It was a casual Scorpio birthday dinner.  I was the designated cook.   Everything was going routinely, when suddenly I felt pressured to “speed up,” to get the food on the table ASAP.   Whatever was in the air, it was clear that I would not be joining in this celebration.   As the last person sat down to the table, the phone rang.  It was a neighborhood volunteer ambulance driver on the way to the hospital.  He was asking for someone to go the neighbor’s and tell her to get off the phone so he could inform her that her husband had been in an accident.    

There was no question that I would be the someone making the trip to the neighbors.  Obviously, it had already been “set up.”   Neither was there a question about the nature of my evening: the neighbor did not drive.   I grabbed my jacket and hiked around the hill and up a steep lane, taking note that the same intense energy pushing me to speed things up was close by.   Angelina’s emotions erupted the moment she saw me at the door.  So did her daughter’s on the other end of the phone.   It was a crazy moment as I got my feet on the ground, calmed the daughter and handed Angelina my cell phone to talk to the ambulance driver.  Five minutes later we were heading down the mountain. 

A flashing red light a distance down the valley revealed where the accident occurred.  As I was about to turn onto the highway, Angelina stated that she wanted to first go to the accident site.  The county sheriff was there, awaiting a tow truck to arrive.  Identifying ourselves, he aimed his flashlight down a steep embankment where the truck was only vaguely visible.  He explained that Joseph had hit two deer, and his truck was resting in the opposite direction headed, the driver’s side in a ditch of water.

Ready to pull away, the sheriff warned me to drive carefully.  It was hunting season, deer were everywhere, and it was snowing.   I turned the car around and headed for town, Angelina sitting next to me, struggling to keep composure.  She jerked from thought to thought: her husband’s condition, cost of emergency care, whether the truck was totaled, (they had just gotten it repaired after being broken down for a few months)… the whole time dabbing tears from her cheeks.

Asking for guidance, I intuitively tuned into Angelina, wondering what I could say that would be of comfort, while simultaneously monitoring my speed, and trying to focus beyond the windshield wipers and through the densely falling snowflakes into the darkness of the night, watching for deer.   

I leaned forward in an effort to see more clearly, then I was gone: drawn out of the car through the windshield and into the space between the snowflakes, a great expanse where everything was visible.  In this void, I was suddenly seeing swirls and swirls and swirls of energy—everywhere—reminding me in the oddest way of angels…swirls of angel energy.   The energy was spiraling around the ambulance somewhere ahead of us: spiraling in the ambulance and around Joseph.   As I was drawn further into the darkness between the flakes, the swirls became more visible.  I was taken to the accident site at the moment of impact, this angel-like energy swirling there also, swirling up and down the road to town, across the entire valley.    

I watched the lesser part of me maintaining careful attention to practical matters back in my vehicle, while the greater part of me was drawn further into the night, to a point of merging with this energy— this odd, mesmerizing angel-like energy, swirling like ribbons-no beginning, no end-crisscrossing further and further out in all directions, until it was circling the planet.  Swirls and swirls and swirls of silent, synchronized, swiftly  moving energy.  Angel energy!  Active, attentive, supportive!

 Dropped back into my vehicle, I glanced right and with crystal clarity declared, “Angelina, we will be bringing Joseph home from the hospital tonight.  He’s fine!”   

Declining Angelina’s invitation to follow her into the emergency room, I positioned myself in the closet-size waiting area, lights maddeningly bright, near the emergency entrance, and from there proceeded to experience an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.   Four people ahead of Joseph had also met deer head-on.   A bevy of teenage girls had had their first fender bender.   A man, who with a number of stab wounds to the face, caught in a domestic spat, trailed blood across the hallway as he headed for registration.   A line of wheelchairs was moving slowly up and down the single-lane hallway heading to and from x-ray.

An hour after arrival, Angelina appeared, profusely apologizing for taking up my time, telling me that Joseph was coherent, battered and bruised, a gash on his head and himself waiting his turn to be taken to ex ray.   I assured her that I was fine, would keep her daughter posted, and that in no way should she worry about time. 

When suddenly my cell phone rang, I realized that it was two women who were scheduled for a conference call at that moment.   Learning of the situation, they readily agreed to reschedule.   A moment before ending the call, I found myself asking them to hang on while I maneuvered out the door.  There I asked them to take a deep breath and then follow me.  Soon they were out in the night between the snowflakes, seeing what I was seeing, in awe…  I left them there and returned to the painful brightness of the waiting room.

Five hours after I received the push to get dinner on the table, Angelina informed me that the doctor had ordered another set of x-rays.  I hunted down some bottled water for Angelina but hesitated at the doorway to Joseph’s cubicle.  Joseph greeted me warmly, his angelic smile shining through his cuts and bruises, and that angel energy still actively embracing him. 

Suddenly, I asked permission to speak.  I began to divulge my angel experience as Joseph nodded.  He said nothing for a moment, thoughtful.  Then he disclosed that he was found on the side of the road by a woman driving behind him.  He had remembered his name but asked the woman why he was there.  She informed him that he had had an accident.  The gap in his memory puzzled him.  After another moment of silence, he queried, “do you think ‘they’ got me out of the truck, Ia?”   I nodded. 

Well into the wee hours, I drove Joseph and Angelina home. 

I crawled into bed, watching the morning shadow the night, wondering and wandering through the still-fresh experience, thoughts being provoked in all directions.  Joseph had been brought safely through the night and into the morning of a new dawn.  Joseph had been protected.  He was needed.  Angelina too.

 I was suddenly in review of all the times I had been “protected.”  Once heading home from a month on the road, I was suddenly forced to take a circumvent route, and ended up in a blizzard just hours into the first day.  Exhausted and angry, knowing that an extra day had been added to the return trip by taking this route, I asked” why?”  I was told without hesitation and in no uncertain terms that I had been kept out of harm’s way.  A fatal accident was waiting for me had I taken the shorter route.

 This review revealed that Joseph’s “accident” was also by divine design.  It was a means to remove his antiquated truck from his life.  If he had continued to drive it, he would have been facing a fatal crash, involving both he and Angelina, and perhaps others.  In essence, the “accident” had saved lives. 

With permission, I said as much to Angelina a couple days later, when she stopped by, lamenting that their truck was beyond repair.  Her memory jogged by my message, she stated that she had had a dream of just such a deadly accident a month or so earlier. At the time, it had shaken her to the core, but had slipped from consciousness until now. 

The energy of the night, the angels welcoming the morning, became stronger with each passing day, making it evident that a blog was waiting.  The facts were easy to flesh out, but the message, the point of the story was another matter.   A story has limited value without a message.  I searched.   I asked.

 My work regularly takes me into the unseen world—out there in “the darkness.”  I’m continually putting those out there in contact with those still embodied and vice versa…promoting the deepest healing possible.  To work with someone is always to work in collaboration with their unseen support, their guides. Truthfully, we are never ever alone, not in our healing process, or otherwise. 

A song, “Angel of the Morning,” made its appearance on a Facebook page shortly after this incident and had been playing in the background of my mind since…”Angel of the morning, angel.  Just touch my check before you leave me...”    Day and night, no relief —a constant reminder that “they” are there…or here.   Again, I listen to the message:  it has to do with a new day dawning…a new beginning.  Angels maneuvering humanity through its night.  Angels of the morning awaiting our arrival.   Present in the morning of a new dawn.  Active, attentive, supportive!

Clearly, the message was to tell the world about what’s out there in “the darkness.”  To let all of humanity know that, not only do we direly need help, it is here…or “there.”  This loving energy circling the earth, more powerful than any technology imaginable, there…for us.     There… for Gaia.   It’s time to move out of our night and into the morning of the new dawn.  Angels of the morning are waiting.