Encounter
The wall between this world and the next is really only a very thin veil.
Spirit dwells in both places. The veil is thinnest about three o’clock in the morning. The other side can reach us most easily at that hour.
It is the hour of encounter.
I pulled myself up through a hole in the veil and found myself on a road in surreal light. I did not know which way to go, so I stood there. Within moments I was not alone. I saw my Grandma’s shoes, the ones she always wore. Someone was with her. I realized almost instantaneously that Grandma was there with my mother. A feeling of overwhelming joy flowed between us. We were overjoyed to see one another, as it had been a long time since my mother died when I was one. I felt so loved, totally loved in fact. I felt caressed by her, totally accepted. She spoke with me about many things, most of which I do not remember. It seemed like she was advising me about grad school upcoming. I wanted to remember everything but I could not.
My mother appeared to me in white, a white light in fact. She seemed to be made of thousands of pinpoints of white light, yet her spirit was there. Eventually those lights turned blue so that she appeared as a field of blue light. What we did was hug each other, despite the difference in our densities. That difference did not seem to matter. I felt her as closely as I would hugging any other human being, and her hug felt as palpably real as any. It was an experience of knowing. I knew her spirit was present with me. I knew this was an encounter of a very special kind. I knew it was going to impact me for the rest of my life.
The road was empty again, and I returned through the veil to my body sleeping in bed, feeling my mother’s hand at my back tucking me in, as she had done in my infancy. I awoke immediately. What was that? A gift, a deep deep dream? A profound experience, an encounter with my mother’s spirit? All of the above – I felt so deeply grateful; I thought it might have something to do with grad school starting in the fall. Those years ahead would be fraught with turmoil, but I felt I was on the right track. They would also be filled with study, and the experience of encounter would guide that study.
My mother told me a few things that night that I do remember. One was that she had always loved me. A second was that she accepted me just as I am. The third was that grad school would be different than I expected, to hang in to the very end. These messages helped me enormously. She wanted me to be prepared.
An encounter is an experience that blesses one. One of the blessings is that it is the experience of a very profound knowing. That knowing is so much greater than all we learn from textbooks. It cannot be erased or forgotten. In times of uncertainty, it serves as a touchstone. It is also the experience of an “Other”, someone clearly distinct from oneself. It is the experience of spirit.
When I awoke I was in amazement! I was told things about myself and about my mother that I really did not know. I learned that there was significance to her changing to a blue light field. I learned that she and I looked forward to spending time together. Another thing I learned was that if she was gone, I still held her memories. Each of these was a gift.
When my mother was a little girl, she was very, very well cared for. Her parents provided for her exquisitely. She thought of them dearly. She wanted me to have that experience, but it would happen for me in a very different way. It would come slowly over a much longer period of time.
Encounters are learning experiences. I learned some things from my mother that directly countered what I had learned from my childhood, the things that were not so helpful. Encounters tell us something that we could not otherwise have known.
