Do You Believe in Magic, Messages from "The Other Side" and the Power of Words?

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They definitely communicate with us,

my daughter says.

Signs, words, visions, songs, "pocket dial" messages, butterflies, birds, orbs, white feathers: believe it or not, there really may be something happening here, as I started to set forth last month in Angels "simply use what's available" - even our cell phones, or landscape rocks

Today, @yahia-lababidi posted something that would support the idea of words and "magic" - including the semantics of the word magic - "frankly, it’s a word I’m suspicious of —as it implies fakery, deception or worse, diabolical influence," he writes.

Do You Believe… in Magic? (My intimate exchange with a stranger)

These matters cannot be proven, they are revealed to the mind that surrenders in humility.

Only silence and contemplation reveal mysteries…

Words have meaning, and words *make things happen - whole books on this subject have been written. The Gospel of John is one of the most profound and beautiful:

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That takes us back to Genesis: God said "Let there be light," and voila! There was light! All because God SAID...?

My sister Lori died a month ago today.

Today my youngest sister posted this in a private (family-only) Facebook group:

"I take as another sign, just got a notification for this!!"

"I have Never gotten a marketplace notification before let alone for Good Morning Sister and it’s morning!"🌼☀️

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"Wow, I curiously go back to see what it was and got this!!"

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A niece replied,

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"May she always live on and communicate with us"

Sign-Sister's reply:

Gotta say I'm pretty amazed at all the signs I've already had! They better keep a coming!

She sees things most other people would not see (or believe to be a "sign"). E.g.

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They better keep a coming! she says.

And if they don't....?

No, I didn't say that! I do not doubt her, I do not dispute her.

If the dead live on in some kind of afterlife, heaven forbid they spend it watching over us, seeing us mourn, seeing the loss and devastation (hey, some people are better at suffering than others), watching us fumble along and not having any tangible, concrete ways to intercede on our behalf. Just, no. We are told God feels the same about us. Having gifted us with Free Will (don't even get me started on that one!), God can only weep when we trash our lives making bad choices even though we have but to *trust in Him and BELIEVE! to have God as our Captain, or co-pilot, or Pilot, the Holy Spirit as our Advocate and Intercessor, Jesus as our Savior.... yeah, you know the drill. If the dead do "see" or sense us, let us hope it is only in fleeting glimpses, and that the dead are having a grand time in a marvelous After-Life, free of pain and suffering. Watching us, the living, suffer the loss of our loved ones: what kind of heaven would that be? (A community of saints, perhaps, which is a whole other topic.)

Little Sis say Lori had "better keep" them signs a coming.

I be like:

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The tree frog is explained here:

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#Music may be the one "message" I see/hear most.

Like the complete Bohemian Rhapsody on our way home from the farm that Monday night, 13-Sept-2021. Of all people, the sign-seeing sister scoffed and said, "I hear that on the radio all the time." Well, I don't. And if I do, it's never the whole thing, start to finish. Either I tuned in too late, or I have to park the car and dash into an appointment without hearing it to the end. {{{And whassup with that particular song? When our sister Julie went missing 28-Nov-1975, THAT SONG had only just been released, and chances are, she never got to hear it, but every time it came on the radio I'd think "Julie would love this song soooo much. I hope she makes it home again soon and we'll get to hear her sing it."}}} No sooner did Little Sister scoff at *my sign, than a cousin that very day messages me a photo he'd taken of Lori at the last reunion -- with that song title on her T-shirt. (And he knows nothing of the song having any particular meaning for me.) Coincidence? Or a reinforcement of the idea that the dead DO communicate with us via song? Getting us to tune in to the right station at the right time....

Of course, when I mentioned it to our youngest sister, she said she's the one who gave Lori the T-shirt, and she has a duplicate of it herself, and sent me the evidence. So, I put the two photos side by side. Sssh, don't tell - I keep Sister #5's name and photo out of my public blogs because she is fiercely private. Same with Sister #3. If any of you know their names, you're super sleuths!

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As messages from the other side go, The Big One, for me, might be the auto-text in the mystery font, the I'm Sorry, which is most significant for the timing and the back story. Details in last month's post: Angels "simply use what's available" - even our cell phones, or landscape rocks

Lori, if you're still lurking and keeping tabs on us,

I'm the one who's sorry!

For all that I have failed to do.
The sting of those deathbed words, Carol never did much of anything, hit so hard because there is too much truth in it. You were only trying to recall some memory of me in childhood (which I spent mostly with my head in a book, doing nothing but read, read, read), and your final words on Carol struck a chord because they are all too true of me in adulthood. I should have done so much more for you.

And that reminds me again of Yahia's post. The flip side of which is this: poets weave "magic" with their words, but we ordinary mortals can inflict damage with our careless word choices. Nothing was ever so untrue as this childhood motto:

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

I tell ya what, a beating with a stick can do less-lasting damage than words that stick in our psyches, wounding our souls. But that's a whole 'nother topic.

On a lighter note, just for fun, our endearing and sign-blessed youngest sister snapped both of these photos of Lori channeling "bobble heads" along with our mom's cats:

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Lori, if you're watching over my shoulder (Lord, I hope not; what kind of "heaven" or afterlife would that be), you know that I love you, however many ways I failed to manifest that. To be fair, that "failure" belongs in equal measure to you. To all of us.

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azquotes.com

The magic of words is that they have power to do more than convey meaning; not only do they have the power to make things clear, they make things happen. - Frederick Buechner

And on that note, let us be kind to one another, as your beloved Bible reminded us:

source: AwakeMe.com

Whatever the font, whichever translation of the Bible, I'll say it again:

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. - Ephesians 4:32.

How beautiful is your speech? Would hearers compare it to a beautiful painting or sculpture? King Solomon praised good speech in this proverb by comparing it to an exquisite scene. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Proverbs 25:11

If the Bible isn't your thing, no problem; let this be our thing:

Wield words with tenderness.

Cultivate kindness.

Let the magic begin.

bow ocd faith gems spirituality neoxian inspiration music
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There must be an "other side", with a better world than this one... It's the astral heavens basically.

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I sooo hope you are right, @vikthor. The old war between left brain, right brain -has me hoping but doubting.

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(Edited)

I don't doubt it anymore. We're multidimensional beings with an infinite lifespan having a human experience. The astrals are just as real as this world, even more I dare say. Some experience the astrals while still in sleep mode, but it takes years of mastering to go to this spiritual level.

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Well, dang - I have a long way to go. To me, the world is as straightforward and "obvious" as scientific observation would have it, and the world of the unseen, the mystic, the dance of the atom, is beyond me. I'd love to tap the "magic" and power we read about in New Age Physics (Robert Lanza, Deepak Chopra) and fantasy novels. Novelist and physician Dr. Libby McGugan says "Life is living us." Whatever forms my sisters may take in the afterlife, I would love to believe we will meet again on the other side....

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(Edited)

I was skeptic in many things paranormal even though I must admit I had several of them myself that I couldn't quite explain up until the age of 21/22 (so I decided to discard them as something which was just very strange and random). I am not a skeptic anymore however... I know there is something bigger than me, fortunately. And it's for the good, mostly. But this world... is the closest thing to hell in my perception. There are some safe havens which are closest to heaven (at least to the lowest of the higher astrals), but way too few outposts of this quality in my humble opinion. Overall it's dark and murky down here (not as in the lower astral realms, but still), yet according to the Book of Urantia progress will be achieved for mankind to accede to higher ascension phases and transition to higher dimensions of consciousness respectively, at first slow, but then gradually better and better. Hope, there will always be hope, even in a physical realm as Earth which seems preponderantly cut so far away from the Source.

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You are a font of information and insights - next up, the Book of Urantia - and what you say fits with all that I have been leaning toward: something BIGGER than us, mostly good, with hope of ascending to higher phases, but I best go check out this book that kinda sounds like You-RANT-sha, a mnemonic device, as RANTING is what i do. THanks again Vikthor!

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Ok, looking up Urantia....

The Urantia Book (sometimes called The Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation) is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book that originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955. The authorship remains a matter of speculation.

....The authors refer to the book as the fifth revelation of "epochal significance" to humankind, the fourth epochal revelation having been the life of Jesus. The claim of revelation in The Urantia Book has been criticized for various reasons. Skeptics such as Martin Gardner say it is a product of human efforts. Because the book does not support certain tenets of Christianity, such as the atonement doctrine, while at the same time presenting an account of parts of Jesus' life absent in the Bible, others with a Christian viewpoint have argued it cannot be genuine. Gooch notes that while its "somewhat dated, elegant" prose could be read as fiction, due to its claim of divine inspiration "the book invites reactions far more scathing than [it] ... might otherwise merit."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urantia_Book

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I sooo hope you are right, @vikthor. The old war between left brain, right brain -has me hoping but doubting, and doubting yet hoping.

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It's heartening to read this, dear @carolkean, kindred spirit and I daresay that Lori might, too.

I Believe, in a big way that the air is swarming with spirits (both good and bad) so we must be careful what we give our attention to/summon. But, yes, daily miracles, winks and nudges to the ones who are open to receive...

You want more synchronicity, I got notice of your post as I was watching this video which is about the Occult Sciences in Islam (and it seemed like a sign and a confirmation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=q3e39WLzwgA

Stay blessed, sister
🙏

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Yahia, thank you so much!
Oh I love this:

we must be careful what we give our attention to/summon. But, yes, daily miracles, winks and nudges to the ones who are open to receive...

And the synchronicity - my sister got a Lori message today while I apparently did not (or so I thought), but I got THIS from the great poet Yahia--I'm trying not to gloat here: little ol' Carol "who never did much of anything" got a message today from a brilliant and acclaimed poet; of course my sisters would not be impressed, but I am touched, and moved, and ever so grateful to hear from you! -- and I'm internalizing it/embracing it. THANK YOU!

Coincidentally, I've reviewed anthologies about Djinn, and have ever been intriuged by the good, the bad, and the Jin/Jinn/Djin (Scrabble Go accepts various spellings!). Sssh, I did not just confess to wasting time on the ScrabbleGo app....

My favorite Jinn anthology (Published March 2017 by Solaris) includes a story by Niel Gaiman. The Djinn Falls in Love (ed. Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin)

THE DJINN FALLS IN LOVE

Imagine a world filled with fierce, fiery beings, hiding in our shadows, in our dreams, under our skins. Eavesdropping and exploring; savaging our bodies, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends.
These are the Djinn. And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind the wheel of a taxi, in the chorus, between the pages of books. Every language has a word for them. Every culture knows their traditions. Every religion, every history has them hiding in their dark places. There is no part of the world that does not know them.
They are the Djinn. They are among us.

Those words are not mine. My reviews were all purged by Amazon in 2019, a thousand in all (seriously!) and if I didn't copy a review over to Goodreads, it is lost. I've asked Amazon to restore them. In vain. They said I violated Friends and Family guidelines. Which baffles me. Every author I read and love, alive or dead, is my FRIEND. Social media is how they pounce and devour a positive review of a "FRIEND" - no exceptions, not even for 'professional' book reviewers. But I digress.

Interesting thoughts from Seyyed Nizam al-Din Ahmed in the You-Tube video you linked - Black Magic, and how "occult" means "hidden," and I'm thinking the poet and his words is also employing a kind of sleight of hand and bedazzlement .... at this point, Sister Lori has long moved on to some topic of more interest or relevance to her. :)

(Lori denounced her daughter's deck of "herbal Tarot" cards as "works of the devil." Me, I do not look for guidance from astrology or tarot or Ouija boards, but I enjoy sneaking a peek now and then.)

The video reminds me of Al-Sijzi ( "Al-Sijistani") and how Western science with all its advances lagged behind the Greeks and the mathematical Muslims (and Aztecs with their astronomical wonders). I have not read much of Occultism, much less understood what little I did read, but that word "Jinn" leaped out at me and I confess I could focus on little else. That, and "What do we mean when we say 'magic'' -

Al-Sijzi was an Iranian[3] Muslim astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who proposed in the 10th century that the Earth rotates around its axis

Sorry this reply is SO LONG, and your time is limited, and you already know asll this stuff anyway, but:

Birds find their way into everything of mine: "The Truth About Owls," obviously, but also geese in "Seasons of Glass and Iron," a hummingbird in "Madeleine," the salted birds and the Roc in "The Lonely Sea in the Sky," a title's worth in "A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds." ---Amal El-Mohtar, in her blog, https://amal.substack.com/p/a-new-years-bird

I'd love to say I remembered her name off the top of my head. Nope. My memory is abysmal; names and titles fall out of my head faster than I can write them down for safekeeping in a journal.

Yahia, though, is a name I can remember. :) (Now if I can memorize and RETAIN some lines of your poetry. Consider that I cannot even recall Bible verses I'd memorized in childhood, and you know it's my faulty circuits and wiring, not the value of the words, that cause me to forget!)

Messengers from the genus, our You Tuber is saying.... yes, I've been multi-tasking, trying to hear him while typing out my own words words words. It's 36 minutes, 40 seconds in:

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By now you've heard (and retained!) the whole thing. :)

Thanks again, Yahia.

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P.S. If you have not read her blog, this one in particular - her "bird search," as it were - is a personal favorite. Her winter walk in 2020, past all manner of mundane birds, as she seeks affirmation and signs. https://amal.substack.com/p/a-new-years-bird

.... I’d found my birds. And the happiness I felt — bubbling over into tears, the gift of it, the miracle of it — wasn’t a reprieve from pigeons, but just the company of birds: the sight and sound of them, darting, singing, the shape and flash of them moving in the world. Sounding, and sought. Hidden, and found. The sudden awareness of how long it had been since I’d just stood and stared at birds, for the love of them.

I probably stood there for another ten minutes, thrilling in them, before walking home — thinking how much I wanted to tell my friend of what I’d seen, and then write about it....

.... But I want more than anything to tell you how I didn’t feel the need to do any of that. I want to tell you that shedding the weight of a borrowed pattern was its own vibrant grace, and an encounter with common winter birds in a green tree beneath a white sky breathing snow was a gift that asked nothing of me, that slaked thirsts I’d forgotten I had.

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And because chances are good you will NOT have time to read it, here's one more favorite excerpt:

In the last hours of 2019, a dear friend told me to pay attention to the first bird I would see in the New Year, because it would have special significance.

I love birds. Few things are simultaneously so ubiquitous and so incredible, make me feel so constantly as if I’m in the presence of a miracle. Birds, stars, and the several shapes of water; music, singing. These things and a few others I love with the helplessness that comes of trying always to get the people I care about to notice them, to wonder at them, when they are so common and so constant as to be thought of as annoyances: spike ledges against pigeons, curse the snow, make fun of people who sing earnest and full-throated without the sanction of a stage.

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And now it occurs to me that it's LORI who I'm calling these words out to. Lori, if you can communicate from The Other Side, maybe you have also learned some stuff that would make me less weird and incomprehensible to you, right? Maybe now, if your "ghost" sat across from me at table over a cup of tea-a-three, I'd be able to tell you what I read today, and you'd nod, and say "Yes! I get it" - because we both know Julie would have gotten it, even at age 15 or 18. WHY ARE BOTH OF YOU DEAD NOW and why do I continue to feel so alone or unable to reach you.... but I did reach Yahia today, and for that I am ever so greateful. And to you, @vikthor, and to whoever else ends up reading this stuff: thank you for listening.

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Near tears reading this & sending you Love. I hear you and see you, Carol 🙏

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'Few things are so ubiquitous and so incredible' I, too, love birds (as you know) and view them as messengers of the Spirit -- more reliable than djinn ;) You have such wonderful energy and enthusiasm, Carol, I can hardly keep up with your effusions. But, I want you to know that I read all the above, with my heart smiling and I want to make you a small gift. When you get a chance, please, drop me a line at [email protected] as I should like to gift you an ecopy of my forthcoming book, Learning to Pray, out in a couple of months or so (if you accept, that is).

Stay blessed you joyous, winged thing!
Your friend, Yahia

@carolkean

breakfast_birds.jpg

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What a beautiful photo!!!

Thank you so much - you are much too kind - I will buy your prayer book. Otherwise Amazon won't let me review it. :) But I'd also welcome a sneak preview, like the #NetGalley ARC, that allows me to get a review posted the day the book goes "live" on amazon.

This reminds me how very far behind I am in reviewing for anyone - NetGalley, Goodreads, anywhere.

Birds, "more reliable than djinn" as messengers - there's a poem in that one, or a haiku!

THANK YOU, you've made my day!
Little Sis gets the messages from Lori, but I have the living words of Yahia, and I am rejoicing (not gloating! I get punished, severely, any time I've indulged in the least bit of gloating, or feeling "vindicated," or getting caught up in righteious indignation, or daring to assert that I rock-never! Never do I get away with it!)

So I will say YOU rock, because that, I can say without fear of repercussions. :)

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How fortunate that you get instant (Divine) feedback for even minor transgressions — that an indication of how important the purification of your heart is to the One invested in you 🙏🏽✨

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wow!
Now that is one way to put a positive spin on it - I like it!
THANK YOU
the purification of my heart must be a major work in progress!

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words can do naught
without the power
of imagining

When we communicate, any old way, we spark imagination in ourselves and in our listeners. Creation. Magic. It's simple.

I am so sorry I missed that those were her last words regarding you! I flippantly told you that, if that's what people think of you, then make sure you actually do nothing. You did so much for her!!! I wish you could stop feeling so guilty. Is forgiveness of self a Catholic thing?

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Another impromptu and inspired poem from the master - THANK YOU!
Words without the power of imagining - there is soooo much to unpack from that! Your talent for hammering words into haiku, or 3-lined verse, whatever it's called--- it's sublime. As was this:

WHAT, did you DELETE IT....? I can't find it now! The "do nothing" verses.

And I thought everything was forever on the blockchain.

THANK YOU for kind attention, your gift of words, your endless inspiration, @owasco!

Flippant? You? Not at all. She was asked to reminisce about the five sisters and our childhood together, and for me, she came up blank. Carol never did much of anything. Well, there are contemplatives who lead lives of silence and meditation who might assert that much can happen beneath the stillness of a surface, but I didn't bother to "go there" - I was and ever am a schlub, not a mover and a shaker, not the life of the party, not the one who'll set the world on fire. So be it. I am an idiot for letting it get to me at all, that deathbed commentary on the five sisters and the who made no impression on Lori.

So, yeah, I'm actually embarrassed that it cut to the quick and lasts and lasts, and I'm wallowing in the guilty of all my sins of omission. the things that I have failed to do - and yes, Catholics do teach forgiveness, and the saints manifest it better than any Protestant role models I grew up with. Maybe I should have grown up surrounded by mystics, pagans, and Catholics, not Evangelicals. :) Lori was White Evangelical, and I said she's one of those people who are easier to love from a distance, and she must have caught wind of that somehow and punished me for it with those Last Words....

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Or perhaps her feelings for you are too deep for words, and a different communication existed between you two. Or maybe she hadn't finished the sentence, and would have said "carol never does anything hateful". Maybe whoever recounted her words to you didn't remember them clearly, doesn't know how hurt you are. Maybe maybe maybe. Every interaction presents enormous opportunities - what we choose to imagine becomes our reality.

I haven't deleted anything, but that poem may have been quite a while ago. I'll go see if I can find it.

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You are very, very kind. Lori's daughter had an audio recording of the conversation. I didn't recount all of it here, and I never will. Suffice to say, she asked Lori (for posterity's sake) to reminisce about the sisters. She had a cute story or fond memory for the other sisters, but for me, she could only say.... that thing she said.

Ah, I didn't think to look at PeakD! I was looking for a comment you'd made to me, reassuring me that to "do nothing" can be a good thing.

dance to be still
move to stay put
do nothing be you

She actually said WORSE THINGS after that thing she said, but I'm trying to believe that the weird "I'm sorry" text really was somehow, mystically, generated by Lori, as an actual apology for having said the sh*t she said, but I'm learning that DNA (and even bonemarrow) doth not a sister make.

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I didn't gloat, I swear I did not (while Little Sis got a message from Lori, I got a message from YAHIA), no, I did not GLOAT over that, and yet my punishment came anyway. From both my remaining sisters. I had rejoiced over Little Sis's "message" and added that it arrived on this day -- moreover, it was a MONTH AGO TODAY that Lori died. How special is that, right? Well, BOTH sisters rushed to relieve me of my ignorance (or display theirs, if you want my opinion). Seven days = a week. Four weeks = a month. Lori died on a Monday, four weeks (one month) ago, and the ONLY comment I get from my two remaining sisters is that "It won't be a month until the 13th." I call B.S. on that.

It's another PTSD trigger, or I wouldn't find myself so outraged and so "Shot Down Again" by their petty replies.

But nobody else needs to read this. No need for anyone to comment on it.

Words can be MAGIC, in the hands of poets like Yahia and Owasco, whose words inspire, amuse, reassure, clarify, illuminate, and uplift.

Words can also be slings and arrows, rotten tomatoes and stink bombs.

Long live the poets! Thank you for sharing your words with me.

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Dear Carol, my condolences on the passing of your sister Lori.🙏 I don’t think she realized how hurtful her last words affected you. Perhaps she didn’t have your emotional depth. Maybe you weren’t as much mover and shaker as your other siblings but you certainly have influenced so many with your kindness and writings.

I know from personal experience that when the body, upon death, returns to pure spirit it can send messages back to loved ones to comfort and also warn us of impending events.

Carol, take comfort in knowing your sister loved you in her own way and did let you know she is thinking of you with the signs you received after her passing. Family dynamics can be complicated.

Being kind to one another is so important for our well being but sometimes not so easy to always keep in mind. :) 💕

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Thank you, and I know you have known great loss, so it is heartening to see this:

I know from personal experience that when the body, upon death, returns to pure spirit it can send messages back to loved ones to comfort and also warn us of impending events.

Words have so much power - if we let them! - and my mission of a lifetime is to (1) stop internalizing the harsh words of others and (2) never let myself be guilty of the same thing, using harsh words. Being aware of how I come across has proven to be the challenge of my life.

Thanks again for your kind comments!

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Most welcome, Carol. 💕 Take care, be well and keep on being yourself.🌸

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