Our time has come again

Transition-Our time has come again

She had been told what it would be like, peaceful, she would fall asleep.

ALS is awful, the anticipation, the hopelessness, the relentless progression. And yet, the inevitability removed the desperation, there was only to make the best of the time and quality remaining. Far too precious to waste on anger, sadness or despair. Comforting, the thought of being with him again, her love.

“Will tonight be the night?” She wondered, whispering to herself.

“Yes,” came a calm assurance. Its source obvious only by its clarity.

A knowing without knowing. A tear, of sadness, of joy, of saying good-by, of saying hello, “I’ve missed you so.” She whispered. Aware now of his presence.

"Our time has come again my love," a whisper came like a vapor drifting lightly through her mind, a voice oh so dear.

“What will it be like my love?”

“I guess I could say that it is something like being in crystal clear sea,” his soft silent assuring voice continued, “it’s heavy, holding you to the bottom now. Soon you will rise, like a bubble toward the surface, towards a light that isn’t from a source but simply is, complete, a thinner, lighter atmosphere that becomes you and you become it. You break the surface, like a bubble, you have no shell, no outer limits, and you have been contained only by the water. You are suddenly one with that atmosphere, one with me, one with all the love that has ever and still exists. You will be free of the water that was so heavy that it contained you, you will feel the lightness of your heart beyond anything you can imagine, you will be both individual and a part of the atmosphere that has absorbed you, embraces you, both you and I. You will look back and you will be able to see the bottom from which you rose, the water being between you and it you will see it clearly. Going back to it is like trying to sink a bubble, like trying to hold a beachball beneath the surface, only a ball with only the essence of an indescribable love without limits.”

“Yet I sense you here beside me. Are you here?” She whispered, still in a dream state as she spoke softly in the twilight of her slumber. “I feel your warmth.”

“Yes, I am, yet I am not.” He whispered. “I can send my love, my thoughts, and my warmth to you, like sound waves beneath the surface, you can feel them, you can feel me, being open to it as you are, and you can hear me and feel my love.

You know that toy with a number of balls suspended and touching each other. When you raise one and allow it to hit the next one the energy is transferred to the next ball and then the next. It’s kind of like that, my energy is passed through the water you are living under and is transferred to you. I have heard every word you have said to me since I left you. As if they were addressed to me in a special delivery, you had merely to say my name and it was like opening a line directly to me. It is the same with your feelings directed toward me. It made no difference where you were, I was there. Can you feel my love for you?”

“I do, so warm, so gentle, though I don’t understand it completely, it has sustained me. Do you stay yourself, how do you become one yet individual, I don’t understand?” No longer making a sound, not even a whisper, communicating with thoughts from a state of slumber she has slipped more deeply into. Her breath becoming softer, fading as if no longer needed.

He smiled as he looked at her, he wished that he could touch her beautiful face. “I guess it is something like an aroma, you can’t see it but it’s there. Like the smell of Shalimar perfume or vanilla cookies freshly baked. Remember how I used to say your perfume smelled like vanilla cookies? You can smell them in the kitchen, but you can smell them upstairs in the bedroom as well, it’s everywhere at once but nowhere in particular. It’s not as if when you breathed in the aroma you are breathing in just the air from the kitchen, the aroma has filled every space. It’s a little like you have become an aroma only much more than that, you are unique, like the difference between vanilla cookies and popcorn. Do you remember how much we loved to listen to music? The music came from a single speaker, a single sound, and yet we could identify each instrument, each voice.

I loved to set with you by the stream on a summer’s day. We would watch as the stream flowed passed. We could see the swirl of gentle eddies hugging the rocks and linger there. In some ways we are like those eddies as we become one with the one great love, the energy that causes the swirl.

It’s like a television signal in the air; it’s everywhere but nowhere that you can see. It can be in Boston and Raleigh at the same time only it’s not linear it has both the beginning and the present in its entirety combined.”

“I have prayed for forgiveness that I have not done as much good in the world as I could have. I am disappointed in myself. I hope that I have done enough.”

“You are not the product of your past but the entirety of who you were and are at any given moment. What we have done in the past isn’t important, there are no debts or credits, no forgiveness necessary, nor credits gained or earned. What is important is what our life has made us at any given moment, how our love has grown is the only measure of any importance.”

“What about the future, you can’t see the future?”

“The future hasn’t happened; the cookies haven’t been baked or the broadcast been made. For short periods it is possible to interpolate, get a sense of a direction if there aren’t too many variables, you can see what is likely to happen, you can give a warning of what might happen if something stays its course.”

“Is there a plan? Do you know why you had to leave us? I’m angry sometimes that you had to leave us. I have had to fight that anger.”

“It’s like a flavor, you taste a savory stew, you can taste the Rosemary and thyme, but it is all one flavor. There are things, souls, that make things bitter but they contribute to the stew other vital things as well, everyone has something to contribute. Love is sweet, hate is bitter, love is warm, hate cold, love is light, hate is dark, love is light, and hate is heavy. It’s easier for a heavy, dark and bitter soul to sink or stay at the bottom just as it is easier for a light soul to rise and make its way to the surface. Sometimes a soul becomes so light so early in life that it breaks free and rises surprisingly early. Someone once called them life and love over achievers. Despite the hate in the world, the stew is becoming sweeter which is the plan. Sometimes, he said softly, sadly, sometimes something happens that makes a life impossible to fulfill its purpose or mission. Like an innocent child born with an illness or into a circumstance that we can’t see or understand, and that tender soul will be given another life. A soul is never lost. If there is something a soul needs to complete itself it will always be given another opportunity, there are no last chances regarding the growth of a soul.”

“Is there a plan for each of us?”

“We are each unique, delicate, essential and complex to the flavor of the stew. Sometimes our life, our flavor doesn’t develop as it should; sometimes it takes longer to mature. Sometimes we have to stay longer, sometimes we are needed to stay longer, sometimes we have to try again. Sometimes we are needed for someone else to fulfill their purpose.”

“Like a ripe grape, we are plucked when we are sweet enough?”

“Something like that.” She could hear the smile in his answer.

“And if we’re sour grapes, we have to come back.” She asked with concern.

“Something like that as well. Only you aren’t and never could be sour. A little tart a couple of times, as I remember, but never sour,” he joked, showing her that there is still humor in his soul.

“I would like to punch you in the shoulder right now, or hug you, the way we used to. I love you so much.”

“I love you and always will, that never changes, whether you’re under water or floating free with me.”

“What is your heaven like, what is it like floating in that atmosphere, in a stew. Will it be the same for me?”

“One misconception most people come from the lack of understanding that the Oneness is everything. They think of “heaven” as being somewhere beyond earth, beyond the universe. They are in awe of the pictures from the new telescopes hinting at the vastness of the universe and can’t understand its expansion into nothingness creating space. The reality is that the universe is contained within the Oneness and the Oneness is within everything. We feel the slightest touch on our bodies, a tiny fly landing on our arm. It is much like that with the Oneness only so much greater. Everything is felt, joy, sorrow, love and hate. When we pray the prayers are heard and while the answer may not be direct, the prayer is felt everywhere, and it changes everything. The change might be slight, but it can also be profound. Especially when many souls pray at the same time.

You are not so much in the atmosphere as you are the atmosphere. It’s wonderful beyond description. It’s a state of being, of bliss, of peace, of love, of fulfillment. You can feel the sensations of the physical without being physical. It’s a sense that you have worth and are valued, that you are loved, cherished, that you are warmly held, and you are in a presence of love and the object of that love so great that it is indescribable, and that love knows you completely, accepts you unconditionally. There is no guilt, no regrets. It is the sense that you are a part of that love. You are a part of my love, a huge part. I would not be the same without it, without you. Our love exists for eternity, whether we are separated by “life” or we are together here. Everyone that we have loved and do love is a part of our soul in an inextricable way. We never start from nothing; we build, like the layers of an onion. To take something away would leave us hollow, like having a memory fabricated out of nothing without a history or context.

The purpose of life is to grow our soul and to help grow the soul of others toward the loving likeness of our creator, all that we are a part of.” He whispered. “We do that by the way we think and act, by what we say and do. The only sin is anything that we do that diminishes that effort. To say someone is not beautiful is a sin.”

“We are taught that the kingdom of God is within us. What then separates us?’

“It is our ego. It is the ego that allows the illusion that we are separate. We need our ego to separate us in order for us to grow our soul individually. You will remember when you were taught to meditate, it was to empty our thoughts, in reality we were attempting to isolate and ignore our ego that we allow to define us. “To become one.” Our ego is a necessary part of free will. We have to be free to love. Love that is not free to choose isn’t love. That is the importance of life, why life is so precious and necessary, why we struggle so hard to preserve it and why we sometimes chose life over heaven. But life is an illusion. Mankind’s collective consciousness is evolving. The veil that lies between us when we are alive is beginning to thin as we are better able to be one.

I am growing here, just as I did in life, only in ways that are impossible, given the restrains on our soul in life, for you to understand now, but you will. I am moving forward, continuing to grow while at the same time being with you, just as you will be.”

“Sometimes I worry that by calling you I am holding you back, keeping you here, keeping you from all of the wonders of heaven that you deserve. I have needed you and missed you so much, but I never wanted to be an anchor.”

“Our love grows, not just from the good and happy times we share; often our love grows even stronger from the adversity we share. My love, my soul grows still, even though I am not alive as you think of it, I exist. Because of you, in no small part and in a very real sense, I am what you helped make me, and it continues. You are not holding me back; my being with you now is a part of that growth, an extension of that growth. You know the song, “I love you more today than yesterday?” The universe expands into a void as the energy of love expands. That is the purpose of life, to grow our love, our souls, Sometimes I feel that my love for you is so big that I am expanding it all by myself. A little thing like death has no chance of stopping it. That has never been the reality of why and how we exist.”

“I love you so very much.” A soft whisper aloud with a final breath no longer need that released her. She looked up with closed eyes and saw his smile, his extended hand reaching from a bright but harsh less light and she felt herself rise.