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I read the story below and it touched my heart. It seems that when we hear stories of people who say that they have encountered angels , it is usually a Guardian Angel swooping in to save someone at the last minute-some story of how someone was about to drive off the road and they saw a hand on the steering wheel or some other dramatic encounter. But sometimes angels are less obvious than this. Sometimes someone in need is the angel. Which brings me to the question of the day. In the past year, have you encountered any angels, or do you feel that angels are just a sweet myth with no basis in reality?
Gift of the Heart Found in the World's Illusion
http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/myth/angels.html
By C. Austin
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
--John Milton, Paradise Lost
Disguise is a prevailing wind in our day. In literature, the arts, cinema and our lives, disguise features prominently. Disguise speaks to illusion and to the elusive. We are all the wiser for the adage "things are rarely what they seem."
The use of guise permeates the ground of mythology. Deities and mortal alike don disguise to test civility, gain a boon, seek a treasure hard to attain or to gain affection, among other ends.
Perhaps disguise speaks to a fundamental doubling of human nature. When adversity strikes, we make meaning by finding the "silver lining." When lover turns cad, we didn't see their "true stripes." Like dreams which show us our backs, there is often something we just didn't discern, but which exists if we had been looking from a slightly different perspective.
Below that doubling of ego and environment resides the quieter domain of soul. Original spirit is perhaps the real truth, the sine qua non, behind the doubling, disguise and elusiveness. The energetic, divine soul carries on within, timelessly, affected by and affecting all that we do, feel and accomplish. It is the flutter of those wings, whether they are of heaven or hell, that brush our face, or illuminate our heartsight from time to time. When we cross paths with that energy in our day-to-day life, we sometimes attribute it to the passing of what we call an "angel."
Throughout time to present day, immanent and transcendent spirits have enjoyed widespread popularity and acceptance. Of course, agreeing on a precise definition of an angel is about as useful as disputing the number of them that can dance on the head of a pin, but most people apparently feel or hope they exist.
And they do. Why, I encountered one in a big-box grocery store just last week. Arriving early on a drizzly day, I was mulling over my own lack of vision, the loss of direction in my life. I shopped to my list, carefully scrutinized my fistful of coupons, assayed the sales and arrived at the check-out in time to join the queue waiting in the one open lane.
An older man wheeled up behind me, his cart stocked with frozen dinners and soda pop for himself and his 18-year old son. There is a moment in this type of encounter, when one understands that a stranger needs to talk - whether it is on a plane, on the street, or in a big-box grocery store. A decision is always made - either to politely demur or to politely listen. It also happens that individuals of this type sometimes continue to talk despite a polite refusal - but that is not this story.
As mentioned, my own energy was dim that day. The man spoke quietly and sadly without pause, about his wife of many years who had passed away three winters ago. She had battled cancer for a decade. The story of the progression of her illness kept time with the progression of the grocery line.
As I listened I physically turned to face him directly and some type of energy uncrinkled. "Body-language" it seems, does not just speak, it meets as well. He seemed to realize at the same moment how he was talking and said a bit sheepishly, "sometimes it just helps to talk about it."
As I began to unload my produce onto the checkout belt, his story picked up again. He seemed to have a pressing question about the once happy house he now lived in alone. In the years since she passed, it seems the fellow felt that his wife was still present in the house. He sometimes heard a piano tune that only she played, sometimes heard her voice as if at a distance, sometimes noticed small things rearranged.
The canned goods were bagged, only the cereal was left and he asked me somewhat urgently the question that had been on his mind all along. He had made plans to sell his house and move north, closer to relatives, but now he was afraid to, afraid that he would leave her behind. Did that sound strange?
I took my time answering, the steady beep of the grocery scanner seemed distant as I looked him in the eye. The question was there. I slowly told him that I was certain that she was in the house and that I was just as certain that when he moved, she would move right along with him - that neither of them would ever be left behind again.
He looked at me for a bit and something shifted, or maybe I just thought something had passed through or passed by. By then it was time for me to ante up my money and my crumpled coupons and close the deal. I turned to him again before I left and wished him a good day. At the same time, we both said "it was good talking to you."
I trundled my cart away to hear him greet the check-out clerk with a hearty "and how are you, young lady?"...
Any onlooker could easily have found his story sympathetic and my patience admirable. But as I wrestled my cart out the door I realized there was a warmth present in my heart that I had noticed missing earlier that day, earlier that week. Entangled and disguised in a loving story was energy, a frequency, a data stream or a random occurrence that I needed.
In myth or lore this would have been the encounter with the marginalized old man or woman asking for help from the dummling, or youngest brother, who unquestioningly gives what he has, realizing later that his act of kindness saved his life or his quest. I appreciate how lucky I was to encounter this soul willing to share, able to give me this gift. Would he feel any different? I'll never know, but the glimmer in my heart tells me that angels come in many guises - isn't it so that help sometimes comes from the most unexpected places?
Gift of the Heart Found in the World's Illusion
http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/myth/angels.html
By C. Austin
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
--John Milton, Paradise Lost
Disguise is a prevailing wind in our day. In literature, the arts, cinema and our lives, disguise features prominently. Disguise speaks to illusion and to the elusive. We are all the wiser for the adage "things are rarely what they seem."
The use of guise permeates the ground of mythology. Deities and mortal alike don disguise to test civility, gain a boon, seek a treasure hard to attain or to gain affection, among other ends.
Perhaps disguise speaks to a fundamental doubling of human nature. When adversity strikes, we make meaning by finding the "silver lining." When lover turns cad, we didn't see their "true stripes." Like dreams which show us our backs, there is often something we just didn't discern, but which exists if we had been looking from a slightly different perspective.
Below that doubling of ego and environment resides the quieter domain of soul. Original spirit is perhaps the real truth, the sine qua non, behind the doubling, disguise and elusiveness. The energetic, divine soul carries on within, timelessly, affected by and affecting all that we do, feel and accomplish. It is the flutter of those wings, whether they are of heaven or hell, that brush our face, or illuminate our heartsight from time to time. When we cross paths with that energy in our day-to-day life, we sometimes attribute it to the passing of what we call an "angel."
Throughout time to present day, immanent and transcendent spirits have enjoyed widespread popularity and acceptance. Of course, agreeing on a precise definition of an angel is about as useful as disputing the number of them that can dance on the head of a pin, but most people apparently feel or hope they exist.
And they do. Why, I encountered one in a big-box grocery store just last week. Arriving early on a drizzly day, I was mulling over my own lack of vision, the loss of direction in my life. I shopped to my list, carefully scrutinized my fistful of coupons, assayed the sales and arrived at the check-out in time to join the queue waiting in the one open lane.
An older man wheeled up behind me, his cart stocked with frozen dinners and soda pop for himself and his 18-year old son. There is a moment in this type of encounter, when one understands that a stranger needs to talk - whether it is on a plane, on the street, or in a big-box grocery store. A decision is always made - either to politely demur or to politely listen. It also happens that individuals of this type sometimes continue to talk despite a polite refusal - but that is not this story.
As mentioned, my own energy was dim that day. The man spoke quietly and sadly without pause, about his wife of many years who had passed away three winters ago. She had battled cancer for a decade. The story of the progression of her illness kept time with the progression of the grocery line.
As I listened I physically turned to face him directly and some type of energy uncrinkled. "Body-language" it seems, does not just speak, it meets as well. He seemed to realize at the same moment how he was talking and said a bit sheepishly, "sometimes it just helps to talk about it."
As I began to unload my produce onto the checkout belt, his story picked up again. He seemed to have a pressing question about the once happy house he now lived in alone. In the years since she passed, it seems the fellow felt that his wife was still present in the house. He sometimes heard a piano tune that only she played, sometimes heard her voice as if at a distance, sometimes noticed small things rearranged.
The canned goods were bagged, only the cereal was left and he asked me somewhat urgently the question that had been on his mind all along. He had made plans to sell his house and move north, closer to relatives, but now he was afraid to, afraid that he would leave her behind. Did that sound strange?
I took my time answering, the steady beep of the grocery scanner seemed distant as I looked him in the eye. The question was there. I slowly told him that I was certain that she was in the house and that I was just as certain that when he moved, she would move right along with him - that neither of them would ever be left behind again.
He looked at me for a bit and something shifted, or maybe I just thought something had passed through or passed by. By then it was time for me to ante up my money and my crumpled coupons and close the deal. I turned to him again before I left and wished him a good day. At the same time, we both said "it was good talking to you."
I trundled my cart away to hear him greet the check-out clerk with a hearty "and how are you, young lady?"...
Any onlooker could easily have found his story sympathetic and my patience admirable. But as I wrestled my cart out the door I realized there was a warmth present in my heart that I had noticed missing earlier that day, earlier that week. Entangled and disguised in a loving story was energy, a frequency, a data stream or a random occurrence that I needed.
In myth or lore this would have been the encounter with the marginalized old man or woman asking for help from the dummling, or youngest brother, who unquestioningly gives what he has, realizing later that his act of kindness saved his life or his quest. I appreciate how lucky I was to encounter this soul willing to share, able to give me this gift. Would he feel any different? I'll never know, but the glimmer in my heart tells me that angels come in many guises - isn't it so that help sometimes comes from the most unexpected places?
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