Yes, angels

Some people treat the presence of angels in their lives as a given, while others do not experience such spirits being active in their lives. Many cultures do not have a distinct category of spirit beings akin to angels. And, of course, many people would dispute that any such beings even exist.

My hope is that all of us, at all ages, are free to explore, participate in, and share their experiences of spirit beings, and that each of us then remain free to listen, pick and choose what works for us individually, and to respect a wide variety of connection and awareness levels among people to the dimension of the action of spirit beings in our lives.

Angel statue in stairwell alcove, 

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception,

Washington, DC

Angels are not the sole province of religions, although the role of angels and other spiritual beings in our lives is often a topic of religious texts and teachings. It may be through religions that most people hear about angels, whether people are religious or not and whether they "believe in" angels.

However, religions come and go, but angels persist. They are not a poetic construction or an allegory for a type of experience.  They are part of our daily lives and participate with us through the entire arc of our earthly, human, corporeal existance, from being an idea in the universe, through conception and birth, and into all our stages of life. At death, they accompany us on our final human journey out of the body we have lived in.

One of the reasons I want to work at a place like Essex Center is to be able to talk about angels and any other kind of spirit being that may exist, whether they interact with us or not, and whether that interaction is mostly helpful or not: angels of many types, sprites, fairies, gnomes, so-called imaginary friends, animal spirits, human ancestors, and probably many, many more different spirit beings. Just as we need to cultivate and create positive relationships with people and nature, so, too, do we need to be open to experience as many aspects of the spirit world as we can: safely, lovingly, and helpfully. 

We do not need to be bound by the limits of a religion's scriptures or imagination as we acknowledge and explore this realm. However, neither should we ignore the insights, experiences, signs, and stories of the wonders of spirit influences in our life journey that come to us from so many religious sources.

At the Essex Center, we neither dwell on or avoid the topic of spirit beings partnering with us through life. If someone has great conviction that they are not alone and receive much guidance and support from such beings, I would love to hear about it. Alternatively, if someone has decided such thinking is not applicable to them, maybe their discernment is right for them. 

However, I do say: any port in the storm of life. If I have positive, effective spirit helpers — welcome!

Entry clarion angel statues, 

Historic Glenwood Cemetery, 

Washington, DC

I am blessed to have been able to design, build, and maintain a wonderful garden around the perimeter of the area of the apartment building in which I live. As I completed the another section of this garden this spring — the 11th summer working on it — an angel garden emerged in a corner overlooking the entire landscape. I realized that bit-by-bit over these years I have been working toward this understated yet wondrous crowning touch. I do not think this happened by my mind and creativity alone, however. 

In fact, this is an example of how I think I had long-term, systematic, subtle but powerful "behind the scenes" angel help (real angels, not just the spirit of a statue!), which I realized only after the fact. Angels think in an arc of action. Time is immaterial to them — what years and segmented thinking and rethinking, and doing and redoing, are to me experienced as multiple — even disconnected —  events is, to angels, one event, one flow, one creation. 

A few years back, I did have one instance of the sense of a hazy, translucent, large seated winged figure hovering over the middle section of the garden as I worked. I thought the visitor was approving of the work and part of the team protecting me from harm (turning a dump, with all the dangers that implies, into a garden, as one person expressed it to me). And little-by-little — a purchase here, a bit more design experience there, and even events outside the garden when the space adjoining the garden was cleaned up by the apartment complex behind us (which motivated me to revise a whole section of the garden to reflect its improved surroundings) — a new angel garden was the culmination.

Another angel experience, in my opinion, occurred a few years ago when my car engine, without any warning, suddenly simply stopped working — in high speed rush hour traffic on a four-lane highway in a section with no shoulders. Fortunately, I was in the right lane just before an exit near a school I had worked at. I steered the now-powerless, slowing car toward the exit ramp, which had just enough slight downhill design that I could coast to a stop and land out of the way at the bottom, safely. On the one hand, the bad news was bad: my car really had died for good. On the other hand, the very good news was that I did not roll to a stop in the middle of the highway, risking my life or that of other drivers, or causing a miles-long traffic back-up. 

This was an example of how angels cannot completely eliminate disaster, but can mitigate it in vital ways. The story of Sleeping Beauty illustrates this (ignoring the stereotyping artifacts for this moment!): the ninth arriving ("bad") witch was furious that she had not been invited to the royal family event, and cast a spell of death upon the human attendees. The invited tenth ("good") witch arrived late and could not undo that spell entirely, but was able to change it to a long and deep sleep (leading to the "happy" ending...).

Some people may not see the hand of angels in either of these experiences, but I — and many others — do, and at Essex Center we will be free to talk about and celebrate this dimension of life, not as a religion, but as learning for life on earth.

James

June 2020

Angel garden, private garden, Essex County, NJ