Consciousness, as co-creators….whenever we choose Love ….knowing of course that
there is Free Will…there is rejoicing in Heaven Every time I take a deep breath, with
consciousness, I am remembering and renewing my spirit, my connection to Spirit, and
the privilege of being alive.