1 Meeting My Tour Guide
I pulled up in front of my parents? house on Eichelberger Avenue in Dayton, Ohio. It had been a long day. I turned off the engine and laid my head back to recharge before getting out of the car. I began having images of what Eichelberger Avenue was like when I was a child growing up there. I wondered what it would have been like to live in this house when it was first built in the late 1800s. Two major landmarks from the past stood out clearly in my mind: the old nightclub and the windmill.
A nightclub had been built within ?hollering? distance of our farmhouse. It seemed strange that an elegant nightclub would have been located out on farmland. But it was built in the days of prohibition when people were not permitted to buy or drink alcohol. (The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution made alcohol illegal from 1920 to 1933.) It was probably a speakeasy, where a member would go to the door and give a password before getting into the club.
In fact, there was a section in the floor of our old house that was used to conceal the prohibited spirits. As kids we used to open the hinged door and peek down to see if we could see any of the ?spirits?! But Dad spoiled our fun and threw cold water on our imaginations by sanding the trapdoor and nailing it down.
The center of the old nightclub was the dance floor. The large cement slab had no doubt been covered with nice wood until the great fire sometime in the 1930s. A half-acre of rubble, with many nooks and crannies, left a lot to the imagination. But the dance floor in the burned-down nightclub became the central attraction for us children, where skating on its smooth surface brought hours of joy to our feet, as the Charleston must have done for the nightclub revelers in the 1920s and early ?30s.
As a regular ritual, the neighborhood kids who frequented our ?clubhouse? used to dig endlessly through the rubble around our skating rink, always hoping to find that ?something more.? As children, we had an inner certainty that there was much more there than our eyes could see, and we were going to dig until we found it. I remember using little sticks to dig for hours at a time. I knew intuitively that if I dug enough, I would uncover the magic of life that is hidden from sight.
And sure enough, one of my first major lessons about the Laws of the Universe was discovered at our sacred open-air clubhouse where so many delicious childhood memories were made. The following incident describes very simply the Law of Karma?that what we do to others, good or bad, returns to us in kind.
As children we had created our ?pee spots? in the weeds beside our circular rink. As my little friend, Lilly Ann, was squatting down one day, and I was squatting down behind her, I got the idea that it would be a very funny joke if I would rub poison ivy on her exposed bottom. So I grabbed a handful of some poison ivy growing beside me, and said, ?Lilly Ann, there?s a spider crawling on you!??and I rubbed the ivy on her buttocks, as if I was knocking off the spider. She was freaked out at the thought of a spider crawling on her bottom, and she jumped up screaming, pulling her panties up as she ran. I had a good laugh over the incident.
I had plenty of time to laugh, however, when I had a few itchy, miserable days at home from school. I was covered with poison ivy from top to bottom??bottom? because I too had to pull my panties up as I dropped the poison ivy and ran laughing behind Lilly Ann.
The Law of Karma, ?What you sow, so shall you reap??or ?the poison ivy you rub on someone will get on you??was a major lesson for me. I never even considered the possibility of the ivy affecting me. Later, Lilly Ann didn?t mention anything to me about having poison ivy, and consoled me when she saw my eyes almost swollen shut. And my hurt ego never allowed me to expose my fiendish scheme.
(Thus I learned early in life, through my poison ivy prank, that energy boomerangs: that when you send it out, it comes back to knock you down a notch, or bump you up to a higher level of living?or both!)
The other landmark, which still stood in our yard when we moved there in 1939, was a windmill. I had such an adventuresome spirit, even at the age of five, that I thought nothing of climbing to the top of the windmill to see what was out there that I couldn?t see from the ground. If I couldn?t find that ?something more? that I was looking for by digging, surely I could find it by looking toward the horizon as far as my eyes could see. But my dad put a stop to my airborne activities by taking down the windmill.
As I sat in my car reminiscing, I realized that the digging and climbing of my early childhood have continued into my adult life as a restless searching for the truths that lie beyond what the physical eye can see and the hand can touch. I had a continual urge to dig for answers to my questions not only in my ?backyard,? but also around the world?and finally within myself, where the real answers are to be found. I sat there with a deep feeling of satisfaction for the work I was doing with young people. But at the same time, I felt a nagging sensation that there was something more that I needed to find out.
I had been working almost four years with teenagers. I had no special training for this work other than a bachelor?s degree from Manchester College in Indiana. Having no idea what I was going to do with my life after college, I had signed up for a double major in Peace Studies and Sociology, hoping that one or the other would one day help me to get a good job. And here I learned another very important lesson in life?that loving to be with young people, and loving them unconditionally, was a special formula that went far beyond any academic degree that one might have.
The thought kept coming to me, however, that I needed to go on for a master?s degree to help me develop greater skills in working with these young people. But the larger truth was that I needed a change, needed to move into a new phase of growth. Thus it wasn?t my salary that led me to leave my position as district youth fieldworker for the Church of the Brethren at $2,000 a year, minimal though that pay was.
Once when visiting one of our churches on a Sunday morning, I settled back to enjoy some time off from my responsibilities by listening to the minister?s sermon. When he got up for the sermon, he said, ?We?re really happy to have our youth fieldworker with us today. She is going to gift us by preaching the sermon. Rosie, could you please come on up to the pulpit??
Luckily, I had just given a three-point talk to a group of churchwomen a few days earlier, and I quickly retrieved the three points from my memory as I walked to the pulpit. As it turned out, they were impressed with my ?sermon??and I was relieved to have had an ace up my sleeve to save me from passing out on the spot! This experience gave me my first inkling that I needed to consider working on a master of divinity degree.
As I sat relaxing in my car, I felt an overwhelming feeling of joy and appreciation for what my parents were doing for me. Having raised eight kids, they were never in a position to pay for any of my years of education. But they compensated for that by giving me free room and board any time I wanted to come home to stay for any period of time. So even on my $2,000-a-year income, I was able to save several thousand dollars by rooming at home. That money would give me a good financial foundation for going on to graduate school.
Needing to get my tired bones to bed, I got out of the car and headed down the sidewalk to the house. It was only a little after nine P.M. and the lights were out in the house. The one reprieve my mother and father had from raising eight kids was going to bed early (which may have helped perpetuate our clan). Mom was 42 and I was 13 when the twins, Larry and Linda, were born. Now that they were in their teens, we all got extra perks through my job. I got to be with Linda and Larry more and they met a lot of new friends through regional and national youth events we attended together.
The most memorable experience for all three of us was our trip to the National Youth Conference at Estes Park, Colorado. Our denomination?s national office, located in Illinois, leased an entire train to transport the young people of the central and eastern United States to the conference. The idea was to keep the young people together and safe, but the train ride resulted in an incident that could very easily have sent some of us into the next dimension! I?m sure that all of our guardian angels were attentively gathered on the roof of the train, since they were probably warned ahead of time that they had an important task to perform.
And this is where I learned another lesson about life, which I will call the ?Disconnect Principle.?
I was just ready to step into the train car that Larry and Linda were in to see what fun they were up to when suddenly I heard a strange metallic sound that caused me to pull my foot back from the ledge leading to their car. The rush of wind that embraced me when I closed the door behind me caused me to hold on to a metal railing for dear life as I watched in horror as Larry and Linda?s car disconnected before my eyes and sped ahead of my car at triple speed. The young people in their car began screaming and clutching one another as their speed quadrupled. With nothing in front of me to block my view, I watched ?The Little Train that Could and Finally Did? become a mere dot on the horizon as my car and ten or so more behind it glided to a halt.
By the time the engineer was able to control his runaway engine it took a good while for him to back up and reconnect with us. I felt like someone right out of an old-time cowboy movie?with a horse running beside a train and someone motioning for the rider to jump on! When I finally got reconnected with my very frightened brother and sister, it was a great relief. And I was very thankful to our guardian angels for keeping us out of harm?s way.
This episode taught me another lesson about life: that at any time we can instantly?yes, I mean instantly?become disconnected from people and things that we dearly love, sometimes being reconnected . . . and sometimes not. And thus this Disconnect Principle helped me to learn to live in the moment, and to be more thankful for what I had.
My youth-worker job suited me well because my adventuresome spirit was always ready to be challenged. I was in my late twenties, and working with teens was the fuel that kept my spirit recharged. My father, being from the Southern tradition that emphasized the importance of marriage and children for a successful life, began viewing himself as a failure, having a daughter who was an ?old maid.?
Dad was a bit confused, since in my large high school (about 260 in my graduating class) I had been very popular and very active on the dating circuit. I had been invited into the best sorority, voted a Homecoming Queen attendant, and received the distinction of being the first female president of the tenth grade class at Fairview High. I dated lots of guys; once when I had two dates in one day, Dad reprimanded me, saying that my dating life was getting a little out of hand.
Now, however, he let me know in no uncertain terms that he expected me to concentrate on finding a mate instead of seeking more education and new experiences like a business degree, a job in Europe, a college degree, and now youth work. He sat me down and gave me ?the marriage/children lecture.? All my older brothers and sisters were now married and raising children. I was happy for them?and for me because I looked at it as a way of having the pressure taken off me to follow suit.
I knew that my mother was silently cheering me on to achieve the things she was not able to achieve in life. In fact, I?m sure she was living vicariously through me since, after graduating from high school, she went right into the marriage and family role that her parents expected of her.
Mom had always dreamed of writing a book since writing was her greatest gift, beyond being an incredible mother and household executive. (Now that I am writing my second book, I?m sure that she is still vicariously living through me, and cheering me on from the ?other side.?)
Dad, being a farmworker in his early life, only finished the sixth grade and I think was somewhat intimidated by my desire to further my education and seek unusual experiences beyond my family boundaries. So instead of encouraging me in my endeavors, he was always challenging me. I never liked to ?take telling,? as he used to say. His telling me what to do with my life only made me more determined to do the opposite. I guessed that my insurgent desire to get a master?s degree would probably send him into orbit?which it did!
It was indeed time to still my mind with sleep. I tiptoed upstairs to my room. I didn?t even bother turning on the light. A faint glow from the streetlight shone into the room as I stepped out of my clothes, leaving them on the floor because I was too exhausted to hang them up. I grabbed my nightgown out of the dresser, put it on, and crawled into my warm, cozy bed. Going to sleep and dreaming has always been one of my favorite things.
As I closed my eyes and started down into dreamland, I experienced the strangest thing that had ever happened to me in my life thus far. . . .
Just as I started drifting down into another state of consciousness, I had a stricken feeling that in the darkness of the room someone was watching me. Immediately as that thought crossed my mind, my eyes popped open?and there looking down at me was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Light radiated all around her, and she had a vibrant, shimmering appearance. She was dressed in a brilliant blue gown and it flowed as she moved slowly backward, and disappeared!
My shock and surprise were probably the contributing factors that moved her radiant form away from me as she faded into the darkness of the room. You can imagine that I was now wide-awake, and I felt goose bumps rise up all over my body. My heart was beating hard as I lay there trying to put this experience into a category in my mind that might make sense out of what had just happened. It didn?t fit into any slot other than ?ghost.?
I had heard ghost stories most of my life. My father, being from the mountains of Tennessee, carried on an oral tradition of telling amazing stories from his past. One of the main entertainments for my brothers and sisters, me, and the neighborhood children was to rest on the front porch on a summer evening after playing kick-the-can or hide-and-seek, and listen to my father?s spine-?tingling ghost stories.
But I knew intuitively that this was not a typical ghost. It left me with no feeling of fear. I lay there, wide-awake, seemingly for hours, with a feeling of awe. Something very important had happened, but I didn?t know what.
As I replayed the experience over and over in my mind, it dawned on me that I was so overwhelmed by the radiance of the lady that I didn?t notice her facial features. If I had thought to scrutinize her face, I might have recognized someone I knew, now on the Other Side, who was dropping in for a visit. I had never had such a visitation from a deceased acquaintance, nor expected such a thing to happen.
I must have fallen asleep with these thoughts because when I awoke, it was light. But the experience of the radiant lady was still on my mind. I lay there still in a state of awe and wonderment. Then I heard my mother coming up the stairs, and I called her into my room. We had always been very close, and I could tell her anything.
?Mom, I have to tell you what happened to me as I was going to sleep last night,? I said, as she sat down at the foot of my bed.
?What happened?? she asked in a concerned manner.
?Well, Mom, you might think I have gone off the deep end if I tell you,? I said, as I momentarily contemplated keeping it to myself. I could tell by the look on Mom?s face, however, that I was obliged at this point to tell her because I had aroused her curiosity and concern.
?Mom, I saw the figure of a radiant lady.?
?You mean, you dreamed of a radiant lady??
?No, she was actually beside my bed, looking down at me. I had an eerie feeling that someone was watching me in the darkness, so I opened my eyes.?
?Did she say anything to you?? Mom inquired.
?No, I don?t recall her saying anything,? I responded with something of a quiver in my voice. ?I opened my eyes, and recall thinking that she was so stunningly beautiful, like no one I had ever seen before. Then she floated backward and disappeared.?
?Do you have any feeling who she could be?? Mom asked.
?I . . . I didn?t catch her features,? I stuttered, as an unusual thought entered my mind. ?She had a glow around her that made her really stand out in the dark room. She was very much alive, radiant and . . . and . . . you know what, Mom?? I asked.
?What??
?I just had a strong sensation that she is a part of me. That a beautiful part of me was leaving my body or something, and floating off into the darkness. But how could that be? I don?t even know why I think she was a part of me. Now, that does sound crazy, doesn?t it??
Mom, a very wise and spiritual person, didn?t question my analysis of my experience. ?Well,? she said, ?remember the time I woke up and saw your sister Pauline?s spirit at the foot of my bed? Her spirit came to tell me that she had tuberculosis. So I had her checked by the doctor the following week, and indeed she did have tuberculosis. We were able to catch it before it became serious.?
?Yes! I also remember that you said that my spirit appeared to you while I was in Europe in great emotional turmoil. I don?t remember coming to the foot of your bed in spirit, but you said I did, so I believe you. And that?s why you and Dad sent for me to come home. I was so depressed that I even attempted suicide. . . . Even crazier, Mom, remember how you saw our dog, Speck, that we had for so many years? You said after he died he appeared to you on the floor beside your bed where he used to lie.?
?Yes, Rosalind,? Mom replied. (My family always used my given name and not Rosie, as all my friends call me.) ?Speck appeared to me a short time after dying to let me know by his wagging tail and familiar bark that he was very much alive and happy in another world. He also sent me a mental impression that your grandmother, who lived in our house when he was alive, was there to meet him. And, even stranger, he looked like he did when he was a young pup. He didn?t show any signs of old age. His little spirit body was very radiant, and very much alive. He appeared, barked, wagged his tail?and then was gone. He never appeared to me again.?
I laughed to myself as I thought of our little dog, Speck, checking in to say goodbye before going on to Doggie Heaven. And I realized I shouldn?t give another thought to Mom thinking I was crazy for seeing a radiant lady in the dark.
?Wow, Mom,? I mused. ?You?ve seen spirits before. What do you think I saw last night??
?I can?t tell you, Rosalind,? she replied thoughtfully. ?Only you can know that.?
?But do you think it?s possible that I saw a part of myself?? I asked, puzzled. ?And if I did, what would that part be doing looking down at me, and then floating away??
?Anything is possible with God, Rosalind. If you think the lady was an aspect of yourself, it might just be. I don?t doubt that you actually experienced something very unusual. Perhaps someday the lady will return and tell you who she is, and why she appeared to you,? Mom replied in a quietly confident voice.
?Mom, I?ll tell you what: since you are experienced with ?spirit appearances? I?ll take your suggestion to heart and know that if this experience was important then the ?Radiant Lady,? as I?ll call her, will appear again. I?ll just tuck it away and go on with my life, until the time that she might make another visit and let me know the meaning of her appearances.?
?That?s the best approach,? Mom answered as she stood up. ?I was coming upstairs to see if you were awake and tell you to come on down for breakfast,? she said and started back down the stairs.
?I?m fully awake now! And really hungry.?
I grabbed my clothes off the floor, jumped into them, and quickly followed the smell of bacon and eggs down the stairs to the kitchen.
I had completely forgotten about Radiant Lady. She had faded from my mind like she faded away in my room that night 40 years earlier.
I was lounging on my living room couch at my nine-acre ?estate? (as I like to call my home after living in a mobile-home park in Virginia for two decades). It was such a wonderful new phase of my life, gifted to me by the writing of my first book, Cosmic Journeys. I always feel so content being out in the country with my animals?something like Heaven must be. I call my place ?Heavenly Acres.?
It had been foggy and rainy all day, and then turned out to be what I call one of those ?Brigadoon? evenings: misty, mystical, and leaving me with a feeling of d?j? vu.
I felt all evening as if I was in a timeless dimension, with not a care in the world, but with an anticipation of something about to happen. Like the legendary Scottish village of Brigadoon that suddenly appears out of nowhere every one hundred years, I had a feeling that something from my distant past was going to come alive on this magical evening of great expectations.
As I lay stretched out on my couch with my legs dangling over the end, I became so relaxed that I must have drifted down into the alpha brain-wave state because images of some of the recurring dreams I had been having over the past six months began to surface. As I ruminated over these particular dreams, I began to get a somewhat empty, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach that I always have when I wake up from these recurring dreams. It is always a dream that makes me feel that something in my life is unfinished. I am often in college repeating courses that I have taken before. Sometimes I find myself starting all over again in the same college.
I know intuitively that the dream is trying to get my attention, to tell me something. But I don?t have a clue as to what it is. I always pray daily for help with all that I know I need, and even what I don?t know I need. I do believe that if we ask, we will receive. I also believe in giving praise and thanksgiving daily for my many blessings.
As my recurrent dream images popped up, I asked for help in knowing what my subconscious mind, my Inner Self-Helper or Higher Self, was trying to tell me. I prayed over and over in my mind, ?Please, dear God, help me. Thank you. Help me. Thank you.?
Suddenly, I heard the voice of a woman speaking, just as clearly as a voice on the telephone. The voice said, ?Rosalind, go to your computer and prepare yourself to write.?
I jumped up, opened up my word processor, and typed the following message very rapidly as it came to me.
?Rosalind, this is Radiant Lady. I know that you remember me because I made a great impact on you once in your earlier life on planet Earth. I came to you to impress my image and energy upon you, so that when the time was right we would begin our mission that we planned before you were born.
?Yes, I am coming alive from your past. Your perception of this magical evening is indeed correct.
?Your dream is telling you that you do have something unfinished. Your work is yet unfinished. It has to be accomplished before you leave this planet. It is very important work, and there are many from our dimension who are going to help you to accomplish it.
?I want you to know that you are a wonderful light in our dimension. You visit with us often in your dream state. We work with you and teach you. You will soon be able to keep one foot on the Earth and one foot in Heaven, so to speak.
?As we begin our work together, you will gain a greater understanding of who I am, and why we have chosen to accomplish this important mission together.
?I will guide you through experiences of very exciting journeys. We will travel into many dimensions beyond the Earth as you record these experiences. You have much experience since you have done this for many years as an Explorer in a laboratory setting. You have a special gift. You were easily able to record experiences verbally as they were happening. And now you will record them through your fingertips as they are happening. It is the same energy process.
?It is time for souls upon the Earth to be reawakened to the knowledge of their true Home, from whence they came and to which they will return. And you are one who made a contract before you were born to help in this reawakening.
?There are many wonderful souls you will meet in the planes of existence that you will be visiting. You will meet nonphysical energies from many different dimensions, including family, friends, guides, teachers, and angels, who will all share their personal experiences of the worlds in which they exist.
?I am your tour guide.
?When you are ready to experience and record these Soul Journeys, I am ready to help you and guide you through them.
?I send light, love, and joy to you as you prepare for this life-changing adventure into other dimensions. When you are ready for each journey, your thoughts of readiness will manifest instantaneously in my energy field. Our energy fields are connected in a very special way. Your very thought of readiness sets off a silent signal in my energy field, and I am there immediately as your dedicated tour guide, with wonderment and joyful expectations of what we will experience together as a team.?
Then the voice stopped?and all was silent.
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