Here but for the grace of God - literally!

According to the cosmology of Reya, there's a gate of life and death. This gate exists everywhere and nowhere, it opens at the right time (whatever "right" means) to allow souls to enter and exit this manifested reality. Sometimes it feels tiny, as when babies are born. Sometimes it feels huge. The Golden Gate, in the Bay Area of California, is one place where the gate seems gigantic, and to my sensibilities at least, almost palpable. I think that's why the bridge has been such a popular place to jump. My guess is that crossing through the veil would be fairly easy there.

A wind blows through this gate; it's such a weird wind, not (of course) a physical wind, but you can feel it when the gate opens, even inside a hermetically sealed hospital room, you can feel the wind when someone dies or is born.

For awhile, some of my cohorts and I did rituals in which we literally cut the gate open, with sewing scissors, in order to allow ghosts to pass through. After these rituals, we sewed the gate shut with ethereal spider threads. They were very powerful rituals, but needless to say, crazy making. We gave up the practice after awhile - wisely, I think.

Yesterday morning it occurred to me that my friend who is sitting vigil with her mother in hospice, had somehow gotten too near that gate. I thought I could feel the stirrings of the wind coming from the gate, which is on the verge of opening so her mother's soul can pass. In my mind's eye, I took my friend's hand so as to lead her a few steps away from the gate. Then I stood between my friend and the gate, to protect her.

After this vision, I headed out of the chateau to go to work. I was crossing an intersection at which the lights were out. Something happened. I saw a white van coming from one direction, a black jeep coming from another. Neither one of the drivers were slowing down as they approached the intersection. Maybe they didn't notice the lights were not functioning, maybe they didn't care. Who knows? I saw it coming.

I screamed and closed my eyes. I heard the sickening sound of the crash, felt the wave of energy, and a spray of dirt. When I opened my eyes a micro-second later, I was at least 6 feet away from where I had just been standing. The jeep was still spinning. It stopped moving less than 2 feet away from me. I called 911, then tried to convince the driver of the jeep, who was coughing and bleeding, to hold still (he wouldn't - of course he was in shock). Then I went to work as usual. Of course I was in shock, too.

Initially what I focused on was the way in which some combination of adrenalin, survival instinct, and angelic intervention had lifted me up and moved me (just) out of harm's way. If I hadn't moved, I would have been hit by the spinning jeep, maybe killed. Amazing, yes? Whoa. Later in the day what came to me is that I was standing too close to the gate, way too close. The timing of this collision, happening as it did precisely at the moment I was standing there, can't be planned, should not be ignored.

The gate will open for my friend's mother when it's right. I'm still holding my friend in my heart, but keeping myself, even in the astral, at a safe distance from the gate.

Life is good and I am grateful. L'chaim, y'all. L'chaim.