by Larry Redalia
Florida USA
Early summer of 1968. School was out for the year, so my time was now my own. I was fourteen years old and endless days of summer stretched before me.
I was riding my bicycle to Lake Nicasio, about twelve miles from my home, to enjoy a long day of fishing.
It was still early morning and there was very little traffic on the two-lane country road. The road there is wide and the weather was clear and dry.
I was riding my bike in the middle of the lane. The speed limit there was 50 miles per hour. I was going about fifteen miles per hour. I was bored and looking forward to catching some fish.
I heard a car approaching behind me. He honked, loudly. To me this meant "Get out of my way!" I moved over into the other lane to allow him to continue to drive in that lane. This created a problem as he had also moved his big car into the other lane to pass me.
His car was still going about fifty miles per hour when he sideswiped my bicycle.
"Now I've don it," I thought. "I'm going to get hurt or killed if I don't do something fast."
So I did something fast.
As a spirit I left my body. I went about two feet above its head to better direct this disaster in progress.
Suddenly, time slowed way down. Though only a few seconds passed on the clock, it seemed to me I had about ten minutes to handle the accident so I wouldn't be killed or injured badly. I woved my body slightly to the right on the bicycle seat. The rear tire was skidding because the frame and wheel had been bent. Everything seemed to be moving in ultra-slow motion.
In this state I was able to precisely balance my body on the disabled bicycle as it slowly completed its crash to the ground. I let go of the bicycle as it was sliding slowly along the road. My body was not hurt at all, beyond being scared spitless and some very light scraping on the palms of my hands.
I went back near my body as it lay on the road. It wasn't badly damaged, so I went back inside it.
I marvelled at the fact that my body wasn't even hurt, after being hit by a car at about fifty miles per hour and having my bicycle under me wrecked and bent.
But even more amazing was I seemed to have plenty of time to safely guide my fall so I wasn't hurt. I realized that time can be variable--a few seconds of physical world clock time could be many minutes of time for me as a spirit. Time didn't have to stay at the same rate--it could change to be very fast or slow for me. I had seen I could control time under extreme circumstances. From this experience, it now seems I have plenty of time.
AROUND THE BEND
Sometimes spirits departed from their bodies will go to great lengths to get into communication with spirits who have bodies. Here is a story about a spirit who persisted until it got attention!
Several years ago a family, who were all quite aware as spirits, became our neighbors.
The teen age boy was driving home late one night. As he went around a curve on a side road near in the neighborhood, he swerved and ran into and then out of the ditch. There was no damaged to him or the car.
When asked about what happened he said, "It felt like there was a spirit in the car with me. It felt like a little buddy."
My son told him that a 10-year-old boy was killed on that curve less than a year earlier in a violent and sudden accident.
The teenagerâs mother decided that she should go to that area and get in communication with this spirit who was still there. But she was busy and soon forgot about it.
A few days later, as I was driving to work, my car ran out of gas...just as I went around that curve. I was able to catch a ride and continued on, leaving my car parked at the side of the country road.
I worked until 11:00 pm and for some reason my husband worked late that night as well. At about 10:00 pm my son answered a call from the highway police telling him that my car had been abandoned and if it was not removed soon, it would be towed. Having no other option, my son called the other teenager's mother. She picked him up and drove him and some gas to my car.
She saw the tracks where her son had driven off the road a few days earlier. So she walked around the area until she felt the presence of this spirit who still believed he was a little boy. She told him that lifetime was over for him and that he could go to the nearby hospital and chose a new family. He had been in a great deal of confusion and was still not quite ready to leave the neighborhood, but at least now he knew he could.
MEETING FEAR WITH LOVE
In February 1996, I made my first of many pilgrimages to the Big Island of Hawaii, fulfilling a lifetime desire to swim with wild dolphins. The very first day, I had a spiritual experience, which altered my orientation to art and life and shifted my artworks into deeper dimensions of healing and awareness.
After waking at sunrise, and canvassing three local bays looking for dolphins without success, I went snorkeling at a natural marine life sanctuary next to the sacred heiau (Hawaiian temple).
It was a picture perfect day in Hawaii and the water was deliciously satisfying. I consider myself a connoisseur of water the way others might feel about wine. The water was sparkling and invigorating. I felt thrilled to be alive and effortlessly began swimming into the middle of the bay, ever hopeful that the dolphins might appear.
Before long, the water was so deep that I could not see the bottom. There were no longer a plethora of multi-colored fish or any signs of wildlife at all. I turned to look back at the shore and realized that I was probably farther away from land or other swimmers than I had ever been before. I was alone with the wild sea and felt so energized and deeply contented, despite the absence of dolphins.
Moments later, the delight in my aloneness suddenly changed. Adrenaline began coursing through my body and for the first time in my life I was afraid of the ocean. The fear of sharks consumed my attention. I tried to calm myself by reasoning that it was the middle of the day and the waters were clear. Sharks are known to feed on or attack humans in murky waters at dusk or in the dark. However, no matter how my mind rationalized, the adrenaline in my body forced me to deal with my panic on another level.
I heard the voice of my spiritual teacher say, "Let the shark have you!" In the next few minutes I was able to imagine my body being torn apart by a large grey shark. I experienced excruciating physical pain and a full range of emotions. The experience continued until I felt my body was utterly devoured. Nothing left. Complete silence. Stillness.
A great peace filled my being. My body was totally at ease. I realized that my eyes were open throughout this whole experience and wondered if I would still be feeling so peaceful if I closed my eyes. So I did.
The mandala appeared as if it were really before me. This was incredible because previously, I had never been able to see images in my mind. The mandala was perfectly symmetrical and concentric, with rich, vibrant colors and illuminated--like a stained glass cathedral window--composed of many tiny circles radiating.
I feel the dolphins had a part in the magic. While they were not physically present, the call of my heart to theirs was rewarded by the willingness to let love lead the way instead of fear.
After the dolphins finally came to swim with me on the last day of my trip, I returned to the mainland with a deep intention to embody the joy of a dolphin on land. As a spirit, I had never quite felt truly at home in my human body until my encounters with the dolphins.
Two weeks later, I attended my first weeklong mandala workshop with Judith Cornell, Ph.D., author of Mandalas: Luminous Symbols of Healing. For several years I had been praying for a vehicle to express my spiritual visions that encompassed the whole. The mandala process turned out to be the ideal form. My contact with dolphins effortlessly opened the path of mandala making and teaching that I have now been on for almost ten years.
My whole experience of facing my fear of sharks and then swimming with wild dolphins also opened my ability to see and draw visions. Before this, I could draw and create a reasonable likeness, but it was difficult. The experience opened my natural spirit ability to create visual art, which I find exists in all my students when they allow themselves as spirits to guide their hearts and hands.
by Sharon Hillestad
Florida USA
by Julia Weaver
www.MandalaWeaver.com
California USA
The most beautiful mandala spontaneously manifested. Mandala means sacred circle in Sanskrit. It is considered a symbol of sacred wholeness. Mandalas are used as visionary tools in many cultures including Hindu, Buddhist, Navajo and Huichol. [larger image]
THE DRAWING ROOM
by Debra Dadd Redalia
www.dld123.com
Florida USA
Soon after I started publishing Signs of Spirit, I received an email from my friend Julia Weaver, who I had had no contact with since moving to Florida three years previous. She happened to use an old list of email addresses she had for promotion. So I wrote back to her, told her about Signs of Spirit, and she immediately responded by sending stories and artwork. This story is about how Julia contributed to my experience of myself as a spirit.
For most of my life, I considered that I could not draw. I could play the piano, I could sing, I could write, but I never felt I could draw. I could make basic shapes, but I could never draw anything that looked beautiful.
A few years before the new millenium, I quite "accidentally" met Julia Weaver in a copy store. I noticed her artwork, which was different from anything I had ever seen before. The images were drawn contained within a circle with white and colored pencils on black paper, in such a way that they glowed with light. My immediate thought was that they depicted the presence of the spirit in the form shining through. She told me they were "mandalas" and gave me one of the flyers she was copying for her workshops on mandala drawing.
Though I was immediately interested, it was several years before I finally got up the courage to go to a workshop where I would fail miserably at drawing. But I began to go once a month and draw mandalas with other women on Wednesday mornings, and was rewarded with more than beautiful pictures.
I was surprised and pleased to find that drawing wasn't actually required for making mandalas. The word mandala is a Sanskrit word that means holy or magical circle. The center of the mandala represents the force of spirit, which streams outward to the periphery of the circle to create the physical images and then back to the center. This symbolically represents the uniting of the spirit and matter into life.
By creating mandalas, I had the opportunity to experience being the center of the circle I was creating on paper. By drawing mandala after mandala over a period of months, it became natural for me to take the viewpoint of being the spirit center of the circle of my own life.
For many months, I simply did the technique exercises and my mandalas looked clumsy and ackward. They didn't look beautiful like Julia's! But they did look luminous.
Then one day, I was walking in Julia's garden before our workshop and noticed a white flower in bloom. I was very drawn to create a mandala around this flower. I asked Julia for permission to pick the flower, and she agreed.
Instead of trying to draw the flower, as a spirit I really observed the flower. As I studied it, I began to see tiny details and it's geometric forms. I just began to draw without thinking about it. And then, I noticed it looked beautiful. It looked alive. I couldn't believe that I had actually drawn it! [larger image]
Being fond of inspiring quotations, I added words from Helen Keller to my mandala: "I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower."
This was such a breakthrough for me, that I framed this mandala and it still hangs in my home, where I can see it every day.
After that experience, I now have confidence I can draw. I don't consider myself to be a fine artist, but I can take my colored pencils and communicate with simple forms, light and color. It's clear to me that this is a natural spirit ability that only needed to be awakened.
I still draw mandalas, as they are wonderful tools to bring my own spirit ideas into physical form and to put myself in the position of being the creator of my own universe.
Joy is not in things, it is in us.
-- Richard Wagner
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