The Prophet, Gibran, Nicholas and John

In the Brazilian Santo Daime Tradition there is a ceremony to work with the spirits of those who have departed this realm of existence.  I am new to this Work, called a Cura, so the first people I wanted to help were my parents who died 30 years ago. After working on unfinished attachments to mom and dad’s spirits, I let them go advising them to go toward the Light and Home.

When I was a teenager 50 years ago, I connected with a man who had integrity and followed through with his promises.  He was committed to his mission and his community in India.  John was an impressive contrast to my parents, who were unable to walk their talk.  Father John R. Cole gave me the support and love that passes all understanding in the few weeks I spent with him in 1961.  As a parting gift he gave me a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, which launched my spiritual quest.  I recently discovered that he died in 1995.  Saturday I put his name on the list during the Cura.

Although I am relatively new to the Daime Tradition, I am an elder and know how to support the community.  This was the third Work since getting my star and I was asked to serve as a Guardian near the end of the Work.  I had done my own processing in a profoundly deep way and was somewhat relieved to be able to care for the needs of my brothers.  As I covered people with warm blankets against the cold temperatures, I began thinking of a hypnotic regression my grandson had done with me.

Two years ago, my grandson Matan had shared Michael Newton’s book, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives with me, which profoundly challenged my assumptions about the nature of existence.  I felt there might be a way to access the unconscious and find the experiences which I was repressing, the memories which were the keys to my need for family and desire to please.  We had been talking about my early childhood memories and a block between my head and my heart, how I retreated from trauma by becoming more and more intellectual.  I felt a regression might release the blockage and heal a dissociation.  So Matan helped me drop into trance.

Although I expected to find the problem in this life time, when Matan asked me where I was, I answered.   “Tsarist Russia.  My mom and dad are dead.  It’s their funeral.  I am five years old.”   “Is your spirit guide there?” he asked.  I looked around the scene and answered, “Yes, he’s here.  Father Nicholas.  He adopted me.  He taught me everything I know.  I lived with him in the orphanage until the Cossacks killed him.  They shot me in the arm, right here.”  I was feeling pain in my right arm above the elbow, where my arm, during the week before the regression, had been hurting me.  I recognized John Cole was the same soul, the same spirit guide, as Father Nicholas in that former incarnation.

Back in the Santo Daime Work, I started opening drawers looking for a candle to replace the one which was about to go out.  There was nothing in the first two drawers.  There was only an old book in the third drawer.  I took it out into the light and discovered it was a copy of Kahlil Gabran’s The Prophet.  That felt like a direct communication from John Cole and the spirit world.  When I called my spirit son yesterday and told him this story, he was amazed, saying, “my mom just pulled her copy of The Prophet off the bookshelf and told me someone had given it to her when she was a girl.”  To my son the Raven this was another sign that the Spirits were actively supporting our work together with the relatives.

After my conversation with the Raven, I went to dinner here in Ojai, California at another spirit son’s home.  There I met a man named Keith, who was surprised I knew the meaning of his name.  “Keith is my brother’s name.” I said, “He was named after my uncle Keith Melville.”  Now he was really curious.  “Were they from Utah?”  “Yes”, I answered, “why?”  “Well my dad’s best friend was Keith Melville, an Air Force Pilot of a B-17.  They were stationed in Naples together during the second world war.  Keith and Ruth used to come out here to visit us.  I was named after him.  In fact you have the same voice pattern as my dad’s friend.  Did you know that?” I remembered being identified with my uncle Keith, the professor of political science at Brigham Young University, and Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.  “It’s amazing.  He was my favorite uncle, the one (spiritually) whom I was most like, although I looked exactly like my dad, John Melville.”  So I told my new friend Keith McDaniel about my Santo Daime experience and my work with/for mom, dad, and John Cole. All of our parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are in the spirit realm with the rest of our ancestors.  We talked about freeing them from their patterns by changing those patterns in our own lives.  I was “blown away” by the synchronicity of our meeting and finding a kindred spirit in Keith.  This wasn’t a coincidence.  As they say, God works in mysterious ways.  Isn’t it fabulous?

And then there’s the strange fact that my twin sons are named Nicko (after Athena’s father) and John (after my father).  Their saint’s days in the Eastern Orthodox calendar are St. Nickolas, December 2nd and St. John, January 7th.  These feasts are like bookends which remind me of my spirit guides, Father Nicholas and Father John Cole.  I am sponsoring a Native American Church Ceremony for my 69th birthday on the Saturday following my birthday.  This is the first time I have ever celebrated my birthday in the Tipi.  Hopefully my relatives from the Santo Daime Tradition will come sit up with us.  Evidently the ones in the spirit world have already made plans to attend.

Advertisement