What I didn't mean when I said that I was channeling God in the kitchen
What I didn't mean when I said that I was channeling God in the kitchen
God does not speak through me. Something far more interesting (and available) is happening.
We begin with a story
Last week, during a Zoom call with my Journey circle, I was telling a story when I felt a gentle tug at my awareness. The story was about how my husband had interupted me while I was, as I put it, “channeling God!” That’s when I felt it. Blip. Stop. Uh-uh.
Oh, I realized. What I said was not quite… true.
I wrote this post for my Journeyers, to address that and to explain what was actually happening when I was ‘channeling God" but as I was writing it, it occurred to me that this information might also be interesting to you.
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What I didn’t mean when I said that I was channeling God
I didn’t mean that the creator of the universe had selected me as vessel through which to speak. It’s much more subtle and infinitely more interesting than that. The creator of the universe is speaking through all of us.
All the time.I didn’t mean that my consciousness had stepped aside to allow another entity to speak through me (like Seth speaking through Jane Roberts or Abraham speaking through Esther Hicks). I don’t do that. When I receive and share guidance - in conversation or while teaching - I am always fully present but I am present in the heightened way that an artist is present to her muse. In the way that art moves through us as painting, as dancing, as singing, etc. In the way that ideas move through us as words.
What I did mean when I said that I was channeling God
I meant that I was softening, opening and allowing The Flow to move through me. I was the space through which this flow moved but I was not its source.
I meant that when I receive a download of flow energy, a part of it is for me. Actually, I want to amend that. It’s all for me - even when I am receiving it for you. The same is true when you are flowing healing, life-affirming, soul-nourishing energy for another. All of that juicy bright flow is also for you.
As The Flow moves through me, I feel different sensations including: the feeling (sensory) that my body is pulsating with light, the feeling (emotional) that my heart is expanding and opening, the feeling (psychological) that inherited patterns of shame, self-loathing and fear have moved out of the way. There is less resistance, more ease.
When Flow moves through me, I often receive it as images (inner visions and dreams). I receive it, also, on the sensory level - the sense that I am glowing with a visible light which feels (vibrationally) like truth. All of this is part of the experience.
As the energy moves through me, it becomes available to me. I am able to read and interpret it. It’s a flow of information. Remember the green streaming computer code in the Matrix - even though, that is not what it looks like to me, it’s a good example of the steady flow.
Each of us receives that streaming ‘code’ in our own way. Patterns of energy which we perceive in the body, mind, imaginal and physical senses. For me, the easiest access point seems to be imagery, which I see in my mind’s eye - Vivid dream-like movements of color, moving image, symbols. My second most receptive intuition is sound, through which I perceive, in my ‘imaginal ear’, music, frequency shifts and the high-pitched “crickets” sound of energy moving through space.
The more we pay attention to these intuitive senses, the more we perceive. Like any other skill, it takes practice to become fluent in reading energy.
As my brain processes this raw data, I receive thought impressions - words and images and symbols. This provides more information which I then translate back into words through writing or speaking.
I also receive and perceive patterns of energy in language, story, events in the world around me and the world at large.
Anyway… when my husband interrupted all of that, it felt bad because (I think) it broke my connection with all of that moving light.
That’s what I meant.
A little history
If you’re new to my Substack blog, you may not know that I used to write about angels for a living. From 2004-2015 when I managed and mostly wrote the "My Guardian Angel" column for Woman's World magazine. It was during that time that I became aware of a stream of clear unmistakable signs and communications from the angels who were managing the column with me. Angels who, as soon as our connection was established (by my noticing of it) began also streaming guidance about me, for me.
Back then, I believed that the signs I was receiving were being delivered by one or more actual angels, human-like beings with wings and haloes, who were hovering nearby. I no longer believe this. Back then, I believed that the signs were specific, personal invitations into relationship and co-creative partnership. I do still believe this.
Today, 18 years since my encounter with the angels began, I am more certain than ever that angels and the signs that they send are real. It’s my understanding of how that works and what it means that’s changed.
I still believe that angels are messengers, who serve as the space between humanity and a divinity that is, ultimately, unknowable. I believe that angels can and do emerge from the invisible (their natural or resting state) into the visible (to us) realm, essentially piercing the veil in order to help us. They answer prayers, respond to emergencies, perform miracles and then, they return to the invisible. That’s why we can see them while they’re helping but almost always can’t find them once the danger has passed.
I know that angels are not the property of any single faith tradition - though many name them and point to their acts on our behalf. I know that, in their natural state, angels look nothing like human beings but are, rather flexible and responsive God consciousness, capable of taking any form.
It is my sense and my belief that angels were designed to respond specifically to human beings and that there are different kinds of angels, with varying degrees and areas of response (responsibility) including the archangels who watch over the wider fields of the planet, the natural world (nature) and humanity.
I beleive that all of us walk with companion beings, invisible most of the time, who support us individually much the way that nature spirits support and hold the pattern for each plant and animal. I imagine that the intuitive sense of a guardian angel may actually be the perception of this presence, which is as much a part of our psychospiritual makeup as … well, as we are. (And here, by we I mean our sense of ‘I’ - of ‘me’ - our sense of self.
I no longer imagine my guardian angel as a beautiful woman or man with wings hovering over my bed as I sleep - though if I need that, I trust that the one that I know as companion and guardian would willingly comply.
These days, lately, as the world goes through its changes and things I never thought possible (insurrection, Zoom, pandemic, flying cars) become real, I find myself imaginging the possibilities of what (beyond my wildest idea) angels might be - and finding that some of the things I imagine feel true.
Could the angels be aspects of our own consciousness, shining ones who emerge into being as we do - born the day that we’re born? Do we grow up together, twin aspects of one soul, holding the pattern of one embodiment?
Is my guardian angel a field of energy - a liquid, living consciousness, an intelligence which dwells inside of me even as I dwell inside of its field?
I sense that all of this is possible. I no longer need to know definitively. What mattered, for me, was my own experience. In my ten years at Woman’s World, I experienced definitive proof, which I trusted then and still trust, that angels are real and that they are in constant conversation with all of us. That they seem to exist to support and uplift.
I also sense that the existence of angels, nature spirits and my own human consciousness are evidence for a co-creative earth that is far more complex, interwoven and beautifully supported than I understood.
For now, I call the relationship between the planet and human life “the response layer” of our co-creative universe - and I believe that, for now, the angels are a manifestation of that layer. They are response - offered to intelligent beings who have not yet grasped that the entire planet on which they (we) live is also responding, also supporting, also listening to them.
Everyone needs support. Ask for what you need.
There is one thing I believed at the beginning of my own journey which I no longer believe. I believed that all of the guidance I received came from outside of me. I worried that I might be hearing the voice of God. Today, I understand that neither of these things is (wholly) true. I no longer believe that I am channeling an entity outside of myself. I no longer believe I am so special that God has chosen me to deliver the message that will save the world.
I understand that I am hearing the pulsation of a wisdom that is available to every human being on this planet.
Try this - and see what happens
Close your eyes and ask the angels (or your Higher Self, an aspect of your own consciousness) a question. If you can’t think of a question to ask, ask: Please give me a question.
Write down the question.
Listen for the answer.
Write down the response that comes.
This is the voice of your own connection.
Your connection to what?
To the pool of love, light and wisdom we all share. I know this pool as God, as OM, as the One Song of all creation. I know my connection to this pool as a kind of bridge space, where I reach across an abyss that is but a hair’s width to connect. The part of me that reaches for God is also the part of me that bridges us together. It’s the godstuff in me. The light in me reaching for source of that light.
I know this bridge, this connective tissue as the soul, another kind of angel.
Which returns us to the impulse that brought me here, to talk with you about something I said - and what I meant when I said it.
When I said that I was 'channeling God' in the kitchen I meant that I was experiencing that connection. The same connection I make when I receive a breakthrough teaching through a dream, when I make connections in a client's story, when I am walking in the forest and a deer leaps across my path just as I am asking for a sign.
This connection, in contrast to channeling, is listening (with ears that hear) to the layers of the physical and non-physical reality we all share. This is scanning (with eyes that see) those same layers for images. This is smelling, tasting, feeling into those layers with all of the senses - including the non-physical senses with which all of us were born. You can do this, too. All it takes is awareness and practice.
We are all becoming more energy sensitive, more capable of perceiving and sorting through the energetic (vibratory) information we receive. Our bodies are evolving to detect, accomodate and synthesize the data that we perceive with our physical and non-physical senses. Notice this happening. Lean into it. Ask it for support, more information, more signs that it is real.
As all of us are coming online (awakening) to our inter-connected consciousness, we see that we were always connected. We forgot - now we’re remembering and all we need to get it started is a sign. As the visible comes together outside of us, so does the invisible inside of us.
I will have more to say about this in future notes. If you have questions or wish to share your own experience, I'd love to hear it. Respond in the comments below (where others will see) or send me a private note by replying to this email.
NEWS UPDATES ABOUT ME AND MY WORK
Some Things you might have missed (cuz we are busy and no one, including me, reads all the blog posts that flow through the inbox. How could we?)
My new (kind of a) podcast
where I read one of my reflections out loud and comment on it as I go. I imagine you listening as you drive, as you make dinner. It’s my way of embroidering onto an existing piece of work - a skill that I learned from my mother, taking something old and making it into something entirely new.
Here’s the link to the “kind of a podcasts” I’ve done so far.Unpublished Chapters: a quiet secret stash of my memoir work
It’s quiet cuz I’m just getting brave enough to share it. It’s secret cuz… well, same reason. I’m getting more comfy there so keep checking back. I’m adding new memoir notes, new chapters now. As I add one, the next is already tugging at my sleeve, asking to be shared with you.An invitation to talk with me one-on-one, on a sliding scale
I love that so many people have responded to this offer.
If you’d like to talk with me 1:1 via Zoom or telephone, I’d love to meet you. I’ve opened more morning sessions and I’m trying a sliding scale. Here’s a link to my appointment calendar. It’s $125-300 per 90 minute session. If you want to talk with me but this is outside of your range right now, tell me. When the ground is trembly, we need to hold one another in blessing. This is how I do my blessing work.Workshop Update: Spiral Journey 2023
Four people have already signed up! I’m delighted that the work is already calling the next cohort. (I don’t even have a webpage up yet - but I will, soon. The format will be the same as Journey 2022 - Once a week, two hour Zoom call with guided meditation, journaling work and lots of discussion. It’s a great opportunity to work with me on your own story and to experience the power of a small group of co-journeyers. How your stories and your wisdom interweave and support one another. How it seems, with every cohort, as if this group assembled around the same themes. (I can never tell WHICH themes until the group arrives. Just know that if you feel called to be there, the others who arrive with you will be coming for the same reasons.)Sunday Sanctuary is returning in the fall
… for guided meditation and non-denominational spiritual straight talk.
It will be on Sundays at noon. We’ll meet for 30- 45 minutes for guided meditation. It will probably be simulcast on Zoom and FB Live. You are welcome to join for free or make a donation of your choice to support the work.
If you’re interested in Spiral Journey or Sunday Sanctuary, let me know (by responding to this email) and I’ll get you on the mailing list.
Happy Summer
xxoo
Amy