Updates

8/13/10

Abby, my significant other on the other side, has told me she'd like to try writing an update. Our communication is pretty primitive compared to the channeled communications you are accustomed to reading. So this isn't a verbatim transcript; it's her thoughts as best I can catch them. We communicate through a small set of symbols, which Abby taught me, as she moves the fingers of my right hand; and also through direct thoughts (telepathy). The former method is more precise but is somewhat cumbersome, since for anything detailed, it requires an extended session of "20 questions". Abby is fun and plucky and up for the challenge--her personality is a mix of fun and serious, rebel and straight, rather like myself. I am pretty sure about some of her past lives, but I feel she doesn't want me to list them, so I'm omitting that. She's been on the other side since passing away as my first wife in 1841, and has been doing what we'd call social work, assisting people who are terminally ill prepare to cross over; she has also been studying music, and occasionally gives concerts. When you've been doing something for 170 years you get pretty good at it, so she's expert in both of these areas.

Abby is with me now most of the time during the day, and goes back to her life on the other side while I'm sleeping, so she is quite free to come and go. We have developed a number of things we can do together, including photography, listening to music, piano lessons, reading aloud (as we did in the 1800's), walking the beach, watching movies. It turns out that one person not having a body actually is not so dissimilar from any other handicap that couples adjust to. You just work around it. When we first got together, Abby prompted me inwardly to rent a series of movies⁽¹⁾ which communicated to me different facets of how she saw our relationship. One of them, "At First Sight," suggested that it's not unlike a relationship in which I'm blind. Just as in a relationship where only one person is sighted, I cannot see her visually (not until I pass over, at least). But sight is not the only sense; and even all the physical five senses are not the only senses.

But, I digress. Without further ado, Abby now has the floor.

Steve talks too much ;-). There are things he writes I'd rather he left out sometimes, but it's mostly too much trouble to try to convey to him the subleties of what I want left in or taken out, so nevermind. But he's doing good work and I'm proud of him.

You might expect me to talk in an 1800's style. I carry with me a certain amount of formality from that period, but I'm not bound to the language.

This age has lost manners. That's one of the most difficult things for me to get adjusted to. Manners was not just about an outward show. It had to do with civility, with concern for another person's feelings. It had to do with being civilized, in the best sense of the word. But, enough of that.

Steve insulates me from the worst of this world. He lives a fairly circumscribed life, meaning, a simple life, partly for my sake, now. I know what this world is capable of. We have the same beauty on the other side, only in much sharper intensity and feeling--but on the other side, it can't turn suddenly ugly or cruel. Here, meaning, on the earth plane, something beautiful can suddenly turn ugly or cruel. (Steve, as a good writer, wants me to use different words rather than repeat a phrase, but I want to say it just that way.)

I have been disincarnate for too long a time to feel comfortable living here. Living with Steve is helping me become accustomed to the earth plane again, before my next incarnation. We both intend and expect to incarnate together next time. We have had a very long history of missing each other. We hope to do good work together next time, and we're actively preparing for that future.

I have been helping terminally ill people (mostly) prepare to cross over for a long time. I've seen so many people fight and struggle against impending death, only to experience the amazing joy of release--"Oh, is that it? Is that all it is?" It's been very rewarding work, but I've been lonely, and it took a long time for Steve to be ready for me to contact him again. He thinks it's remarkable that I waited for him 170 years. I don't. Time isn't the same here. I just immersed myself in work and my musical studies, and finally he was ready. When he was ready, I was there. That's all there is to it.

Heaven is fine--it's everything people hope it to be--but really, heaven is where you love and are loved. That's why I was just biding my time until Steve could recognize me again. I would rather love and be loved here (on earth), than be without my soul mate there. One gets the impression that the other side is so wonderful that people don't have human feelings there anymore. It's not true. We don't want to burden anyone on this side with our own--words fail me--with our own psychological needs--but we are much more human than you might think from popular accounts. We love; we feel bonds; we want the people we love to be happy. After the "new" wears off here, we miss the people we are closest to. We try to think of their welfare first; but that doesn't mean we don't have feelings. We are not saints over here. We are lighter, happier, cleaner, freer; sort of like dolphins, say, compared to hippopotamuses--but we are still human beings.

This work Steve is doing is no joke. It's actually our work together--I've been helping him with it, unseen, for many years. I have my own vested interest in it from having been persecuted in the Inquisition (that's right, I've been what you would call Wiccan in my past lives). We both, Steve and I, also come from the ancient Celtic culture, and all of us old Celts are trying to get this concept of reincarnation back into society. We will keep on trying until Steve has to pass over. He knows it may not be too long, and we're working together, consciously now, as hard as we can while he is still on this side. I'm trying to come up with an analogy--okay, Steve and I walk the beach here at night, and very often people are shooting off fireworks. Have you seen how, at the end of a fireworks show, they have the "grand finale," where they shoot off a whole bunch of their best rockets? That's what Steve, with my help, is doing right now on this website.

Composer Chris Dedrick, who Steve admires so deeply, is with us on this side. What a celebration awaits such a figure when he crosses over! You have no idea. It's not like the stuffy awards ceremonies you have on the earth level. Oh my gosh! (Steve won't let me write "Oh my God".) Chris manifested our vibration on the physical level, in music, for years without the slightest recognition from anyone. His technical ability resulted in some honors, but that was the least of what he accomplished. Here, it is different. The recognition that was denied him on earth is abundantly shown him here. In fact, as of this writing, it is still going on! Musicians are playing in his honor, and there is quite a list of them still waiting in the queue. No-one wants to be left out. (I haven't played--I'm not that calibre a musician.)

Steve has work to do and this is tiring. I just wanted to see if I could write one of these--I didn't have a specific message to get across. I know hardly anyone will take it seriously. This is not automatic writing by a long shot. Steve is simply trying to catch my thoughts, discerning them from the promptings of his own subconscious mind--which he is gradually getting better at--and typing them out. You will get the flavor of my thoughts--this is not verbatim communication, in other words.

For those of you who take this seriously, remember that life is much bigger than just the physical plane. It is not that you die and "go" anywhere. It is that life is bigger than this physical experience. You have defined it too narrowly (that isn't your fault, of course). Within the broader context of life, you crystalize a form, you live in it, you are pushed out of it; it's natural. You learn from each cycle. Everything is cycles. Nothing starts, goes in a straight line, and then stops. Nothing in the world--your world, or mine. Steve and I were together, and we took it for granted. Then we had trouble, both with each other, and with the world, and we had terrible trouble missing each other (meaning, both ways--not being able to connect, and also missing each other in our hearts). This condition went on for a long, long time--but now we are together. And now we really appreciate it--every moment together. We celebrate every little thing we do together--all the photography, all the music,⁽²⁾ reading, everything. Where love is, heaven is. That's all I want to convey.

Love to each and all,

Abby

1) The list of prompted films included: "Avatar" (which I initially resisted seeing because of the title), "The Lake House," "Is Anybody There?" (an inside joke, because at first I used to say aloud, "Are you there?"), "Grey Owl" (because we have past-life Native American connections, and because of our public work together), "At First Sight," "Lost in Austen" and "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday." (I wasn't so clear that Abby prompted this last one, but she says yes.) In the case of "Is Anybody There?", I literally felt prompted to drive to a distant Blockbusters where I was guided to the right shelf, guided to the right movie, picked it off the shelf (before I had even read the title), paid for it, and was out of the store within five minutes. I'd never heard of the film before. I had never seen any of these films, and "Avatar" is the only one I knew much about. Actually I was amazed at how many parallels there were in "Avatar" to our relationship. I may have heard something about "The Lake House," I'm not sure. The parallels in this one should be obvious, i.e., a relationship with someone from a different time who you can't see. Other movies she seems to have prompted me to watch had to do either with the nature of the twin flame relationship itself ("The Notebook," and more recently, "Forever Young"), or with our own relationship patterns from past lives (like "Home," a French film with subtitles, in which a happy family slowly falls apart when modern society presses in on it in the symbolic form of a superhighway). "Falling Up," "Bright Star" and "Notting Hill" were all allusions to our past life in which I was the poor radical writer, while she was way above my social class. In all this, I managed to contribute a couple of films she really liked: "A River Runs Through It" and "Dragonfly" (Abby, as I gather, sometimes works from the other side with terminally ill children). She also prompted me to get "Star Wars," though I'm not quite sure why except just for fun--or maybe the relationship between Princess Leia and Han Solo was a tongue-in-cheek reference to our past-life "upstairs-downstairs" relationship, too. It's true that Matthew Whittier was something more of a rogue than I am today.

2) Abby picked the music opening this page.

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