The Discovery of Council Rock Mountain

DSCN1371_0155 — The author on an as yet unknown mountain; October 31, 2004

It’s time for a VERY important post about a monumental discovery that forever changed my life. I hinted at it briefly in March of this year, at the time of Spring Equinox. Finding this mountain I’m about to describe is probably the single most powerful life-changing event of my life to date (other than finding my perfect partner 😊). And yet, I didn’t actually find the mountain – it found me. We found one another. It was time for the connection to be made. It was October 2004.

I write this post for my own benefit, moved by some inner voice 35,000 ft over the Pacific Ocean. Carla and I are on our way home from a two week visit to my daughter’s home in Victoria, Australia. This trip, like so many of the events of this year comprise a continuing string of incredible blessings bestowed on a person who listened to voices from within, and then acted on them. I can’t fully explain all that occurs, I only hope to share them here on this blog and in a book I hope to write this coming Winter.

As shared in previous posts, I’ve always paid attention to inner callings, knowings, sensations that I couldn’t explain with my scientific brain. It’s the whole purpose of this blog called “Awakening the Merlin Within”; to share of my personal experiences and inspire others to follow their own inner calling, no matter how strange. I want to start this thread in particular, because following this connection and golden thread of synchronicities led to an archaeological discovery of some magnitude. It’s been a most incredible life journey, not just for myself but for others. 2019 upped the pace of research connections and opportunities. Once again, I find it’s time to act.

The turn of the past century found me separated and divorced from a fine wife, struggling to retain enough money to live after child support, and then to boot finding myself suddenly unemployed for a considerable length of time. It was extremely challenging – a time that might sink many into despair. Yet, this time seemed like the start of so many opportunities to follow a path of my own. For so long I had worked toward what I thought would be a normal marriage, a lifelong career, and a storybook family. Instead I found myself alone and broken.

In 2001 I chose to follow a path of inner and outer healing that began in 1995 with adult education classes in Swedish massage and Reiki energy healing. I took advantage of state assistance for the unemployed to follow new opportunities and signed up for a fully accredited course in massage therapy. By 2002 I had earned my national certification as a massage therapist and continued to combine it with the Reiki healing work I had been initiated into half a decade before. It was this work that would be the access point for a giant leap forward. Once officially certified I put these new skills to use at weekend holistic expos to supplement my income, and to follow what I felt was a true vocation – an inner calling. I continued the weekend massage work even after returning to my regular career with the postal service three years later.

In October 2004 I was doing my chair massage/energy work at a small expo in the town of Kingston, PA. As usual most customers came off my massage chair feeling much better than when they first arrived. Also as usual, there were people in the room who told me they could see or feel the energy around my booth as I worked. I feel it but I don’t “see” it. One of the people who apparently ‘saw’ was a young woman- 28 yrs. old- assisting her mother in a nearby booth. She didn’t speak at all, but I could tell by the way she was watching and smiling that she was aware of something more. Toward the end of the Saturday session I walked over and asked if she’d like to sign up for a session on Sunday. She signed up, she had her treatment, and from what I recall something in her changed. By the afternoon her mom, Reda, had come over to speak with me and rave about the experience. She asked if I did this for a living and I told her no, my main business was a newly purchased self-storage business in nearby Nanticoke. Reda asked if I’d be interested in opening another business in a nearby industrial park – a restaurant or food franchise. Being new to the business world I was open to that kind of thing, in fact I’d even fantasized about it before. The industrial park she spoke of had thousands of people working with no nearby food establishments. I considered this to be one of those synchronicities worth following. We arranged to meet the following day at the agency where she worked.

That Monday Reda and her boss, Shirley, met me at their agency and showed me two parcels priced at $500,000 and $1.2 million – FAR out of my price range! Nonetheless, I felt good for having followed up to the possibility. While we stood talking, something to the right caught my eye. It was one of a hundred or so other listings on a nearby table, each a single page of text with no photos. The page that caught the corner of my eye seemed to be lifting off the table in my peripheral vision. I finally zeroed in on it enough to point it out and ask what it was. Shirley told me I wouldn’t be interested, that it was a hundred acres of land in the nearby mountains with no business potential. I told her that I felt it was calling out to me. I asked her to tell me more and to show me where it was on a map. She said it was a large parcel of mountainous terrain with no road access and no business potential whatsoever. Still, it called to me. I asked if I could check it out in person, and with their permission I did so by the end of that week.

I have to say I fell in love with the place upon first arriving. Rugged, virtually inaccessible, and loaded with beautiful trees, steeply sloping hills, and large patches of exposed bedrock. I was hooked! Yet this parcel of land was also out of my price range. And it had no way to pay for itself. If I wanted to buy it, I’d have to get really creative. I called my good friend Nancy and asked her if she’d have a look and offer some advice. Within a week or two Nancy came out to visit the land with me. She’s an energy healer in spirit and a gypsy by nature. She too felt the land’s powerful and alluring draw, even more so for the way it had made itself known at that meeting. With my friend’s concurrence I now had a dream. All I needed was funding.

First hike… October 2004

A magical orb says ‘hello’

For the sake of confidentiality, I’ll keep some of those funding details low-key at the request of a very special spirit. Let’s just say that within two weeks a proper investor was found to make the purchase, and after some easy negotiating and simple agreements the sale was arranged. I’d soon have access to this magical place! Just two months later (and curiously enough on my birthday!) the property was transferred to the new owner and I now had full permission to visit and use the land in whatever way I liked. What a birthday gift!

I had free reign to hike, camp, pick huckleberries, and enjoy it in every way. My favorite spot on this land was always a high meadow with four large boulders in the center. The boulders had a special magic all their own. Two or three other large stones were tucked in trees around the perimeter.

DSCN1372_0156 — Like me… my friend Nancy falls in love with the boulders

Most of the features on this land that attracted me were made of stone: the exposed bedrock slabs with curious swirls here and there, the four big boulders of course, two other areas with strangely tilted thick slabs, and another with thinner slabs. Everything about this place seemed magical! It felt like heaven. Somehow, we’d found one another, and I was extremely glad. Following the golden thread of synchronicities in October of 2004 now seemed the most magical point in my life.

It wasn’t until about three years later when the large boulders let it be known what they truly were and how significant they actually are. I’d known them as a beautiful collection of large glacial erratics; 15-25-ton boulders dropped by a glacier as it melts. I knew that the last glacier in our area retreated about 12,000 years ago. I felt it did a lovely job with these guys! I also sensed the meadow had a special vibe that would make it attractive for Native American gatherings and council meetings. I gave them the name “Council Rocks”. I loved them so much that I started entering photos of them in local contests, and even won a few ribbons. I hung the prize-winning photos in my small post office.

In October of 2007 a customer and good friend came in to buy some stamps after visiting New England on business. Knowing by my photos that I loved large stones, he showed me a book called “New England’s Ancient Mysteries”, a collection of stories about curious stone works in and around New England. On page 31 was a photo of a large stone in New Salem, NY with a very similar shape, size, and orientation to my favorite at the Council Rocks site. My friend Joe, surprised as much as I was by the similarity, let me borrow the book. I wrote to the publishers, seeking more information about this “Cat Head Dolmen” in New York. NEARA, the New England Antiquities Research Association, emailed back and asked for photos of the Council Rocks. In the second email Polly Midgley of NEARA told me Fred Martin, a senior member of NEARA, had asked if the Council Rocks were aligned with the Winter Solstice sunset. I replied that I hadn’t a clue, but I’d have a look.

In late October of 2007 I hiked up to the site and was shocked to see that the boulders I thought were scattered randomly were actually in a perfect line. Even more shocking, that line wasn’t far from the October sunset. I knew the sun would be moving closer toward the alignment by December. Now I was on a mission, blown away by this potential new revelation.

December of that year, the sky was mostly cloudy in our area and Winter Solstice passed without any opportunity to photograph a sunset. The first clear day was December 31st – New Year’s Eve. With permission to close my small post office early, I bolted from work at 3:00 p.m. and drove/hiked to the site to catch incredibly amazing photos. The sun set perfectly in the cross hairs of what appeared to be intentionally and perfectly aligned boulders. Not just aligned, but shaped in a way reminiscent of an open rifle site. This bizarre revelation proved to be true! At least NEARLY true. The perfect sunset happened ten days late. Why the discrepancy?

12/31/2007 4:15 pm (21:15 GMT)

Besides being a Reiki master, postmaster, and new business owner, I have also been an amateur astronomer since the early 1980’s. Maybe it was that skill that caused the land to reach out and set these synchronicities in motion in the first place? I’m not sure. But I know from my amateur astronomy that the earth’s axis tilts and wobbles very slowly over time. And that slow wobble makes the distant stars and our sun itself rise and set in different positions over time. For instance, we now know Polaris as our North star, but 12,000 years ago it would have been the star Vega. This movement is very slow and very predictable. Charts to track it, called Ephemeris Charts or Ephemerides, are readily available in books and on the web. I chose to consult NASA’s JPL website for the most accurate information I could find. Using the latitude, longitude, and altitude of the Council Rocks I was able to identify the exact location of the setting sun in Azimuth and Altitude- right down to the ten-thousandth of a degree. I used those numbers from the December 31, 2007 photos and backed up in time to see when the sun would have set in that exact place on the actual Winter Solstice date. That bit of research also blew me away! What I thought might be an intentional construction dating back a few centuries turned out to line up a few thousand years ago. Four thousand years in fact! Therefore, if it was true that these boulders were set up and shaped to track the Winter Solstice sunset, (and by default the Summer Solstice sunrise) the construction of the site would have been close to 1825 BC. How was it that this site had made itself known to me? How was it that a small collection of anachronistic coincidences could draw me here and cause the chain of events that would lead to its purchase and exploration? What was it that was speaking and why did I hear?

Whatever the answers to the above, the fact that I heard, listened, and acted on that inner voice has led to the most amazing chapter of my life in so many ways! I’ve since researched and documented much, much more, and have successfully had this site and another registered with Pennsylvania’s Historic and Museum Commission. Such registration doesn’t come easily or without copious research and careful documentation. In addition I’ve given talks and lectures at more state archaeology conferences and research gatherings than I can count. The latest a jet flight away at the 2019 AAPS Annual Meeting in Michigan. The scientist inside me is skillful and diligent. And as you might imagine, that inner scientist often struggles with the energy worker in me that hears, listens, and continues to act on blind intuition. Yet the intuition is what led to each and every discovery on this mountain. There have been many additional finds on this mountain, and I promise to share more. Wait ‘til you see all the places this massage/Reiki session in 2004 has led! My life is forever changed BY HAVING LISTENED to those cues.

Hard science is great, and very important. I use it continuously to carefully research and document everything found here. More important to me, however, is the spiritual work being done on this mountain. I’m trying to keep up with messages from a culture or cultures that seem to seek acknowledgment of their work and placement in this planet’s long-term history. Or more likely their place in all the cosmos. In all indigenous cultures shamans and medicine people were able to connect earth and sky, subsurface aquifers, and energy lines. It’s the nature of all beings to find connection to one another, and to a larger extent with the entire cosmos; all the land, water, and all life around us.

May I always serve this purpose above everything else. The writers of history, the archaeologists and anthropologists, can weave their own map from the information gleaned at this site. It matters little what’s recorded by present day academia. What matters most is the connectedness of all things and the way these connections flow and move across what feels to us like time and space. Social structures and political boundaries change and evolve with collective perception. The inseparable connectedness of all that is, has been, and ever will be forever remains…

Keep alert, be aware of your own inner voice, and always…. Awaken the Merlin Within.

20150802_200457 (3) — Sunset from my campsite on the mountain

Rite of Resurrection… and Revelation

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This post makes reference to Council Rock Mountain, a place I have yet to introduce to my readers. I’ve sketched out six or seven blog topics to fully bring this magical location into my readers’ awareness when the time is right. I’ll say this much: it’s a Stonehenge built thousands of years ago and hidden away for centuries. It’s been my good fortune to find it, explore it, document, and commune with it. But it’s discovery, revelation and archaeological research are stories to be shared later. What I feel compelled to write about today is what happened inside of me while participating in a morning sunrise near this year’s Spring Equinox.

Monday, March 18, 2019. I chose this crisp and clear morning to take advantage of a perfect sky…. AND more importantly… to complete on a spiritual promise/agreement to commune with the mountain. Many important things have been happening with this place in the past few months, and Equinox sunrise was an opportunity to express gratitude and oneness. Both with the mountain, and with my spiritual self. This was the morning just past perfect alignment, and still two days off from our current Equinox.

It was such a perfectly clear sky that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. At 6:30 a.m. I rose from bed and prepared to leave my home. At 7:04 I leave and journey the short distance to my kin, my other family, my other home: the mountain on which the stones await.

By 7:30 I’ve arrived at the site and have begun the ceremony. I am also setting up a simple tripod to which I’ll attach my cellphone. I brought my gf Carla’s telescope tripod to use as a base and I use rubber bands to hold my phone in place. My goal is to record the full sunrise – start to finish. At 7:41, I hit the ‘record’ button and the filming begins. The camera ran for 51 minutes. The actual sunrise appeared at 7:48 to the left of the Altar Stone, and reappeared in the equinox opening from 8:22 to 8:24 a.m.

Once the camera was running on its own, I chose to wander off and experience the sacred sunrise from any location my heart was pulled toward. I first ventured toward what I call the Grandfather Stone. After briefly using my eyes to observe the sun from this stone, I closed my eyes and simply lost myself – my identity, melding into the Spirit of the Grandfather. Time passed. My senses passed. I became aware of an almost ‘nothingness”.

As I knelt at the far end facing the sacred site I could feel the Grandfather Stone’s heartbeat and breath. My ears heard a bird chirping a two-passage song repeatedly as he/she moved from one location to another around the place I knelt. He/she flitted from tree to tree and branch to branch clockwise around the space I knelt. Not too close, but not too far from me. I imagined that he too was aware of my “non-presence”. Though my ears heard him, my awareness was in a different place.

I noticed that I had disappeared. Ego had left by 99%, popping in only briefly from time to time as little fears knocked on my mind’s door. (What is this bird? Are there other animals approaching? Are there dangerous animals approaching, and should I open my eyes? Should I come back to presence? …) These type of thoughts flitted through my mind at a distance. Fear was trying to protect my body. Spirit knew this wasn’t necessary. Spirit won. But fear made a brief showing.

After some time passed, maybe about ten minutes, I got myself up (my body) and noted how it was capable of moving on its own – without my constant direction or awareness. I (my Spirit) could still “BE” as my body did its own thing on autopilot. We moved toward the larger rocks – the Cat Stone in particular – as I watched my body briefly lose the path and then correct itself, without need of my conscious direction.

Scientifically speaking, I know that my body is a community of cells, nerve endings and muscle fibers, organs and fluid pumps, as well as bacteria and micro-organisms along for the ride to process food and handle other tasks. We all function together as a unit. My brain coordinates it all (save for the bacteria and cooperative microbiomes). And my brain uses the sensory input derived from my eyes, ears, skin, etc., and then continuously filters all that input to pass through only the most pertinent information. But all this happens WITHOUT the need for my (my Spirit’s) input. A well-trained machine can run itself.

I wondered if the animals around me, the birds for instance, are aware of this human defect – to rely on our sensory awareness to the point of believing that we ARE our bodies? Is this the underlying human flaw??

Yes, we humans constantly use our thoughts and senses to control and manipulate every physical thing in our environment. We do! And we do it well. We’re physically changing the entire planet, for good or for bad.

But we’ve lost the connection to who we actually ARE. There’s a disconnect. Are we stragglers here on this planet? Are we using our environment, and our bodies, and our brains as just resources?? Is there a fundamental spiritual aspect that we’re largely avoiding? Do the animals of this planet have more awareness than we? Just because their bodies die under our crushing hands (guns, cars, encroachment and crowding out) doesn’t mean their spirits die forever.

We know better!! And still, we identify primarily with our body.

* * * * * *

All these thoughts and perceptions came to my awareness as I walked the thirty yards to the Cat Stone. “I” was present. My body carried me. It did so without any help from my awareness.

I took a brief look at the phone/camera, and then settled in to the seat on the west side of the Whale Stone. I noticed once again the transiting shadow of the Altar Stone across the south face of the Cat. Earlier, I had wondered what time it was, and how long it would be until the sun entered the upper triangle of the sighting mechanism. Now… I could simply watch the shadow as it moved slowly, purposefully across the Cat Stone’s face.

Still, “I” was lost in an altered state of awareness. A Bliss of some sort. Noticing the shadow took no more attention or effort than becoming aware of the bird at the Grandfather Stone.

Time passed. The earth spun on its axis. I felt it. I saw the result of this movement in the sliding shadow. We’re all manifested forms in a universe of energy. Condensed energy. Concretions. Even my body is just a condensation of energy into matter; a community of sub-organisms carrying my awareness around in a fleshy pouch. More like switching energetic charges on and off at the surface of electron shells so as to interact in agreement with all other electron shells orbiting around collections of protons and neutrons massed together. Energy packets – each of us – the large and the sub-microscopic.

I “saw” and “felt” all this as I sat in this ancient seat of Wisdom, Power, Status, and Responsibility. Those who sat here before me filled an important role, and they left an imprint in the stone that had my back today. My spine, and all the energy flowing through it in pulses too fast for a human mind to comprehend interacted with the imprints of previous energies from previous spines. We communicated. We communed.

All too much for my mind to handle, or to truly grasp. Yet my mind was content. It runs, operates, and manages the body that has formed to carry my spirit. We All Work Together!

As the shadow reached the opening, I shouted softly, “Aho!” “Aho Mitakuye Oyasin” – Yes, we are all related! Greetings – we are all family!

I stood up and walked between the Altar Stone and the Cat (and the camera behind it). I waved to the camera, then walked around to see the sunrise on its screen. I also bent my head around the side to see the sun in the viewer with my own eyes. I did this for my body and my ego. My Spirit was already present, IS already present with the Sunrise Ceremony. Spring is Here! I Am Here! I Am / We Are Reborn!

After allowing the recording to run its course, I take the camera off the tripod and pocket it in my leather coat. I return to the Whale Stone seat and take a few pictures from that vantage point. Then I settle in again to experience the spine(s) and the energy(ies) of all that have come before me. I return to Bliss.

At some point I curl my body up on the stone platform and lie down – absorbing the energy flow even more deeply. Time passes.

The phone rings. Carla is calling. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I speak with her briefly, and hike back to the car in an altered state of consciousness. In and out of my body as I hike back. Even the drive back to the house happens mostly on autopilot. Once home, I share of my experience with Carla. And I weep with joy.

This memory will stay with me. Aho!

* * * * * * * * *

Life as a ‘Weirdo’ – Early Years, Visual Anomaly, ‘Feelings’, and Spark Plugs

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
― Joseph Campbell

This post might seem a bit unusual, yet the underlying message is both simple and profound. Consider this message as a primer for a deeply spiritual life.

Growing up in the early 1960’s, life seemed pretty normal to me, as would everyone’s life by strict definition of the word ‘normal’: what we know; the norm. I had a younger sister (two years younger), a mom and a dad, and my mom stayed at home to raise us while dad worked as a butcher for the local Acme grocery store. A family could get by on one income back in those days before money was concentrated into the hands of billionaires. I had a best friend, Arnie – who lived next door. And I as I grew up I had more friends in the neighborhood. Some moved in, some moved out, but there was always somebody to play or hang out with. Life was good, and it was simple.

I enjoyed exploring the woods around my home. Ours was the last house on the street before acres and acres of newly grown woods. Prior to woods there were planned streets for houses that never became, and an old dump a quarter mile away. The dump was long unused, abandoned for decades. We had an old baseball field to play in at the bottom of a steep hill leading down from Arnie’s house, and plenty of paths and trails to walk on. I LOVED exploring those trails and woods! There were so many things to find, from strange looking plants and huge trees, to leftover trash scattered by older kids or adults in days gone by. I remember finding metal salt and pepper shakers made in Occupied Japan, a stash of someone’s ‘girlie’ magazines – wrinkled up and torn, and many old tires that we would haul to the top of the hill just to watch them roll and bounce their way down the hill to the baseball diamond. And when I say baseball diamond, it was just a dirt field with baselines worn in, flat stones for the bases, and a tree line cut back for the fence. Scout troops sometimes played there, I know mine did. Many neighborhood games were also played there. I imagine it may have been one of those old-school neighborhood diamonds from the WWII era. Good, simple life all around.

In that world handheld video screens aren’t yet available to put an HD-quality fantasy world in front of our eyes. Instead, we learned a lot about using our imagination to play. I remember simple plastic toys, as well as wood or metal ones. I remember just playing in the dirt and building imaginary roads, rivers and lakes…even better if I had a bucket of water to add to my creation. It felt kind of good to just play with anything available and any friend who was nearby; no batteries required. I think flexing the muscle called ‘imagination’ had a lot to do with development of a different sense – a sixth sense if you will.

At some point in my young life I remember being out in the yard and watching an airplane or a cloud, I can’t remember which, and seeing dashed lines in my field of vision. The lines came from the outer edge of my visual field and moved inward, converging at the center. These lines were misty gray – see through yet well-defined. They traveled in an alternating fashion, more random than ordered. But they seemed to move and converge on whatever I was looking at. I also became aware of a ‘feeling’ that accompanied this unusual visual experience, and though it was out of the ordinary I just figured everyone must do it, they just didn’t talk about it. This was no imaginary thing, I’m sure I actually saw what I saw. I didn’t take it as anything special and could sort of switch it off or on again by relaxing and concentrating. I enjoyed ‘playing’ with this effect and imagined that I could move clouds around and even shoot at airplanes. Such it was until sometime later in life, maybe in my mid-twenties, when I described what I was seeing and found out that almost nobody else saw anything like this. Eventually that ‘gift’ faded away as I became embarrassed about being ‘unusual’. Also, I never saw any practical use for it. I don’t know if I’ll ever really know what that visual gift was about. But I miss it. I do remember one time when it came back for a visit. I was in my early 40’s and ski-instructing at our local ski resort. I was all alone one day weaving my way through some great fresh snow. I was ‘in the zone’ as they say. About midway down the slope I was doing the usual ‘choose a track’ and ski along it – meaning I was picking out little bumps and marks in the snow slightly ahead of me and practicing turns and glides. All of a sudden those smoky gray dashed lines were back! I was seeing my path traced out by the point they converged toward. It was so simple and felt so easy to just follow that inner visual cue and glide my way effortlessly along this path I was co-creating with some inner guide. I felt it and I SAW it! How fun!! Yet while there may have been a few hints of it since, I haven’t experienced the full-on effect again or maybe I should say I haven’t been able to hold it. I mention this visual anomaly because I know in my heart it’s either a paranormal gift unto itself, or it’s related to another psychic ability. I just haven’t been able to put my finger on it. It was to me something significant that I hope I’ll be able to re-discover.

Another unusual sense that came up in early childhood was an ability to ‘feel’ my surroundings and objects or people in them. I’m absolutely sure we all have abilities like this. We call it our sixth sense. For me it was something I paid attention to and in so doing learned to develop a bit further. I’ve always felt this sense to be a participatory communication, a gift that requires two-way interaction to function best. If I were to say that ‘I’ was gifted and could just pull feelings from the environment would to me be egotistical and unworkable. In my experience it’s the two-way nature of the communication that makes it work. I listen to the tree over there, and the tree speaks more. I interact with that rock I just picked up and it responds in the way a rock will. At this point in my life I’d say I’m fully aware that I am part of everything and everything is part of me. We’re all truly one. Jesus taught it. The Buddha taught it. Lao Tzu taught it. So did many other sages. I think they had it right. To develop a feel for the parts and the whole of our environment is to find our place within it. In my childhood I caught onto this practice early, and it’s served me well.

One pivotal memory that comes to mind around this happened in my late teens. I was working on changing the spark plugs in my first car- a ‘62 Chevy Nova. By this time I’m growing up and growing out of some of those childhood imaginary thoughts. I want to be like all my other grown-up friends. As I remove the spark plugs from my car I get ready to toss them over the embankment from where it’s parked at the edge of our yard. My dad has been filling in this area to make the yard wider, so I know the spark plugs will get buried by tons of dirt and stone. It’s no big deal. (I feel differently environmentally-speaking nowadays, but at that time it felt okay). As I’m about to toss the plugs one by one over the hill I ‘feel’ them speaking to me. They want to be close to one another when they land. They’ve been part of this car for a long time, they’re family now. They want to be together. A small part of me resists what I’m feeling. But the bigger part of me that ‘knows’ these feelings are real listens to the request and makes sure they land where they need to be. I even trudge down the hill to carefully move one that I mis-threw. Weird! Yet so much a part of who I already know I am at this age. In listening to that one request at a pivotal age where I could have deviated off my own life path, I kept a connection alive and I could FEEL it in the moment. Since that date I’ve listened to countless rocks, sticks, stones, and footfalls while making my way through life. Every step we take, every single interaction with every other part of this universe makes a difference! It might sound like the craziest thing, but I suggest that if you feel sensations like this and hear inner callings, to practice listening to them while feeling the results. Over time you’ll likely discover that you don’t have to search for the result, you’ll see it, you’ll sense it, you’ll “know” it. Sometimes it might even be huge! *wink* More on that in another post.

My point in writing this blog post is to encourage a few people to begin listening to the smallest of voices within, and if the request feels right and loving and positive- then do it! Pick up a stone, or don’t if it asks not to be. Walk to the left of a tree or to the right, turn down a side street if you’re driving, take a different route home if you feel it. Set down a stone or a twig or a leaf or flower in the position it asks to be left (if it asks). You’ll know when you’re interacting with the world in a two-way communication by the feelings you get inside. By learning the language of the earth and sky your spirit will reengage with this creation you were physically born into, and with whom you have always been connected. Time immemorial will be made plain to your heart and soul, and you’ll never again feel alone.

After Death Contact – In the Service of Love – The Outcome

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”

― Rumi

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Part 2: Powerful Outcome to Listening and Completing a Request

(if you haven’t yet, please read Part 1 first)

After a very profound lesson in who we are and what we’re doing here, my spirit is now rooted in who I really am. I am no-one. I am everyone. There is no I, and yet there is. We are all the same. And Only Love is Real. “Only Love Is Real” is a phrase that has come to me and has been given to me as a reminder since the day I had this experience in 1996. Again, it’s so hard to say “I” after recalling the feelings.

There is one more part to the conversation I had with Michelle while keeping a somehow knowing eye on the ‘hallway’ journey of a young stranger. After grasping where Michelle ‘was’ while watching the two spirits interact before and after a human lifetime was lived by one of them, another profound perception shift happened. The spirits glided away, and without a thought or a moment passing I became aware of a ‘blackness’ blacker than anything I can physically describe. I was suddenly ‘nowhere’ and ‘everywhere’ at the same time. There’s a void. A void where nothing exists ‘yet’ and everything exists all at once and across all time. For a moment? I was there and could feel that I was everywhere all at once, and to be anywhere at any time would only require a thought. That is, I could be anywhere at anytime – and I mean ANYWHERE – not just on this tiny planet, but ANYWHERE at ANYTIME just by thinking it. Physically speaking, this experience was brief. Eternally speaking, it was profound, real, and no matter what I say I can’t in words describe it. I’ve journaled about it extensively as I journaled about all the events of this time period.

So now, I’m back in my seat in the second row of a funeral home a few seats to the left of an aisle at the center of which rests a closed casket. The casket holds the remains of a physical body of a person with whom I have just spoken extensively and timelessly. The young man she asked me to go out and meet is just about to enter the room. I turn back and look. The line still moves slowly, and he’s about the third person to enter as I’m watching. He’s indeed medium height and lanky. He’s about twenty or twenty-one, and his hair is brown. His eyes and cheeks are red from crying. And the bridge of his nose even looks red. “Aha!” I think to myself (in my mind’s perception). This is the young man who was driving the car in which my niece died! “Here comes trouble” means that when he gets to the front of the line there will be a fight as my brother-in-law and Michelle’s boyfriend confront him. I glance over my shoulder occasionally and nervously, waiting for the line to move up and for hell to break loose. But of course my mind doesn’t ‘know’, it only ‘thinks’. My heart is still open.

When this young man is about third back from the front of the line I ‘see’ a blueish-gray mist come from out of nowhere and wrap itself completely around him in total, complete, unmistakable Love. I ‘hear’ my niece say to me, “Unca Dave. I love him!”, “I love him SO much!”, “He’s SO special”, “He’s VERY special”. The mist is Michelle and she’s wrapped SO tightly around him! He makes his way to the casket and my brother-in-law stands up and touches his shoulder. As the young man turns I see fresh tears. This is NOT what my mind worried about. It’s Love. Love like I personally have never felt at this point in my life in 1996. Love that I wish I could feel. And yet here I was ‘feeling’ it. I was with her, with him, completely enveloped in nothing but pure love. It was SO Beautiful !!!! As he finished his visit to the casket and walked toward the right and away from where I was sitting I heard her say, “I Love Him!”, “I’ll be with him forever”, “Tell him I’ll always be with him!”.

I didn’t even know this man, and it wasn’t her ‘boyfriend’, Bob. I didn’t really know much of Michelle’s life or friends outside of one or two, and even those I knew little except for brief conversations once or twice a year. Who is this person? And what now? Why has this all happened? My mind scrambled for answers that my heart already knew. I can say now that it didn’t matter what my mind was thinking or fearing, or who would think I was a weirdo, or nuts. I know now that this was a pivotal moment in my life. A defining moment of who “I’ am, and who “I” am meant to be in this world. I’m a bridge, a connector, a diplomat, and a voice for the voiceless. I’m a sentry and a sentinel. A Healer. But a Healer only by my ability to connect another body with its inner spirit so that healing may happen on its own. I’ve felt the Divine, and I’ve felt my place in it – albeit briefly – that day on Friday September 6, 1996. My life would never again truly be the same. ‘My’ life would become the larger ‘my’ (our) life, and through my contact with this generous soul I knew as Michelle, I was given a moment access to all that is. A reminder of the real Reality. And in that moment in a funeral home in Wilkes Barre PA, I still had one foot in each dimension. The physical one still had control. And it took some time to take action on her request.

I watched this young stranger walk around the far side of the room and get lost amongst the people there. At this time I have to say that I was completely in awe of what had just happened. And yet I struggled. My heart and soul were completely along for the journey. My mind still wrestled. My heart and soul were winning and would never again be silent. But my mind still questioned. I asked Michelle with a thought, “What is his name?” My mind wanted proof and this was my mind’s own sneaky way to attach reality to what had just happened. The total ‘me’ knew that wasn’t appropriate, and Michelle responded, “That wouldn’t be fair’, “You just have to trust”. And so it was. My inner being jumped back and forth between my heart and my brain, and everyone else in the room seemed to disappear. I don’t really remember how I appeared to my wife or to anyone else. I just kept ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’, and trying to keep an eye on this young man. I spent too much time wresting inside and I lost sight of him. At some point I chose to leave the room and look outside, fearful that he had already left and I’d miss a chance to follow through.

I went outside and there he was, about fifty feet away talking with some others. One of my brothers-in-law then pulled me aside and started chatting about nothing important. I was nervous I’d lose the young man, and sure enough I did. I kept glancing all around but couldn’t see him. After five or ten minutes I gave up and went back for the door. As fate would have it, on the banister next to the entry door is where he sat, like it was meant to be. I wanted to speak, and yet I didn’t know what to say. I had the thought, “We’ve never even met”. His head was in his hands and all I could muster up was, “Excuse me”. He looked up and I asked if he was close to Michelle. He said, “Very close’, followed by “I don’t think we’ve met”. (The same phrase I was thinking, as though our minds were linked!). I struggled with how to bring up what I’d seen in the funeral home, and stumbled with my words. Basically all I could do was to say that I felt he and she were ‘close’. All I got from him was that he and Michelle had gone to the shore together recently and that his name was John B. I did the best I could as my mind still wrestled with my heart. Then I went back in.

The rest of the afternoon and most of the evening were a blur. I spent most of my time thinking about what had happened, and what I should do about it. I wondered if I would see this person again and follow through on what she’d asked of me. I spent a lot of time awake that night. And a lot of time trying to tell my wife about the strange ‘conversations’ with my niece. I worried that she too would think I was nuts. We’d already had several years of marital problems over changes occurring in me as I began to follow a more spiritual path. The only saving grace here was that it was her niece I was talking about and not some random stranger. She seemed open, almost anxiously so. Hopeful. And so I slept on the task I felt compelled to do – to share something incredibly profound, a message of the deepest Love, with a complete stranger (who was NOT the boyfriend I’d been introduced to).

It wasn’t until a day later I had the courage to speak. Luckily, John showed up at the funeral service. I didn’t see him right away, but as everyone was leaving the church I saw him standing by the door. I was one of Michelle’s six pall bearers, and as I helped carry the casket I had the opportunity to look him in the eye and say, “I need to speak with you later”. And that was it. I’d at least broken the ice and committed myself to talking. How I’d find the words to say I didn’t know. This was a total stranger and out of the hundred or so people I saw at her viewing, why him? I worried he might think I was crazy.

There was a beautiful service at the cemetery’s chapel, and a nice gravesite service as well. So much love displayed for this young woman, my niece. And in the role of pall bearer I didn’t have a good opportunity to speak to John. I let it slip by again, and I wondered once more if I’d missed the opportunity for good.

Afterward, the family held a luncheon at a nearby restaurant and invited everyone to attend. My wife and I and family gathered in tears and hugs and smiles over happy memories and sadness over the loss. We ate of the food provided and bonded as a family and friends should. At least fifty people were here if not more, but John was not one of them. I again felt like the opportunity was gone. Part of me felt relieved. For as powerful were the conversations of the day(s) before, to act on such a thing actually scared me. Seems foolish now. But I’m being honest. This was no joke, no imaginary fantasy. I’d just felt part of something WAY larger than me, and having to confront that against my rational, science-oriented mind took something. So yes, I felt relieved.

Then sure enough, about half an hour later John B walks in the door. I see him, he’s talking with some friends his age. I can’t let THIS chance slip by. I walk over and make my way through the people to say “Hi”. Our eyes meet, and I decide that I have to just go for it. I ask him if we can talk. He says, “Sure”.

So we take a few steps away from the others and I do my best to encapsulate everything that happened at the funeral home. I tell him that Michelle spoke to me when he arrived, let me know I should go out to meet him, and that when he got to the front of the casket she just wrapped herself around him like a misty-blue blanket and told me how much she loved him – how special he was to her. I just let it all out. Whether he thought I was nuts or not didn’t matter to me at that point. I finally did what Michelle asked of me. His eyes didn’t change much, and I thought I’d just made a world-class ass of myself. I just spilled my thirty-nine-year-old guts to some twenty-one-year-old guy I’d never met. But it was okay. I did what was asked. He nodded as if to say it was ok, and I walked away.

I went back to the table where my wife Carol, and sister-in-law Diane were sitting and took up a seat. I was nervous inside but knew it was now over. I could shake it off and go on with my life. Imagination got the best of me, and it’s okay. My niece just died. I make my way into their conversation and we start chatting about whatever it is that takes the pain of Diane’s loss away.

Less than five minutes later, I catch movement to my right. John comes over and takes a seat directly across from me. His eyes are beaming and he stares into my face exclaiming, “You have no idea what this means to me!”, “Thank you so much!” This guy’s face is on fire with emotion, he’s just beaming with happiness. It looks like he’s just felt the hug from heaven that I saw him get the day before. He’s beyond happy. We talk a little, and I try to keep it discrete. We don’t talk about what I told him in private. I think he got that I felt like I was crazy. There was also another aspect: in our funeral home conversations and afterward, Michelle had asked me that I not share this with her mom or dad. I knew and sensed the tension that had been there for twenty years between them. I honored that request of hers as well, and in talking with John at the table I didn’t let out anything that Diane could pick up on. Carol knew, and now John knew. And that was all that needed to be. He was BEAMING!!! The love I felt from Michelle the day before was incredible, something I’d never experienced. John’s expression here at the table was as close as a human being could get to that feeling. I’m in tears again as I type because I remember this experience like it was yesterday.

After enough talking and time passed that he ‘knew’ I was serious, and that this was all real, he stood up and we shook hands, then hugged. I think he needed some time to process between when I had spoken to him at the door, and when he came to the table. He also needed assurance that this was for real, and he got that as we spoke. Now completed with a handshake and a hug, I watched him walk away like he was on air. He moved through the room with his head high and a smile on his face that hadn’t been there at all in the couple of days that I’d seen him. Other people were still who they were in that moment, but this man’s heart had taken a 180.

And I STILL didn’t know who he was, other than his name. I went back to talking with my sister-in-law and wife. My sister-in-law looked puzzled at what she’d just witnessed, but she didn’t know any of the details. All she saw was one of her daughter’s friends come over and we talked and he seemed happy. Diane also knew that I’d befriended Michelle and had met a couple of her friends. She probably thought he was one of them I knew. Wrong. But okay. Everything had worked out perfectly.

One question I still had was, “Who is this guy John B?”. Why was he so ‘special’ to Michelle? And why was he so special to the point that she’d make an effort to communicate from beyond death on his behalf? I didn’t really need to know. My heart felt what it felt, and I saw and experienced the love firsthand. My mind wanted to know, but my mind could wait. After this funeral luncheon conversation and passing on of a very special message, I could be at peace personally.

It would be a month later before I would find out who John B was to my niece Michelle. I might save the details of that discovery for another post, for it was profound and complex as well. A completely new level of after-death-contact. So we’ll wait on that story, and I’ll just share what the answer is:

John B was Michelle’s childhood sweetheart. They had been best friends since at least their early teens if not younger. When Michelle moved out of her house, John was her guardian and later boyfriend. I get the feeling their connection runs deeper than a simple romantic one, and yet before she died they had been in a full-fledged romantic relationship. Michelle and John went to the shore together on vacation just a month before her death. And for whatever reason they split just about that time, and Michelle took up with Bob – who Diane said was a jerk. Michelle didn’t really like Bob, she was probably just using him (in her mother’s words). Michelle also intended to break up with Bob before it got too serious so that she could go back to John B. She never got the chance. **tears for me again as I write**

Now I know this whole story, this whole blog might sound crazy. But I lived it. I was there. I heard her voice on the day she died, I took her nudge to play golf? on such a difficult day, I heard her voice as I played golf and as I drove to and from the course. I heard her voice loud and clear and I had experiences of the afterlife, and of “All That Is” while sitting in a seat at a funeral home. I’d say this could be imagination, and believe me my mind wanted to convince me it was.

But what I can’t explain and what guarantees me, as a person, that it’s real, is how I heard a voice telling me there was someone in a parking lot that I couldn’t physically see – and I saw him. I somehow knew his every step in a long line at a funeral service, and when he would physically appear in the room – the same man I “saw” in my mind’s eye. And even at that point I had no idea of his role in anything. Yet moments later I saw my niece’s spirit wrap around him and express love like I’d never felt, ever! And I have to talk with this guy on faith alone, when for all I know Michelle is connected with some tall, good-looking type named Bob. And I find out a month later that the guy I “saw” without seeing, and the guy I knew who would be entering the room just before he did, and the guy I had to share all this with was my niece’s childhood sweetheart who’d she’d just broken up with and was making her way to getting back together with – just before she died.

Anyone can tell me that this stuff is bogus, but I know otherwise. I guess that’s my own mind still questioning from afar. The gift my niece Michelle shared with me can never be taken away or replaced. I’ve seen and felt LOVE at its most real and basic core. Love is truly all there is. Everything else, time and space included, are illusions.

Thanks for sharing in this early part of my journey. I so needed to let you know this ‘jump start’ that got this Merlin to be who he is.

You can find and read a detailed log of this whole experience which I submitted years ago to the site: nderf.org (Near Death Experiences Research Foundation). The link is below:

http://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1david_g_adc.html

After Death Contact – In the Service of Love – The Call

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”

― Rumi

michellemarley2cbrighterwithcandles

Part 1: A Profound Communication Calls Me to Shift

On Thursday September 5, 1996 at 2:18 a.m. the world around me changed profoundly, yet at that moment I didn’t even know. What happened that day happens every day, somewhere. A young person – or two or three – have a little too much to drink, and drive to meet their untimely death. On this night it would be my niece, my wife’s godchild: a young woman who had just a month before turned twenty years old. As for us, we hadn’t seen her more than a time or two in years. Her birthday card still sat unsent in our kitchen. We didn’t know where to send it. Five years earlier she had estranged from her family by choice, a choice I completely understood and agreed with. Yet just five years after leaving her parental home this beautiful, strong, proud, powerful young woman would leave the planet. For whatever reason, her work here was done. I got the call at 7:10 a.m. from another niece, the deceased’s cousin, who at that time seemed largely unaffected. My heart sank.

My loving and now deceased Michelle had been so special to my wife and I when she was young. As we knew it, as it occurred for us, Michelle was not really welcome in her family. Her dad made it clear, and with his temper demanded the same from his wife and elder daughter, that this young child was not to be loved. It hurt to see one child so openly favored over another, and to watch affection being poured over one while the other received little else but playful name-calling and casual insults. Michelle wasn’t welcome in her own home, and It truly hurt to watch. We tried our best to give her extra love every chance we got. When we were there at bedtime I’d carry her upstairs, as her mom openly refused to do so and instead coddled the elder sister. I loved Michelle and she knew it. When she left her home at the age of fifteen to live with friends (and without a fight from her parents) I was relieved. Peace for Michelle at last! I spoke with her like a friend whenever I’d see her, and she shared of her life and of her favorite music including Grateful Dead and The Cranberries.

When I received the horrifying phone call and got through the shock, I rushed off to catch my wife Carol at a shared ride station. She had left for work fifteen minutes before. I caught her there just before the van left and I pulled her aside to share the devastating news. I’ll never forget those moments – they’re etched into my memory. I don’t remember all of what happened afterward, the shock took over again and all I can recall are two pieces. One was driving Carol over to her sister’s house – Michelle’s mom’s. The second is feeling like I could hear Michelle telling me to let the family be and go on with the reason I had taken the day off of work: to play in a golf tournament. What??? This made no sense. But for some stupid reason I did, and for some strange reason I could ‘hear’ Michelle speaking to me on the long car ride to the golf course. In one unforgettable moment she told me how to line up a very difficult chip shot that saved our team a stroke. It seemed so real and yet way too absurd. I brushed it all off as a combination of imagination and wishful thinking. Why did I come here? To even be here at this time was unsettling. All I could think of that morning and early afternoon was the family. Michelle assured me they were okay and that it was good we were talking. That it wasn’t all imagination. I actually asked her and we had conversations about it. She sounded so young! Like the four-year-old girl I carried up the stairs so many times. She said sometimes imaginary conversations with the dead are imaginary, and sometimes they’re completely real, and in both cases they’re helpful. After the tournament I drove back to the family home. She spoke, we talked, and I played The Cranberries on my car stereo. And when I got back I helped do the things a family does to prepare for a funeral. A Catholic wake was scheduled for the following day, Friday, and my wife and I accompanied her sister Diane to the funeral home.

Two ‘wakes’, or viewings, are scheduled – one from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, and another from 7:00 to 9:00. We arrive at around 1:30 and go through the agony of helping the family decide on open or closed casket. Closed is the final choice, though Carol and I get a chance to see Michelle’s body and face one more time before it’s closed for good. I miss her as I knew her, and I’m incredibly sad. Yet In every moment of my deepest sadness I hear that four-year-old voice telling me not to worry, that it’ll be okay, don’t cry. Such a beautiful person, now gone. No more heartfelt conversations with my beloved niece. No more carrying or comforting. She keeps telling me not to cry. The doors open at 2:00 for the public to enter and pay their final respects. The line of people seems unending.

The line indeed seems unending. After close family (my wife’s family is huge!) come more distant family members, and friends of all ages. Young people, old people, some I know, some I’ve never seen. Tons of young people! Michelle apparently had more friends than I could’ve guessed. Up in the seats closest to the casket, in the first two rows, are close family along with Michelle’s boyfriend, Bob. I don’t know Bob, I never met Bob before this whole thing happened. From what I knew Michelle didn’t really have a boyfriend that she spoke of. Maybe this was something new, maybe something old. I just didn’t know. All I knew is that this good-looking, tall, young, blond guy was Bob, Michelle’s boyfriend. A few other close friends I’d previously met are there, but I don’t know them well enough to remember their names except for Autumn. Autumn and Michelle were always close from what I remember.

About thirty to forty minutes into the service I hear Michelle call out to me very loudly and very distinctly, “Here comes trouble!”. It’s the same four-year-old voice, but this time it’s more real. I can’t make out if it’s fearful or playful. Seems more playful as she speaks again and says, “He’s in the parking lot. Go see him unca (uncle) Dave”. When I hear this I begin sobbing uncontrollably (even now as I write and recall the feeling from over twenty years ago I’m weeping). I’m hearing the voice of my baby niece speaking to me in a child-like way and it’s completely unsolicited! I didn’t think of her in any special way at that moment, nothing was out of the ordinary. It just came loudly and clearly, as though the previous forty-eight hours of ‘imaginary’ conversations were preparations for this moment. She says again that “(I) should go out to the parking lot NOW. He’s here!”. While my heart and soul FEEL the depth of this communication my mind resists acting on it. I’m wrestling so hard inside, between what my heart is telling me to do: go; and what my mind is telling me to do: stay put. I’ve already done stupid things like playing golf while the family mourned. I can’t leave my wife’s side now to go outside the building based on a voice I’m hearing. This can’t be real! But I feel it. I’m weeping so hard that my wife turns to me and asks what’s wrong. I just shake my head and wave my hand to let her know I’m okay… I’m just sad. But I’m lying. My deceased niece is without a doubt speaking to me VERY DIRECTLY! She’s asking me to leave the room, walk outside, and meet someone there. I can actually ‘see’ the person in my mind. He’s a young twentyish guy, very thin and not too tall, brown hair, and otherwise unremarkable except for her insistence that I go out to meet with him. I refuse to budge. She keeps on talking and I keep on ‘seeing’, though this room has no windows.

I watch this young man surrounded by other people his age, friends of both he and Michelle I’m sure. They’re consoling him and he’s crying. His eyes are so red. He begins walking toward the door. I can’t physically see this at all. There are no windows in this room and there’s at least a twenty-foot hallway separating this room from the entrance to the building. Yet in my mind it’s all so clear! I almost want to get up and go out, but at this point it’s too late. He’s making his way to the door. The line actually still extends outside the door – I can feel (‘see’?) that too. I wonder what’s going on? Who this is? Why the request? I start speaking to Michelle and she answers. I don’t ask about who this is, it’s already too late for that. I’ve blown the chance to act on her request. I only ask, “Why I am I hearing you?” “Where are you?” “Why do you sound like you’re four years old?”. She says I’m hearing her because I’m open to it. I’ve been treading that thin membrane between imagination and reality for days now. Years actually, if you count all the ‘imaginary’ conversations I’ve had with others over decades. She says that some of those older ones were real, some were imaginary, but they all helped keep me in touch with what is actually real – that we all exist outside of these physical bodies. That our bodies are truly shells, vehicles, for our spirit. That the energy form that is ‘us’ builds a physical body around itself.

Michelle tells me that I know these things inside, and that the mind will always wrestle with the real ‘reality’. That our conversations of the day before helped so much to get me used to it. In response to “Why am (I) hearing you?” she says she’s not speaking to me directly. She’s just speaking. I’m listening. And that’s what’s making the difference. She could be talking with anyone else in the room. They’re just not as open. We’ve made a connection and it’s working. “Why do you sound like you’re four years old?” She says it’s my mind putting a voice on the thoughts she’s transmitting. We’re actually communicating through thought alone. No voice is necessary. But my mind needs to ‘hear’ a voice, so my mind attaches the voice of the four-year-old child I knew and loved on the communications of another spirit. She immediately says (in the voice of a four-year-old, “I could sound like this”. Then in the voice of her twenty-year-old self, “Or I could sound like this”. And then in the voice of a sixty-four-year-old Michelle that could no longer be, “Or I could sound like this”. She lets me know clearly and directly that my mind will put the audio that suits my brain onto the thought patterns in which we’re communicating just so I can be comfortable (to at least some degree).

“Where are you?”. When I ask this question, Michelle takes me – or my soul just goes to – a place where there’s nothing to stand on. I’m just floating in blackness watching a rapidly spinning orb. The orb seems to be about eight feet tall – again, just something my mind can be comfortable with. I KNOW that the orb is Earth and that I’m watching time pass by at an incredibly fast rate. I watch two misty-looking forms walk up to the orb. I know they’re spirits, I know there’s nothing to stand on – they just sort of glide over. And I watch them speak with one another in thoughts alone as one prepares to leap. One spirit leaps as the other stays behind. The leaping spirit becomes a fine, twirling mist and gets sucked down onto the rapidly spinning planet only to emerge again a few ‘seconds’ later and reassemble into the misty-looking form I saw earlier. But now it’s wiser. It’s learned some lessons. It’s lived a lifetime on the planet. I’ve watched it transition from birth to earthly life to death, and transition again back to spirit form. A lifetime lived in what feels like seconds. And now it walks (glides) off with the other spirit to discuss what was learned on this single journey. One is like a coach or mentor to the other, and yet the roles may be switched in another lifetime’s journey. This was profound for me to see and experience, yet it completely resonated with the ‘reality’ she was relating. It was for me a literal re-membering. Somehow my physical life form – here known as Dave – needed to see and be reminded of what’s going on ALL THE TIME. Time is not as we physical humans see it, and spirit is more real than most of us will ever truly- and I mean TRULY- Know.

About twenty physical, human minutes have passed (or so it feels) since I first started speaking back to Michelle and having some of my questions answered. The young man I saw in the parking lot has now made his way into the building and through the long hallway with the very long line of people. He’s about to enter the room where I remained seated. I’ve been completely aware of his every step, though he was out of sight while I spoke with Michelle. He’s about to arrive. It’s now time to return to the most important part of why she began speaking, why we needed to communicate.

(this important part of my spiritual journey to be continued in part two…. Check back soon!)

The Journey Begins for this seeker, this wanderer, this adventuring Soul

“In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
― Kahlil Gibran

Thanks for joining me, and welcome!

I’m living a life that for years now I’ve known to be magical and blessed beyond any dreams or expectations. It’s time to share.

Writing is something I’ve always dreamed of and yet never really taken on in a serious way. I have written countless letters, documents (business and otherwise), thoughtful emails, handwritten letters and notes, dream journals, daily journals, etc, etc; but taking on a more serious writing project has been something I put off for “someday”. Today is “someday”. At the constant nudging from my girlfriend and professional editor, Carla, I’m now taking on a more professional outlet with this blog. My intention is to keep this blog going on a regular basis with the longer-term goal of writing my first book. A life well blessed is a life best shared.

About a year ago I had the honor of writing a chapter for a book published by Inner Traditions, at the request of my friend and author Glenn. But that book was his. It’s time to begin my own journey into writing my own works. Thank you for being here with me at the beginning. Hopefully we’ll both enjoy the process!

A little glimpse into the basics of the physical parts of my life. I’m a transformed human being: Twenty-some years ago a regular guy working a regular job, living in new home in a regular subdivision with a wife, two kids, two cars and a small dog. In that very normal setting I begin to feel the touch of something outside of myself, outside of this ordinary life… a knock on the door of my heart. And I listen. I BEGIN to listen. As I listen the nudges become stronger, more frequent. As I listen my life begins to change. Powerfully. Within five years I’m divorced, living alone, and financially broke as the process takes me away from everything I’ve known and held tightly. In having the courage to do so, I realize that I’m both free AND in uncharted territory. Something much larger than myself directs my course. A year or so later and everything starts to turn around as blessings begin pouring in from every direction. Now, twenty years later, as I write, I look back at an abundance of life transformations. My wealth has grown steadily and substantially, both materially and emotionally – beyond anything I could have imagined! I have more than everything I need personally: more than one home, multiple vehicles, a very successful business, multiple significant community roles, a romantic relationship to die for… and all these blessings are not just for my own pleasure; they are tools to be of further service. I have everything I need and more. Most people would die to have this life! You have no idea how much I have to be grateful for.

It’s my hope that I can inspire just one person to follow a similar path. To help that person find the guidance from within. To follow the magic inside, to discover their own inner Merlin (or Morgaine, or Jesus, or whatever path you choose). The trick is to see the golden thread that is already weaving its way through the tapestry of your life, and to follow where it leads you. It begs you to do so! Not just for yourself, but for the world we are all part of. It asks me to write and share with you now, and in the future…

I hope to share many posts about my journey. It’s been so long in process, and so much has happened. Yet the journey is well documented and journaled. I’m sure too that there’s much more to come! In these chronicles are tales of little nudges and huge thumps, as spirit guides me on my path. And the little things are as significant as the large, for each is a way of the universe interacting with this small part of itself that is ‘me’. By listening, hearing, and acting on the intuitions I’ve been led to a life that serves so many and rewards this small part of itself that is ‘me’ over and over and over again.

So much to say! I long to tell you about a history-shifting archaeology project spirit has led me to find; the way it happened and the major shifts in my own life that this discovery has brought about! I long to tell you about my friendship with one homeless man over two decades and the blessings that has brought to both of us. I also long to tell you about the faeries and the gnomes and the other elementals that make their home – well, everywhere! – including our yard (where the photo is from) and at the archaeology site. I long to tell you about theology studies, past life experiences, and well documented after-death contacts. So much to say, so much to share. Such are the wishes of this itinerant, numinous traveler.

Please check in now and then, and/or sign up to follow, or email me. I’ll do my best to keep writing. My lovely girlfriend insists that I do. It’s time to share.

David Gutkowski