Earlier I mentioned my experience with animal totems which opened me to a much deeper appreciation of my relationship with animals in the wild. This was a natural extension of my love of walks in nature. While living in the Blue Ridge Mountains I took a daily two-mile walk, weather permitting, and sometimes regardless of the weather. My walk started at a bridge over a river where rocks to prevent erosion had been placed from the water’s edge up the embankment to the bridge. 

As winter turned to spring, it was common to see snakes sunning themselves on the rocks, very close to the sidewalk a foot or two higher than the rocks. You might see several kinds of snakes, and as many as six snakes in an area a few feet from your ankles. Sometimes I’d see two snakes entwined and sunning themselves together. Sorta cuddling I guess.

I’m not a snake person and the first few times I saw them I avoided them. However, after seeing them repeatedly, I decided it was time to get over my lingering fear of snakes. To do this, I’d stop and practice admiring them. Mostly they ignored me, but sometimes one would appear quite nervous about my presence. My response to this was to attempt to communicate telepathically and let them know it was all okay. That they were safe, and that most people that came by liked to see them there. I don’t know if my efforts helped anything, but that’s what I did.

A couple of months of near-daily walks with a brief stop to admire snakes on my way across the river had passed, and then one day when I got to the bridge I saw sticks broken on the rocks and jammed in the crevices and bark scattered around. I could imagine a couple of teenage boys attacking the snakes, bashing and breaking sticks in their assault and my heart just sank. I felt awful. My walk that day was somber, with some degree of mourning and bad feelings for the senseless cruelty we humans are capable of.

The next day the scene was the same, but on my way back I stopped and assessed the situation more fully. I was feeling ashamed for whoever did this, and I apologized to the snakes. I recall standing there, sending a telepathic communication into the spaces between the rocks in case some snakes were still there, and I told them I was sorry about what happened. I assured them that most people appreciated their presence and that this was their home, and most people would not do such a thing. Mostly I felt blank and helpless. I recall thinking: “This is going to take a long time to heal," and immediately it hit me that I’m a healer and I can help heal this situation.

I immediately began sweeping the remnants of the violent energy away from the rocks. I kept sweeping until some other walkers approached and I stopped. After they passed, I continued sweeping and kept it up for several minutes.

The next day I swept more, both at the start and the end of my walk and on the third day, there were three snakes on the rocks. 

I can’t prove that what I did made a difference, but I believe it did. I’d done enough healing work to understand the theory involved, the mechanics of it all, and as with the hundreds of healing sessions I’d done on people and pets, I could feel the dirty energy on the rocks when I started the energy work and continued to sweep it away until it was gone. Besides, I didn’t have to prove it to anyone. For many months I didn’t even tell anyone what I’d done. It felt like the right thing to do, and I did it. End of story. Or was it?

As summer turned to fall, I was still meditating before going to bed and was sleeping with my windows open. The people I was sometimes associating with were reading and talking about angels, archangels, and such, but I didn’t have a lot of interest in that subject. Like the business of animal totems, it struck me as too subjective. However, one night after meditating I’d gone to bed and had a thought like; “If there were an angel in particular that I could talk to that I might connect with, I wonder which angel it would be.” As soon as I had that thought, I heard a hushed voice at my right ear say: “Ariel.” 

I thought Ariel was a Disney character, so I thought: “You mean Uriel?” I thought I’d heard of that angel somewhere along the line. The voice said; “No, Ariel.” Okay, my mind doesn’t work that way. I don’t think to myself like that. The tonality of this was not my own. 

The next day I looked up Ariel on the internet. I won’t go into great detail as I find this sort of thing very subjective, like the totem material. You can look these things up yourself and accept or reject whatever you find. I didn’t know what to make of what I read. I didn’t read a lot about the angel Ariel, again not wanting to be indoctrinated into believing things I’d not had first-hand knowledge of, but there was something about Ariel being the patron or angel of nature, and healing animals and plants and the environment. I didn’t see the connection right away, and I had other things to do and couldn’t dwell on it. However, after a little while, I suddenly recalled the incident with the snakes from several months earlier, of helping to heal a trauma there, and a massive wave of lovely feelings passed through my body. It felt like gratitude beamed at me or poured over and through me. It was extremely nice. 

One could dive into serious over-analyzing and explaining things away here, but I just chose to enjoy it. There are rewards to be had by raising your consciousness and becoming sensitive to the finer things in the Universe.

I shared that incident with a few people and to tell the truth, I think they got annoyed with me. Like I was trying to come off as special or something. It was all very new to me. With most people’s reactions being what they were, I didn’t feel like pursuing the subject of angels very much or talking about them, but I did poke around the edges of the subject a little longer. 

I asked someone I trusted if she knew about angels and as it turned out, she was tuned in to them, but she didn’t come off like an insufferable know-it-all. We talked now and then about angels over the next year or so, and some subjective things happened along the way to help me believe in angels, but I don’t give them much weight. I don’t have any profound answers for anyone on this subject. However, I did have a profound experience that I think is somewhat related.

I was thinking about the angel communications that others talked about, where they say the name of an angel and start talking. Like, “Archangel Michael, please protect me from harm.” Or whatever you wanted to say, and to whichever angel you wanted to say it to. I think for many it could be a ritualistic thing with a good deal of reverence, and for others, it could be quite off-hand, like talking to a relative in another room, “Hey, you want tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?”  

Again I was laying in bed with windows open, listening to quiet night sounds after having meditated and before falling asleep and got to thinking about Jesus. I’d been told you could talk to Jesus any time like you can with angels. I thought a moment and wondered what I would say to Jesus if I could speak to him? I remember thinking I wouldn’t want to waste his time, and I wondered what we have in common that we might chat about. I thought, ‘you don’t work on cars so that wouldn’t do.’ I also thought, ‘You don’t use computers,’ and then, “I’m not really into sports,” wondering briefly if Jesus might be into basketball. Then it hit me, and I thought, “Hey, you’re a healer, and I am too! We could talk about that!” At that moment I was filled with the most profound sense of inner peace I’ve ever experienced. My mind turned off, and I was at peace in the night, with the windows open and a gentle breeze blowing cool comfort into the room. I lay perfectly still and luxuriated in it. I didn’t want to disturb it by moving and didn’t want to miss a moment of it with sleep. I enjoyed it as long as I could, and eventually, I did fall fast asleep.

Hours later I woke, still in the same position and still feeling the deep inner peace. No mental noise, no commentary, no questions, there was no need to take notes, no drama, but not nothing. It wasn’t like I was dead, quite the opposite, I was alive and present without the burden of thought, concern, or worry. No itches to scratch, or sore spots to rub. No urge to roll over. No hunger, no need to relieve myself. Free of desire, free of resistance. Eventually, I fell asleep again and woke some hours later feeling incredibly well-rested. I felt perfectly fine in mind, body, and spirit.

I had to get up and start the day and thoughts started coming to mind, and I automatically made coffee, but I was quite peaceful for several days. I don’t remember when, but sometime during this episode, I recalled that Jesus is also known as the Prince of Peace and I felt I now understood why. 

Imagine having a presence like that.

~ S