Dear Friends:
I am so grateful to those who read my blog every Sunday. Thank you, and thank you for your inspiring notes.
I am taking a time out this weekend to recover from oral surgery. See you next weekend.
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Sometimes We Just Know
![sedona[1]](https://helendelaney.blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/sedona1.jpg?w=640)
I went to one of my favorite places a few days ago with a dear friend who came out from the East Coast to visit me. I live in Sedona, Arizona, a place that is surrounded by vortexes, swirling centers of subtle energy coming out from the surface of the earth. If you are sensitive, you may feel it as a vibration that seems to be coming from inside your body. Even if you are not at one of the vortex sites, even if you can’t detect it, this subtle energy will still have an effect on you, and it may manifest in any number of ways. You may feel better, in general. Calmer. You may have a vision. People who are seeking a deeper spiritual life seem to be called here. I know I was.
This is a place where the air resounds with stories of the ancient ones, Native Americans who made this their home, a place where the beauty of the earth, the colorful rock formations, and the immense sky give the word “awesome” a more sacred meaning.
Back to one of my favorite places – it is a great divide in the earth, or a canyon. It is sometimes called the Canyon of the Holy Beings. You have to make your way over its top, and down through an arroyo of stones to get to a high overlook, where the Verde River can be seen below and the canyon wall on the far side can be seen in its entirety. It is not an easy walk, but the reward is great, for it is in the far canyon wall where the Holy Beings reside. You can see them in the formations, standing side by side, silent and still, as they have for millions of years. My friend and I went there with a shaman as our guide. How lucky can you get?
The Hopis, who lived here, (their name means “peaceful people”) believed that a spirit resided in each stone. Other Native Peoples believed that spirits resided not only in the stones, but in the trees, and in the plants that grow from the earth’s floor. They believed that the plants revealed their medicinal properties to them. And the plants were used – effectively – as balms for injuries and cures for illnesses.
With great technological prowess, we have invented instruments that can measure magnetic energy. We have “discovered” that plants are capable of generating electrical impulses that work like the nerve cells of animals. We can measure and record their reactions to life around them. Every day we are “discovering” plants that possess amazing curative powers. Science and technology have provided us with “evidence” of the existence of all manner of unseen, unheard things. But Native Peoples and other peoples from back of beyond history knew many of these things naturally. Unfettered by doubt and shiny technologies, they had the gift of perception. I think we all have it. Gifts like these are never the province of a select few. A gift from the Universe is a gift from the Universe, and this one belongs to all of us.
Since God knows when, we humans have known that there was something in us, something about us, that was more than we could see or touch, something we may call Spirit. We could feel it; it was present within us so powerfully that we downloaded it into our religions, our philosophies, and our practices. We could feel that…something… that life that is more than, greater than the body. We can feel that something that lives in the stones, and the trees, and the plants, and in our hearts, something that tells us the great truth that Nobody’s Gone for Good and that life is all there is. Some of us have seen or received evidence of this truth. Some of us need no evidence to believe it. Sometimes, we just know it.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space.
A Small Light, A Moment of Peace
There are times when peace seems far away, when the world seems ugly, when all there appears to be is the darker side of our humanness. There are times when the Light of the Universe seems lost in the frays we create. It is not.
I sent my book today to someone who is in pain. I wrote on the inscription page that I hoped the book would bring her peace. She is a mother whose child is gone from this life. Thinking of her has drawn me away from the chaos that emanates from my television screen, which, I admit, I have been watching too much.
But I have a choice. I can turn away from darkness at any time. I can turn away, because I have been given the gift of remembrance. And this morning, it came to me in these words:
“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.” – Richard Attenborough
There is more to this life than what is on our television screens, more to life than we can see, hear, or touch. It is peaceful, and loving, and lives in the Silence of our higher selves. It is there, always. It is in the heart of those of us who are suffering and in too much pain. I know. I found it when I was there. And the Spirit emerged.
We cannot escape the realities of this world, nor should we seek to. But they are not all there is. There are higher places, there is another reality in which our hearts and minds can dwell, even if for a little while. I believe that when we change our hearts and our energies, just a little bit, when we turn away from the chaos of our creations, we ignite a light of our own, no matter how small. For those who are suffering, like the mother who is in my heart today, like so many of my countrymen who are immersed in conflict, anger, and fear, it may flicker for a moment in their vicinity. It may not. It may just inspire a kind word to the tired clerk at the checkout counter who has stood on her feet for hours. In that moment, in the space of that small light, peace will be mine. It may also be hers, and she may extend it to the customer in back of me. He may extend it to the customer in back of him. And in back of him. There is a Great Power that lives within us, even when it appears as a small light. All we have to do is remember that It is there.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space.
Messages From The Universe
I used to wonder how I might know the difference between a “message” from the Universe (God, if you wish) and a message from myself, that is, my ego. The pastor of the little Arlington Metaphysical Chapel where I began my spiritual path would answer this puzzling question by saying, “Examine the content.” If it is negative, or if it is selfish or self-aggrandizing, he would say, it is suspect, meaning it wouldn’t have come from a Source of Universal Love.
Since I began examining the content of the little “messages” I get, I’ve noticed that the good ones are very subtle. No bolts of lightning for me. Still, I hear them. They may come in the words of a song (like the title of this blog – “Nobody’s Gone for Good), or a line from a play.
At other times, the message comes as an impulse, or an impression. You may call it a “hunch,” if you like. It can come from anywhere, as long as it is beautiful, loving and helpful. It can be comforting. It may flit across your mind as a thought of God Itself. We’ve all had these thoughts, these little “messages,” even if we do not recognize them as such. You may also put them to two other tests: (1) The timing of a message is always perfect, and (2) if followed, it will always produce a positive outcome.
I had one today. Mine was an impulse, or maybe it was more like a little push. My cat and I had had a bad night. I woke up too early with too little sleep, and I was tired. I was tempted to turn over and stay in bed. Instead, (God knows why) I got up, went to my morning meditation group, and afterwards, when I got home, I debated in my head whether or not I should do the volunteer work I usually do on Saturdays, or cancel it and go see a friend who had just broken her hip and was in the hospital. Either one, but certainly both seemed beyond me, the way I was feeling. Not knowing what to do, or what I could do, I asked God to direct me— a practice I’m getting better at. And then, a wave of fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to lie down, and before I knew it, I was asleep. This is not something I do ordinarily or easily. The impromptu nap wasn’t long, but it was enough. When I woke, it was time to get to my volunteer work. Kind of like I’d planned it. I stopped for coffee on the way, hoping I’d have enough energy afterwards to see my friend.
The volunteer work was unusually easy and cheerful, and the energy of the place was uplifting. Afterwards, feeling strongly as if I had to get to my friend, I got in my car and drove to the hospital in Cottonwood. If any of you have driven the 15 miles from Sedona to Cottonwood, you know that the drive is its own reward. Before me was the vast expanse of the Verde Valley, the mountains in the distance, and above, the incomparable, impossibly beautiful late afternoon sky of Arizona.
My dear friend looked tired. She had a right to be. She had just had titanium rods put in her shattered femur a day and a half ago and the hospital staff had made her walk just a few hours before I got there. She had had other visitors during the day, but when I got there, she was alone. She asked me if I’d get her some water. I left to go down the hall, and by the time I got back to the room, she was writhing in excruciating pain. The nurse had hurried off to get her medication. I held her hand as the tears came and a wave of pain distorted her lovely face. A few minutes turned into a lifetime. Time doesn’t fly when this happens.
Eventually, the medication did its work, and my friend, when she could finally talk, told me how glad she was that I was with her when this happened. I knew then that by following my “hunch” to get to her, I had arrived at the point where I was supposed to be, and at the perfect time. Calm now, and relieved from the severest of the pain, she asked me to tell her a story or two, and I did. They were about my husband, Bill, and the sweet and often funny memories I have of him. I brought him into the room with us, because as I’ve often said…Nobody’s Gone for Good, and he was always so good at hospital visits. He could make anybody laugh, from the nurses to the patient at hand. At the end, I left her with a little saying from my pastor: “Remember,” he’d say, “Things come to pass. They don’t come to stay.” She managed a little laugh as I left her.
It took me a long time to trust my little “messages” enough to obey them. But now, when I do, I find that my life is inevitably enriched, and I am grateful for every loving experience.
On the drive back to Sedona, the setting sun was visible behind the clouds only as a silver lining. (There really are such things.) The enormous expanse of the desert sky was hung with lavender and pink clouds. The last rays of the sun peeked through here and there and lit the red rocks of Sedona in the distance. It was all I could do to keep the car on the road. It was that beautiful. Was there another message in the sky? Was it telling me that it was a beautiful world, and that all was well? For me, the answer was yes, and all I could think of was, “Thank you, God.”
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space.
Wind Phone
Photo from NKH World Radio and TV Japan Website
On March 11, 2011, a great earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of Japan. This triggered an enormous tsunami in which more than 18,000 people died. About a month after the disaster, in a town called Otsuchi, there appeared a phone booth. Inside was a black rotary dial telephone whose line was not connected.
A man named Itaru Sasaki had built the phone booth in his garden and named it “phone of the wind.” He built it for people to talk to those they had lost in the tsunami and hoped that those who came would be comforted by the thought that the wind was delivering their messages.
He wrote a blog about it, and in the three years following the disaster, over 10,000 people came to the phone booth. Now in the fifth year of its existence, people are still coming to talk to their dead.
Someone who has lost a loved one will understand this. Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of my son’s death, and I still talk to him. I talk to all my “dead” —my son Eddie, my mother and father, my grandparents, and sometimes to my favorite aunts and uncles. My husband Bill has been dead for seven years, but when I see something extraordinary in the news, or I read something that would interest him, I find myself saying out loud, “Billy! Would you look at that?” Or if I see something about a place we’d traveled to, I’ll say, “Remember when we were there, Billy?” I talk to him as though he is in the room with me. Of course, I believe he is. But even people who don’t believe as I do, do it. They talk to their loved ones. They’ve told me.
There is something about the monumental loss called death that causes the mind to open, that invites people to consider that, in spite of all they’ve been taught, there are, in the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “…more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
I use the word “dead” to describe the condition in which my loved ones left their bodies. To me, “dead” does not mean “lifeless.” Life continues beyond the body and the event we call “death,” and something in us knows that. Why else would we talk to our “dead?” Why would we visit a “wind phone?” Why would we call upon our ancestors? Ask for their guidance, their protection? Something intuitive leads us to the phone booths of our minds. Something in us urges us, prompts us, to call out to them, to speak to them most intimately, to whisper to them that we love them, that we miss them. This is not a tradition bound by borders, nor is it a practice peculiar to any one generation. It is a phenomenon that is very, very old. And universal.
And that something that calls to us to reach out to them…is Love. Whatever you believe that to be.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space.
Gifts
What good is a beautiful gift if it is hidden away? That’s what my book The Messenger was – a gift, a beautiful story, for which I can take no credit. I didn’t write it. I wrote my own story, but the story that took place in Egypt 200 years after the death of Christ was given to me by my Spirit Guide, Lukhamen. The two stories are side by side in the book, mine and his, because they are connected, because I am connected to my Spirit Guide, as we all are connected to teachers, guides, and loved ones who look after us, love us, guide us, and give us messages. Whether you believe this or not does not matter. It happens anyway.
Has a thought ever entered your mind that seemed odd in its timing or subject matter, random, out of the blue, connected to nothing in particular, but was a bit of information that came in handy later, or actually saved you from harm? Did you ever hear something in your head that whispered “Watch out!” or “Stop!” when you weren’t paying attention but needed to put the brakes on? Did you ever wonder where these little warnings came from? Did you think it was your subconscious operating in a futuristic way? Was your internal warning system operating independently? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is something much more improbable, something a little more miraculous, something coming from a love you can’t see or touch.
This reminds me of the title of a book written by a man named Michael Mirdad. He’s the spiritual leader of the Unity of Sedona Church here where I live. It’s called, “You’re Not Crazy, You’re Just Awake.” Sure, the messages may sometimes seem mundane and trivial, but what is important is that you heard them. You were awake to something more than your physical senses.
I’ll tell you something I’ve noticed. People who never heard these “messages” before begin to hear them when a loved one dies. Or when they have experienced some kind of trauma. Or when they are in despair or depressed. And sometimes what we get are not thoughts. They’re feelings. Hints. Clues. Even impulses. How many times have you heard someone say, “Something told me to…” or “I don’t know why I did that but…” Have you ever felt compelled to go to a certain place, and discovered when you got there that there was a reason for you to be there – then – at that time? Or just the opposite. Have you ever felt strongly that you should not go somewhere and later found out that it would not have been good for you to be there – then – at that time? I invite you to take notice of these things. I invite you to consider the idea that something wonderful is close to you at all times, loving you, protecting you, guiding you, talking to you. I invite you to take notice of coincidences (as if there were such things). On the day of your mother’s funeral, did a hawk suddenly appear above you in the sky? And did you remember that your mother always said that she would watch you like a hawk? That happened to a young woman I know. She told me her story just yesterday. And many more, all related to her mother, all little signs that would mean something only to her. Her children had their own signs, gifts from that loved one who was now looking on with love, making sure they knew that she wasn’t Gone for Good.
We need to tell each other these stories of comfort, hope, and yes, improbable little miracles – and the big ones – that are given to us. We need them, especially if we are in grief, or have known grief. Or loneliness. Or despair. I have been told that I will do something to create small (or large) groups of people like myself who want to talk to each other, people who have suffered, who are suffering, grieving, feeling alone in their sorrow, but looking, searching, and finding hope and comfort, people who want to share their experiences, their gifts. People who want to feel loved again. And last night, in the middle of the night, it came to me that I would call them The Messenger Groups.
There will be more about this as it is revealed to me. I’m listening.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or on her website: www.themessenger.space.
You Can Do Almost Anything
You can do almost anything if you don’t hurry. That’s a line from a movie I saw yesterday. I love movies. The title of this blog, “Nobody’s Gone for Good,” was taken from a movie. I’ll take wisdom wherever I can find it. It doesn’t have to be dressed up in guru’s robes or spiritual books. It can come from a child, or from an airline pilot, like the one in the movie who said, “You can do almost anything if you don’t hurry.”
I can take these little gifts of wisdom from the Universe now, but there was a time when I couldn’t. It was when I was in the throes of grief. When you are overtaken by grief, everything is on hold—your brain, your heart, your consciousness. Thank God people didn’t offer me their favorite truisms when I was in the midst of grief. Wait. That’s not exactly true. One of them did. I had lost my child. After the funeral service, as I was sitting in the car waiting to go to the cemetery, she mouthed through the car window, “God loves you.” My angry thought was, “And just how do you know that?”
Years later, I lost my husband. By that time, I had learned of lots of things about life, and death, and grief, and faith. But at the time, the awful days and months after his death, I was too raw to remember them, too captured by pain to let them into my consciousness. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in what I had learned; it was that I couldn’t hurry my return to normalcy, to the fact that God really did love me. I had no idea that a slow, steady climb out of pain would be the path the Universe would lovingly offer me.
I suppose you can do almost anything if you don’t hurry. I don’t know why that is true. I just know that it is true for me. I know that in my everyday life, when I hurry, I lose time, because I make mistakes. Inevitably, I will lose my car keys, or my glasses, or I will (like I did yesterday) hurriedly respond to a text I thought was from my daughter. In it, I said something embarrassing about the person I actually sent it to. Yikes. I apologized, but I still feel bad about it. If I had not hurried, I would have seen that the number was not my daughter’s. If I had not hurried, I wouldn’t have said something embarrassing in the first place. I would have had time to think. Hurrying for me is like running through a maze with blinders on. I miss a lot. I lose my way and have to start all over again.
I was not allowed to rush through my grief. I had to take it a day at a time—pain, despair, hopelessness, and all. Only now can I see how wise that was. A loving Universe fed me small, digestible bits of wisdom as I was able to take them and keep them down. With every small bit of love, I was able to let go of a small bit of bitterness and despair. Bigger bites were not possible for me.
It took me almost thirty years to understand and truly believe that there is no death, that there is only life, and that perfect Love and Wisdom reside within me. In all of that time, I read, I stayed close to people who knew about such things. I meditated and sought the wisdom of my own soul and that of the spirits that look after me. I still do that, for my human tendency is still to want to know answers and to be comforted when things go wrong. I want them to be fixed. Right. Now. But there is no real comfort in that. The best answers come when I am able to understand them.
I write this blog for anyone who has lost someone they love. I write it for anyone who has lost anything—a home, a marriage, a job, money, health. What I know is that the long, slow road out of loss and grief is the surest. It leads to a lasting peace. Anything else, anything hurried, is temporary, and frequently unwise. But I also know that, like me, you will discover that you can do almost anything if you don’t hurry.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space.
Taking a Break
Dear Friends and Readers:
Sometimes we just need to take a break. See you next Sunday.
It Begins Again
Here, in the land of the red rocks, I have begun my second book, the sequel to The Messenger. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that The Messenger II has begun because it is time, I am ready, and I am in the right place. I am merely the scribe, not the author. As it was with the first book, I am being impressed with the continuation of the story of Lukhamen, my Spirit Guide; that is, I see it in my mind’s eye. It is fascinating. I wish I could explain it.
I can tell you that this is how it happens: I sit before my computer and the story begins where it left off. Always. No matter how much time there is between segments. And I see it unfolding in the present, even though the lives of the people I write about lived long ago. When the segment (for that is how it happens, in segments) is over, I am back in my own present. That may be confusing. Let me say it another way: When I am in the story, or when I am observing the story taking place, I see it as it is occurring. Not as it occurred. That is why I write it in the present tense.
Or how about this: When you are watching a movie, and unless there is a flashback, you are watching a story unfold in the present. It is happening now, in front of your eyes, even if you are watching a historical dramatization of past events. That is what it is like for me. I am watching a movie. I see a little of it at a time, and I write it down as it is happening. Afterwards, I go back to what I have written and edit it —make it into coherent sentences. Chose the right word to describe what I saw on the “screen.”
I suppose you would call this channeling. The word for it is not important. The significance of this amazing occurrence is that it is a gift—a miraculous gift— that I can pass on. Not only is the story fascinating—who wouldn’t like to be a witness to the end of an era in Egyptian history—but it contains a message, a wonderful message, a message of hope, a message that saved my life when my son died.
I’m going to share with you now a little of the story as it begins again, a little preview of things to come:
The heat of the sun wakes him. He rises upon his arms, and notices that his hands are rough and bloody in places. From crawling? He turns on his hips to half-sit, to see his surroundings. He is in the desert, alone. A scorpion scuttles past him, causing him to start. He needs shade, water. A bush beckons to him, and he pulls himself through the rough sand toward it, dragging his legs. It takes all his strength to reach the sparse shade. He is exhausted by the time he reaches it, and lies prostrate beneath its fragile shelter. He cannot remember how he got here.
He dimly remembers a boat, and a river. No, not a boat. A temple barge. The heat scorches his bloody hands and burns the scalp beneath his hair. I had a family. I had a god. The words will not form on his parched lips. They are in his mind, his poor, wretched mind, which does not know what brought him here to this place that must surely kill him with its heat, its searing sun, and its sere, bleak loneliness. He closes his eyes and waits for death. He does not see, nor does he feel the hands that lift him onto the makeshift carrier. He does not feel the wracking ride over the rough rises, nor is he aware of the horse that drags him or its rider.
Like you, I do not know what is going to happen. The other part of The Messenger II, as it was in the original Messenger, will be based on the memories I have of my husband Bill, who passed away seven years ago. I am guessing that most of my readers have read The Messenger, and understand already how the present and the past can come together in the most beautiful way. I suspect it will be the same with The Messenger II.
And so it begins again.
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Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.Amazon.com or www.themessenger.space
The Journey to Nobody’s Gone for Good
Every so often I stop to remember why I write this blog, and why I slog away at it every week. It must seem that I am forever recounting small miracles, improbable occurrences, and stops along a spiritual path. I am, of course, but I am aware of these things only because of what happened at the beginning. It started with grief. Not just any grief, but that special, life-threatening grief that comes with the loss of a child. My spiritual path began there. Not that I knew it at the time. I wonder if we ever know the moment of embarkation on the journey to another sphere of recognition. For that is what it was, the journey to the realization that Nobody’s Gone for Good. It’s the name of my blog.
I write this for the mothers and fathers who know that special, awful brand of grief, but I also write it for everyone who has ever known a heart-rending loss. At some point in time, that will be everyone. Grief is part of life. It is not life itself. And that is the difference a journey to the spiritual side of life made me understand.
I take no credit for understanding this great difference. That was a gift. It was either that or death for me. I lost a son. My daughters lost a brother. My mother lost a grandson. His father lost a son. His friends lost a friend. Even as I say it, I have trouble with that word lost. But as it is in that beautiful hymn, Amazing Grace, “Once I was lost, but now I’m found,” our loved ones could never have really been lost. And no matter how it may have seemed, we were never really lost, either. I think the idea of being lost is an illusion. It’s something I believed. It wasn’t true. Because I am here. I am not lost at all. And neither is my boy. I can feel him here with me.
The illusion of loss is the basis of grief. And we must feel it. I don’t know why. I only know that when the illusion becomes our belief, we feel grief. And I think that applies to every “loss.” I “lost” hope. I “lost” joy. I “lost my career.” I “lost” my child.
But then, for some of us, the embarkation occurs, and we put one foot in front of the other and begin the long, slow journey to another realization. There are many ways to be led to the point of embarkation. For me, it was threefold: a book, a gifted medium, and contact with a Spirit Guide. For some, it may be a friend. It may be the words to a song, or a line in a play. Any number of inspirations can lead from one belief to another. I was neither easily convinced, nor did I learn to believe in another way quickly. My new beliefs were based on evidence, evidence that death is an impotent power, another illusion, and that the person who is lost is merely…elsewhere. In another form. And, most importantly, that communication with that person is possible and natural, with love as the bridge. This is not easy. The transition to a new belief in life asks us to consider the reality of something that cannot be seen, or heard, or felt. It asks that we suspend disbelief, refrain from contempt prior to investigation, and to accept, in the words of Shakespeare, that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” It asks that we believe in a Love greater than we can imagine, a Love that never takes away, but gives, and gives life, constantly and always.
Today, I can write of the miracles I see in life. I see them because I know beyond all doubt that there is
—“a light in the night for all who mourn, the message that death is banished, that life is all there is, and that love is greater than fire, and wind, and time.” – taken from “The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide” by Helen Delaney.
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The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney can be obtained by going to www.Amazon.com and my website at www.themessenger.space.
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