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Earth Angel 1
I guess my siblings and I were raised as somewhat unusal Protestants, in that we were raised with a belief in Guardian Angels.
To ward off the “boogie man” - and assorted other beasties that stalk children at night - our mother used to draw a picture of our “Guardian Angel” and tape it to the wall beside our bed at night. “See? there’s a picture of your guardian angel. Nothing is going to happen to you while she’s looking over you.” Many, many nights I’d fall asleep looking at that picture. When I became a mother, I used to do the same with my daughter.
When mom got lung cancer, and all her electrolytes went out of balance, she’d be talking out of her head, and she used to be afraid to fall asleep. So to help her, I drew a picture of her guardian angel too, and posted it by her bed at the hospital. It helped her, too.
In her last year she used to talk about her Guardian Angel, a lot. She said his name was “Sing” - well, it wasn’t really his name, that was just the name he gave her because humans couldn’t pronounce his name. She used to tell us all about the conversations she had with Sing, all the while, dad shaking his head behind his paper. We all just humored her, our mom had always been “weird” - this was just yet another way for our mother to express her weirdness. If it brought her peace - why not?
Recently I had an opportunity to go over her medical records. Our brother decided to file suit with the State of Florida with the Engle Trust Fund, against the tobacco companies, and I had to search through them to find references to her smoking before 1996. I found something very interesting in those records.
I found a doctor’s note where he relayed something mom had told him. She said, she couldn’t quit smoking because when she did, her psychic ability was too great and she was able to read people’s thoughts too clearly. She also said she would hear voices.
The doctor of course, assumed she was just expressing some psychotic behavior, and made note to talk her into “Seeing someone” about this.
But it brought back to me, that she had quit smoking that last year of her life while she was getting chemo and radiation for her lung cancer, and I wonder if that’s why she developed such a “REAL” relationship with Sing. Maybe smoking really DOES shut down the third eye, and once she quit smoking, she was able to hear her Guardian Angel.
…or maybe she was just talking to the voices in her head; I don’t know.
It seems most of the conversations she had with Sing were harmless, mostly it was about everyday common sense things, but I do remember one conversation she had with him that she didn’t like very much. He asked her - why do you want to stay so tied to this body? just let it go, and we can travel anywhere you want to go. She of course saw that as him trying to talk her into letting go of life, and she wasn’t ready to do that yet. So she got irate with him, and told him so.
I quit smoking not long after I lost my mother to lung cancer, but I can’t say that I’ve heard any angels talking to me. Maybe I’m just not listening close enough, maybe I’m not psychotic enough, or maybe they just don’t have anything to say to me. Do I believe in angels? I have to say that yes, yes I do; and I have ever since I was a child. I have also *sensed* the protective nature of something at certain times of my life. Is that really proof of a guardian angel, or just a trick of the mind? I don’t know the answer to that either.
But I like to believe that I am being looked after; it does bring me some sense of peace. In this uncertain world, I’ll take all I can get.
- I cross-stitched this years ago. Perhaps one day I'll get around to taking it off the ironing board, and framing it ↩
when i was little i used to think my grandparents house had a hallway it didn’t have. my grandfather was bedridden and his invalid room was at the head of this “hallway.” i have a memory of seeing this person standing outside of the room, at this juncture, looking out the window. she wore a long white dress and had white-gold hair, flowing like a river of fire down her back. and i do mean it FLOWED, literally. it moved.
i told a confessor this, and he declared, “that was an angel! your guardian angel!” she wasn’t my guardian angel, but you know, whatever. interesting response. hadn’t ever thought of that. so then i said to him, that i’d also seen a panther walk across the hearth. this he dismissed as optical illusion, which i also thought interesting in comparison. i should add my grandparents and this confessor were old-world catholics. not your new-brand, american, virtually fungelical catholics. so maybe they, ahem, had a dash of popular religiosity. the man was very clear in his distinctions in any case.
re. the tobacco: interesting thought about it shutting down the third eye, since it’s one of those sacred ritual herbs. i’ve read that it’s a substance, scientifically, that seem to enhance focus for certain kinds of tasks.
the brain takes in a lot more data than it bothers to pass on, and when it does, it does so differently for everyone. we all have our own sense of things. some people hear colour. so like, seeing things that aren’t there doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to be noticed. that’s my opinion.
btw, that’s a really strange thing to ask, “why do you want to stay tied to this body?” as a sincere question, intended to prompt thought, it’s ok. as a suggestion, it’s not quite the thing. your mother would be right to be irate. you’re right that’s not harmless.
i go with the idea that guardians and guides are real. but i also think there’s only one perfectly all-knowing, all-encompassing perfection. angels can have unseemly moments, esp in the face of human beings. so there’s that to think about.
I’m pretty sure the tobacco they use in cigarettes is not the same tobacco they use in sacred ritual. At least that’s what I’ve been told. But even if it was, by the time the tobacco companies get through with adding stuff to it, it’s thoroughly polluted.
Cool visions you had! Were you scared when you saw either of them?
I got the feeling that when Sing asked her that, it was more his not understanding why she wanted to be here, more than anything else. His perspective was angelic, hers was human.
heaven only knows what they put in cigarettes(!) never thought about varieties of tobacco. it occurred to me, tho, an increase in focus could be put to use in a number of circumstances.
re. the visions: didn’t have enough sense as a child to be scared of ghosts. or bears. LOL. thank goodness i wasn’t also inclined to give chase.
sounds like sing and your mom had the relationship of companions. it’s a deep question, impossibly personal, what it’s like to be what one is not - for in catholicism, the body is intrinsic to who and what human beings are. the soul can’t take it off and run around “free and naked.” this business of the soul going to heaven when we die is a lot like blood bypass surgery.
got to wonder now if angels have anything analogous to blood bypass surgery in their realm…