angels – Leslie Sheridan

John Lennon

In the early morning of Tuesday, December 9, 1980, I awoke at 6:00 a.m. when my clock radio alarm went off. I lay in my bed for a few minutes more listening to the music, not really in a hurry to get up and get ready for school that cold, dark morning. After the song finished playing, Pete Clark, the deejay of the local rock radio station said, “Good morning. I’m sorry you have to wake up this way this morning.” He paused and then continued saying that John Lennon was shot and killed the night before. After that I didn’t hear anything.

I was numb with shock and then disbelief. Either way I was jolted out of bed, cold notwithstanding, and got ready for school. Nearly everyone in my senior class was stunned. It was pretty hard to accept. For most of us it was our first experience losing someone we knew, whether it was a celebrity, friend or family member. Personally, I didn’t know how to process this. No one ever really explained death or dying to me.

The first few days after John Lennon was murdered, rock radio stations in the New York area (and I’m pretty certain everywhere) played Beatles and Lennon’s songs and interviews; newspapers ran special editions; Beatle and John Lennon memorabilia were being sold in stores. (The internet was about ten years away.) Meanwhile, he and his wife, Yoko had been working on their new album together, “Double Fantasy” at the time of his death – his first album in five years. Ironically, it’s first single was titled, “Starting Over”.

What I recalled about John Lennon at that time was his music, his social activism (the bed-in), and to some extent his religious or rather spiritual beliefs. I did not realize until many years after his death the depth of his spirituality. He believed in re-incarnation, that God is a source and his spiritual and social beliefs were reflected in his songs. I wonder what he would say about the state of the world today.

In the book, “The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon” by Gary Tillery (2009, Quest books), Tillery writes that soon after writing “Nowhere Man” in 1966, John “would be down on his knees in a locked bathroom begging God for a sign.” Elizabeth Gilbert also got down on her knees in her bathroom and begged for God’s help, as she wrote in “Eat, Pray, Love”. I can relate to this and I’ll bet a lot of us can. When I’ve desperately needed an answer from God or the angels, that’s where I go. Why is that? I believe it’s because it’s the most private and therefore safest room in the house to communicate with God.

John Lennon would have been 75 years old this year; incredibly 35 years since he passed, 2 months after his 40th birthday.

“We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.” ~ John Lennon

My Grandmother’s Eulogy

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Evangeline, my grandmother’s name, was born in 1922, to parents who were pastors. The English meaning of her name is “Good tidings the word”; the Greek meaning, ” Good news message”. The word Angel is also in her name. Angels are Gods messengers.

She was the visiting pastor at United Methodist church where my mom brought us nearly every Sunday. On that Sunday, the entire family was present and on time. She was present at the same church when my sisters and brother and I were baptized when I was about eleven or twelve. (During my dad’s and aunt’s upbringing she had travelled to different churches to preach. It was work in the early 1940’s for a single mom. But, her connection to the church and Jesus was also her lifeline.) Until then, I’d never seen my grandmother in that role. She was speaking passionately with a raised voice and raised arms. Soon enough I would learn just how passionate she was about her faith.

Over the years that I visited her house, I noticed books and papers piled up on her kitchen counter; bookshelves packed with books in various rooms of her house; music albums or cassettes neatly placed in their racks, the bead and and pictures of Jesus or Bible quotes written or painted on paper and framed or carved in wood over archways and rooms in her house. The common denominator: they were all about religion. Specifically, Christianity, Jesus and the Bible.

As a child and then adolescent, I dutifully went to the methodist church with my family on Sundays. I recall that we started going to another church, Wesleyan, that seemed, at first to work for me. It was around this time that I was ….. looking for something else. It’s not that I was rebelling against religion, rather I was looking for something that held meaning for me. I didn’t know what that something was, but somewhere I learned that most answers could be found in church or by talking to God. Maybe I learned it from my grandmother. I found a church to go to, but I did not find myself.

Throughout high school and into my early twenties, I was a devout follower of rock and roll. I accumulated rock paraphernalia: albums, ticket stubs, tee shirts and magazines. Unfortunately, what I learned from my grandmother was that you have to love God and church 100 percent. It’s all or nothing. If I wanted to find God and belong to church, I could not continue to worship my rock and roll idols. I could not give up my Ramones tee shirt, the ticket stub from a Mink DeVille concert that I saw with my friend Jody or my collection of Hit Parade and Rolling Stones magazines. Could I?

The yearning to find that….something else became stronger around 1991. What I found was a book that was not the answer for me, but it did lead me to my first teacher who handed me his copy of Shirley Maclaine’s “Out on a Limb”. Many years earlier I had seen a People magazine article of her promoting her new book and I found the concept of reincarnation scary. At the time, reincarnation was synonymous with Shirley Maclaine. I believe that, over time, her celebrity helped to bring new age practices into the mainstream.This book was the something else I was looking for. As soon as I started reading, I could not put it down. Most of what she wrote resonated with me. The part about re-incarnation would take a little more time for me to grasp. That would be the book after “Out on a Limb”, when my friend told me about Edgar Cayce. With both of these books read from cover to cover, I was off and running on my spiritual journey. And, I got so excited about what I was learning, that I could not wait to share it with everyone. This is where I begin to sound like my grandmother. This was my A-ha moment. This was our connection – although we both came at it from different sides.

At that time, I knew I had found exactly what I had been looking for. I started to share my new discovery, but I knew it would not make other people comfortable: family, friends and co-workers. I tried anyway…and well, the obvious responses happened. Use your imagination. I knew my grandmother would have thought it was the rock and roll or not going to church that got to me. I never did share this with my grandmother, although I did try to tell her once, but she did not understand what I was talking about. Out of fear or respect , or both, I changed the subject.

Anyway, after reading “Out On A Limb”, the Universe opened up for me. This is how I now know when I am on the right path. Some might call it synchronicity. Others may say it is fate or destiny. Well…it’s both. It is meant to be.

So, I started reading everything I could to learn more about everything esoteric and paranormal. I did my research. I wanted to know and understand what else was out there and I knew that there was more than just the Bible and the three core religions: Catholicism, Judaism and Protestant.

I would pick up any book by Shirley Maclaine, process it and decide where to go from there. Then, Sylvia Browne and Doreen Virtue. Then various books with a spiritual message. Collections of Angel figurines and ornaments, butterflies and dragonflies in any form came next – they’re in almost every room in my house. The new age music that calms me and brings me peace. Recently, I looked down on the floor next to my bed and over at the book shelf. Nearly every book on the shelves are spiritual in nature, except for a few biographies and my Ramones CD’s.

A thought came to me: I had become my grandmother.

When I talked with her last year, I began talking with her about the Bible and her favorite person in the Bible she told me was Jesus. His pictures adorned her home. She looked up at me as if she had just realized I was talking about something she knew. A certain look came over her as if I was speaking a foreign language that she had recognized. I showed her my gardens because I knew she loved flowers. When I saw her in the nursing home over the summer, I’d brought an oversized “Hello Kitty” coloring book with me because I knew she loved coloring. As she colored Hello Kitty with only a blue crayon, I just watched her and recalled it was just like I remembered her views on religion. Talking about Jesus, praying to him and reading or being read to about him. She loved Jesus.

I started this story a little over a year ago when I first learned that she had the signs of dementia. She passed away nearly a week after falling in the nursing home where she lived for the last seven months, eight years almost to the day that her husband passed. I believe she didn’t want to live anymore. She wanted to go “home” to see him. And to see Jesus.

The Art of Letting Go

My daughter, my first born, leaves for college this month, two states and three hours away from home. She’s ready. I’m ready, I think. I say “think” because I’ve had eighteen years to prepare for this milestone. But when I think about it, I get anxious.

I recall watching the school bus going by our house when she was two months old and thinking to myself, “She is not going a noisy, germ-infested school bus.” Five year later: new shoes on and a Veggie Tales back pack loaded with her lunch and school supplies, we headed for the bus stop. I had the video camera ready as the school bus drove up to record this milestone, as I had so many others since she was born. We barely said our goodbyes, when the school bus door opened and she eagerly bounded up the steps to take her place in the front seat. Her little brother and I watched as the school bus drove out of sight. I had prepared myself to go directly to the grocery store so that I would not have to go back inside the house, but alas, I forgot my pocketbook in the first- day- of –school excitement.

After I wiped away my tears, my son and I went to the grocery store… and then the mall. I celebrated my first born child’s first day of school by shopping. The second child was easier, not as emotional the second time around.
And so it would go…moving up from elementary school to middle school…moving up from middle school to high school…graduating high school …and all the many other achievements in-between.

I’ve been learning to let go for the last eighteen years: Watching her grow from an infant to a curious toddler to a free spirited girl and to the young woman she is now; when she learned to walk and no longer needed me to carry her, learning to ride a bike, and finally gaining her independence when she obtained her driver’s license and could drive herself to school, her friends’ houses and to the mall; the first sleepover with friends (and all the subsequent sleepovers) and when she traveled to France and Spain with her school mates.

It’s hard to let go – to let her be…herself. I want to hold on to her longer – to be the little girl who looked at me with a Cheshire cat smile when she was up to something (and she still does). Or in the morning when I’d wake up and find her sleeping on the floor next to me with her pillow and blanket – a safer place to sleep when a nightmare would wake her up. On the other hand, I know I have to let go and allow her to be the lovely young woman she is. It’s time for her next adventure.

This is her journey. She chose her path. She chose me as her mom for this life’s journey. She is mine to borrow. But her life is her own. It always has been. We were brought together to love and learn lessons. I feel that in this life, she is teaching me to let go.

But, I’ll be calling all archangels and angels to watch over her as I drive home the day I drop her off at college. Maybe I’ll drive to the mall first…then go home.

A PAGAN WOMAN

Last summer my past came back to haunt me. It may have been either a past life memory or it was a re-awakening. But from that moment on there was no going back. Back, that is, in terms of where I was before that moment at the Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Back in the early 1990’s, I had visited the Salem Witch Museum where they have stage sets – thirteen in all – depicting the events leading up to and including the nineteen innocent people who were hung because they were believed to be witches. So, last summer, my family and I were vacationing in the area and stopped in for a visit. My daughter had just studied Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”, in school that year and learned how the story was based partly on the Salem Witch Trials, and she wanted to find out more about this tragic event. There is also something newer at the museum since I was last there in the ‘90’s, and that is an exhibit called, “Witches: Evolving Perceptions”. It was here that I came face to face with my past. Literally.

The first scene of this exhibit shows a mannequin that is dressed up as a Pagan woman. The tour guide pressed the button for the audio and a disembodied voice told us how she was an ancient Celtic woman, that she and other Pagan women were actually midwives, they used herbs and were respected healers in their community. Then the tour guide moves on and everyone follows her except me. I cannot take my eyes off the the ancient Celtic woman mannequin’s face. It was as if I was staring into my past and my past self was looking at my future self. A real “Back to the Future” moment.

The transition from Pagan woman to Witch, was no doubt brought on by fear – and fear is at the root of everything. According to the Salem Witch Museum’s website, salemwitchmuseum.com on the “Witches: Evolving Perceptions” exhibit, “…the strong Celtic woman, diminished and demonized by the church fathers in the middle ages. She speaks of her role as the troublemaker in society on whom all evil things are blamed.” The remainder of the exhibit shows how Witches were Hollywood -ized; other witch hunts in history such as the McCarthy hearings on Communism and what became known as the Red Scare, and the persecution of the gay community at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. The museum uses this formula for a witch hunt: Fear + Trigger = Scapegoat. And finally, the exhibit ends with two more figures, a man and a woman, practitioners of Wicca, or witchcraft. “…descendants of the Celtic midwife, looking to the earth mother for healing and spirituality.”

Back in my hotel room, I thought over the exhibit and could not shake off the hold this Pagan midwife had over me. The transition to evil wrongdoer, to Hollywood’s Wicked Witch of the West was unfair. I felt the Pagan woman or Celtic midwife was seriously maligned. As always, when I feel this strongly about something, I become passionate to the point of obsession and wanted to educate myself and understand not what was done to the Pagan woman, but rather who she really was and my connection to her.

At the outset, I explored what Paganism is. Before modern Europe, before Judaism and Christianity, there was Paganism, a religion that worshipped nature. Now, I want to say that I do not now believe in organized religion. However, I was brought up Christian. I learned from that period in my life that Pagans were heathens, ungodly, basically Satan worshippers. Naturally, as a young child I was taught to fear them. There’s that word “fear” again. Hmmm.

I took out books from the library, read articles on the Internet, and educated myself. According to the website paganfederation.org, the definition of a Pagan is : “… a follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.” Pagans respect nature; a religion that “pervades the whole of everyday life…Pagans usually believe that the divine world will answer a genuine request for information….healers are common throughout Pagan societies…Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct and personal experience.” Paganism, they say, “is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity.”

All religions descended from Paganism, so why do Pagans and Paganism get such a bad rap? As I read this, I thought to myself I love nature, I believe that the universe, God force, or divine helps me when I put the intention out into the universe. I’m a Pagan. Maybe we are all pagans – we just don’t remember our divinity.

Statues that we see or use in gardens and in our homes originated with Pagans. Wedding rings and the wedding service, funeral services, and the holidays that come at the winter solstice and vernal equinox – Yule ( pronounced U-elle) which is commonly known as Christmas (Remember the Yule log burning on a TV channel at Christmas? That’s a pagan ritual.) and Ostara (or Easter) are all traditions that come from the Pagans. All of these traditions originated with the Celtic Pagans and have been passed down through the centuries.

In October, Samhain (pronounced Sow-inn) is the Pagan New Year. It is at this time that the veil between the physical world and the spiritual world is the thinnest . While the veil is thin, we will be able to connect to our loved ones who have crossed over. We can, of course, hear our loved ones and angels anytime, but the frequencies may make it easier to hear them at this time. Listen and watch for their messages.

A GHOST STORY

One rainy spring day a couple of years ago, I took my Nikon camera and went for a walk in a local park. Being in nature is very restorative for me and I love photographing nature. I had taken about two dozen photos already that afternoon when I came upon a road where no one was walking. The road was on a slight incline, with a gentle curve, and a canopy of green leaves overhead, protecting me from the light rain. It was there that I took my one of my last photographs.

I looked at that scene before I raised my camera and then looked at the scene again on the camera’s screen. Click. I looked at the camera’s screen to see what my photo would actually look like. It looked good…except for the white ball at the bottom right. I didn’t recall a child’s ball there before and during the time I took the photograph. Suddenly, I got chills and not the good kind. I felt scared and started walking toward the exit from the park. I knew it was an orb. But, was it a ghost? If not, who or what was it?

I walked over a small stone walled bridge near the exit of the park. I looked at the stone wall with a tree towering above it. I didn’t think it would make a good picture, but I felt compelled to take one last photo. Click. Once again, I look in my camera’s screen and I see the same bright orb near the top of the stone wall, as if whoever it was, was sitting on the stone wall, posing for me. I wasn’t scared, but rather I thought whoever or whatever it was had a sense of humor.

Somewhere, I had read that nature angels or fairies’ orbs are bright. Maybe it was an angel or a very large fairy. I had taken photographs before that showed orbs: in a church, in a school, and outdoors. I have taken photographs that have shown several orbs in different sizes, but not as bright as the orb I saw in the park that day.

To my recollection I have never seen a ghost, apparition, spirit or whatever you want to call it. Well, I have seen an orb that glided along the floor of a house I lived in… temporarily. After my logical side proved that it couldn’t be a passing car’s lights reflecting in the house, I jumped up and turned on every light in the small house. ( I had been watching a movie with the lights off – serves me right.) Several years ago, an intuit told me that I was able to see spirits when I was a child, but that I had been taught to be afraid of them. To this day, I am petrified of seeing a ghost. In my bathroom, on some occasions, I just know a spirit is there, although this entity travels to different areas of my house. But the paranormal activity doesn’t stop there. On one very frigid winter day, I picked up my cell phone to call someone and while I was waiting to hear the connection go through, I began to hear something like a radio frequency instead. An awareness that something odd was happening struck me. And then I heard a female voice saying clearly but eerily, “Leave the ranch.” I tried to get this persons attention by saying, “Hello, who is this?” And, I wanted to know what “leave the ranch” meant? Get out of the house or leave them some salad dressing? But then it was over. It didn’t really scare me then, oddly enough and it was the only occurrence. If I am right and there is a spirit in my house, I haven’t yet mustered the courage to ask who it is. On second thought, I don’t want to know.

There are ghosts or spirits that are called ‘earth-bounds’ – souls who have left their human bodies but have not crossed over into the light. And believe me, when I hear that a friend, family member or someone I know has passed away, I cross them over. It’s not because I don’t want my house to be paranormally active – I don’t. It’s for the sake of the departed soul. They belong on the other side, except when they come back for a visit. There are spirits and angels all around us. I have felt friends, family members, my spirit guides, and angels. They’re not around to scare us – they’re checking in to say, “Hello.” I can’t see them, but I have seen something out of the corner of my eye on more than one occasion and they usually give you a good feeling, a feeling of warmth, sometimes physically. I have felt this way when my cat, Zippy, visits me. He sits right next to my leg when I’m laying in bed watching a movie. With the lights on.

ANGEL TO THE RESCUE

( picture of the Bunker Hill bridge, Boston)

I remember the days when you went on a vacation road trip and you would need a map. A Rand McNally paper map that was folded accordion style and then folded over, like a small memo note book. Growing up, my family had one for New York State that my dad bought at the gas station. Later on whenever I went anywhere, I bought a map before I went on vacation. I had maps for New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Some trips only required that I stay on the interstate and use the green directional signs and I had no problem getting to my destination. Times changed and we started relying on technology to help us find our way. Paper road maps, for the most part, although they do have a few in some gas station food marts and convenience stores, have ceased to exist and have been replaced with MapQuest, Google maps, etc.

And so, on vacation in the Boston area last month, we got lost. To be specific we were driving back from Boston. My daughter and I had had a wonderful day shopping in Quincy Market Place at Fanueil Hall. We had been in the area a few times before, and we’ve had several trips to the north of Boston in Glouchester and Rockport. But, I wasn’t as experienced driving in the Boston area. My daughter had put our destination into her Galaxy S4, giving the computer the directions we needed to get from Boston to our hotel a half hour outside of Boston, in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Option one: Get on I-90 to I-95 North until our exit. Cut and dry. Option two: Take Route 1 and shave off eleven minutes, saving us time and gas. Too good to be true? Yes.

We took Option two. The robot lady in my daughter’s Galaxy S4 mobile device, sent us on the scenic route of eastern Middlesex county. We must have driven up and down Walnut Street a dozen times. The robot lady re-directed and re-directed us. We did see the small road sign for I-95, but where was I-95? Where was the road that led to the ramp? Ninety minutes before we had begun a thirty minute ride back to our hotel! My head was aching and we were exhausted. Then the inevitable happened. Her phone died. My cell phone, an older Samsung model, not set up for internet, was still very much alive. And this may have been what saved us. I need to say that the few people who helped us with directions were very polite and understanding, even in the age of the internet. One person stands out. Was it fate? And if so, why?

After what seemed like our fiftieth time cruising up and down Walnut Street, we gave up and drove until we found a gas station. I got out of the car and walked into the gas station to ask for directions. The old fashioned way – you know – what people did before technology changed our way of life. There were two people in line at the gas mart counter.

“Excuse me”, I asked the tall man next in line. “Can you tell me how to get to I-95?”

He hesitated a little and started to speak up when the woman in front of him who was at the counter said, “I know. You have to… Hold on, let me finish here.” The man behind the counter gave her the receipt and change for her purchases which she put into her tiger print clutch wallet. She closed her wallet and we walked outside the store while she gave me directions. She spoke well and had a great sense of direction. She lived in the area and knew it well, I could tell. She told me to go out here, turn there, go two lights, turn right, go around the lake, then come to a stop, go onto Walnut Street (where we saw the sign for I-95!) and then turn somewhere and you see this store and the ramp for I-95. Okay, she didn’t say it exactly this way, but her directions were clear. Except that at this point my head wasn’t absorbing any more information. I nodded okay, thanked her and jumped back into the car where my daughter was waiting.

I went to start the car and realized I didn’t recall anything this young woman told me. I was mentally exhausted. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door window. It was her. I rolled down my window.

“Would you like me to text you the directions?” she asked.

“That would be great! Thank you!” I replied, relieved.

Did the universe communicate to her that I needed written directions to get me to my destination? I believe that. I don’t believe in coincidence. She was meant to give me written directions by text.

What followed was better than the on-line directions. She sent me a long text of perfect directions. I looked them over and handed my phone over to my daughter. Every single direction was spot on. Can a human being communicate directions that perfectly? Was it divine intervention? We were back at our hotel in less than twenty minutes. I sent her a text to let her know that we arrived and to thank her. I was grateful.

I believe in signs. I believe that our angels and spirit guides are around us, helping us throughout our day and our lives. In little ways and not so little ways they rescue us from whatever trouble we’re in. We can recognize that if we are aware. There are people who come in to our lives for long and short periods of time to assist us during this journey. Some for just an interlude – like the woman who rescued me that warm July day. I don’t believe she was an angel, but I believe she sent by an angel. We were both in the right place at the right time. It was fate.

After we rested for a bit in the hotel, we went out to find something to eat, trying not to get lost again. We pulled up to a fast food restaurant, not my first choice, but it was late and not much was open except fast food. Before I got out of the car, I asked the universe for a sign or something to let me know what was going on. Why did this happen today? What was the purpose of getting lost today? Then, I thought… “aaaaah. Getting lost.” Was I getting lost spiritually? Was my soul veering off the road and did I need to be re-directed?

I have learned over the course of my spiritual journey to pay attention to signs. Our angels, loved ones on the other side and spirit guides communicate to us in various ways: butterflies, birds, dragonflies, coins and sequential number patterns, to name a few. So, as I got out of the car and walked toward the restaurant, my eyes caught a sign at the gas station next door to the parking lot. The sign I’d been looking for came in the form of the price of a gallon of regular gas: $3.33.