Angels in My Tea

In my office, I have a wonderful cast miniature statue of a mourning angel with immense, powerful wings furled at her back, kneeling and draped over a gothic stone plinth, her head resting on her forearm as though she is in despair. I keep it to remind me of my journey. How, over the many years it took me to reach this point, they tried so hard to guide and direct me, warn me and protect me, and I just steamed on like an unmanned super tanker — unstoppable and out of control.

They weep for us, but they don't despair of us. They don't stand around the water cooler, saying, "What the hell, man? Is this woman ever gonna wake up?" They don't decide who is better or more worthy or most popular. Their task is to guide, and they love unconditionally.

* * *

I grew up on ancient Wiltshire farmland in a house surrounded by fields where the first crop circles were being discovered. Spirit tried to contact me as a child, but I shut it down. Its attempts at communication terrified me. My family was military and nonspiritual. Awareness of anything beyond what I could see simply meant crazy.

Until I was an adult and married with children, I lived a three-dimensional life, striving to be successful in the male-dominated world of journalism in the UK.

Like everyone else around me, I aspired to success and wealth. I was acquisitive and materialistic and competed with everyone to survive and feel valid. I continued on that path in spite of attempts by Spirit to move me off it.

When I was thirty-four, I was involved in an accident and became bedridden for a year and disabled for ten years. I saw the opportunity for change but not in a positive way. I pretty much gave up on life altogether.

After a bitter divorce, which included a battle over my children, my life seemed too much like hard work. It was easier to buy into the victim mentality that provided me with the excuse to not have to compete in a world where I felt I didn't belong. I was safely locked away behind closed doors.

I marked the relentless progression of my existence — which I planned would last until I reached about sixty, at which point I could finally let go and die —