The One Who Was Never Lost

I have something to share with the world now:

I have felt the Spirit realm as real as I am sitting here writing these words to you. What I am about to finally share has been 235 days in the making. It has taken me this long to find the words for something I could feel long before I could explain it. And what you’re about to read… it’s knocking at the door of those who have always sensed there was something more—something just beyond the veil of what we call ordinary reality. Something your mind may question, but some quiet part of your soul may already recognize. So, without trying to explain away what cannot always be explained, without asking you to believe what you have not experienced for yourself… I invite you to simply step through the door with me. Here we go.

Fáilte abhaile (welcome home), Ami.

I lay tucked into my sleeping bag beneath a half-dome of rock, bound in like a cocoon, by my own request, so that when my third eye opened and the true realm of healing woke in me, my wild side wouldn’t seize this newfound freedom and go streaking through the desert, scandalizing every cactus for miles in nothing but my birthday suit. My journey really began to take off, and I was along for the ride, happy-go-lucky, truly intrigued by what was about to happen. My body felt heavy in my little cocoon, but my soul felt like it was floating. My mind was quiet. My heart was racing a little bit.

Cathedral windows within the clouds, hundreds of them all in neat, vertical lines. Each window had stained glass with shapes of flames dancing in the breeze of the colors of peacock tails, constantly moving upward and changing patterns every time I blinked. And the windows turned to prisms. Pastel shades of rose, a halo of sacred, violet-pink fire, something eternal breaking through into the ordinary world. It was the daintiest, most holy rose I have ever witnessed, less like a color, more like a presence.

Aisling, my guardian angel, handed me a daisy, with no idea that this small, brilliant yellow flower would stir something that had lain dormant in my soul for twenty-nine years. So in that moment, tucked snug as a bug in my sleeping bag on top of the desert sand, lying beneath the heavens, completely surrendered to whatever the true spirit realm wanted to teach me that day, when the golden teachers finally began to settle in and I felt calm enough to sort through all my thoughts, my guardian angel, unbeknownst to me, had picked the most delicate, most magnificent, pale yellow desert daisy from the earth.

She knew almost nothing about my past, only a few small things. She sort of snuck up on me, if I’m honest. My eyes were barely open to the heavens, because everything was so impossibly bright that whatever lay beyond my own nose I could barely make out. The prisms, the iridescent prisms, are indescribable to the human eye. To call them delicate, dainty, or ethereal doesn’t begin to do justice to the glory they held in the heavens.

My guardian angel whispered, “I have a little something for you to admire.”

She reached over my right shoulder, and my open palm met her hand. She placed that tiny, innocent daisy into it. I honestly didn’t know what it was at first as I closed my fingers around it. She chuckled to herself, quietly proud of what she’d found for me to discover within this whimsical, true spirit realm that was only just beginning to awaken, one I couldn’t yet fully see.

I held the flower about an inch and a half from my nose, drawn to its immense beauty. I plucked a petal off of it from where the top of it met the center of the flower. I was beyond human curious because a flash of light caught my eye. This tiny little petite neon, yellow squiggly line bolted up from the end where it was connected to the flower beforehand to the tip of the petal. It was constantly shifting. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My brain started thinking, “What’s causing this, and am I imagining things?”

I stared at it in pure awe for a good hour, looking at the petal of a yellow desert daisy (showy goldeneye). Everything I thought I knew about our world we’ve grown up seeing wasn’t what was clearly before my eyes, as real as I’m breathing air right now writing this. And it wasn’t just one little line of electricity. It was four of them constantly shifting. Even though I had already plucked the petal, it was still very much alive.

My mind caught up to what it was, and not even a second later, tears began to flow like a river, carving new paths in the desert sand, or so it felt. “How did my guardian angel know?” I asked myself. “How could she possibly have known? There is no way on this entire earth she could know.”

But in that moment of innocent kindness, in the beauty of one tiny daisy, out of every flower and plant in the whole desert she could have chosen, something whispered to her, nudged her, to pick that daisy and place it in my hand. It was such an innocent act, offering a dainty desert daisy to me, just so I could take in its beauty. And it became something far greater than I could ever have imagined.

Daisies were my brother Ryan James’s favorite flower in the entire world. Any time we visited my grandma Ella’s house, we would help her in the backyard garden, filled with breathtaking flowers and plants and itty-bitty birds. Of the thousands of delicate flowers she grew, her daisies were her pride and joy. She would make quite a fuss if they didn’t grow the way she hoped, or if someone accidentally stepped on one, or got a little too close while smelling them.

But every time Ryan reached her backyard, he would rush to the daisies, kneel down in front of them, and whisper a joyous, “Hello, little buddies!” He could never help himself. He would pick a handful just so he could admire them up close, pure delight and awe on his face at every single petal he’d plucked from Gram’s meticulous floral perfection. You’d think she would have had a field day over it. But my gram never once flinched, never once thought to be cross with him. He brought her such happiness, such pure adoration for the tiny flowers God had placed in her garden.

So all of this came rushing back like a flashback, so fresh in my mind the instant she placed that daisy in my palm. Every memory of my brother came flooding in at once.

I can’t pinpoint the exact date in May of 1997, but I was twelve years old when I had the most real dream of my entire existence. At that age, in my own defense, I believed it was only a nightmare. One night I was snug as a bug in my bed, sound asleep, but my mind played out a nightmare I could not stop. I woke with a gasp, drenched in a cold sweat, and was so thankful it was just a bad dream that I never said a word about it to anyone.

My family and I, for as long as I can remember, went to Silver Birch Ranch every summer for family camp. It was the one time of year I looked forward to most: horseback riding, always my favorite, dodgeball, foursquare, tetherball, air hockey, and night games. All of our parents’ closest friends and their kids, a tight-knit crew, would be there too. We arrived on a Monday night instead of Sunday evening, because my little brother hadn’t made it home from summer camp in Canada in time. So we were just a day late.

We settled in and fell asleep soundly, Ryan snuggled up with his red baby blanket covered in teddy bears, a faded rainbow, and a crimson ribbon along its edges. Morning came quicker than we expected. We ate breakfast as fast as we could, because my little brother and I couldn’t contain our excitement to get down to the lake and go swimming.

There was only one rule. To swim in the deep end off the dock, you had to pass the swimming test: swim back and forth between the “H” three times without touching the sand beneath your feet and without wearing a life jacket. Pass it, and you were rewarded with the coveted neon-green wristband, the golden ticket of the lake, and bragging rights among all the younger kids and the ones who weren’t strong enough to pass yet.

Ryan went first. My mom and I stood on the dock watching him. When I close my eyes, I can still see how ecstatic he was doing it all by himself, grinning ear to ear, doggy-paddling back and forth between the edges. He passed, and we all cheered for him. My friends and I passed with ease and received our wristbands too. We scurried to the deep end of the H-dock and paddled as fast as we could out to the floating raft.

Time seemed to stand still out there with my best friends. We played jump-or-dive off the diving board, swung from the rope swing over the lake, doing our best not to belly flop. We pushed each other off the raft the moment someone climbed the ladder, shrieking with laughter because we couldn’t believe how funny it was to do it to one another. I remember how giddy I was to push Ry off that raft. He was always such a good sport about everything. He was just happy to be there. I’m sure our laughter carried all the way from the lake to the barn.

A couple of hours passed, and then it was time for lunch. None of my friends wanted to go, but with our stomachs rumbling, we didn’t have much choice. One by one we swam to the H-dock and climbed up to dry off and change. There were about forty people still on the beach. My close friend Jessica got out right before me, then I climbed the ladder, with my Dad right behind me. When I reached the top, I turned around to wait for my Dad and my little brother.

My dad reached the top and turned around too, to look down and help Ryan up, because sometimes, with his epilepsy, he struggled with little things like that. He never complained, and he never refused help when it was offered. But when my father turned around, Ryan wasn’t there. He was nowhere to be seen.

I was confused too. He had been swimming right behind my Dad the whole way from the raft to the dock... or so we thought. Sheer panic sank in. My Dad’s face went from smiling to complete fear. He spun around and asked me, “Ami, have you seen Ryan? I thought he was in front of you.”

My eyes went wide as it sank in, and I said, “No, I thought he was behind you, Dad.”

My dad shouted down the dock to my mom, “Meredith! Ryan’s missing! We need to find him now!”

Her smile vanished instantly, though she fought to keep from panicking. Sometimes my little brother forgot to tell us where he was going and simply wandered off, and we’d always find him and laugh about it later. She called out to everyone on the beach to start looking for Ryan. The whole group scattered like wind, rushing to search. Some checked around the point of the island, others the playground, the barn, the air hockey table, the foursquare court. Within moments the entire camp was frantically searching for my little brother.

I didn’t see anyone searching the beach itself, though quite a few people were searching up and down the shoreline. But Ryan was nowhere to be found.

One of our dearest family friends, Diane, took my hand on the beach beside the dock and pulled me into a tight hug, trying to comfort me and keep me from unraveling. The lifeguards, four or five of them, I’m still not sure which, walked up and down each side of the big dock, scanning as far as they could across the water and along the edges of the camp’s boundaries. Not a trace.

My mom joined the search. She reached the far right end of the H, at the very deepest part, and paused. She wasn’t just looking down by the dock. She looked outward, toward the raft. And there, she saw a shadow. A dark, motionless shadow.

I have never in my life heard a sound come from a human being like the one that came from her then. I don’t have words for it. All I remember is her scream: “Help! He’s under the raft!”

There is one vital piece missing from this part of the story. Even though my little brother was an excellent swimmer, his seizures never cared about that. They weren’t biased, and they struck whenever they saw fit, without rhyme or reason. Even with every medication Ryan was on, none of it was a match for the grand mal seizures that shook his entire body and left him utterly drained afterward. The only blessing was that most of the time, he could feel one coming before it happened, and he’d warn us, giving us enough time to keep him safe through it. After each seizure rattled his whole body, Ryan would sleep for a few hours and wake up re-energized, completely back to his old self.

Here is the other missing piece, the one you might not catch if you weren’t paying close attention. If you had a child of your own who suffered from epilepsy, in any form, with seizures of any severity, wouldn’t you protect that child with every fiber of your being? Wouldn’t you make sure, even if they hated you for it, that they wore a life jacket every single time they entered the water, even just to splash in the shallow end?

Since becoming a mother to my own cherished boys, I have been terrified their whole lives that something bad would happen to them, and I know, without a fraction of a doubt, that I would protect them at all costs, especially if they lived with any form of seizure or epilepsy. I would put my life on this: I know for certain they would wear those life jackets, even if they hated me for the rest of their lives.

Ryan James was not wearing a life jacket that day when he entered the water after passing his swimming test. Twenty-nine years later, I still can’t fathom that it never crossed either of my parents’ minds to make sure he had one on. Because the moment you become a parent to an innocent child that our Abba entrusts to your care, to keep that blessing safe within every ounce of your human capability, I know in the depths of my soul that it becomes written into your very DNA to protect your children no matter what. Even if they grow up to hate you for it. Because I would not be able to live with myself, or look at my own reflection, and be at peace with a choice that cost them everything.

Back to that day. All the lifeguards dove in at once. I was still on the shoreline, held in Diane’s arms. I wanted to see what was happening, but I couldn’t see anything at all. My vision was dark because she’d covered my face with her arm, shielding me from what was unfolding. All I remember hearing her say was, “Ami, don’t look. It’s going to be okay.” People on the dock were frantic, helpless, trying to do anything they could.

One of the lifeguards surfaced, not empty-handed. My brother’s lifeless body was cradled in his arms, and he was holding on for dear life. Two more lifeguards on the raft reached down to help lift Ryan up. Diane tried to cover my eyes, but I was determined, and I peeked through her fingers to see what was really happening. The scene before me was unimaginable. I fought not to fall apart, whispering over and over, barely above a breath, “God, you have the wrong kid. Please don’t let Ryan die. Please, Lord, take me instead. I beg you. Please save my little brother. He is pure love. Please let me take his place.”

And just as I finished that prayer, the panic truly set in, and my mind replayed the entire nightmare from months before, every single detail. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I knew, with my whole heart, that everything I had dreamed that night in my bed was coming true before my eyes. I used every ounce of strength I had not to hyperventilate. My heart raced so fast it felt like it would fly out of my chest. I squeezed Diane tighter, held her even closer, and couldn’t bear to look at my little brother.

The lifeguards called out that he had a pulse, but there was water trapped in his throat. Ryan had been under for no more than ten minutes by the time they pulled him up. They performed CPR on his lifeless body, but despite everything, they couldn’t clear the water from his throat. An ambulance made it down to the beach. People rushed to unhook the raft from its anchor and swim it to the dock, where the EMTs were waiting to lift Ryan onto a stretcher.

I couldn’t contain my emotions. I was sobbing, unable to believe what was happening, certain I would wake up from this nightmare again. They hurried the stretcher into the ambulance. I didn’t even get the chance to see Ry as they loaded him in, and even if I had, my eyes were too full of tears to see through the blur.

My Mom and Dad climbed into the back to ride with him to the hospital, and the ambulance pulled away. I will never forget my Mom looking back at me from inside that vehicle, her face full of fear, with only the smallest sliver of hope. They disappeared up the hill. Someone I knew asked if I wanted to go to the hospital to be with my parents and Ryan. I tried to focus on her face through my tears and told her, “I don’t want to go. Everybody I know who goes to the hospital never comes back.”

A few of my friends’ parents took me back to my cabin to change, and we gathered at the little chapel to lift my brother’s innocent life into God’s hands. Our camp pastor prayed with me and Lynn. Only about five minutes had passed, but I couldn’t take it anymore. The tears wouldn’t stop. I had to get out of there, so four of my closest friends and I rode our bikes to the horse barn, hoping to keep me distracted from whatever was happening at the hospital.

Maybe an hour had passed, jumping on hay bales, reading our Bibles together, praying for Ryan. In the middle of our prayer, Ben came flying up the path on his bike. He flung it to the ground and ran toward us. “Ami! You need to hurry back to your cabin. Your parents are back, and they need you.”

I jumped up as fast as I could, overjoyed that Ryan would be there, certain this had all just been a nightmare. I pedaled as hard as I possibly could to get back to our cabin.

Two minutes later, I arrived, and I was in complete shock. At least fifty people had gathered around the cabin, some crying, others looking utterly defeated. I didn’t understand what was happening. I ran inside and opened the door to our room. Six of our closest friends stood at the edges with bloodshot eyes, a few of the moms still crying. I scanned the room for any sign of Ryan. There was nothing.

My heart stopped for a second, and then I tried to talk myself out of the fear. Maybe they’re just keeping him overnight for observation. He’ll be home in a couple of days, I thought to myself. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. My Mom sat on the bottom bunk, sobbing, trying to hold herself together as two of her friends held her in a group hug. In that moment, everyone else in the room faded away. I could only see my Mom and Dad.

I frantically asked my mom, “Mom? Where’s Ryan? Is he okay? When’s he coming home?”

She could barely lift her eyes toward me. I don’t think she even heard me. I asked again, growing impatient for the answer I so desperately needed. With all the strength she could gather, she spoke only two words, barely above a whisper: “Ryan’s gone.”

But I heard her as clearly as daylight. Her answer felt impossible, like it could not possibly be true. My little brother was a fighter. No matter the obstacle, he never gave up, and I knew he would always come back to me. We were only eleven months apart, and I could always feel him in my heart if something was truly wrong. I closed my eyes for a second to see if I could feel anything. There was only static.

I turned my head toward my Dad, standing right in front of Ryan’s top bunk, and the instant I saw him, I wished I hadn’t. Before me was a broken man, utterly defeated, sobbing with his entire body, head bowed to his chest, eyes red as scarlet, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He clutched Ryan’s favorite blanket to his chest as tightly as he possibly could.

It took everything in me to gather the courage to ask him where my little brother was. When I finally opened my mouth to speak the words I dreaded most, my whole body began to shake, and a river of tears streamed down my cheeks. My eyes burned, but I needed the truth, and I knew in my heart my daddy would never lie to me.

“Dad,” I said, pausing for a few seconds. “Where is Ryan? Please, just tell me.”

The way my Father lifted his head to look at me is etched into my memory forever. Sadness, grief, pain, sorrow—none of those words even begin to touch what was written on his face. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Ami, Ryan isn’t coming home, sweetie. Ryan is dead.”

In that moment I thought it had to be some cruel joke, a prank, punishment maybe for every time I’d picked on my little brother, or spoken unkindly to him, or teased him about his “invisible classroom.” I closed my eyes to try to process what he’d said, and my whole body went numb. I looked back at my Dad and said, “Dad, that’s not funny. Stop joking around. Please tell me the truth. When is Ryan coming home from the hospital?”

The eyes that looked back at me after I said that saw straight into my soul, his tears falling without restraint. Then, in the faintest whisper, he said, “Ami, Ry guy isn’t coming back. And I know he would want you to have these.”

He glanced down at the blanket in his hands, pulled it close one more time, and breathed it in, aching for one more trace of his little boy. Then he walked toward me, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. When he reached the spot where I stood, he handed me Ry’s favorite blanket, and a delicate grey watch with navy blue encircling its outer edge. My Dad had selflessly given me my beloved little brother’s most cherished, most valuable possessions in this world.

The moment those treasures touched my fingers, and my Dad and I locked eyes, I knew in my heart that my little brother Ryan would never be coming back. In that instant my heart shattered into a million pieces, pieces I knew would never fit whole together again. Because without Ryan, without his future, without the core memories he never got to make, without the joy that lit up a room the second he walked into it, without a single word needed, there would always be pieces missing.

We laid my little brother Ryan James to rest that Friday, in the most breathtaking spot in the whole cemetery, beneath a giant oak tree with the most beautiful view. Hours passed into those first few nights back home. A shining flame of hope and joy and unconditional love and laughter, one we thought could never be snuffed out, was extinguished. A shadow of utter darkness that no light seemed able to touch settled over our home.

I could barely sleep, and every time I did, I had nightmares reliving everything I had witnessed the day Ryan drowned. I replayed it over and over and over in my mind. Would Ryan still be here if I had told just one person about my dream? Was I really that foolish? Just a small thing, to say, “Mom, Dad, I had a horrible dream, and this is what happened.” Could that have changed anything? Could it have prevented the seizure that day?

Days turned to weeks. Sorrow and unbearable grief crept in, but the guilt I carried in the very fibers of my being, the certainty that I was the reason Ryan was dead, was worse than either. The thought that God had taken the wrong child consumed me. It haunted me. I was furious with God. I remember thinking, “God, if you are the protector of heaven and earth and every soul you’ve created, why didn’t you protect the one soul, my little brother, from drowning?” God never answered.

Weeks turned into months. The pain grew more unbearable, but it was the monster of guilt in my heart that truly made itself at home. I carried the weight of that nightmare, the one that played in my mind over and over, for twenty-nine years. I tried my hardest to live a life Ryan would be proud of, to raise my boys with the unconditional love he taught me, the joy he taught me, the way he showed me to admire the smallest things the Creator gives us, like clouds in the sky. I vowed to raise my boys to honor Ry’s life: to teach them unconditional love, to always ask questions, to dare to dream bigger than the sky.

When we laid my little brother to rest, I insisted his casket be filled with daisies, because I knew that even as he rested in the most magnificent, most ethereal, most vibrant garden in heaven, he should be surrounded by daisies.

So all of this came rushing back like a flashback, so fresh in my mind the instant she placed that daisy in my palm. Every memory of my brother came flooding in at once. And then a feeling I cannot even begin to put into words rose from the very middle of my chest, like everything, all the guilt, all the secrets, all the weight that nightmare had carried since I was twelve years old, bubbling to the surface all at once. I hadn't known, back then, a single thing about premonitions, or that when they come to you, it's the universe sharing something with you so that when the moment finally arrives, your mind and heart are clear enough to make the right choices, to navigate whatever is about to happen.

I had carried that shadow in my heart for so long, carried the guilt that consumed me until this very moment, certain that God had taken the wrong child, certain I would have given anything, on earth or in heaven, to trade places with my little brother the day he drowned. I am telling you with complete honesty, I never truly knew, in my own heart, what a profound struggle this had been for me all these years. I didn't know I needed to heal from this, from the inside out, until that very moment, when all of it rose to the surface of my chest at once.

I heard a voice whisper in my ear. "Ange, you no longer have to hold this inside. None of what happened to you is your fault. What happened to Ryan is beyond human understanding, and you were never meant to carry this weight upon your soul for all these years. You can do this. You've got this. This is holding you back from who you are truly meant to be, from who I created you to become. You need to let this go. It is no longer serving you."

My whole body heaved after hearing those words. To this day, I don't know if it was my guardian angel whispering in my ear, or a voice from the heavens themselves. But I knew, I knew, I had to give it back to the universe. The voice was right, and from somewhere deep inside me, I answered out loud. But the strangest part is, I wasn't answering my angel. I wasn't answering the mountains, or the wind. Because the instant after I heard that voice, the straight beam of sunlight that had been resting just above the ridge to our left shifted. It was no longer simply a ray of light. It became a massive cross, formed entirely of light.

The ends of each beam weren't solid. They were made of millions upon millions of tiny flecks of light, and I cannot even describe their color with the justice they deserve in the true realm of the spirit world. The main beams of the cross were an opalescent, pure white, though even calling it white falls short, because it wasn't a color I saw with my eyes so much as a feeling I felt in my body. I could feel warmth radiating from it. It warmed my entire body inside my sleeping bag, even though nothing around me had changed temperature at all. I felt unconditional love. I felt pure joy, pure innocence, pure light, radiating outward from that cross.

It looked like thousands upon thousands of prisms within the cross, each one separate, yet working together to form one whole. And at the end of each beam, the light scattered and constantly shifted, reshaping itself into new patterns, otherworldly, phenomenal, iridescent light exploding outward from the cross. And yet I wasn't afraid of it. Not in the least. Any ordinary person might be terrified to witness something so extraordinary unfolding across the heavens. Someone might call me woo-woo, or crazy, or say I made the whole thing up. But that cross was as real as you and me, as real as flesh and bone. It was there, in the heavens.

As I looked at it, the iridescent prisms spilling from its beams, I saw prisms within prisms, circles within circles, flowing endlessly out from the iridescent light like scattered trails of glitter. And the wildest part of all of it was this: it wasn't simply the shape of a religious symbol. It felt like home. Not the home I grew up in, where I never quite knew if I was good enough, if my good deeds ever truly added up, where even the love and affection felt like it came with conditions attached, from parents who had promised to raise me, who had chosen me into their family. This felt like something else entirely. Even wilder still, the cross felt familiar. The iridescent light falling from the ends of its beams, like a breathtaking waterfall, endlessly flowing, endlessly shifting, felt like something I already knew.

I was completely breathless. And in the very next moment, the cross spoke to me. The prisms spoke to me. Not in any way a human voice could be understood, but Ryan called out to me from within that cross. I completely lost myself in that moment, tears streaming down my face. I could feel the warmth of them against my skin, but I didn't dare wipe them away. I didn't want to miss a single second of what was unfolding before me.

Then something from within me, beyond myself, spoke back to him. I knew, without a shadow of doubt, it was Ryan, because only Ryan would choose a cross to reveal himself to me, in a form that would never frighten me, in a way I would know, without question, that it was him and only him. I spoke these words: "Ryan, my sweet little brother. I miss you more than you will ever know. I miss you every single day you're not here with me. I hope you can forgive me, Ryan. I pray you can forgive me for every time I teased you, or laughed at you instead of with you. And most of all, Ry, will you please forgive me for the day you drowned? I know you probably understand this now, but you didn't then. I had a premonition dream, Ryan, two months before your seizure, and I never told a single soul about it afterward. I truly believed it was just a bad dream that could never possibly come true. If I had known, in my soul, that there was even a chance it could happen, I would have done anything in my power to stop it. I know now it was never mine to carry. It never was. Ryan, I am so blessed that you taught me unconditional love, and showed me innocence, and wonder, and how to feel real joy."

I took a few deep breaths, gathering myself as best I could, and then I spoke to the cross again. "Ryan's death was never my fault. It was never my guilt to carry all these years. I take all of this, everything inside my heart, including this great black shadow that has haunted me for twenty-nine years, and I let it go. I release what no longer serves me."

The moment I let go of everything I had carried for more than half my life, I felt the whole earth shake beneath me. It truly felt as though an elephant had been lifted from my chest, and for the first time in my life, I could finally breathe. And in that very next instant, after releasing everything that no longer served me, pure joy and pure love began radiating from the cross, from the heavens themselves.

And then the dance began.

The clouds weren’t drifting the way clouds do. They were moving with intention, swaying and spinning and folding into one another, slow and tender and then suddenly playful, as if the whole sky had heard a song I couldn’t hear but could feel in my bones. Then the dance began to take shape. I knew, in the deepest sacred place of my heart, with a certainty that needed no proof, that it was my little brother Ryan. No word does justice to what that was. It was a gift, a reunion, a message sent across the thinnest veil.

Ryan. He was eleven when he left this world, and he was purely, effortlessly selfless, a true earth angel. He never needed to be asked to give. He simply gave, with his whole heart, to everyone who crossed his path. He spent his short life looking up, overjoyed by every cloud that looked like an animal, tugging at someone’s sleeve to say look, look, do you see it? Even in that, he wasn’t keeping the joy for himself. He wanted everyone beside him to see it too. And now, from the other side of the veil, he was doing it again. He was painting the sky for me.

What began as ordinary clouds became a polar bear walking across the valley, shaking himself off as though he had just climbed out of a glacier lake. My eyes had to be deceiving me, but he was so close I could smell the cold, clean mist of him. And that’s when it rose up from somewhere deeper than I knew I had: the laugh of the whole reason of my being, echoing through every inch of those mountains. It wasn’t a shriek or a shout. I couldn’t stop laughing this genuine, innocent laugh, consumed by light from the middle of my belly. It was contagious. My own laugh filled the entire valley of Spirit Mountain.

I couldn’t contain my joy at this newfound discovery. I was trying so hard to hold in my wows and giggles so I could describe every detail to Aisling, because I couldn’t bear for her to miss this heavenly masterpiece. I truly believed she was seeing exactly what I saw. It was a laugh I had never laughed in my entire lifetime. It was pure and innocent, joyful and unconditional, a love for myself and for my new, healed self. It shook the whole mountain with love.

As the bear wandered out of sight, a fluffy cat appeared who looked so uncannily like Woody, my protector and best buddy back at camp who lived for belly scratches, lying on his back and wriggling, begging me to scratch his belly. Then he floated away. I was grinning ear to ear, and for once my face didn’t hurt. The belly-deep, whole-body laughter kept rising from my innermost self, and I never wanted it to stop. Aisling was laughing to tears too, encouraging every vision as it came.

Through my own tears of joy, I whispered to the Heavens, “Ryan, I know that’s you playing in the clouds.”

The instant I said it aloud, a peace I had never felt in all my years filled me until it overflowed and overwhelmed me in the best of ways. An unconditional love wrapped itself around me and swept me into a hug I never wanted to end. It was a brother’s love. It was a soul’s love. It had never left me at all.

Then came a phoenix over the ridge, ethereally magnificent. Its body and wings were so intricately woven that I could see each individual feather. It unfolded until it took up the entire sky, showing off in all its glory, just for me. There was no way Aisling could miss this. I turned my head back toward her, eyes huge and surely wild, and said, “Aisling, are you seeing that phoenix too?”

She had walked a similar road herself, and I think that’s why she understood without my explaining. While the clouds became animals and forms, and I felt I was finally glimpsing the true realm of things, she never once made me feel foolish or crazy. She didn’t dismiss me, question me, tell me I was imagining it, or try to pull me back into what she thought I should be seeing. She simply listened. I could feel her love radiating from where she sat beside me, a quiet, unwavering acceptance that made me safe enough to keep going without fear of being judged.

She looked at me with a soul-knowing gaze and gently said, “No, I don’t, Ami.”

I completely lost it. I couldn’t hold my giggles back one second longer. I screamed with glee, clamping my hand over my mouth, terrified I’d wake the mountain lions in their caves with all my wild ruckus. “Oh boy!!! Here comes another one!!! Wait for it, wait for it!”

And then, as though not a second had passed, a majestic peacock crossed the heavens over the ridge. Its size took my breath away. Its wings fluttered effortlessly, and the giggles wouldn’t stop. And in that sacred place, with my brother’s laughter woven through the sky and the mountain holding me as if it had been waiting for me all along, I finally felt free. For the first time, I felt alive. I could breathe, truly breathe, all the way down to the bottom of my lungs, and I wasn’t afraid of anything. But I didn’t want the giggles to stop. I couldn’t. I wanted to share my joy, and my innocence, with the world. I didn’t care who or what heard me.

As a beautiful tapestry of animals woven in the heavens disappeared into the sky, like wisps, just disappearing into nothing… I could feel Ryan leaving me. Not forever. I knew he would always be deep with my soul, etched there. Then came the hardest, most excruciating emotions, and thoughts and words I’ve ever felt all at once in my entire being.

The next few hours are so holy and sacred, and are only meant to be known between Aisling and I. All I will say about that part of the journey is it burst open a well of many, many things I never knew needed to be healed and let go of. But I can tell you this: the moment that I did let it go, because of those things were no longer serving me, I felt like I could finally take a deep breath from the inner workings of my lungs, the part of my lungs where only our Creator knows of.

Then, I looked up, and the sky itself unlocked. Sacred geometry bloomed and shifted endlessly, octagons folding into triangles, prisms nested inside prisms, all of it glowing a neon blue that no earthly word, no ocean, no painted world, could touch. Not in any hurry, just waiting patiently for you to admire its patterns of the dome in the holy mountains where only the true realm of things can dwell. These incredible octagons and triangles and iridescent prisms constantly shifting.

And then, in an instant, the whole sky turned black like it was the middle of the night, and everything became illuminated, more brilliant than Avatar, more brilliant than any movie could ever attempt at it. I’m blind as a bat, don’t get me wrong, but I could see everything clearly. Hyper-focused, almost as though my eyes were magnifying glasses, a microscope, 100x. I could see the tiniest particles of everything, even if it was twenty feet away. It looked like it was right in front of my face.

And then my glance shifted because, in the corner of my eye, I could see this beautiful, beyond-magnificent neon turquoise light. I could see each individual fiber of Aisling’s wool cloak as though she was sitting a foot away from my head… even though she was sitting more than twenty feet away from me. Then I noticed something more radiant. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I couldn't help my uncontrollable giggling.

I didn’t know where it was coming from. It was coming from Aisling. It was running up from the middle of her chest, up her throat and chin every time she spoke or laughed, millions of teeny tiny sources of light constantly shifting patterns. It was breathtaking. Every time she talked or laughed, the lines would shift. And I asked her, “Aisling, is it just me, or are you glowing with bright neon blue lines on your chin?”

Aisling was laughing just as hard as I was, and the neon turquoise flowing up her throat and chin and throughout her whole body were matched with mine. It was contagious. She was like something I couldn’t look away from no matter how hard I tried. She giggled back and agreed, “Yes I am.” And she looked me in the eye, winked, and she said, “Ami, the spirit realm has noticed all of the hard-core deep healing that you’ve done today, and now the Earth is rewarding you. Everything you see here is as real as I am.”

I couldn’t help myself but gawk at her out of pure awe and wonder. I probably looked really silly to her with my mouth hanging wide open. I’m sure I was very entertaining that day.

And then all of a sudden, another light caught my eye: a little wisp of otherworldly turquoise, dainty and delicate, flowing from the top of her head. It was dancing in the night, but there was no moon. I started giggling, and I said, “Aisling, do you know that you’re glowing a beautiful turquoise? You’re absolutely breathtaking. You’re absolutely transcendent! You’re my Guardian Angel for eternity.”

I could feel that this warm wet sensation on my cheeks. My brain knew that I was crying, but I couldn’t feel the tears. At all of these beyond human things that I was witnessing, a lot of it, I couldn’t even put words to.

I was dumbfounded. “This is wild…” In a split second, a glimmer in the corner of my eye distracted my focus. Then the rocks that had been protecting us on the Mountain in this sacred place began to breathe. It wasn’t a trick of the light. The stone was alive, and it knew I was there.

An arm’s length across, a circle of impossible blue opened in its face, a blue that has no name in this world, not turquoise, not teal, something older than both. When the stone inhaled, the color drew back into its body and went dim, and I held my breath with it, afraid to break the spell, asking myself if this was real. When it exhaled, the blue came flooding back, brighter every time, and millions of tiny veins of electric current climbed through the rock like they were written into its DNA.

I wasn’t looking at a mountain anymore. I was looking at something that had been breathing since before time, and it was letting me watch.

Four feet above, another circle answered. Deeper, a neon plum, breathing in the same rhythm, dimming on the inhale, blazing on the exhale, the rock’s hidden grid revealed like scales catching fire from within. I looked up the face of the rock, following the breathing up to the sky at the top of that rock face, invisible to the normal eye. I could see the see-through wisps of energy, flowing up the rock and melting into the air just above it. It didn’t even melt. It just flowed right into the sky.

I shifted my gaze to the ground, and all of the millions of rocks living there were neon oranges and mustard yellows and plums and blues. I rubbed my eyes to see if I was dreaming or if I was awake. I picked up a rock next to my sleeping bag and held it right in front of my nose again. It was alive. It was breathing. It was inhaling and exhaling, and every time it exhaled, the neon yellow got brighter and brighter. The rock looked like the shape of a frog.

I couldn’t contain my joy at that point. I was a goner. I didn’t stand a chance… I couldn’t stop my laughter. I said, “Aisling! No way, it’s a frog! How can a rock be a frog?”

I hyper-focused on this rock, this teeny-tiny, maybe-an-inch-diameter little rock that was this beautiful neon yellow. Its little teeny-tiny tentacles were constantly moving, synchronized with every movement of my fingers holding it. I knew I had to treat it with the utmost care, knowing now its true form. It was inhaling and exhaling. Just like everything else around me.

Then Aisling giggled, and said to me, “If you think that’s wild, Ami, look at your fingers.”

I honestly truly didn’t even notice until she mentioned it. I instantly dropped the frog rock, and I guarantee I had a look of pure bliss and wonder upon my face as I saw this phenomenal mixture of violet and peach and iridescent white little lights of wisp, white and pure. It felt like innocence made visible, weaving itself through my fingers, stirring across them like an otherworldly light.

I couldn’t help but linger there, exploring my aura. Each time I slowly moved my hands across my vision, the colors followed just behind them, flowing and shifting as though they were alive. I was captivated by everything I could see—the luminous layers of color, the movement, the light—trying to take in every bit of it at once. I started describing it to her because I knew that she wasn’t on my journey, and I knew she couldn’t see what I was seeing, and I didn’t want her to miss out on all the new discoveries before me.

Never once did she question what I was seeing. She never doubted what I was witnessing. Nothing but encouragement and wonder, as though she was witnessing it again herself through my eyes.

If I had my wish, I would’ve stayed up in the sacred mountains for the rest of my eternity… but our realm and reality had another plan in mind. I was still in my own little ethereal true spirit realm world, but Aisling knew on her side it was getting chillier by the minute. She whispered to me as I could see her visibly begin to shiver, “Ami, sweetheart… Are you ready to head home? It’s getting darker, and the sun will be setting soon.”

As much as I willed myself to stay, I knew it wasn’t fair to her, and I had no idea how frozen we would become if we stayed any longer. I whispered back, “Aww, Aisling… I don’t want to leave here. It’s too phenomenal.”

She smiled ear to ear, replying, “I know, love, but Eógan (Oh-in) is on his way up here to bring us down the mountain, and he is bringing us some yummy snacks.”

My ears perked up instantly, and I swear I’ve never sat up that quickly in my entire life. My silly little ethereal self didn’t realize how starving I had been, since I had been fasting for twenty-four hours before we got on the mountain. “Yeah!” I shouted. At this point, with the help of our little mushroom friends, my emotions were completely out of my control, not going to lie. Absolutely no filter in my brain or my words apparently. Haha. I shrieked with pure joy, grinning at her, and said, “I want to see Eógan’s aura!”

The laughter that came from the depths of Aisling’s soul burst out of her, so filled with such joy, was almost as loud as mine when I first found my true laugh. And I’m kind of shocked that her laugh didn’t stay up there in the sacred mountain. “Oh Ami, trust me… you will,” she half spoke the words, barely getting them out and giggling the rest.

I eagerly awaited his arrival, very carefully listening for his footsteps to come over the ridge. I couldn’t contain myself… second felt like hours, but finally, I could hear his footsteps coming over the ridge. Mind you, I was still tucked into my little cocoon so I would not shiver. I looked to my left to look for him. The instant I saw his face I began giggling all over again, its echo reaching the sleeping giants across the way this time. “Eógan, I missed you. I’m so grateful you’re here!”

He stopped in his tracks, looked at me all tucked in, grinned so big I thought his smile would be glowing as bright as the sacred geometry of the heavens. I was so elated, but so distracted by my giddiness, I didn’t even recognize that he had a wisp around his ethereal spirit being. I gasped in delight and in awe. Before my eyes stood a guardian, stoic, but a protector, as gentle as a teddy bear… glowing this magnificent magical neon navy blue. I honestly, truly didn’t think my grin could get any bigger than it already was. I was beyond tickled, and between my uncontrollable giggles I spoke, “Eógan!!!!! Oh my goodness! You are so beautiful! You are this bright neon navy blue wispy aura! You are so preettttyyyy!”

He stood still for a moment and took in every each one of my words. “I know,” Eógan replied. “I know I’m pretty,” he then spoke with a sheepish grin, looking at his feet.

“Oh boy,” Eógan said, smiling at me.

I looked up at him, this dumb grin on my face, as I clearly was so proud of my self, wobbliness, and giddiness.

Then he spoke again, “You’re definitely deep in it still, huh?”

“You betcha,” I giggled back at him.

I could not figure out between the three of us who was smiling brighter or laughing the most. Aisling was trying her best to hold herself together. I chuckled to myself, slowly unzipped my sleeping bag and rolled over onto the rock. I still felt a little like I was drunk… but in a good way, and the adrenaline was still very much pumping through my veins. I looked down to the ground below my hands as I began to brace myself to kneel. But that opened a whole other world of colors I hadn’t noticed before. I was in love with the true world once again, but I knew I needed to stand up. That was another whole challenge. Haha. I was still loopy at laughing aloud. I’m sure Aisling and Eógan were having the time of their lives in stitches watching me attempt the impossible and soaking in my joy.

They were still giggling as I stood up. I was so gosh proud of myself for that small little task without any help. I glanced over at my sneakers that had been meticulously placed next to my sleeping bag before the teachers had a chance to sink in. My giggles instantly got bigger, as did my eyes as I saw this even wilder challenge before me. I took a deep breath, thought for a few seconds, trying to figure out somewhere in my head how on earth I was going to do this. And for some reason, I couldn’t seem to lift my right foot up off the ground… I swear it was stuck.

“Oof! Come on, you silly foot, move… it can’t be that hard. You can do it, Ami,” I spoke to myself, not even minding at this point how silly I must have looked.

But to my blessing, neither of them made me feel bad about it. Aisling was trying to hype me up. She was definitely good at motivating me. It took a good minute and a half for me to lift my right foot up into the air. But I did it, then slid my foot into my shoe. I did a little happy dance at my accomplishment. And realized my feet were not actually glued to the ground.

I used every ounce of willpower and might to balance myself as well as a prayer under my breath to attempt to lift my left leg. I thought to myself, “This is nothing…” It only took less than a minute for that foot cooperate. “Silly little foot,” I thought. I stood there for a second basking in my little bit of glory. Then my thoughts realized I still needed to tie each of them. “Good lord” popped into my mind, and I knew this one was actually impossible and I would need help. Since my fingers weren’t working properly, they were still a little fuzzy.

I looked up and over in Aisling’s direction with a silent plea. Without saying a word she took a few steps and knelt at my feet and helped me tie my laces. I’ve never been more grateful in my entire life. But even in that… when I should’ve felt like a little child asking for help, it made me realize that sometimes it is more than all right to need kindness… Even if not asking aloud. I thanked her, and when she stood up next to me, I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a big hug and thanked her for tying my laces. I leaned back from our hug, and as I looked up, she was still glowing that beautiful turquoise… a breathtaking halo tracing every movement.

We gathered our belongings and made our way down the mountain. Aisling leading the way, my protector Eógan behind me, the caboose. I truly tried my best to get up the first ridge, one foot in front of the other… still a bit wobbly and unsteady. He was so mindful of me, and wanting to make sure I was safe. In a split second, I felt a mighty force, not of this world, grab the handle of my backpack. I wasn’t afraid. I felt unconditional love, an agape kind of love. That of true family, that of a protector.

That stopped me in my tracks, and I paused. I slowly turned around to look behind me, because I honestly thought that he was further back than he was. It was Eógan, thank goodness, and not my imagination. I smiled sheepishly at him and chuckled. He smiled back and told me that he was going to hold onto me the rest of the way down. I nodded back, and we continued on our little trek to the car.

Each branch, each flower, each piece of rock and vein in the rock face kept grabbing my attention. Not because they were just there, but because they were still glowing and breathing and radiating these marvelous other worldly colors. I still couldn’t believe my eyes that all of what lay before me was truly real, and honestly kind of bummed that I knew that I wouldn’t see these colors after this day.

We finally made it back to the car, and put all of our things in the trunk. Aisling was so gentle, kind, and protective of me as she helped me into the backseat of their car. She also helped me buckle my seat belt. Happy as a clam, I settled into the backseat. I turned my head down to the right because something caught my eye. Two teeny tiny little flowers from our small hike before our sacred spot were laying in a delicate little pile next to me. My eyes became adjusted, and I rubbed them both once again, because I didn’t want my imagination running wild again on me. My eyes suddenly hyper focused and zoomed in on the pile.

There lay a petite white bloom, radiating a pearl iridescent light with tiny source energy flowing from its center to the tips. Then next to it was another delicate flower, about three inches in length… I am not sure what kind it was, because I can only remember the color of it. It was this dainty, dusty, brilliant pink. The blooms were smaller than the other one to its left… but it was still just as vibrant and radiant with its deep pink source shifting through it. Tears gently rolled down my cheeks as it took my breath away... knowing that they were still glowing after that long being plucked from the Earth that it came from. Joy filled my entire being from the inside out once again.

I was very sleepy though, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I was beyond exhausted. I didn’t fight it. I welcomed it. I was out cold the rest of the way home. We got back to camp about an hour later. My guardian and my protector helped me into my sleeping bag and made sure I was warm and tucked in. I prayed under my breath with every fiber I had within me that when I woke the next morning, I wouldn’t forget any of the tiniest details of the wilderness of my journey. I mumbled my gratitude once again and gave in to the dreams before me.

I called my Guardian Angel a few months ago, and she told me stories of other women that she’s brought up that mountain on their spirit journeys since my sacred journey there. I’ve asked her how those journeys have gone for other women, and she paused for a moment, thought about it and started chuckling. I asked her what was so funny.

“Ami, you need to know this… that day we brought you up there for your spirit journey, your laugh—that laugh that was so innocent and pure, so full of joy and unconditional love—left something behind in those mountains. It’s still there. Your laugh and your joy are etched into them like an unwritten petroglyph, something the mountain remembers even though no human hand ever carved it. Since that day, I’ve brought quite a few women up there to experience their own spirit journeys, and every time one of them completes that hard-core, deep soul healing and that first real laugh escapes from somewhere deep within her… it’s not her laugh. It’s yours. Somehow, your laughter is still living in those mountains.”

I know, without a fraction of doubt, that we are all frequency and energy constantly shifting throughout our bodies. Looking back on what I witnessed that day, it reminded me of FernGully.

There are things I know now that I could never unknow. If you’ve ever seen the movie Lucy with Scarlett Johansson, they’re telling you the truth in plain sight, hoping that you’ll think it’s just make-believe. But now I know it’s 100% hard truth. Not because someone taught me or because I read them somewhere. Because I have felt them in the deepest parts of my soul. There comes a point when believing in the Spirit realm and feeling it become two different things. And then… your soul knows.

It’s like touching a part of yourself that was always there. And when you finally do… There you are. You. The part that remembers the Creator even when your mind cannot explain it. Once that part wakes up… you know. There is more. One day, you realize you’re not who you used to be. You know what we see is only a small piece of what exists. You realize how much of your soul you had never met. How much energy. How much light.

Somewhere along the way, the Spirit realm stopped feeling like something beyond me… because I began experiencing it within me. In a room so dark there shouldn’t have been light… there was light. Gold specks across my ceiling. Then I looked at my hands… across my fingertips and arms… diamonds. Tiny luminaries dancing across my skin. Nothing shines upon them. No moonlight. No outside light ignites them. They seem to illuminate themselves.

I know: That light is coming from within me. It is my soul. As though something hidden beneath this human body becomes visible—fragments of inner light finding their way through. Prisms appear between my fingers. When I move my hands through the darkness, what looks like luminous plasma trails behind my fingertips before dissolving into blackness. How do you explain seeing light in complete darkness that doesn’t seem to come from the room?

In my spiritual understanding, it feels like my soul saying: “You were looking outside yourself for the light. I have been here the entire time.” When I turn my palms toward one another and bring them closer, heat radiates through my hands. Closer… warmer… until there is an undeniable force between them. Almost magnetic.

But it isn’t only something I feel. I see it too. Between my palms are iridescent wisps, like tiny electric currents suspended in the air. They move and float as the heat builds, making the energy feel almost tangible. In my spiritual understanding, I can only describe it as supernatural magic. Something sacred. Something given. It makes me wonder what mysteries the Creator placed inside the human soul.

Watching diamonds dance across my skin and feeling heat in my palms, something inside me becomes still. It doesn’t feel like discovering how powerful I am. It feels like discovering how powerful the Source I came from must be. Surrounded by fragments of light… I feel closer to the Spirit realm than the room around me.

And that is where something changes. Within you. There is so much more to us than we know. This power is quiet. Almost holy. Intuition. Energy. Love. Creation. Healing. Knowing. Maybe that is the white magic: remembering the sacredness within it. The deeper I travel, the more I understand Christ Consciousness differently too: an immeasurable current of love. Compassion without possession. Power without domination. Light without needing darkness to disappear.

Eventually I stopped asking if I could return to who I was. I knew. She couldn’t come with me. My soul doesn’t live there anymore. Once you’ve felt something sacred in the tiniest fibers of your being, you cannot become unaware again. If something extraordinary lives inside me… something extraordinary must live inside you too.

Maybe your gift looks nothing like mine. Maybe it’s music. Plants. Dreams. Animals. Words. Intuition. Creating. Protecting. Healing. We all came here carrying something. That’s why the highest timeline feels different. You changed.

Once that knowing reaches the deepest fibers of your being… there is no road backward. You can love who you were. You can thank her. But you cannot become her again. Beneath everything this world told you to be… your soul says: “Keep going. There is more.”

There Is More

There are moments when I wonder how much a human soul can carry before it finally whispers… “I’m tired.” Not the kind of tired that asks for sleep. The kind that lives somewhere behind your ribs. The kind that comes from carrying things nobody can see while somehow continuing through a world that expects you to look completely fine.

We can be standing beneath the most beautiful sky we have ever seen while quietly carrying a storm no one else knows exists. We learn to smile while grieving. To laugh while afraid. To care for everyone else while something inside us is begging to be held too. We become so good at carrying the weight that eventually we forget… we were allowed to put it down.

I think there have been seasons of my life when I confused surviving with healing. As long as I kept moving, I thought I was okay. As long as I could still get up, then surely I wasn’t drowning. But perhaps drowning doesn’t always look like disappearing beneath the water. Sometimes it looks like becoming incredibly good at treading it—keeping your head just high enough above everything you’re feeling that nobody realizes how tired you’ve become underneath.

Maybe the soul was never asking us to become stronger. Maybe sometimes it was simply asking us to feel. To stop turning every wound into a lesson before we’ve admitted that it hurt. Because there are things we carry that we never chose. Grief we never asked for. Goodbyes we weren’t ready for. Versions of our lives that disappeared before we knew we were living their final moments. Pieces of ourselves we had to leave behind because surviving required us to become someone else.

For a long time, I thought healing meant reaching a place where none of it hurt anymore. I don’t think that now. Maybe healing is being able to sit beside your own pain without trying to make it leave. To look at the frightened parts of yourself and say: “I know. I know you’re tired. You don’t have to hide from me anymore.”

And perhaps something changes when we do that. Not because the weight disappears, but because we stop abandoning ourselves underneath it. And somewhere beneath everything we carry, there is still this tiny something. Almost too quiet to hear. Not certainty. Just the faintest knowing: “There is a way.”

Maybe that is hope. Not a blazing light appearing at the end of every darkness. Maybe hope is much smaller. Maybe it’s the little flame inside you that somehow survives the storm. The part of your soul that still looks toward tomorrow even when today has taken nearly everything out of you. The part that still notices moonlight on water. Still looks up when the stars appear. Still reaches for something warm beside you. Still believes there may be something beautiful beyond what you can currently see.

Maybe the Creator never asked us to arrive here untouched. Maybe we were always allowed to come trembling. Confused. Overwhelmed. With tears behind our eyes and questions we haven’t found answers for yet. Maybe we don’t have to carry ourselves beautifully to be held by something greater than ourselves.

And perhaps moving mountains doesn’t always mean making them disappear. Sometimes it means sitting at the bottom of one and finally admitting: “This is heavy.” Then taking one step. And another. And another. Not because you suddenly stopped hurting, but because somewhere beneath the hurt, something inside you still remembers how to move.

That is the part of us I find extraordinary. Not the part that never breaks. The part that breaks and somehow remains capable of light. The part that can taste the saltwater and still lift its face toward the stars. The part that can whisper, “I don’t know how…” and somehow, from somewhere deeper than fear, hear something whisper back: “You don’t have to know how yet. Just stay. There is a way.”

And maybe that is where awakening actually begins. Not with having all the answers. Not with suddenly understanding everything. But with realizing there is something inside you that kept whispering even when you were too exhausted to listen.

Can I tell you something I wish someone had told me much earlier? There is so much more to you than the parts of yourself you’ve already met. And I don’t mean that as something pretty or poetic. I mean there may genuinely be strengths within you that life hasn’t asked you to use yet. Gifts you dismissed as coincidence. Instincts you learned to second-guess. Questions you kept quiet because you feared someone might look at you differently if you asked them aloud.

I know that feeling. And if you’ve ever quietly wondered whether there is more to this existence than what we can see, measure, touch, or easily explain… I understand that too.

There are things I know now that I could never unknow. Not because someone taught me or because I read them somewhere. Because I have felt them in the deepest parts of my soul. There comes a point when believing in the Spirit realm and feeling it become two different things. And then… your soul knows.

It’s like touching a part of yourself that was always there. And when you finally do… There you are. You. The part that remembers the Creator even when your mind cannot explain it. Once that part wakes up, you know. There is more. One day, you realize you’re not who you used to be. You know what we see is only a small piece of what exists. You realize how much of your soul you had never met. How much energy. How much light.

What I’ve experienced has changed the way I look at being alive. Not because I suddenly have all the answers—I don’t. If anything, I’ve fallen more deeply in love with the questions. And I’ve learned that trusting the Creator doesn’t always mean being handed an explanation. Sometimes it means being given just enough light for the next few steps… and choosing to walk.

Something happens when you do. Little by little, you meet parts of yourself that were waiting for you: your courage. Your intuition. Your discernment. Your sensitivity. Your creativity. Your compassion. Your connection with the natural world. Your ability to love without abandoning yourself. Even gifts you spent years minimizing because you didn’t know what to call them.

Somewhere along the way, the Spirit realm stopped feeling like something beyond me… because I began experiencing it within me. In a room so dark there shouldn’t have been light… there was light. Gold specks across my ceiling. Then I looked at my hands… Across my fingertips and arms… diamonds. Tiny luminaries dancing across my skin. Nothing shines upon them. No moonlight. No outside light ignites them. They seem to illuminate themselves.

It feels like my soul saying: “You were looking outside yourself for the light. I have been here the entire time.” When I turn my palms toward one another and bring them closer, heat radiates through my hands. Closer… warmer… until there is an undeniable force between them. Almost magnetic.

And perhaps that is one of the deepest secrets hidden within all of this. The light isn’t beautiful simply because it glows. It’s beautiful because of what it represents. Every time she becomes brighter, something within her has changed. She trusted. She learned. She released. She chose courage over fear. She followed what the Creator placed upon her heart even when she couldn’t see where it would lead. Eventually, what had been transforming privately within her could no longer remain invisible. Her inner world changed so profoundly that the outer world began reflecting it.

That is what becoming your highest self means to me. Not becoming perfect. Not becoming spiritually superior. Not possessing secret answers everyone else somehow missed. Becoming more loving. More discerning. More courageous. More compassionate. More curious. More conscious of how sacred it is simply to be here.

And somewhere in that awakening, something else became impossible to ignore. The universe has absolutely no interest in preserving the version of you that other people became comfortable with. We talk about transformation like it’s supposed to be beautiful, but nobody talks about how disruptive it becomes once you actually start listening to yourself.

Awareness changes things. Once you see something clearly, you can’t politely unsee it because acknowledging it might inconvenience someone. Once you realize how temporary this human experience is, things that once felt incredibly important start looking almost ridiculous. Approval. Reputation. Being understood. Making choices that can be easily explained. Following timelines you never consciously chose.

There’s something almost comical about living in an infinite universe with consciousness still largely unexplained, then spending this tiny flicker of existence afraid somebody might question our choices. Somewhere along this journey, that became impossible to ignore. I started wondering how many decisions I genuinely wanted and how many simply created the least resistance. There is a difference between living your life and managing everyone else’s perception of it. I’ve done enough of the second one.

This next chapter feels different because I’m no longer interested in making every decision defensible. Some things will happen because they feel right somewhere I cannot put into words. Some roads will be taken because something in me gets louder when I look toward them. Some things I once wanted may be abandoned because experience changed me. Some choices might make no sense until years later. Maybe they never will. I’m becoming okay with that.

The spiritual realm has taught me something I never expected: mystery does not owe me an explanation before I’m allowed to experience it. Neither does my own life. I can question everything and still trust myself. I can be deeply spiritual and still say fuck. I can believe there is intelligence woven through existence and still admit I have no idea what the hell is going on. I can experience something profound without proving it to anyone.

Maybe awakening isn’t certainty. Maybe it’s becoming comfortable enough with the unknown that you stop forcing your life into recognizable shapes. Fear used to negotiate with me. Guilt could change my plans. Someone else’s reaction could make me reconsider what I felt certain about. I could hear my own internal answer and still hand it to someone else for grading.

I don’t want to live like that anymore. Not because I believe every instinct is divine instruction, but because constantly distrusting myself isn’t wisdom either. Discernment and courage can exist together. Room to say: “I don’t know where this leads, but I need to find out.” Maybe that sentence defines this era.

I want to see what happens when curiosity gets more authority than fear. I want to see what life looks like when I stop demanding every chapter resemble the last. I want experiences I don’t have language for yet. I want to stand beneath enormous night skies and remember how little any of us knows. I want to build things that only existed in my imagination. I want to change direction without holding a funeral for the plan. I want to meet the unknown without immediately trying to domesticate it. I want to stop confusing other people’s comfort with cosmic confirmation that I’m doing life correctly.

Maybe some will look at what comes next and think I’ve lost my mind. Maybe they’ll talk. Judge. Maybe they’ll be mad. They’re allowed. I’m not here to control their experience of me. I’m here to experience being alive. None of us knows how much time we get to do that, and I’m done spending mine auditioning for permission.

Eventually I stopped asking if I could return to who I was. I knew. She couldn’t come with me. My soul doesn’t live there anymore. Once you’ve felt something sacred in the tiniest fibers of your being, you cannot become unaware again. You can love who you were. You can thank her. But you cannot become her again. That’s why the highest timeline feels different. You changed.

Once that knowing reaches the deepest fibers of your being… there is no road backward. And maybe that is not something to mourn. Maybe it is something to honor. Because beneath everything this world told you to be, your soul says: “Keep going. There is more.”

And I don’t want you to believe any of this simply because I tell you I experienced it. I want you to remain curious. Keep your discernment. Ask difficult questions. Research ancient teachings for yourself. Spend time beneath the trees and underneath the stars. Listen to what awakens wonder within you—and be brave enough to explore it without surrendering your judgment.

Perhaps some truths are not meant to be handed to us as conclusions. Perhaps they are invitations: to seek, to learn, to remember, to become. And perhaps the greatest discovery isn’t realizing the universe holds more mystery than we imagined. Perhaps it’s discovering that you do, too.

If something extraordinary lives inside me… something extraordinary must live inside you too. Maybe your gift looks nothing like mine. Maybe it’s music. Plants. Dreams. Animals. Words. Intuition. Creating. Protecting. Healing. We all came here carrying something.

And perhaps the light we spend our lives searching for was never meant to be found somewhere outside ourselves. Perhaps it has been quietly waiting beneath everything we were taught to become. Waiting beneath the fear. Beneath the grief. Beneath the versions of ourselves we had to create simply to survive. Waiting beneath all the noise. Until one day, something in us becomes still enough to recognize it.

And then… there you are. You. The part that remembers. The part that knows. The part that survived. The part that still loves. The part that still reaches toward the stars. The part that can break and somehow remain capable of light.

And maybe that is the real awakening. Not becoming someone new. Remembering who was there all along. Maybe my next era won’t make sense from the outside. Good. I have a feeling the most interesting parts of this universe never did. There is more.

What I’m writing could never do this justice, and I know it’s a lot to lay on your lap, but I’m wide awake at 3 a.m., and I really, really, really wanted to get this off my mind and share it with you because I know in my heart and in my head I can trust you with this.

Love, Ami