This morning I couldn’t park in my own or adjoining streets, so I drove to where I used to live, five minutes’ walk away. I steered into a space next to a red car. The driver got out and came across to speak. I thought he might challenge my right to be there. Signs warn of dire consequences for non-residents who leave their cars in those spaces. But it wasn’t that. In broken English he asked if I could help him as his car wouldn’t start. He produced some jump leads, so I opened my bonnet (hood) and he connected our batteries whilst I kept my engine running. His car started immediately and he was very happy: “I can’t believe it!” he said, and drove off to buy a new battery.
I thought nothing more about it and walked home. The mosque down the street was holding a major event, with Muslims arriving from every direction. They’d opened the gates of the old school playground, freeing up additional parking spaces. So I went back to fetch my car. To my surprise the same man was there with the same red car. The bonnet was raised and he looked worried. I said hello. He told me he’d located a suitable battery in a spares depot but hadn’t been able to buy it yet. I guess he didn’t take enough money along, so he’d come back. And now he had just discovered that his car wouldn’t start, just at the moment I reappeared. So I helped him start it, again. He said, “I can’t believe it! I think you must be an angel.” I smiled enigmatically and left the scene.
I’d said in my last post I would write on illusion and reality. However, comments from Beth, Hayden and others had convinced me there is nothing much to say: illusion and reality are forever intertwined. Someone’s angelic visitation is someone else’s mundane routine.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Awww I loved this. 🙂 you are an angel.
I want to wish you a wonderful new year and sending my best wishes for the holidays! I'm leaving the computer until after the holidays.
(((Big Hug)))
Kathy
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There is only one mind.
And it's full of thoughts, real or illusory.
Separating or connecting people.
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See? I told you there were angels on earth and now you have gone and proven that you can be one too.
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Kathy, I'll miss you but have a lovely time away from computer. I must say I do love helping angels do their work when I get the chance, and I know quite a few others who do the same thing!
Siegfried, you have not said anything about angels. Are you avoiding this topic? If there is one mind, full of thoughts, how can some of them be illusory? If there is a thought, then it must be real, surely? Please explain more.
Beth, you are quite right, you did tell me that angels walk the earth. So did you mean that humans can be angels? I don't think so, though they can participate in the angelic fun. I think angels manifest themselves in the mind of those whom they help – albeit with a little assistance from willing volunteers!
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No, I don't think humans can be angels. Our halos are too easily tarnished. We are, after all, human.
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Yes, illusions exist too.
And they can become real
if you believe in them.
We create angels by believing.
But they can take control of our lives too. If we allow them.
Perhaps addictions are nothing but demons pretending to be angels of light.
And we can become addicted to saintliness and holey baloney. ;>)
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I think the Angels you describe encompass the philosophy my Grandfather had for living life.
He made it his life's goal to bring joy to others. At times it was doing good deeds as you have described. Other times it was simply to entertain, or to engage in work that brought happiness to others.
Whatever it might have been the goal was the same. He would have said that he received much more than he gave, but many would have had strong arguments to show the balance the other way.
I have not been nearly as successful as he was. I think it is due to the times we live in. People are too focused on negativity these days. It takes significantly more effort to overcome suspicion, deceit, anger, hatred, etc. Some of our innocence has been lost, and I often feel more connected with the past.
It seems like an overwhelming task to do such things today. But as your anecdote points out, opportunities can on occasion be revealed.
I think that it is interesting that the Holidays inspire more to be open to such things. For whatever reason we feel closer to one another at this time of year. I wish it could be that way year round.
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Amen to your last, Charles. But you mention success, the holey baloney of America. Yes, your grandfather was Santa Claus to many, and the fairy godfather who taught others to be Santa Claus. But don't think of him as something to live up to.
Today there is even more to do, and when we feel most overwhelmed that is when we can best allow the angels to act through us.
Siegfried, I detect a scepticism and even fear in you, of this addiction to the angelic. What do you know about demons pretending to be angels of light? Speak for the guidance of the innocent, please!
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Well, demons are just like angels. You can make them appear and disappear.
I think beliefs and suggestions are powerful instruments. And they can be destructive as well.
But don't fight them. Or you will give them too much power.
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I don't fight demons, don't even acknowledge them. To me, angels are there to give signs
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I think humans can be angels.
Just as a quick back-off, I don't like the entire angel business because it was introduced to me originally by folks who I felt then – and continue to feel – are quite daft.
But thinking through the lens of shamanism, I believe that receptive people can be used by the universe to achieve goals I can't understand. And perhaps that goal is just to get the man you helped where he needed to be on time.
Maybe, after all, it's just the word I dislike, and it throws up barriers for me.
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I love this story for a lot of reasons, but the one that touches me most is that we may never know or hear (as you did here) how we have affected someone's day, or even life, by something we did or said that we gave no thought or notice to, but had a very big impact.
Beautifully told story. Beautiful heart that you have to take the time to care.
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Hayden, I know what you mean. We cannot help being influenced by context. Certain words hold a great deal of baggage, perhaps individual but certainly historical and cultural: God, spirit, redemption, angel, demon, sin, grace and so on – and that is just in Western Christian culture. I feel that I want to acknowledge their positive role in my life whilst renouncing a lot of other stuff at the same time.
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Joanne, I could write a long story entirely about “angels” and the impact on my life of whatever the word refers to. Much of it would be too personal though, at this stage – or perhaps that means I haven't found a way to write it.
The part of my life which is thus impacted is the part involved with change. It seems that for the last few years, every significant material circumstance, or psychological transformation, has come about in my life through some special intervention, in the form of an interweaving with other people's lives in which they just do what they do and the effect on me is profound.
All I can do is report these things – when they are simple enough to describe – on the assumption that it's like this, or could be like this, for everybody.
What I also perceive – but this is perhaps harder for people to accept – is the influence of “negative” events on people's lives. We tend to think of someone's breaking a leg, for example, as a disaster, but the effect on someone's life can be dramatically benign.
In the world of Shamanism, which Hayden refers to, it is usually a personal disaster which presages the realization that one is selected to become a shaman. Or perhaps I am confusing shamanism as a whole with a branch of it practised by the Toltecs of Mexico.
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(speaking cautiously here)
my studies suggest that your interpretation is local, that it can also come to pass through great joyousness.
what seems certain is that if one is going to become something new, and look at life in a new way, it might be expected to have a huge impact on pre-existing life: so one wonders if the 'disaster' is caused by the change isn't as likely as that disaster might result in change.
I do believe that being open and available results in “fortuitous” events. My current journey could be cast in that light; I tend to see it instead as a process of seeking resulting in my noticing things that I would not have otherwise seen. I think there is no one right way to perceive such things.
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Vincent: I so loved this post. Short and sweet. And just those batteries uniting within themselves and helping connect one human being to another.
I believe in angels even at this age. And I hope no one shakes me up from that reality.
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For the life of me, sometimes, Hayden, who seems to be my opposite, is my perfect match. For me 'illusion' is 'real' but this real is 'local real' or like our personal contextual life and its' content, while, the Real real is something like 'meaning' which 'floats' above and beyond it and is more permanent, it is like the meaning of us in the soul of us, as opposed to the us down here on the ground jump starting cars.
Both are real, one can hurt physically NOW, the other is a different kind of problem, some would call it 'mental', some would call it 'emotional', etc, but all of these have their forms in each, just as I keep saying all the time, so does the 'physical', but then, I'm daft, lol.
As to 'angels', long subject due to human complexities that we have devised down here on the ground, very difficult to explain due to perspectival problems. I would say that all are an angel, have an angelic condition all the time, sometimes that angel is good, sometimes bad….the human element tho, for some is 'less' than angelic, because the human gets the blame for the bad angelic stuff, but maybe mostly deserves it due to not riding herd on the angelic side of us angelic/human devices/instruments who speak and do things.
One of my favorite subjects, of course. One of the most difficult things, for two reasons, is showing people that 'angels' can be bad, when they have the conceptual habit of their 'goodness' only. The biggest reason for the difficulty in making it understood is like expressed by several of your commentors, Beth, and Kaushik, each with their 'hope' relative to 'angel', hard to hurt people, if you took away something important and left them with only errant humans to fall back on, that would be bad. But maybe the solution is simply that angels can be our good friends and allies, but some are not. And some humans are 'humane' while others are beasts and not even animals, in the sense of intentional cruelty for its' own sake, not even angels do that, at least I think that is right, so 'human' should be the 'highest goodness' but can also be the 'lowest bad', and 'angels' fall inbetween, they can be used by humans for either great good or horrible bad, but angels can also use humans to be 'neutral' which can be bad and allow humans to become worse.
Sorry Vincent, I probably should have ceased awhile back.
But one more thing…you can have 'angels' helping at the most basic levels of life, like cellular, and then they are entity-like all the way 'up' the ladder to the largest of beings/entity identity. Irregardless of where you might find them, we, human forms, would project our forms onto them, matter of course, while they would see us the other direction, their way, but even so, dialogue is possible. Just got more daft, huh?
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Hayden, hello, I was just reading at your blog, magnificent material as usual, (I love to read your blog), but none of the comment thingies would work for me, so I couldn't say anything, I think it is probably the angels involved..but it may be mine, my equipment angels not behaving, or maybe they are behaving and protecting me from myself, lol, or you from me..but really I had nothing bad to say, all good, just stories or quips of personal sorts.
Thought to borrow Vincents' blog to reach you, thanks Vincent.
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This is fantastic! Living in the rural south of the U.S. (and it seems this may be one of those universal things wherever there may be a vehicle), jumper cables are often a source of angelic intervention. Jumper cables and half-full gas cans.
Keep up the good work!
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