Thanks

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Today was a good day.  Sometimes I forget just how wonderful it is just to be able to say that. I’ve had days that weren’t good, days that were dark and sad, days that were lonely.  But today wasn’t one of them.  It was a chilly, cloudy morning here in Sedona, but by noontime, that reliable Arizona sunshine came out in full force, warmed things up, and made the budding trees and new shoots of grass shine like new.  As if they weren’t already!  That alone made it a good day. But that wasn’t all.  I had coffee with friends, then took a drive through magnificent Boynton Canyon to one of the most beautiful resort/spas in the world and bought my daughter a birthday present. She likes things from spas that smell nice. (I bought a lotion for myself, too!) Walking back to the car, the smell of pinion pines and juniper perfumed the air. There isn’t a spa scent in the world that can match that.

The roads were lined with parked cars, where visitors had stopped to stare at the textured, sculpted walls of red rock.  The tourists have started to descend upon us, and the trails are filled with hikers. The people who’ve lived here awhile complain about the “crowds,” but I don’t mind them at all. I used to be one of those visitors, struck and mesmerized by the beauty of this sacred place. It doesn’t belong to us just because we live here. It belongs to everyone. Besides, we can go hiking during the week, and have the place to ourselves. There is nothing like the silence in a canyon.

Throughout this wonderful day, I thought about my father, as he sat at the head of the dinner table. After a prayer of Thanksgiving, he’d say to my mother, “Just look, Precious (yes, that was my mother’s name). We have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and all my children are here.”  How simple that was. How miraculous. The older I grow, the deeper his meaning becomes. We lived a simple life, in the household of a policeman. My mother stayed home to care for us, and for him. Some people would say we were poor. But not my father. He knew what real riches were.  We didn’t have everything we wanted, but we were loved, truly and unconditionally.

I am aware, like my father, that I have a roof over my head and food on the table. My children are healthy and safe, my grandchildren are thriving, and even my cat is beginning to heal (see last week’s blog). I am healthy. I am blessed. And I am living my dream, at last.

There are people in the world tonight who are sleeping outdoors in the cold. There are people who will go to bed hungry, unloved, and lonely. I ask God’s blessings to come to them.  I know that I have had lives like that, and for whatever reason, I am on a different path this time around. I have different lessons to learn. My soul has brought me here and tonight, I am filled with astonishment and gratitude.

That’s all I have this week, dear readers, but that’s quite enough.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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A Gentle Lesson

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Like many writers, I’m daunted by the blank screen. When Saturday night rolls around, I’m always convinced that I won’t have a thing to write about. But when you embark on the spiritual path, there is always something nearby that is waiting to teach you. The soul doesn’t like rest.

This week, the lesson concerned my cat, Dorian Gray. Dorian was Bill’s cat. When we adopted him – to scare away mice – I thought he’d be my cat. Bill didn’t especially like cats, but Dorian won his heart. They watched football together.  They took naps together.

They bird-watched together.

 

When Bill passed away, Dorian became my little buddy, the little animal soul who stayed to keep me company.  As animals do, he lightened my darkest days.

I think that Dorian is psychically attuned to me. When he stays out past my comfort zone, I go to the window and whisper, “Come home, now, Dorian.” In a few minutes he appears. Every time. We moved to Arizona a few months ago, and Dorian had to get used to new territory, which he did, and new dangers – coyotes and bobcats.  He spends a lot of time in his safe spot – on top of my car. If he’s at a neighbor’s a few doors away, and he sees me, he comes running.  He’s my little buddy. He’s something to take care of. Something to love. Something of Bill’s. So, when Dorian gets sick, I get sick too, in my heart. He’s twelve years old now, and I’m always on alert for anything that might go wrong with him.

All in all, I have a wonderful life. I am living my dream in Sedona, Arizona. It’s nestled in monumental red rock formations and so beautiful I can’t describe it. It’s like living in the Grand Canyon. I’m retired and my time is my own. My job is to write my next book, and I can’t think of anything more wonderful than that. I’m healthy. I’ve made lots of new friends. The weather is spectacular right now. The desert is flowering, and it looks like my version of Heaven.

But. I found a way to be unhappy. Last week, Dorian stopped eating, stopped going outside, and just looked…sad.  I started to worry. I started to imagine the worst. And right then, in my little piece of Paradise, I changed back into the person I thought I had left behind – the one who worried and was always anxious, even after the Universe had lifted me out of grief, despair, and loss, into another state of being. Ah…but as I said, the soul doesn’t like rest. It wants to grow, to continue with the lessons, and as soon as I get comfortable it shows up – in my face.

Dorian doesn’t have anything serious. He does have acne (don’t laugh) on his chin. It’s infected and it’s painful, and it hurts to move his mouth, which is why he stopped eating. The vet cleaned it up and gave me some pads to wipe his chin with every day. And Dorian’s been really good about it. He holds his little chin up for me and I gently wipe it, but last night, when I wiped it, there was blood on the pad. And not a little either. Cats don’t like to show pain. It’s a survival mechanism. Dorian didn’t howl or pull away. But he stayed away from me. He didn’t sleep in my bed like he usually does. He didn’t eat dinner or breakfast. And I cried. I cried because I hurt him, an innocent little animal. I didn’t mean to, but I hurt him anyway. As long as I cried, and hovered, and apologized, Dorian stayed away from me.

And the Universe stepped in with the lesson. In one of the books I was reading, there was a statement that stood out and wouldn’t leave me alone:  It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. The more I thought about it, the more powerful this idea became. And the more difficult. But there it was.

My situation isn’t dire, but I was feeling more pain than I needed to. I decided to stop indulging in self-pity and fear of losing my little buddy, because that’s all it was. When I stopped my melodrama, Dorian changed. He came in from outside. ( He always cries to come in when I am exactly fifteen minutes into my meditation.) He ate a little. He joined me in the room where I write and fell asleep on the couch, attuned to my “better” energy. His chin has stopped bleeding, and we’re back. We’re friends again. All I have to say to the Universe is…thank you once again. This was a gentle lesson, but I’ll need it again someday.

Have beautiful, joyful thoughts this week, dear readers.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Spring Always Comes

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I went to a women’s luncheon last week, and the entertainment was provided by a lovely woman from England. She stood there, petite and serene, alone with her guitar, and sang a little melody called “Spring Always Comes.”  I suppose all my friends on the East Coast could use a little encouragement like that right now.

Here in the Southwest, spring is already here, although it doesn’t arrive officially until Monday. The trees are in bloom, the sun is warm, and today there was a perfect, gentle breeze that seemed to kiss the new life around it – the blooming irises, the cherry blossoms, and people like me, who felt renewed and young.

I get messages from the Universe (my readers know that), but I’m getting better at noticing them when they appear. That little song was one of them. It must be, because I can’t get it out of my head. The more I say it, the more I think about it, the more it resounds with truth: Spring Always Comes.

Seeds germinate in the harshest of conditions, in drought and in drowning water. Trees withstand unrelenting cold and wind, appearing to all but those who know better, as dead. We humans see this return to life every year and yet, so many of us still cannot believe that an all-knowing, all-loving God would grant us, His children, the same ongoing cycle of life.

As for me, I do not believe in death. I believe only in life. I believe that Spring Always Comes, and that is why I listen for the voices of the ones I love who have gone on to another spring – my son Eddie, my husband Bill, my mother, my father. And why should they not speak to me? Shall I not speak to my children when I leave this pasture? Shall I not try to let them know that I am alive and renewed in another springtime?

And why would God grant me only one spring? I believe that I have lived before, many, many times. I have evidence of at least one former life. I wrote a book about it. Haven’t we all felt that that one lifetime is not long enough? It isn’t. One lifetime is not long enough.  We have so much to learn!  Can we learn true compassion, can we learn complete and utter forgiveness in one stumbling, error-filled life? We are all capable of it, but it takes…time. Times.

If we are vigilant and willing, we accept our lessons as gifts, one gift at a time. This lifetime has been a full one for me. I have learned from death that there is no death. I have learned that whatever energy I project onto the world or onto another I project onto myself, whether it is positive or negative. I have forgiven someone in this lifetime I thought I could never forgive, and as the result of that forgiveness, a tinnitus in my ear and a pain in my head for which no doctor or expert could find a cause…went away. It went away finally when I realized I had to forgive more than the blows I had received from this person in this lifetime. I learned the meaning of the admonition in Scripture to forgive “seventy times seven.” For me, it meant forgiveness for every lifetime I suffered a blow to the head at the hands of this same person, the signal to me being the pain in the same spot in my head, the ringing in my ears that wouldn’t go away. I had to forgive the blows that even caused death. Can we learn to forgive seventy times seven in one lifetime? It took me until now, until this lifetime to do it.

And so, Ultimate Love gives us spring, after spring, after spring, to grow, to experience winter, to reawaken, to be born anew, to learn that that we can become the true, perfect beings that we are, the beings that we started out to be, before …ah, but that’s another thing altogether.

If you are still digging out of the snow, if it is still cold and damp, if it’s dark, be assured, be happy, because Spring Always Comes. Always.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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No Beating Around the Bush

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There are so many things that happen in this world that we can’t explain. I wrote a whole book about it. In The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide, I recall the events following my son’s death. Oh, heck. Let me just say it out loud right here – I began to communicate with a spirit. There. Most people who know me or who have followed this blog for a while will not be shocked. They’ve had a couple of years of hearing from their friend or former colleague who reached out in desperation and touched something not of this world. If I incur any new readers this week, here it is: I communicate with a spirit. His name is Lukhamen.

I spent over forty-two years in Washington, D.C. and three in the foreign service, where I learned to tolerate  – and use – language that was, to be kind, obtuse. Politicians and bureaucrats (present presidential company excepted – I’m talking about professionals), almost always issue official papers written in high-sounding gobbledygook. What comes out is, a great deal of the time, impossible to understand unless you are a lawyer or unless you’ve learned the language over time, like I did. Have you ever tried to read the Federal Register or the Tax Code? Also, if you listen to a lot of speeches (like I did), you’ll realize that sometimes what comes out is just…nothing. It just sounds like something. Part of this culture is to preserve the mystique of the office – keep it – and their denizens- in an intellectual ivory tower, out of reach, above and beyond question. There is no real reason why laws and regulations can’t be written in plain but careful, understandable English. If everybody understood everything they read or heard from their representatives, the folks in D.C. and in state capitols would have a lot more to answer for than they do now. And I’m just talking about the ordinary stuff of yesteryear – not the torrent of reckless, feckless declarations that now bombards us.

It’s risky to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was like that for me when I decided to publish a book about a spiritual experience that some people might see as scary, blasphemous, stupid, or crazy. I was afraid of what my friends would think of me. Luckily, I was pretty much retired and my job and my reputation weren’t on the line. But my friendships and relationships were. Oh, but I underestimated them.

Happily, and to my great surprise and everlasting gratitude, my friends and family embraced me, loved me, and read my book without judgement. Of course, even after almost two years, it still hasn’t gone out into the world. Who knows what awaits me there? My net was cast close to home, and I haven’t really tried to get it “out there.” I, like a lot of authors and artists I know, hate to sell. Hate it. That probably isn’t our job anyway. Our job is to write or paint, or do whatever it is we do, and hire somebody who knows what they’re doing to do their job, but I haven’t even done that.

Getting back to the book – I didn’t ask anyone to believe what I came to believe. I didn’t ask anyone to follow my path.  I just wrote down my experience. Nobody called me crazy. Nobody ridiculed me. Some people shared their metaphysical experiences with me, experiences they had never shared with anyone before. Some people said it helped them, which is why I wrote it in the first place.

Here’s why I’m bringing this all up. I’m working on the second book. It’s the sequel to The Messenger, and I am challenged by my writer’s group (and they are right on the mark) to explain this “miracle” of channeling a spirit guide in the first chapter. Right up front, before I begin to tell the rest of my guide’s story (the first part is told in the first book). In other words, I have to do in one chapter what it took a whole book to explain. So now, I have no choice. I have to tell it like it was, and quickly. I have to say what it was like to have contacted a spirit guide and how it was that he told me his story, and I have to do it in plain and understandable English.

I have agonized over this first chapter. I have written and re-written it, but I have just realized that I will either have to start all over again, or make sure that what I have written isn’t spiritual gobbledygook.  I know New Age people who speak only in their own terms, and their language is much like the politicians’ – obtuse and private. (Seems like no one is exempt from purposeful obfuscation.) I don’t have to worry about my guide’s story. He does that one. It’s mine I have to write with all the clarity and honesty I can muster. And feel the risk all over again.

Thank you, my dear friends, for your encouragement. If you want to send good thoughts my way, I’ll take that too.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com or, for a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Happy Birthday, Billy

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March first was my husband Bill’s birthday. We were together almost thirty years, married for twenty of those. Because we were together that long, I can see him in many ways, in many versions, and in many settings. He is gone now, but there is the full arc of his life with me from which I can pluck a memory. There’s the young, rakish fellow who first asked me out, the actor who changed faces and personalities with every role; there is the soft face of a father and a grandfather, the confident, solid face that kept me anchored when the seas got rough, and the loving, peaceful, blue-eyed visage that looked at me as he left this earth. I have never seen so much love as I saw in that last look.

Bill had been in and out of his body several times before he finally let go of his earthly bonds. I only had to look at him to know when he wasn’t there. He came back one last time to say goodbye, and in his eyes was something I’d never seen before. It was a love that, as Scripture says, passes all understanding. I think that love was a reflection of what he had seen, of where he had been, and it came back with him, mirrored in his eyes. It was…unearthly. What I mean to say is that it was, for wont of a better word, heavenly. It was as if he was trying to tell me that he had been to someplace wonderful, more wonderful than I could imagine. It was saying that he loved me and that he always would. It was all there, in that one, beautiful look. It was, truly, worth a thousand words. Of all the faces of Bill that I remember, that is the one comes to me most often.

I have felt him around me more these past few days. I just finished re-reading one of his favorite books. Bill loved the English novelist Nevil Shute, and had an entire collection of his books. In the days when we were dating, he would read them to me in a stately, gentle way, because that was the way Nevil Shute wrote and that was the way his stories touched Bill. When Bill passed away, I gave most of the collection to his youngest son, Patrick, but I kept four – my favorites. When I read them, I hear his voice caressing the words, savoring each syllable. That must be the most cherished wish of every writer – to be that reverently read and loved. If Heaven is what I think it is, Nevil Shute and Bill sit in an English garden from time to time, talking, a pot of tea on the table between them. What a lovely thought.

Bill was around me on Thursday, the day after his birthday, in a most practical way. I’m working on my taxes for the accountant – always a punishing exercise. He used to do this abhorrent chore for the both of us, but for the last six years, it has fallen to me.

But back to Thursday: we kept a bank account from which we drew checks only to pay estimated taxes. It simplified things. Just for the record, I’m pretty good about keeping things and putting them in the proper places. I started out my working life as a secretary, and it left me with some valuable skills. I never misplace important documents. I had two other checkbook registers from our old bank from which to work, but I could not, for the life of me, find the one that listed my paid estimated taxes for last year. I hadn’t, as a matter of fact, seen it in a while, since I moved and changed banks. But I have a rule. I keep one file each year for everything I am going to need in February and March, when I start to assemble tax data. The checkbook registers are always put there, along with everything else.

It was nowhere to be found. I turned the office upside down. I went through every possible file, more than once. I cleared my desk and put everything back. I looked in drawers and boxes. I was getting desperate. Just before I decided to tear my hair out, I went back to my desk one more time, lifted a file folder and…there it was, underneath. It’s notable because it is the last one I have with Bill’s handwriting on the front.

The register wasn’t lost. Of course it wasn’t. Nothing else, and I mean nothing else, among loads of tax-related papers was lost. I don’t LOSE these things. Bill moved it.

No, this isn’t crazy. I’ve had things like this happen to me before (I’ll bet some of you have too). Bill just wanted me to know that he was around, that’s all. He put it back. But he got my attention. For those of us who make a study of things metaphysical and ponder the workings of the spirit world, this is a common occurrence. A thing that is transported from one place to another or the appearance of an article from an unknown source is called an apport. Material things are de-materialized (you know, like on Star Trek) and materialized again.  The point is just to let us know that Spirit is around. That’s all. It’s nothing spooky. It’s just another act of love and remembrance. When it happens, we meta-physicians take it in our stride, smile, and say thank you.

Happy Birthday, Billy, and thanks for the visit. You know, I know, and I hope that my readers know by now, that Nobody’s Gone for Good.

billy-watching-over-me

***

Read: The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com or, for an autographed copy, visit www.themessenger.space.

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I’d Rather Be Happy

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My husband Bill used to say, “I’d rather be happy than right.” I’ve had the great good fortune to have had teachers like my dear husband who entered my life, opened my mind, and changed the way I looked at the world. I could say I was lucky, but I know it’s more than that. I was blessed.

That mantra, “I’d rather be happy than right,” has given me a lot of peace. It also made a happy marriage. When I think about it, when I did win an argument with someone, when I was “right,” I don’t ever remember feeling good about it. Because it got me nothing.

Oh, I have opinions. I have viewpoints. I believe that racism is the ultimate ignorance. I think science will save our planet. I think people should love who they love. I believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

But what I think the mantra teaches me is that nothing I believe should be used to make someone else feel small.

Not that I haven’t done it in my lifetime. I have. I am not perfect, but I am a lot better than I used to be. As I’ve grown older, I’m more likely to think before I say or do something that will do harm to another person’s spirit. We are fragile, we human beings. Our souls are perfect reflections of God, but in our conscious minds and our human bodies, we are bundles of ego, fear, and insecurities. It doesn’t take much to hurt us; that is, if we have the capacity to feel. Some of us, hurt once, carry it with us until the day we die. If the hurt is significant enough, a person may act or speak in awful ways. When I encounter such a person, do I need to add more to his or her burden?

I think my purpose here is to constantly strive to be more like the spirit I truly am, instead of the ego or the fear, or the insecurity that drives me to be “right.” All-knowing. Above others. As if.

It helps to be older. It really does. I don’t have the energy I used to have, the energy that drove me to conquer things, to be triumphant and righteous, to stand with my foot on the body of the giant, his head by the hair in one hand, my slingshot in the other. I need to rest more. Maybe that’s why some of us old people seem “wise.” The truth is, we’re just tired. Maybe God has blessed us with fatigue. Slowed us down.

Because we’re slower, we have a little more time to think before we act or attack. It gives us a minute to ponder the Buddhist admonition: Before speaking, ask yourself three questions: (1) Is it true? (2) Is it necessary? and (3) Is it kind?

An aversion to hurting other human beings doesn’t mean that I should stop living by the principles I have adopted. I will not be walked on. I will not turn my back when I see things or hear things that will hurt others.  But. My minute to ponder will give me a little more time to choose how and when I take my stand. If I have to take a stand, I want to take a stand against things, not people.

This is not an easy time to choose to be happy. But that’s the side I want to be on.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com For an autographed copy, go to www.themessenger.space

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Mornin, Al

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1118full-al-jarreauAl Jarreau 1940-2017

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Our family lost a dear friend last week. Al Jarreau was the internationally known and universally loved singer who thrilled the world with his music and left a joyful imprint on our hearts. He was also my daughter Debbie’s mentor. Debbie traveled and sang with Al for ten years, and over that period of time, our family came to know and love him. He was generous and kind and was not afraid to share the spotlight with a young, vibrant singer – Debbie Davis.

Al passed into spirit last week. Debbie was in the hospital with him a few hours before. She was by his bed, and they sang together. Imagine that. Imagine a soul so lovely and so filled with the beauty of music that it was there for him as he let go of his earthly bonds.

When something like this happens, we get a glimpse of what our soul looks like. The soul sees beauty in every circumstance.  It hears the sound of God, and when it sings, it is the sound of God.

We all have the sound of God within us, whether we can hear it or not. The soul is so much greater, so much more beautiful and holy, than anything our minds can perceive. It is in us, and we are better and more beautiful than we think we are. And others are better and more beautiful than we think they are. Imagine walking around every day thinking that of others – knowing that, no matter what we see or hear on the outside, that shining goodness still lives within them.

This may be the path to true happiness.

Thank you Al, and you, my dear Debbie, for reminding me to look for the beauty, for the music that is in every soul.  Wherever you are, Al, I know it’s mornin’ and that you have touched the face of God.

Thank you, Niki, for the video.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com or for a signed copy, visit www.themessenger.space

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He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands

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We all have it inside of us. Some call it the Still, Small Voice. For others, it is the Inner Voice, or the whispers of a spirit guide. We may not even know that what we “hear”is from a spirit guide. It may come as just a knowing. The trick is to be able to hear it. To be impressed by it. It is a real gift, when we can accept it.

Some people seem to hear this voice without effort, some do not wish to hear it. I want to hear it, but I have to work hard to open the channel through which it flows. It doesn’t come easy to me. Most of the time, this Inner Voice is trying to tell me one simple truth, and it may best be expressed in that old spiritual: He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

For three years, I tried to sell my house. I tried everything. I hired a different real estate agent each year. I painted the kitchen a different color (one agent told me that a man wouldn’t go for my pink kitchen – another told me to paint the front door gray). I redid the bathrooms. I got up every morning with a new scheme to draw the buyer to my house. I reinforced beams. I made the garden as pleasant and welcoming as I possibly could. I put new windows in the front of the house. I had it power washed every few months. I pulled weeds out of the driveway until I was dizzy.

I had two offers that didn’t go to settlement. Sedona was calling me and I couldn’t get here. My friends kept telling me that it would all happen in exactly the right time. I knew they were right, and still, I couldn’t let go of the...effort. I kept trying to make it happen, and the harder I tried with no results, the more frustrated and depressed I became. I should have known then that how I felt was the sign that that devilish little monster, my ego, was in control. The sure sign that I am in its throes is when I am a mess. Because it drowns out the Still, Small Voice.

But the Universe is merciful. It makes you tired. I got tired of hoping, tired of trying, and I gave up. That was the day the buyer walked into my house. I remember sitting at the end of my lane, in my car, waiting for the husband of the couple to show up. He was late. I’d driven around for a while, and then parked where I could see the house. I’d been waiting for over an hour. I was always out of the house when the “lookers” came.  I think it was then that the Still Small Voice told me to give up the struggle. That was also the moment I experienced something like relief for the first time since I’d put the house on the market. It’s a grand feeling when that happens, believe me. The wife walked down the lane and chatted with me (she recognized my little red Mustang), and I didn’t try to sell her the house. We talked about how pretty the river was. She asked me about the trees and if they were strong enough to withstand storms. I told her they had sheltered me safely for 13 years – and that was all. Then, her husband came and I sat there, waiting for them to leave. As strange as it sounds, I was no longer invested in selling the house. Something from that deep well of wisdom within had finally clicked in. I had done everything I could. Now it was time to let a Greater Power look after me.

Of all the things I had tried, I had never considered the thing that finally sold the house – the art that was hanging on my walls. At settlement, the buyers were a delight, and the “ceremony” went smoothly. Afterwards, out on the sidewalk, the man told me why he wanted the house. “Your paintings,” he said. “They made an aura about the house that drew me to it.” In particular, a portrait of me done by an artist who had taught my brother and my daughter, was hanging in the stairwell, unlit, unnoticed by most people who came into the house. This man recognized the artist as his own professor, at the Philadelphia College of Art. The right buyer had come into the house and I had had nothing to do with it.

And then, of course, everything fell into place. When I came out to Sedona, the right place was waiting for me. The Universe was in order, and I was in order with it.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com and for a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Stops Along the Way

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To my dear Readers:

There was no blog last Sunday because I encountered technical difficulties, due no doubt, to a key I hit that I shouldn’t have. The keyboard is a sensitive thing, quick to obey an order, no matter how mis-guided it might be. I have more respect for it now than ever before.

If I haven’t told you lately how much I appreciate you, let me say it now: I do. Thank you for reading, thank you for your messages, and thank you for trudging this road with me. And now to our blog:

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I vowed that I’d never make this blog about politics. And I’m not going to make it about politics, even though the events out of Washington seep into my consciousness by the hour, unbidden and unwelcome. I spent a career in Washington. It used to be familiar ground. But it is a world I no longer recognize. It may have lost its mind.

What I write about is matters of the spirit, because for me, that is the refuge of the sane and the good. It’s not that I wish to disassociate myself from earthly matters. I have plenty of work to do, as a responsible citizen and someone who loves my country, but I can’t work if I’m not clear, and anger and worry block my channel. Anger and worry will also make me lose my mind, and there’s enough of that without me adding to it.

One of my spiritual teachers likes to say, “Keep your feet on the ground, your head in the clouds, and the rest somewhere in between.” In other words, life is a balancing act. I do not live on the top of a mountain, or in a cave. I do not chant and practice yoga all day. I live here, on this earth, in the human community. I am subject to the laws of physics. I have to brush my teeth, pay my bills, and put out the garbage. I have to pay income taxes and clean the cat’s litter box.

Yet, I am spirit. By that I mean that the spark of God lives within me.

My spiritual teachers tell me that people I am tempted to judge as evil or “bad” are neither. They are just in need of enlightenment. As am I. They tell me that whatever harm I do to another, whether in thought, word, or deed, I do to myself. Because we are all part of One Spirit Body. How can I do harm to one organ or the cells of one system without doing harm to the others?

My first rule of thumb, therefore, is to do no harm to myself by thought, word, or deed that is negative. I am then more likely not to do harm to another. This is something I have to practice.  Because I have an ego, it isn’t inherent, but the more I try to keep it in my sights, the more I surrender to my spirit’s instincts, the more good days I have. Let me pause here and remind myself and my readers that nobody said the spiritual life on earth was an easy one. It’s really, really hard. Really. Really. Hard.

What is hard is constantly consenting to letting my spirit take the lead as I go about my earthly pursuits.  This is a full-time job, with no sick days, no vacations, and no coffee breaks.  It’s constant, eternal vigilance, for my mind will go back to judging and righteous anger in the blink of an eye. My husband Bill used to say, “I’d rather be happy than right.” I’m sure that making that choice often is key to a happy marriage. And a happy, peaceful life. Being right is not all it’s cracked up to be.

BUT. That doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do. It doesn’t mean that I can’t work to help the helpless, be the  person I want to be, or think of all human beings as if they are God’s children. It doesn’t mean that I can’t Work On a Political Campaign, work to elect someone to represent me who reflects the values I cherish – honesty, integrity, compassion.

Every once in a while, I think of the story of Jesus, however you see him – as myth, as prophet, as great spiritual teacher, as brother, as the way-shower, as the Son of God – as he turned the money-changers out of the temple. If He can do that, why can’t I?  I can. I can turn money-changers out of the temple, remain compassionate toward them, and stay in touch with my soul.  That, I believe, is the evidence of a spiritual life.

I must always remind myself that I wasn’t always a student of metaphysics, nor was I a seeker of peace. It took the death of a child to set me on this path. What I am finding out is that it has a lot of interesting stops along the way.

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Read The Messenger: The Improbably Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com or, for a signed copy, at www.themessenger.space.

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There Is a Light in the World

There Is a Light in the World

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It would be easy to ignore the events of today, and I could retreat behind the claim that I only address myself to matters of spirituality. But that would be cowardly. Something massively important happened in this country today and in other countries around the globe. It cannot be ignored.

There was a collective consciousness on this planet, an energy, that moved people who have never been so moved before. I marched today in my town of Sedona, with a large group of people, including Sedona’s female mayor. Our backdrop was beautiful red rocks that were covered with snow. There were people in my small town who brought their children, people in wheel chairs, elders who found it difficult to walk, but there they were. Present. Peaceful. Helping one another across streets, bringing water, walking service dogs and pets. My daughters and my granddaughter were marching in Washington, D.C. And Los Angeles with hundreds of thousands of people.

What I saw and heard was a demand for the end of hate. I know that there are social and political issues that are related to this great speaking out, but there was something in this demonstration that over-arched all of them. It was in the mass of humanity that felt compelled to bring a presence to the rise of something dark in our time.

That is what this really is about. It isn’t about the man in the White House; it isn’t about the political process that seems to be regressing into a cruel past. It is about the fear and hate that is driving it. And it seems to me that today, there was a great rising up of humans against our darker natures, rejecting hate in all its forms. Notable was that it was completely without violence and rooted in peace.

Make no mistake. In spite of the fear that inspires hate, it is not greater than the Light that lives in all of us, and yes, even in those who hate and despise us. But Richard Attenborough said it best, and I offer it to you now:

“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.”

God bless us all.

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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 and for a signed copy, visit www.themessenger.space.

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