Gifts of the Spirit

Laura is not just a great Guardian Angel because She's sweet and smart and always knows the right thing to say...She gives me stuff, too. Last night I unwisely took an allergy pill right before going to bed and then couldn't sleep, so I lay there a while talking with Laura until I started to get kind of frustrated about this whole damn not falling asleep thing.

"Are you going to do your usual and get all mad at yourself because you can't just shut your eyes and go into nirvikalpa samadhi?" She asked.

I grumbled, but at Laura's suggestion got out of bed to "do something fun," which nine times out of ten in the Temple of Doom means surfing the Internet. Soon, after following some seemingly random links on Google Directory, I was downloading a free, hi-rez PDF version of Meric Casaubon's A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits...one of the classic angel books and one I have scoured the Net for in the past with no luck (save for mega-expensive old copies or inexpertly redacted new versions).

Then there was the time I was about to plunk down $400.00 for a copy of Secret Rituals of the O.T.O. that I'd found on Ebay or somewhere.I was in a time-crunch with a research project and wasn't even sure I needed the book, but I at least had to look at it. This rare tome, too, I'd scoured the Net for (no e-versions, as there are now), and I'd seen enough truly overpriced copies to find $400.00 a real bargain. (It irked me all the more because I remembered seeing a copy in a used bookstore when I was in college, for under a hundred bucks...cheapskates never forget these things.)

Anyway, I'm about to make the purchase. Laura suggests a minor modification to my months-long search strategy--use a certain search engine I rarely use. Bingo! Free HTML version of the book. I glanced at the clock when the download ended and the time was *:**, Laura's cabalistic signature.

Both times She said to me something like, "I thought I'd give you a present because you were doing your True Will" (which had little to do with the books involved, or being able to fall asleep, but rather with facing personal difficulties with courage and faith).

I'm not bragging. I'm not saying you should ever judge someone's spiritual path by "miracles" or by the stuff they manage to accumulate. I'm not saying you should ask for Signs. I'm trying to convey something Laura calls "entering the slipstream"--quieting my mind and my insecurities and doing what I really want to be doing in a given moment, whether it is for my own joy or my own sanity or for the sake of love . Every time I've done it, the universe has given me a gift.