As of fifty minutes ago, it’s International Angel Day. I indulged in a Mocha Moo Latte at DQ around 5 p.m. yesterday and, wide awake now, I’m paying for the lapse in good sense, which is just as well since I have some angels to thank. A whole lot of them.
These are angels that apparently are happy to chill with me and offer inspiration and support, whenever I remember to call on them. Some, in fact, specialize in being at my back during the process of writing… there for any other writer, too, who dares to be naïve enough or open enough (it’s all how you look at this) to let them do their thing.
I just retrieved the class workbook I used last spring, when David, a Reiki master, here from Washington, D.C., introduced a group of us to “The Healing Angels of the Energy Field.” We connected individually with these blithe spirits via a series of deep and silent meditations. A look at my notes reminded me that Raphael told me I could call on him if I’m feeling stuck in my writing or whenever I feel a loss of support for the work. According to my scribbles, archangel Ariel jokingly referred to me as “Petunia” and said she’d be glad to protect me from others’ demands in order for me to bloom. Very playful and lighthearted, she assured me I need have “no worries.” In my altered, open state, one called Celestina promised to “hold my hand” to let me speak my truth – helping me to trust that it’s okay to write what comes.
Intuitives who have crossed my path have volunteered other names of celestial homies ready to show up in my neighborhood if only I give a call. These have included familiar archangels Michael and Gabriel and at least two with unlikely names — Caroline and Rita — the latter an angel with a specific interest in my writing progress. (The synchronicity tickles me; one of my late aunts, Rita, never missed a chance to urge me to keep writing.)
Some fifteen years ago, about to return to teaching, I was in a week-long workshop of the Minnesota Writing Project. One day, I watched the pen in my hand produce these words: there are angels all around. And before I could even mumble, “What the…” another line appeared: the book is already written. This bit of automatic writing both stunned and stumped me. What book? Quantum physicists remind us that time is a human invention (there is actually no past/present/future) so I could wrap my mind around how any book to come was, in a sense, “already written.” But what about angels-in-the-here-and-now?
For decades, I’d thought of them as fixtures in paintings in museums and in art history courses. As so much kitsch. As supporting actors in a handful of well-known Bible stories, not real players in my life story. Acceptance of that reality took longer. But acceptance has come. Are you listening, crew? This is my heartfelt thank you.
It’s a shout-out to Gabriel and Michael, to Ariel and Raphael and Celestina and Caroline, to Cassiel and Faith and Daniel and Sarah, to lovely Rita… and, I’m embarrassed to admit, those whose names I’ve forgotten. The saying goes that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, so I doubt that they take offense if a name escapes me. Here’s to having the wisdom to call them to my side more often!
