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You Do Not Have to Believe This Story

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After reading the back cover, people will either open my book titled The Messenger, or they won’t go near it. The subtitle: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide will intrigue some, while others will be put off by it. Those who begin to read it will find that it opens with this sentence: You do not have to believe this story. It happened all the same. I don’t ask my readers to believe it. I simply put it before them, as it was put before me.

Half the book is my story as I lived it—the gruesome, heartbreaking experience of the death of my child and its aftermath. The other half was given to me by someone who lived almost two thousand years ago in Egypt: My Spirit Guide, Lukhamen. Let me use the proper term for what happened. I channeled his story. Improbable? Indeed it was. Is.

I’ve read about other people who’ve experienced this phenomenon. I have also met some. They were not “woo-woo” people. They were not flaky or inveterate liars. Or con artists. Or on drugs. They were ordinary people with ordinary lives, ordinary jobs, and not particularly imaginative. The first one I happened to hear (on National Public Radio) was a well-known newspaper journalist. As for me, I have lived my own professional life in the company of hard-core realists – engineers, research scientists, and government officials. I spent my entire career in Washington, D.C., interrupted only by a brief stint as a diplomat in Brussels. My life was lived in two centers of government that are about as far removed from metaphysical philosophies as ever I could imagine. I was, and still am, tremendously impressed with intelligence and the scientific mind that is driven to explore the unknown, the unknowable, and the unbelievable. But let me stop there. I am not an apologist for channelers or channeling. It is, as they say, what it is.

What I would like to do is answer the most-asked questions put to me by my readers. I believe I should include these in an introduction to The Messenger II. (I’m working on a sequel.) The questions are, WHAT WAS IT LIKE? And HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

To answer the first question, the best explanation I can give is that it was like looking at television. Imagine that you are watching, say, a soap opera. (That is so unfair to my Spirit Guide, but it is a commonly understood form of a continuing story.) Each segment is just a few minutes long. You turn off the television and write down what you heard and saw. It was almost just that simple. Except that I was looking at television with my eyes closed. The story would always resume where it left off. Like soap operas do. One negative reviewer (gratefully, I’ve only gotten one so far) questioned my ability to recall conversations. He just chalked the whole thing up to the conclusion that I invented the whole thing. I must say I’m flattered that he would credit me with the massive imagination it would have taken to dream it all up plus the fiction writer’s gift for concocting a complicated plot.

Many of us can recall (more or less) scenes from our favorite movies. How many of us can remember the lines from a famous airport scene that ends with, “Here’s looking at you, kid?” Can you see the hat Ingrid Bergman is wearing? Can you see the tears in her eyes? I can.

And how did such an extraordinary, improbable thing happen? It happened because I requested it. Now, when I think of it, it was more like a prayer. I asked for a Spirit Guide to come to me, to help me. I was at the end of my rope and nobody had yet made me understand why my young son had to die. I asked and I received. I asked and Love answered.

The truth that I will ask my readers to believe comes at the end of the book. And it is this: There exists a Love that is greater than any of us can imagine. It will find us in the darkest hour. There is a light in the night for all who mourn, and death is banished. Life is all there is, and love is greater than fire, and wind, and time.

***

From the back cover of The Messenger:

Helen Delaney is in a railway book store, inconsolable and suicidal after the death of her son. A book at eye level catches her attention. She touches it, and it falls off the shelf, into her hand. It is a set of instructions on how to connect with a spirit guide. Thus begins The Messenger, the true, intimate story of a grieving mother, a gifted medium, and the spirit guide Lukhamen, who keeps her alive by recounting the story of his life.

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The Messenger by Helen Delaney is available at http://www.Amazon.com

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Here. Now.

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We are exactly where we need to be right now. That’s the message in my daily meditations book for the first of January. I try to start my day with readings from this little book. It sets the tone for the day and gets the jumbled thoughts in my head a little more, as they say in some circles, prioritized. My mind won’t organize itself. I need help.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am going to live in Sedona, Arizona. Eventually. It is calling me. And I want to be there now. In the high desert. But I am exactly where I need to be right now. Here. In wet country. In the place where it has rained for two weeks, where the moss on the side of my house is a green patina that screams Wash me, I’m rotting! Where damp pine needles clog my flower beds and pile up around trees and bushes and harbor God-knows-what underneath. Where I am looking at the sun today for the first time in a long time. But I am exactly where I need to be right now. This is a hard concept to accept fully and embrace joyously. I’m not there yet. Like so many other humans, I want what I want now. I want to eat candy. Cookies. I want to go back to caffeine. I want a sandwich with white bread. And cheesecake. I want to watch television all day and not go out into the cold to walk. I want to be in a dry house in Sedona with a fireplace. I want to climb red rocks into vortexes and feel spiritual energy all around me, in a place where channeling is something many people do and not think it odd.

Yet, the hard truth of this spiritual principle reminds me that what I want is not necessarily what is right for me. The truth is that if I eat what I want, the wonderful robust health that I now enjoy is not going to last. If I don’t walk, I soon will be unable to walk. The thing is, the laws of physics, biology, and spirit are pretty much irrefutable. You do one thing, and something will happen. You do another, and another thing is going to happen. And that’s that.

But then, there is this thing called Grace. It helps me understand the principle that I am exactly where I need to be right now. It gently leads me to that page in the book. It helps me to see that I was here when my daughters and my granddaughter drove for hours to see me at Christmas. It helps me to remember how they brought laughter and light and so much love into my house, and how we included a daughter and granddaughter in Los Angeles, thanks to smart phones and face time. I was here when my daughter-in-law invited me to a beautiful New Year’s Day brunch, where I could be together in a beautiful house with my step-children and their children. I was there when my step-daughter cried because we didn’t see each other often enough, when she told me that she loved me and how important I was to her. I was there when my daughter-in-law bought ten copies of my book, asking me to sign them to give as gifts to her friends. I was there when her college-freshman daughter told me she never knew that Grand-mama was such a good writer. I was there to laugh at my step-son’s funny remarks. He is so like his father, who knew how to make me laugh. He brought him back to me. I was where I needed to be so that love could surround me.

And I am here now, where my ninety-seven year old aunt is ten minutes away. She is a little frailer every day, and no one knows the day or the hour when she will need me to come running. Here. I am here where sweet, calm friends help me through the days. I am here with my writing group, talented, generous authors that I trust and for whom I have so much affection. I am here by a beautiful river.

I do not have to understand everything. I do not have to know the future. I only have to recognize the truth when it is put before me, and yesterday and today it is this: I am exactly where I need to be right now.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Available on http://www.Amazon.com

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A Merry Christmas

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The days before Christmas were a marathon of cooking. I learned how to make eggnog without refined sugar and tried out a new recipe for cream of celery soup. Macaroni and cheese and sweet potato pie are traditions for us on Christmas. I made all of our favorites and everything turned out just right. I also made a conscious decision to relax my no-sugar-no-flour regimen for one glorious day (which turned into two because of leftovers) and I am feeling dim but not in danger. We also took a two-mile walk along the river this morning – as if that could undo the gluten and glucose intake. I, however, do not feel a smidgen of guilt. One day a year, and we blow it. YEA.

My daughter and granddaughter drove five hours from New York to come to me, and my daughter who lives in Washington, D.C. did the same – a two hour trip. We talked on our smart phones face to face with my daughter and granddaughter who live in Los Angeles. My daughters make such an effort to be with me at Christmas. I am so blessed.

Today (Saturday) was a day of concentrated un-work, and now that it is nighttime and my Washington kid has gone home, my New York kids are in the next room looking at television, all snuggled up in bed. Because my time with them is so precious, I’m going to give myself a break and go join them. So goodnight, dear friends. I hope your Christmas was as lovely, as warm, and as full of love as mine was. Love is, after all, what Christmas is all about.

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Emma

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Christmas tree

One of the fondest memories I have of Christmas isn’t even my memory. It’s my mother’s. She told it to me when I was old enough to know. It was of a Christmas long ago. And Emma.

Emma was my doll. I loved Emma. That much I remember. I named her Emma, although nobody (including me) could figure out why, or where I’d heard the name.

Emma was never out of my sight, never out of my arms. Emma was loved so fiercely that she began to wear out. She was one of those old fashioned dolls with a wooden head and neck tucked into a soft, stuffed torso with little wooden arms and little wooden legs that could move. You could bend her legs to sit her down. I know she sounds like one of those dolls you see on horror shows nowadays, but when I was young (a long time ago), dolls like Emma were de rigueur, meaning they were all pretty much like that. Emma had bright glassy eyes with eyelashes in her little wooden head that would shut when you laid her down, and her little mouth was painted red. If you looked closely enough, you could see two little white teeth showing between her lips. I remember painting Emma’s fingernails with my mother’s nail polish. Her hair was also painted on (light brown with curls in front), but I didn’t notice it much, since Emma always wore a bonnet.

This isn’t a story about Emma so much as it is about how much my mother loved me. She loved me so much she stole Emma.

That Christmas Eve, when I finally went to sleep (the only time Emma wasn’t in my clutches), my mother stole Emma, took her downstairs and proceeded to make her over. We weren’t exactly poor, but we didn’t have much money. My father supported us on a cop’s salary, but we lived in our own house and always had what we needed. My mother’s plan was to disguise Emma as a new doll, since she couldn’t afford to buy one. Unbeknownst to me, she had bought a pretty new dress for Emma, a coat, and underwear (!), socks, and little paper shoes at Woolworth’s Five and Ten Cent Store on Columbia Avenue. (You young people look it up.) She even made Emma hair out of yarn (my mother was clever), and tied a brand new bonnet under her chin. She renewed Emma’s cracked lips with paint and placed her under the Christmas tree. The next morning, as she told it, she couldn’t wait for me to come down and see the “new” doll Santa had brought me.

I do remember the excitement of those Christmas mornings, smelling my mother’s coffee, waiting impatiently for my parents to tell me it was okay to come down. I’d wait at the top of the stairs while they turned on the tree lights and position themselves so that they could see my reaction to the magic of the tree and the gifts.

“You can come down now,” my mother called. She was excited, expectant. She’d done a grand job. I ran into the living room and stopped in my tracks. There she was, sitting under the tree, beautiful and new. My eyes grew wide, and I looked at my mother, a big, open smile on my face. “Don’t Emma look SWEET,” I screamed joyfully. I don’t know how long my mother and father laughed, but that moment, that wonderful, precious moment, was talked about for years and years. I never wanted a new doll. I just wanted Emma. And I would have known my Emma anywhere. And somehow, my mother had made it all happen.

All those years ago, and still I remember my mother telling that story, and how I felt when she told it. I felt loved. I always felt loved. Our family wasn’t perfect, by any means. But my mother and father were stalwart and kind. They opened their hearts and home to family and strangers alike. Always, there was an aunt or an uncle living with us until they could “get on their feet.” At any moment, my mother’s table would be set with an extra place for a neighbor down on his luck, a cousin who just “happened” to ring the doorbell at dinnertime, or a couple of tired cops just off duty and still in their uniforms. And, as generous people everywhere know, there was always enough.

And so I remember them this Christmas. Merry Christmas, Mama and Daddy. Thanks for the love. And the memories. And Emma.

Emma

Full disclosure:  This is not Emma, but this is how she looked.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. You may find it on http://www.Amazon.com.

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There Is a Light in the World

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I started this blog to let my friends know that I was about to publish a book. After some forty-two blog entries, most of which were not about my book, I’ve decided to return to it. Because it’s close to Christmas. And because I want to convey, to those who have read the book (so that they will recall), and to those who have not, what my son Eddie taught me.

***

From The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide:

Chapter 3

CHRISTMAS IS CRUEL. It comes three months after Eddie’s death. It will be here in a week. Harold (my ex-husband) calls to discuss Christmas for the girls, who will be home for the holidays.

“It should be as normal as possible,” he is saying. “We ought to have dinner here, with a tree and decorations.”
“A tree?” I scream. This is unbelievable. “A tree?” I lose it. I am crying and angry. “Are you crazy?” The pain shoots out of my voice. “There will be no more Christmases. Not in this lifetime. I can’t believe you’re thinking about decorations!” I scream at him. And I say it again: “Are you crazy?”

The thought of Christmas is like a kick in the stomach: a table with no place for Eddie. No gifts for Eddie. Christmas is a fresh, new brand of pain. God saw to that. The little glimmer of light from my encounter with Reverend Brown goes out, extinguished by decorations.
Harold starts to say something when I hear a loud crash in the hallway.
“Wait,” I say. “I heard a noise in the hallway.”
“Go look, he says, “I’ll stay on the line.”

There is nothing in the hallway. I open the coat closet. Several boxes have fallen from the shelf onto the floor. Last year’s Christmas decorations. There aren’t many boxes, just a few: a single person’s Christmas decorations. I open one box of glass ornaments, then another. Nothing is broken.
“I hear you, Eddie,” I whisper, “I hear you.”
I am shaking when I return to the phone. Harold tries to rationalize what has happened. Rumbling trucks going by on my downtown street must have shaken the boxes off the shelf, he tells me.
“Then why has nothing else fallen?” I say.
We will have a tree.

***

That was the beginning of my journey. That first Christmas was a disaster, even with the tree. But, in the years that followed, I kept stringing lights and decorating, mostly for my daughters. Eventually, I came to do it because I realized that I had to add light to my corner of the world. Things are happening these days that give rise to darkness and fear, but I will not dwell there. I used to live there, and I’m not going back. Now I have a choice. I choose to turn toward the light, and to add to it, if I can. Maybe that was what Eddie was leading me to, all those years ago.

I love this quote by Richard Attenborough. It has been associated with Mother Teresa, but I know people to whom this could easily apply.  I have seen their light and healing spirits.

“There is a LIGHT in this world. A healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometime lose sight of this force when there is suffering, and too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.”

My best wishes to those who are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the Winter Solstice.

***

Read: The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. It is available at http://www.Amazon.com. It might be the perfect Christmas present for someone who needs a little hope.

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Peace and Joy

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I left Sedona wrapped in a warm, sunny blanket of peace and joy. I came back to a wet, dark night in Maryland and things started to go wrong as soon as I hit the ground. The clerk at the hotel near the airport (I didn’t want to drive two hours at night after landing so I’d decided to spend the night there) told me to wait for the shuttle at the wrong place. I waited and waited. No shuttle. Tired and cold, and after another couple of calls to the hotel (and another clerk), I moved to the right place and the shuttle and I finally found each other. The driver was angry and I wasn’t feeling too kindly myself. But I did something that was almost right. I told him it wasn’t his fault (suggesting that it was the CLERK’s fault – I could have left that out). I also gave him a generous tip. Let me not spread discord, I thought. I’d just completed a five-day intensive spiritual workshop at the Unity Church in Sedona and I was still feeling pretty light and not a little prideful about it. I was aware that no matter what was going on in the world, I was responsible for my thoughts and the vibes I was sending out. We all are connected and our energy is transferable. Let peace begin with me, I had been taught. The driver took the tip and from the look on his face, none of my “positive energy” transferred. Ah well, back to the real world.

But is it? Or is it the world that I am creating? If everything in this world is an illusion (with God the only reality), then the illusion I am living in is the one I perceive. That’s what I’ve learned. The spiritual path is not an easy one. It requires constant work. I have to recreate my world every few minutes. The peaceful, loving one lasts only so long.

I had been so filled with peace and positive thoughts in Sedona. For example, I discovered a group that meets at the Unity Church for parents whose children have died. Is this group a home for my book, The Messenger, and for parents who, like me, have suffered the ultimate loss? Perhaps, when I come to live there, I can be of service. Perhaps that is why I am called there. This was significant for me; the thought of it filled me with hope and possibilities. Is there anyone who doesn’t delight at the road opening up before them?

And then came today, when nothing went right. I took down two less than perfect suitcases from the attic, cleaned them, filled them with two old winter coats (still good, of course) and other warm clothes, and loaded them into my car to take them to the mission on the main street of my little town. I rang the bell in the back (as I usually do) and opened my trunk, preparing to hand over the suitcases. A woman came to the door with reindeer horns on her head (her Christmas hat) and told me not too nicely that they “didn’t accept donations after one o’clock on Saturdays.” I looked at my watch. It was 1:20. WHAT? I thought. WAIT! But by this time, she had shut the door, leaving me in the alleyway with my open trunk. WHO TURNS DOWN DONATIONS? I’m thinking. Two other donation sites (you know, the ones with the big yellow boxes) warned me not to leave anything but donations in bags. Was I annoyed? What do you think? On the way home, I saw No Parking signs and port-a-potties indicating the Christmas parade that was to take place this evening. I’d be locked in my house again. (Remember the Iron Man race?) Nothing happens here, it seems, that doesn’t shut me in or out of my street.

Back home, deciding grumpily that I’d remain inside forever, I nevertheless tried to do something else useful. I’d register online with the power company so that I’d eliminate my paper bills. I’M STILL TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING HERE, GOD, I’m thinking. I went through their convoluted process (including giving them my mother’s maiden name), and as soon as I got to the end, the screen flashed a message telling me there had been an error on the page and that I’d have to go back to the beginning – which was blank when I got there, of course. Filled it out again. This time, it claimed that I had not read the silly scroll right – you know, that thing that proves that you’re not a robot? The third time, it claimed that my account number belonged to somebody else. I threw my paper bill on the floor. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON TODAY, anyway?’

And then, something clicked. I had to laugh. If I believe all the stuff I say I believe, then this is pretty funny. I know the spiritual path is work. I know that staying with the peace of my soul is not easy. But knowing isn’t enough. The leader of the workshop in Sedona told us this would happen. Whatever we think we know will disappear if we don’t practice it. And so…I set myself up, just to see if I could remember how to return to the Peace that underlies everything. Now I’m laughing, saying “Okay. I get it, God. DUH.” Everything is exactly as it was when I was on Cloud Nine, in the sunny warmth of spirituality and the company of other like-minded seekers. Peace was always there. Nothing changed but my perception. Now that my roadblocks have been duly noted and I realize that I put them there so that I might learn  – no practice – returning to serenity, I might do something really useful. I might put on a warm coat and go see the parade, or string some Christmas lights, and end my day with joy and peace. I can do that. It is, after all, my birthright.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. It can be obtained at http://www.Amazon.com.   Give it to a friend for Christmas.

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Letter from Sedona: Au Revoir

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sedona[1]

 

For the past three days, I have attended an intensive all day workshop. I’ve listened to the teachings of a scholarly intuitive, a man who has spent a lifetime devoted to the spiritual path. I’ve been fascinated, inspired, overwhelmed at times, and secure in the knowledge that I am only absorbing bits and pieces of the tremendous story of man and God that he has woven so beautifully. While I will not remember much of it (and he has assured us that we will not), the overall message has been simple: we are not separate from God.

As I write this, I am recalling the words of Maya Angelou, the writer and poet, who said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The hours of history, metaphysics, religious concepts, and inspiration all boil down to that. And how I feel is peaceful and joyful, as if everything is going to be all right, no matter how things may look at any given time. I’ve had a glimpse of a very big picture, and it has made me feel safe.

Two more days of the workshop, and I will say au revoir to Sedona on Tuesday, but not goodbye, for this is my home now.  Some people are called to places on this earth for reasons that are not clear, but right. Some are born in the “right” place, never leave, and never want to leave. Some find their way, and know when they have arrived. Some have lived there in a former life and are drawn back because life was good and happy. The earth knows you when you come home.

I have lived most of this life on the East Coast of the United States. The connection to Sedona came as I was nearing completion of my book, The Messenger. It was also right after my husband Bill passed over, six years ago. Did he send me here to be healed?  Perhaps. Did he lead me to the shaman who pulled grief out of me? I like to think so. But I have come to the peaceful conclusion that I do not have to know everything. I do believe that no matter what is happening at any given time, there is a Divine Order to things and all is well. I know that my second book is to be written here, where the energy is full of light. It doesn’t matter how I know or why I know. I just know how it makes me feel.

***

The Messenger IMG_0416

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. It is available at http://www.amazon.com and at the News Center in Easton, MD.

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Letter from Sedona: The Great White Dog

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I met the great white dog, Hanta Yo, on my first trip to Sedona (See my post two Sundays ago: Letter from Sedona). The second time I was with Hanta was when we went walking in the wilderness and climbed a great red rock—the shaman, my daughter Michaela, me, and a second dog, Cheyenne.

As we rode along in his truck, Clay – the shaman – asked if we had any “restrictions.” “Well, I’m old, I said.” He laughed and said, “What’s old?” Well, okay, I thought. Let’s see what happens. We rode along on narrow dirt roads through what looked like barren desert, but now and then he would point out a bush or a flower and tell us what they had been used for by Native peoples. The desert is a beautiful place if you know how to look at it. Hanta rode along in the back seat as if he did this every day. He did, of course.

A great red rock loomed in the distance. Clay stopped the truck. “That’s where we’re going,” he said. It didn’t occur to me that he meant we’d climb it. He started out toward it. The dogs and Michaela and I followed him. When we reached the foot of the great rock, he turned to us and said, “Three things: Follow my feet, don’t look down, and don’t stop.” For some crazy reason, I wasn’t afraid. He held a coiled rope in back of him. “If you need to hold onto something, grab this.” I’m sure he meant, don’t grab me. He started ahead, holding the coiled rope in back of him.

Up, up, and up, we went with rocks for stair steps. I was behind him, my eyes riveted on his feet. Sometimes the path was no wider than a foot.  Michaela was behind me. Some of the rocks were too high for me to step over. I had to crawl over them. Clay just kept going, not looking back. As we climbed higher, it got hotter and hotter. We were carrying nothing – no water, no nothing. We needed our hands free. I began to feel lightheaded.  Please don’t let me faint, I prayed. That would be stupid. And embarrassing. Finally, I had to stop before I did faint. “I need to stop,” I said. I sat down on an enormous rock and dropped my head between my legs. Nobody said a word. Clay was above me, looking down. Michaela was below me. They waited. Thankfully, no one said a word. All of a sudden, I felt a huge presence in front of me. I lifted my head. It was Hanta Yo. He had walked up to me and come very, very close. I looked at the big, calm face in front of me. I had never seen anything so still in my life. It was as if he had come to lend me his strength. He did not move. Neither did I. His eyes were confident, reassuring. In a while, I felt myself returning to normal. I rubbed his head and said, “Thank you, Hanta.” Recovered, I turned to follow the feet again.

We reached the top and Shaman’s Cave, a place ancient and sacred, beautiful beyond description. We looked out of its circular windows at the land stretching to the horizon, red rocks in the distance.

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Hanta and his companion Cheyenne, not even breathing deeply from the climb, settled down to rest as we three humans stood in awe, feeling the presence of the ancient ones who had also rested here, safe and hidden from harm.

Shamans-Cave[1]

The next year, I went walking alone with Clay, Hanta, and Cheyenne. This time, we visited the circles he had made in the desert, sitting without speaking, sometimes listening to his drum making the sound of a heartbeat, aware of the sacredness of the land. My days of climbing the big red rocks were over. And so were Hanta’s. I noticed that he was slower than usual. Several times we had to wait for him to catch up.

And then one day, back home in Maryland, I got an email from Clay, telling me that Hanta Yo had died. I cried.

Back in Sedona the next year, I was sitting with a meditation group.  In the quiet, I closed my eyes and waited for the stillness. And I saw him, the great white dog, walking ahead of me. Once he turned to look around, as if to say, “Come along. I will lead you.” I did, and felt safe.

Hanta is my spirit dog. A photograph of him stands on my desk. He is the big healer, the confident, silent one, the assurer, whose name, Hanta Yo, means Clear the Way.

Hanta Yo

 

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. It can be obtained at http://www.Amazon.com and at the News Center in Easton, MD.

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Letter From Sedona

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“I was called here.” People who live here say that a lot. Someday I, too, will live here. I am waiting for the door to open. I am waiting for my house to sell. The timing is not up to me.

I don’t remember exactly when Sedona called me. I’d never heard of it; I knew nothing about it. All I know is that the thought came to me soon after Bill died, and it wouldn’t leave. When I followed the call and came, my daughter, Michaela, came with me. I was broken. I was paralyzed. The way you are when death takes the love of your life.  A friend of Michaela’s, hearing we were going to Sedona, told her about a shaman there who had helped her let go of a heartbreaking love.

Michaela made the appointment. He lived outside of Sedona, about half an hour into desert country. When we arrived, a little early, he wasn’t there. We waited in chairs outside his front door. Before long he appeared, walking down the driveway toward us, a beautiful, stunning creature with white hair in braids leading a huge white dog. He greeted us as if he had known us for a long time.

We sat on his floor. The dog, Hanta Yo, snuggled up against me as he talked. His eyes had a light in them, and he laughed from time to time as he tried in vain to explain what it was he was about to do.  “I will dream for you,” he said, finally. “Follow where I go. I do not know where that will be. Just follow the sound of my voice.” We laid on his floor, our heads touching, eyes closed. Soon the sound of soft music filled my ears. He had chosen a plaintive Irish melody, something Bill would have loved. How did he know to do that? He knelt by my side. He placed one hand above my heart chakra, the other above my solar plexus chakra. As he touched me, I entered a trance state. I heard him, it seemed, at a great distance, as he began to wail and weep. “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,” he wailed, over and over again. Tears spilled from my closed eyes. I could hear Michaela crying. He had found my pain and was taking it into himself. When he released it at last, I had a vision of birds rising from a field as if startled. Up and up they flew, lifting my heart with them. I remember his voice saying that I would be filled with radiant light, and then he left me and went to Michaela. Her music was different, and he reached into her heart and found something I knew was troubling her. He left us alone to recover and become fully awake. A little wobbly, we said goodbye and returned to our hotel room, fully spent, where we both dropped into a deep sleep. When I woke, my grief had not entirely gone, but its great weight was no longer there and I felt as if I could live again. Since then, I have been back every year, and Michaela and I, once even my granddaughter and I, and sometimes I alone, walk with this shaman to holy places among the rocks, above the canyons, and sit in the sacred circles he has made there. I do not know for sure, but I believe more each day that Bill sent me here to be healed.

This is a magical place, a place held sacred by the ancient Native Americans.  They sanctified the area for special spiritual ceremonies as they experienced deep spirit here in the red rocks, where energy vortexes give forth a sacred high vibrational energy to the air. The sandstone in Sedona is covered in quartz that sparkles in the rocks. It is said that wherever you walk or sit you become part of the Universal Energy Force.

Next week, I will tell you a story of the big white dog, Hanta Yo.  I am here in Sedona for the month of November. The month of gratitude.

***

The Messenger IMG_0416

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. It is available at http://www.Amazon.com and at the News Center in Easton, MD.

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