Tag: angels

BOOK REVIEW: ANGEL OF EVENTIDE by Elle Powers

by Karen, posted in Angels, author, book reviews, books, Brave books, family, relationships

I was pulled right in to the conversation between the angel and the woman at the outset of the book. But, is it an angel? Who is this woman?  I have many questions and so I press on, intensely interested in how the answers would they reveal themselves.

This is not only a story of compassion; it’s an epic love story.

It’s not a typical love story, however. I don’t want to give too much away, so I will tread carefully here.

It is the love story of Maren and Sea (pronounced “Shay” for Seamus). Maren is different from other girls. She doesn’t get sick. The ‘magic brownies’ her peers are eating don’t have any effect on her.

Maren is also a girl whose reckless behavior has placed her at the brink of death many times in her young life. At the age of ten, she is assigned an angel who literally rescues her from death and then proceeds to watch over her. What is unusual is this: Maren can see him. Maren has always been able to see the ‘folks’, as she refers to them. She has always has this special ability, to be able to see behind “The Mystic Curtain”, as her mother refers to it.

This book is so much more than a “romance between a fallen angel and a lost girl” (p 169). It is also the story of parents’ love for their child. Of God’s love for us. It’s a brilliant exploration of what it means to be mortal and immortal, angel and human, and how we all fit together into the larger story of life. When life feels like a punishment, perhaps it’s because we can’t see the whole story.

Near the end of the book is a reference to a song that only Maren was hearing (P 282-283) .

“Maren stirred to its dreamy rhythm, understanding that this was the song of the world–the composition of creation.”

This sentence immediately brought a song to mind. To me, it felt like a perfect description of this song sung by Andrea Bocelli, Canto Della Terra (Mighty Sun).

There are several quotes that I loved at the outset of each chapter, including one from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, one of my favorite books ever (p 225), so it was hard to  narrow it down to one favorite, but I managed.

My favorite quote from the book (P 214):

“The truth was that they were living out this story together; every heart in every age was essential and connected…and so their each and every choice mattered to the whole.”

Beautiful. Thank you, Elle Powers! Get this wonderful book, Angel of Eventide.

I leave you with this invitation: Treat yourself and listen to this song undistracted.

Hello from Heaven

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, relationships
big-nana
Big Nana with her great-granddaughter Ariana in her kitchen in Nantasket

As I recently wrote, my son moved into his new apartment. Apartments, as we all know, usually need furniture. As a mother, I want to (over) help him with this. When I got my first apartment, my mother and my grandmother went to great lengths to make sure I had everything I might need or want, opening their cupboards, closets, drawers, and wallets to help me get things I didn’t even know I would need. I always knew that I would do the same for my own children one day.

The current need for my son’s apartment is for a kitchen table and chairs. I remembered my grandmother’s kitchen table has been stored at my brother’s house for years. I checked to make sure it was still there and usable. My brother determined (after some digging) that it was.
I started thinking of how my grandmother, Big Nana, spent most of her life helping her family. She has been dead since 2004, but she is still helping her family all these years after her death. Because now her kitchen table and chairs, at which we ate so many wonderful, lovingly prepared meals, will now serve my son and his girlfriend.

And here is the biggest gift of all: when my brother was looking for the chairs, he found a photo Nana, as well as some of my mother and father that I have never seen before.

It feels like they are all saying ‘Hello’ to us from heaven tonight, and letting us know that they are still watching over us and taking care of us, even though they are not here physically with us anymore.

What a wonderful start to 2017.

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Message from Mom

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, good grief, He and me

mom for blogSo I had a visit last night from my mother. She died in 1996.

She visited me in a dream. She was wearing a long white dress that was cinched in at the waist with a sash that I think was also white. I should note that she never dressed like that in real life.  Anyway, it was a slimmer, younger, healthy version of her (she was quite ill when she died) and she came to tell me something. When my mother comes through to me in my dreams, she never actually speaks out loud; she communicates with me through thoughts. Anyway, she came to give me a message and in the dream, I had the thought that this must be very important information for me to know, since she made the trip to tell me this, and that I better remember it.

Later on when I woke for the day, I remembered the dream very clearly. I remember my thoughts about the message too. What I DON’T remember is this: WHAT THE MESSAGE WAS!

I tried over and over to get it back, but it’s gone.
I told my husband this, and as I was telling him, the tears started.

He: Why are you crying?
Me: I don’t know! Because I can’t remember what the message was!

He: Don’t worry. You got the message. Just because you can’t remember it consciously doesn’t mean you didn’t get. It’s in your subconscious. You have it.

I immediately felt the truth of what he was saying. Every so often, my husband says exactly the right words to me at exactly the right time.

And then he sort of shuddered.

Me: What was that?
He: I got a chill.

So now I get it. That was my mother there in the car with us.

🙂

New kid in town

by Karen, posted in Angels, local fun, my one word

abionesMaybe you, like me, have wondered about the new signage in front of a house on Rt 1 in Wells, the one that says The LoveLight Center.

What’s up with that?

I saw a flag waving “OPEN” at me yesterday so I took a chance (remember, I’m brave in 2015!) and ran in. I met the most lovely woman, Emily Karparis, who mentioned that the interior is still evolving, but then she took some time to introduce me to the space and invited me to come again.

Which I did. Today.

🙂

I have so many good things to say about The LoveLight Center! The little shop inside, Abionesa, has so many of my favorite things on display! Every one of women that I met who work there are so welcoming! The playing of the crystal harp for which I was lucky enough to be present was very powerful!

In this post, I’m going to tell you about the Angel Room. For ten bucks, you can sit in the Angel Room for (up to) fifteen minutes. And do what? Think. Meditate. Pray. Listen. Ignore the pleading bleats of your cell phone. Appreciate the beautiful blue color of the walls. Contemplate the enormous crystal (like, ‘as big as your head’) on the table in the center of the room. Watch the vortex of swirling snow outside the window.

I did all of these things.

It was worth every cent.

Before you enter the room, you can pick up a typed affirmation from the basket, or choose a stone to hold, or just ‘come as you are’. I chose the affirmation-if the universe had something to say to me, I wanted to hear it.

Here’s what it said:

IMG_1057

 

 

 

 

Done.

There are pictures of the Angel Room on their Facebook page. Check it out. Oh, and stop by and say, Hi!

 

Telling our story

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, knitting, The write words at the write time

scarfI was at a craft show a couple of weekends ago. The weather was awful–freezing rain coating the icy snow on the ground that fell overnight. As soon as I got through the door, I stopped to shake it off of me. The first thing I saw was a table of scarves and hats, and the small dark-eyed woman standing behind it caught my eye.

I took a minute to look at the items on the table. I noticed a black and white scarf  that I knew would make a great gift for a number of the people on my list.

I asked, “How much is this?”

“Fifteen dollars,” she replied, “and you can pick a free cookbook from the box,” she added, hopeful, hands clasped in front of her.

I looked down. The ‘cookbooks’ were some old cooking magazines from 2008.

Well, all-righty then.

As she was wrapping it up, I was looking through my bag for my checkbook (note to self: Clean this damn thing out!).

I asked, “Did you make these?”

“Yes. Well, me and my daughter did. And then after she died, I made some more myself,” she told me.

What? Oh, no.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her, and suddenly found myself hugging her. “Yes, it was hard,” she said, and proceeded to tell me about how her diabetic daughter who couldn’t feel her feel very well had a blood sugar drop that caused her to get into a car accident. “She went through the windshield and died instantly, the…the….” she trailed off.

“Medical examiner?” I offered.

“Yes! Yes, the medical examiner said. She didn’t feel anything, he said, and that made me feel a little better, but I was still pretty sad. Until my birthday,” she said.

This is what happened on her birthday: She and her husband were having lunch, feeling the feelings only parents who have lost their child feel. Suddenly, her glass of water slid across the table. About four inches. By itself. “I said, ‘Did you see that?’ to my husband. “‘That’s her wishing you a Happy Birthday,’ he told me, and we both teared up. Then I felt much better. I knew she was okay.”

Sometimes, people just need to tell their story.

Even if they aren’t writers.

Angels dropping a dime

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief

I dreamed about my mother last night. We were in the house she grew up in and ultimately died in. We were standing together on the back porch, looking out at the snow-covered street. It was very sunny and bright, and we were watching a plow making its way through the snow drifts, clearing a path in the street. We didn’t talk, but I felt happy.

I woke up from this dream Christmas morning, and had a clear thought: thanks for letting me know that you’re with me today, Ma.

I was at my brother’s house for dinner later in the day for dinner. At one point, I stood up from the table to get a drink and we could hear something hit the floor. My sister-in-law picked it up and said, “Did you drop a dime?” so I said yes, and put it back in my pocket, not giving it much thought.

A little while later, after I had just finished telling my brother about the dream, another coin hit the floor. It was another dime. My sister-in-law said, “What’s with the dimes today?!”  I said, “It must be the angels letting us know they’re here.”  Another guest (who did not know about the dream) said, “It’s your mother!”

And so it was.

Angels and the creative process

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, tweens, writing

Instead of writing my blog post and examiner.com article and more NaNoWriMo words yesterday afternoon (and well into the evening…), I helped my tween daughter with her project for school.

The assignment was to make a collage that showcased the following:

  1. Your career aspirations
  2. Your interests
  3. Your talents
  4. Something else that I can’t remember (*midlife disclaimer)

She had already made a good start on it. We spread out the construction paper on the extra kitchen table that we brought up from the cellar and put in the living room for Thanksgiving (yep; it’s still there taking up every bit of extra space there is in that room. Don’t care. It’s very useful for… collage projects and such).

As we went through the stack of pristine magazines (that I had been too busy to read in November) looking for images to fill up the page, we talked about what her likes, talents, aspirations are. Want to get to know your tween better? Spend three hours making a collage with them.

As an aside, maybe it will help you get to know yourself better too. I started cutting out images to make my own collage as a result of this process!

Anyway, as I staring at a page, some words caught my eye: Joy, Peace, and Noel. I started cutting them out and then remembered the angel picture I’d seen on the previous page, which reminded me of an angel message I received from Stacey (Mainely You Massage) a few weeks ago.  She said that a Christmas angel had come through for me and my daughter, and was showing her the words “Joy” and “Noel” for us. There we were, sitting at that table, looking at those words in the presence of a (print) Christmas angel.  Oh my gosh!!! 

I suddenly felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

As an added bonus, all that cutting and pasting fired me up to write. I have notes all over the place containing story ideas that came to my during and after our project.

**In the collage, the Christmas Angel is toward the bottom left corner, and the words “Joy, Peace, and Noel” are toward the top right corner, just above the raccoon..

Angels at Clay Hill Farm, part 2

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, local fun, no fear

I attended the Angel Dinner the other night with a friend and I loved it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so if you are wondering how it works, let me clue you in.

You come in and are seated by the waitress.

Ruth Kramer is the Intuitive featured at Clay Hill Farm’s Angel Readings. She is a lovely woman with a British accent who is full of energy and enthusiasm for her work. First, she comes right over to introduce herself to you and explain how the evening will go.

You will be seated at a table with other patrons (there were six people total seated at my table). Usually the small room is sold out for Ruth’s Angel Reading dinners, but on this night we were at about 1/2 capacity. This was lucky for us because she had a little more time to spend with each of us for our readings.

Little notepads are provided on the table along with pencils for you to write down any questions that occur to you to ask Ruth as you are waiting for your reading. Dinner will be served in a parade of amazing courses which you will choose upon arrival from a small menu. Warm rolls, then soup or salad. There will be several entrees, including a vegetarian one. Several incredible dessert choices will follow that will most likely be your most difficult decision all evening…which one? Can I have two? 🙂

If you think of it, you can bring a device to tape your reading, if “the angels will allow it”…Ruth says sometimes the angels will not allow her words to you from them to be taped.  So as a back up plan (if you go with a friend like I did) you can take notes for each other as Ruth is speaking (my friend’s idea) so that you can fully concentrate on what she is telling you versus trying to write it down and listen simultaneously.

I took pictures of the food, but the lighting was so low that none of them are really good enough to include here…maybe the angels didn’t wish the food to be seen? 🙂

Ruth will be at the Clay Hill Farm one more Monday night, as of this writing, on November 14. Call 207-361-2272 for reservations.

Angels at Clay Hill Farm

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, no fear, restaurants

My friend Kristen recently offered me the gift of angels in the form of a visit to my house. It had strings attached, however. One must, after hosting the aforementioned angels for a period of time, send them on their merry way to the households of three other people.

I could not think of three other people who would have been willing to take the time to host. Sadly, I passed on the gift.

Then another friend told me about Clay Hill Farm’s current Monday night special. Rev. Ruth Kramer apparently can speak to angels and, more importantly, tell us what they are saying. She gives readings every Monday night (for now) at the restaurant. I’m interested in that, I thought. It occurred to me that since I couldn’t have the angels come to me…could the angels be bringing me to them?

I made plans for tonight to go hear what they have to say to me. The bonus is that dinner at the restaurant is part of the deal.

Because even when it’s about the angels, it’s still all about the food.

🙂

Angels at the beach

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, good grief, local fun, Midlife Crisis, relationships

I was walking at the beach with my daughter and my husband the other day. I was thinking about how big she’d gotten, which led to thoughts of her at different ages throughout the years, and how I received that sign from my dad that I was pregnant with her.
Of course, thinking about one dead relative inevitably (for me) leads to thoughts about other dead relatives.  Wells Beach reminds me of Nantasket Beach in the 1970’s, and Nantasket beach reminds me of my grandmother. She always took me to the beach (ocean) when I was growing up, and I always think of her when I am near it, so granted, thoughts of Nana had been hovering there in the back of my mind for the past hour or so.

After we finished our beach walk we went to Forbes to get some lunch. I was telling my husband how I had been trying to get to Forbes all summer but something kept coming up and I never made it. I decided to take it as a sign that it was because I was supposed to be there this day in particular. He smiled at me, indulgently. He is used to me ascribing meaning to things that he does not.

As we were finishing up our lunch, I suddenly became aware of the conversation at the table behind me: “Nana, are you happy here at the beach? You’re an angel!”

I swear to God.

I felt a huge surge of emotion as the tears welled up and spilled forth (zero to 180 in a millisecond!).

I just finished a pretty good book that has an angel subplot: Pictures of You  by Caroline Leavitt. Check it out!