Letters From Spirit Guides
Chapter Six of Cosmic Heart, a spiritual memoir
Cosmic Heart is a spiritual memoir. You can learn more and read the previous chapters here. Thank you for subscribing and reading - I’m so glad to be writing this book here with you.
When I was a child, I had an imaginary friend named Kimmy. I don’t remember Kimmy, so I can’t tell you anything about what she looked like or her personality, but my parents tell me that I spent a lot of time with her - playing and chatting away - until one day, she went behind the refrigerator.
My mom came into the kitchen to find me pressed against the wall, staring into the narrow gap between the 1970s floral wallpaper and the refrigerator coils, begging Kimmy to come out. When my dad got home from work, he quietly asked my mother, “Is there an actual child behind there?” That would have been, of course, physically impossible. But my distress was convincing.
As far as I know, Kimmy disappeared into a portal behind the refrigerator and never returned.
I’m not going to tell you that Kimmy was a ghost or a guide. As far as I know, she was a figment of my imagination. But what I am going to tell you is, the imagination is a real place, and the beings who reside there are real, as well.
Around the same time I was hanging out with Kimmy, there was a family that lived in my closet. I could hear them whisper-talking at night and believed they were using my green play kitchen. Now, they might have been ghosts. I’m not sure.
I recently drove past the house I lived in when I was very young, had that green play kitchen, wasn’t yet in school, and spent my days with an imaginary friend. I wondered if the closet family was still there, cooking up late-night dinners and trying to keep their voices down.
When I was in elementary school, one of my classmates wanted to be a cat. He pretended to be a cat… every day. In line on the way to the cafeteria, sitting in the classroom, and for the entirety of recess, he pretended to be a cat. I don’t recall how the other children reacted, but I remember watching him the same way I would later watch performance art. He was a boy, not a cat, but he was adept in his catness. He was a boy pretending to be a cat, but he was so good at it, he was also…a cat.
Perhaps imaginary friends slip away when children realize it is not socially acceptable to have conversations with invisible people or to change form right out in the open. Our culture allows for the free-flowing imagination of our youngest children. Later in life, imagination is encouraged only when it is tied to commerce.
But in truth, imagination is the engine that drives us. It is through our imagination that we bring the matter into being. It is the channel not only of our creativity but also of our spirituality, our essence.
As soon as I knew there was such a thing as a spirit guide, I wanted to meet mine. The concept made sense to me. If my soul and my body were two separate things, and the life of the soul eternal, then why wouldn’t spiritual entities exist? Everyone seemed to agree there was a world beyond the physical world, and if there was, then wouldn’t there be beings without bodies existing in that world?
Right before I moved back to Kentucky from New York, I found a photograph of myself that I liked. I liked the way the light hit my face, I liked my expression, and what I was wearing. I glued the photo to the cover of a black Moleskine notebook and began my daily practice of communicating with spirit guides. It was a technique I’d seen on The Oprah Show. I sat in meditation, wrote questions in the notebook, listened for, and wrote answers, like taking dictation.
How did I know I wasn’t just making it up? I didn’t. I’m certain that most of that first notebook was filled with things I “made up” - because that’s how this works. The channels for spiritual communication and creative imagination are the same.
It was also filled, however, with phrases I never would have used. I often had to look up the definition of words that came through in those writings. Sometimes reading what I had written was like decoding a puzzle. I began to circle repeated words and phrases. Clearly, there were messages trying to make their way to me.
Perhaps the messages were from my subconscious mind or hidden parts of myself. I chose to believe they were messages from my guides. To this day, I say it doesn’t matter if spirit guides are “real” or whether or not their existence can be proven. If you want to communicate with them, you can. If you want to fill up a notebook with questions and answers, you can begin to do so right now.
And I did want to do so. It became a passion of mine. I have a basement full of storage tubs that house my notebooks, filled with these brief love letters from my guides.
Eventually, my communication style branched out beyond the written page into my mind’s eye. When I began to engage in salt bathing as a spiritual practice, my third eye zoomed open. As soon as I got in the water, scenes would begin to play in my mind like movies. Images of my guides showed up suddenly, often coming in from the right side. They stared at me, smiled, and disappeared.
I began to feel the distinct difference between mind movies of my own creation - day dreams - and these images that came in on their own, uncreated by me. A face began to show up for me quite a bit - a beautiful face that appeared to be gender fluid. Patrice was the name I heard when they showed up.
Later, when I was working at a metaphysical fair, I did a trade with another reader. “I think I have a guide who is a drag queen,” I said. “Patrice!” she said. I had full-body chills of recognition. Eventually, Patrice told me they would be stepping back. This is something that has happened throughout my life of talking to guides. They show up, speak to me for a while, then change forms or fade away, making room for new guides to step forward.
Thick in the metaphysical community of my town, I met a woman who drew spirit guides. She worked like this: you submitted a question and she did a reading for you using a variety of methods, like numerology and bibliomancy, and then drew your spirit guide. When you went to your appointment, she unveiled the drawing and then read her notes to you - information about past lives and your soul’s purpose. Of course, I booked an appointment right away.
Her studio was on the second floor of a cute little house in a shopping district near me. On the day of my appointment, there was a street sale. All the shops had racks of clothing or stacks of books, or tables of jewelry outside. It was a beautiful day. I stopped in front of a shop where an icon of Mother Mary was propped in a chair. I snapped a picture of it there in the gentle sunlight.
Upstairs with the reader, I sat at a table, a tape recorder next to me catching every word. I was so excited to see what my spirit guide looked like; I was hoping for something like a woodland fairy or an ancient Egyptian goddess, or my beloved drag queen. When she picked up my drawing, the reader said, “This has never happened before.” Excellent, I thought. Fantastic. I love things that have never happened before!
“I only ever draw one guide,” she said. “But you had two guides who came through together. They insisted that they be drawn together. They work together.” She pulled the cloth away from the pastel drawing to reveal a woman and a man. The woman was dark-skinned and wearing a blue veil and robe. The man, also robed, had a beard.
She went on to explain that they worked with me around the balance of male and female energies, that they had been my parents in a past life in the Middle East. They were…biblical rather than mythical…and I admit, I was a little disappointed by that.
The reading itself was deep and complex, and the primary thing I remember her saying was that I would be reconciling my feelings about Christianity because I would be working in some capacity with Christian women, bridging the gap between religion and spirituality. (This, I thought, couldn’t possibly be true.) But I took my drawing home, found a frame for it, and hung it over my desk.
A couple of years later, I received another spirit guide drawing, this time from a woman who worked online. I was able to watch her create the drawing. She said my guide was angelic. She couldn’t quite make out her name. She mailed the drawing to me, and I framed it as well. (She looks a bit like a drag queen if you want to know the truth.)
A couple of years ago, I had another opportunity to receive a spirit guide image - this one was a small painting - a male figure swathed in purple. I keep it on a little easel next to the others.
They look at me, I look at them. Sometimes I call them by names that I like or the names they gave me. They are as real as anyone, even if they are complete artistic inventions. I don’t believe spirit guides actually have faces and names the way we, in the physical world, have them, but knowing them by faces and names helps us put shape around the shapeless.
I’ve done hundreds of readings and Reiki sessions for other people, and during those readings and sessions, guides show up. They show themselves, they smile, they move around.
I believe guides show up for us in forms that will resonate with us. They speak the words we will believe. They guide, but they don’t shove. They speak, but they don’t dominate. They support us, but they don’t live for us.
Sometimes guides are funny or blunt, but never once have I encountered a spirit guide who was unkind or critical. I’ve come to think of mine as a sort of council. I use the word team to describe them, even though I’m not crazy about that word.
They don’t make things happen. They’re not above me on some hierarchical scale of existence. I don’t revere them in a worshipful way. We’re all just alive together in different ways of being alive. They don’t interfere. They answer me when I ask questions, but not in a way that would take control of my life.
Since the days of that first notebook, I have asked how many guides I have around me, and I have always received the same number. Last year, I had a psychic reading and asked about my team. The psychic gave me the same number that I have always received. Another validation that means nothing to anyone except me. But it does mean something to me. I know how many of them there are, hovering around me, glancing over my shoulder as I type this, ready to assist.
Even though I enjoy mystical experiences and find great meaning in rituals and ceremonies, when I talk to my guides, I just talk to them. I talk to them out loud the way I would talk to anyone, with no formality. Whether they are actual beings who exist in another vibrational dimension or a gloriously detailed figment of my imagination doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care. The world of the imagination is no less. Real or invented, I like the idea of having spirit guides, and I will always find joy in our communication.
Recently, I was in my bath. My pug, Rocky, was lying on his towel next to the tub, and I started speaking to my guides. It occurred to me that I should call on Rocky’s guides, too, so I did. Is there anything you want us to know? I asked.
We love you, they said, like a chorus of a thousand twinkling bells.
Notes:
You can read the previous chapters of Cosmic Heart here.