Angel Wings: Dreams & Grief

In the early 90s, I met a very dear friend of mine, the artist who taught me how to make jewelry.  We found, from the beginning, we had a lot in common; we could talk for hours.  I would often go to her house because she was a mother of three young children when I met her.  Her oldest child, a beautiful girl, was in a wheel chair and dependent on someone to do everything for her; she couldn’t communicate with words.  When she was born, the doctors said she wouldn’t survive.  Her mother felt very differently. 

When I met my friend, her daughter was seven.  The first time I met her, I took in the wheelchair to which she was confined and realized, my friend needs to be on 24 hour call, every day to care for her child.  Then I saw the way my friend related to her daughter; the love emanating between them was palpable. The patience and consideration and unquestioning love my friend showed her daughter left no doubt that this was not a burden, or a misfortune to be borne sadly.  ‘This is my daughter; this is what she’s like as a person, I love her completely,’ is what I read immediately in my friend’s words and actions.

I learned so much from the two of them.  It amazed me how much my friend was always herself, as well as a full-time mother.  She laughs and makes me laugh all the time; she’s a talented and tremendously motivated artist.  She loves everyone and treats everyone with kindness.  Her daughter was always her angel, her old soul; as she is now that she’s crossed over.

My friend’s beloved daughter died last week, peacefully in her sleep, at the age of 25, just before Mother's Day and her 26th birthday.  Although I hadn’t spoken to my friend for a few months, I called her immediately when I heard; my heart could imagine how torn hers must be at this moment.  I know she is happy for her daughter’s freedom, because she wrote the following poem, but I also know her mother’s heart is aching.  Here's her poem:

Angel Wings

I know it now that you are free.

For 25 years you were my 'little Lauren Lee"

So go...soar high and spread your angel wings.

Go now to do those thousand things.

For you are free now

To walk, dance, talk and sing.

It is beyond any words how much peace that brings.

My friend is a strong dreamer with a deeply felt spirituality; she already knows what solace listening to dreams can bring.  I’m so glad that dreaming is an open channel to her because communicating with our beloved departed in dreams is common place; dreaming bridges the divide between life in the body and life beyond it.

I write this as a tribute to my friend’s beautiful daughter who can at last use her voice to talk and laugh and sing and her legs to walk, run and dance.  I write it to vision her in her new freedom and to wish her well.  I write this to let her know that she is remembered, loved and respected.  I look forward to hearing all the wonderful stories my friend will tell me of her dreams, visions and communication with her daughter.  It’s how she says: “beyond any words how much peace that brings.”

It’s one thing to say "I believe in an afterlife”; it’s another to visit and explore that reality personally.  It’s easily done, but rarely sought.  Dreaming is, to say the least, undervalued, if not feared, in much of our Western culture, though, that’s changing.  Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to their dreams and who is willing to learn something about the worlds of dreaming from other dream explorers, can experience the certainty of soul survival after physical death for themselves.  Dreams of the departed are a pretty universal human experiences; why anyone would ignore this treasure is beyond me

We live in a time of countless reported Near Death Experiences (NDEs)  and spontaneous or intentional Out of Body journeys (OBEs); we’re familiar with shamanic journeying and meditation. Modern theoretical physicists suggest we inhabit a multi-dimensional universe of many parallel realities. Dream explorers will tell you that we have access to this multi-dimensional existence through our dreaming.  It’s organic; we were born with this access.  All we have to do is pay attention.

We come with a built in spiritual portal that enables us to look within.  For many though, their cultural norms and myths steer them away from direct spiritual experience towards religions that dictate what to believe and don't teach what can be experienced.

Once you experience the organic spirituality of your dreams, you don’t need anyone to tell you what you have to believe.  As Carl Jung himself put it at the end of his years when asked if he still believed in God; “Believe?  I don’t believe; I Know.”  The look on the great doctor’s face said it all; he beamed from within, his soul shining through his eyes, part wise man, part trickster. (bit I'm referring to starts at about 4:57)

Wouldn’t it be nice to know, once and for all, that there is Divine Love available to anyone who listens within?  Isn’t that just what Jesus said; the Kingdom of God is within?  I think he meant that literally.  If that’s the case; isn’t it just possible that although our conscious, ego driven minds rule when we wake, our unconscious connection to All That Is expands, and if we seek, we shall find when we sleep?

It will take time for my beloved friend to grieve her physical loss and all of us who love her deeply will be by her side to make sure she has whatever support she wants.  I know I’ll be privileged to hear many of her wonderful dreams, too.

And, in a beautiful synchronicity; here’s a message written to my friend’s daughter by a cousin when she signed the on-line guest book:


Dear sweet Lauren, 
Memories of your beautiful, smiling face and peaceful vibes will forever be in my heart. I dreamt of you last night. I played my violin for you while you were smiling and clapping. Thank you for visiting me in my dreams. You are and forever will be a pure, peaceful soul. We will all miss you dearly, but can be at peace knowing you are in a blissful world now. 
With all my love, 
-----

This beautiful spirit portrait of Lauren is by artist Lorette Gaboury-Massa, Lauren's mother and my dear friend.