I recognize the stranger who came to you and I’m having chills as I write this. I have seen him in a vision and considered him to be one of my spirit guides. He appeared to me as a man in a turban with the cloth partially covering his face. Then he pulled the cloth away to reveal his features. His face was unlined, an acquiline nose, high cheekbones, a swarthy complexion and wise eyes.
He came into your life and saved it. On the the hand, maybe he just encouraged you to save your own life.
BlueBelle, I don't have the proper words to convey how deeply this moves me or how grateful I am that you shared it. I also know it to be true, even if I can't comprehend the how or why.
Here are some things I only put together after my experience with the Sikh:
I was born and raised in Mississippi at a time when people only came in three races—white, black, and Indian. By Indian, of course, people meant Indigenous/Native American. And while I'm sure I learned about the existence of the Indian subcontinent and its people (though, maybe not; I was, after all, educated in woefully underfunded Mississippi public schools), I'd never met anyone from India and certainly knew nothing about its many different religious groups.
At 14, I was removed from my mother's home and sent to live in Chicago with my dad. Talk about culture shock. Quickly, I encountered all types of people I never knew existed. We eventually moved into a house that had previously been owned by an Indian family and still smelled of curry spices—a smell that never entirely went away. Everyone hated that smell but me. I'd never eaten Indian food (and still wouldn't for many years) but something about that smell felt like home, like mother, like river, like goddess.
We were told that the family had held funeral wakes in the house for their deceased relatives. This freaked out my dad and his wife, but I now believe that the kindness of some of those departed spirits protected me during a very difficult time in my adolescent experiences with the other side.
While living there, I continued training as a dancer and wanted to be a choreographer. I started finding myself repeating unusual movements: serpentine arm and hip motions, strange hand positions. The last year I was in Chicago, my dance teacher surprised me with a request that I perform what she called "The [VestraLux] dance" in a solo. I was embarrassed anyone had noticed, but happy to be chosen. Years later, I realized those movements are Indian women's folk dances.
One afternoon a couple of years later, I found myself watching The English Patient. To this day, I couldn't tell you anything useful about that film with the exception of a single scene:
A beautiful brown-skinned man in a turban goes alone to a river. He carefully unwinds the cloth and takes down his hair, which is impossibly long and black. He then washes his hair in the river, like a sacrament.
When I tell you that I fell to the floor of my apartment and sobbed, I mean it. I was undone by that scene and I didn't know why. It felt like nostalgia, like recognition. But more than anything, seeing it had opened up an unbelievable sensation of longing inside me.
Longing isn't something an abused child can afford to feel, so I bottled that sensation and stored it away. (I was still carrying that child's needs as primary, even as a young adult.)
In the years ahead, I had a number of other potent encounters, with Kali Ma and Sarasvati. Then, a couple of years ago, I had a powerful encounter with the late Indian genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who said that every mathematical insight he ever had was transmitted directly to him by the goddess Namagiri. His image of the Divine had given him a glimpse of the architecture of the Universe, and his formulations are used by quantum physicists today.
I really couldn't tell you what any of this means. But I know that for much of our recent history, our densest population numbers were in South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The ancient and intricate language and religious traditions alone tell us so much—Bön, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain. And just imagine how much of our human story has been lost to antiquity due to English imperialism and the Christian Crusades!
If we've lived or are currently living other lifetimes, it's reasonable to assume some/many of them took or take place there. Or that we might feel a sense of overwhelming familiarity when we meet someone from there, @laura-f. And because there is such a profound legacy of mystical richness and wisdom rooted in the traditions of those places, it makes sense that we would encounter spirit guides from those places too. Though I very much believe we've been encountering one another's (perhaps we even share some!). ?
After I wrote about the Sikh last night, I looked up what the colors of the turban might mean. Apparently, blues (like the turquoise I remember) indicate protection, and pink or reds are worn for special ceremonies, such as a marriage. I didn't know the first thing about Sikhism when I had the encounter, but everything I've learned since has moved me so deeply.
@michele-b, your reply brought me tears of gratitude. Thank you for your spirit of bursting joy and love and encouragement.
@coyote, thank you for showing the way.
I treasure all of you so much and so deeply.
TriciaCT,
Regarding your friend Sue and what she told you about suicide-that is fascinating. I have wondered about that since losing several friends to suicide, one in middle school and two in high school.
When my mother passed, I was reading a book entitled Hello from Heaven!, written by Bill and Judy Guggenheim. I read another along those lines too-I can't remember the title at the moment, but it's in my house somewhere. Anyway, I think this was in the latter, but there was a story of a mother whose twenty-something son killed himself. He appeared to her, I think a year or so after, and he looked restored, out of pain, healthy and clear of mind. He told her he had been welcomed into Heaven, but he and all others were required to take classes to deal with the issues that had caused them to take their life.
Again, fascinating, and so comforting to know that they get resolution and healing.
powerful encounter with the late Indian genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who said that every mathematical insight he ever had was transmitted directly to him by the goddess Namagiri. His image of the Divine had given him a glimpse of the architecture of the Universe, and his formulations are used by quantum physicists today.
Connections way back on this site on remote viewing and both Bluebelle and Gracesinger seeing amazing imagery that I recognized as Mandlebrot Imagery and Sacred Geometry and crystalline structures other commenters chimed in and we went on to other imagery during altered states of consciousness and phosphene images that I knew as entoptic imagery.
Oh what gifts and connections you all have and so wonderfully magical!
https://www.jeannemayell.com/community/speaks/remote-viewing-technique/#post-10000
Actually, my post was a bit difficult to write, but I felt compelled after reading yours. We do have this safe place where we can share our innermost experiences and be recognized as fellow travelers in this life.
Thank you for sharing that experience of recognizing something familiar about the Indian culture and all your subsequent connections with the Hindu divine. The only connection I have is a long rooted one through yoga. Today I look back over many years of yoga practice and remember that in the beginning, there was that sense of familiarity, like coming home, as if every movement, every pose was already known to me. Even now as I move through vinyasa, I ebb and flow with the breath and the movement, eyes half closed in a mystical meditation of body and mind. So that's what yoga means: a union of body and mind, but to me it's also a union of body, mind and spirit, especially during the shavasana at the end of practice. I lie there unified, centered and empty my mind in meditation. Often, as I am emptying my mind, I ask my spirit guide what he would have me know for that moment of meditation. If the meditation is deep enough, I find an answer. Sometimes I spend my meditation in prayer. I don't have a particular dogma, just rejoice in what's meaningful to me.
When I first saw my turbaned guide/visitor, I surmised that he was Middle Eastern. But when I read your post this morning, I saw your Sikh and recognized their sameness. I can't explain it, but I know it. I saw him standing next to you. I saw him smiling. I saw him waving and I recognized him. If all this strangeness isn't enough, I keep remembering today what my late grandmother saw. She was an intuitive and saw things and knew things without being told. In the 70's, I remember her talking about seeing a man's head lying on her pillow and that he was wearing a turban.
So here we are, connected in ways we can't yet understand.
Namaste, my friend.
When I first saw my turbaned guide/visitor, I surmised that he was Middle Eastern. But when I read your post this morning, I saw your Sikh and recognized their sameness. I can't explain it, but I know it. I saw him standing next to you. I saw him smiling. I saw him waving and I recognized him. If all this strangeness isn't enough, I keep remembering today what my late grandmother saw. She was an intuitive and saw things and knew things without being told. In the 70's, I remember her talking about seeing a man's head lying on her pillow and that he was wearing a turban.
So here we are, connected in ways we can't yet understand.
BlueBelle, you cannot possibly know how grateful I am that you pushed yourself to share all of this with me. I'm in tears—and not for the first time in the last 24 hours. And I'm in awe of your yoga practice. It inspires me to get back to the business of recommitting to mine. (It's been difficult for me to feel into the places of disembodiment and dissociation trauma left in my body. Dance is movement, so it allowed me to keep going without resting long enough to feel. Yoga is something else, which of course I need.)
I know your gift; it blows me away on a regular basis! And I know your integrity and sincerity and wholeheartedness. I saw these qualities clearly in your words when I first read them here on this forum, and I saw them visually in the radiant energy that surrounds you when I saw your actual face for the first time on a Read the Future Night Zoom call. So, I know that when you say you saw the Sikh standing next to me and recognized him, that you did. And my heart is just so full.
I've seen your grandmother in spirit, which you know, and I've felt her absolute love for you. She surrounds you in a powerful circle of other gifted (mostly) women (mostly) from your ancestral line. You're like a team of powerful seers and healers: some of you are on this side (you and your sister, for ex), while your backup team is working from the other side.
When I met them, it felt like a homecoming party! Like I was being welcomed into your grandmother's space and invited to sit and share everything. There was so much love and wisdom, but also a lot of wry wit and intelligence—and even what I'd call an artistic/bohemian sensibility? Imagine a group of striking women seated around a table. The oldest (though she doesn't "look" older than anyone else) is wearing rings on every finger (ha!) and a fringed velvet kimono over silk with kitten heels. (It's very Art Deco where they are, darling.)
There's so much love, though. So much support. There's nothing like that in my own family, but it all feels very familiar to me, like a native language I haven't heard spoken in ages but which I've somehow never really forgotten.
Reading of your grandmother's vision of the man with the turban lying on her pillow blows open my heart. I was born in late 1975. Like they say in law enforcement (hee), there are no coincidences. ?
@michele-b, thank you so much for sharing this link! I've been having mandalic, fractal, and intricate geometric visions for many years now—all of my adult life, I guess. By way of a synchronicity, just last week, I finished a poem alluding to the visual structure captured in the Mandelbrot set. It's one in a series of many such poems I've been writing for about 15+ years.
It feels very magical to find all of you here.
More connections
random questions about all kinds of things – Page 2 – Q & A – World Predictions Forum
https://www.jeannemayell.com/community/q-a/random-questions-about-all-kinds-of-things/paged/2/
I thought I had a tiny artsy textile thing I'd made a decade ago with a Sikh--nope it was a turbaned Sufi...'dark lots of blues, very simple, strange esoteric energy.
Lots of cultures and religions of almost every kind since childhood including Bahaii and Sikh and Mormon and later Jewish and Muslim friends.The Sikh family I once knew 40 years ago started Kettle Chips in Salem OR.
But no my other connection, is a lot of Sufi connections....dancing whirling dervishes all of that. Always loved to dance my own whirling modern interpretive kind of trance dancing in a way. So that dancing yoga yes and yes.V and B
When I was connecting the remote viewing site to another old one on random things and this is where the beast and Gracesinger had an instant remote viewing experiences and of course first thing I read my Sufi image..haha yes with @gracesinger again Hope you come tomorrow night T. Loved seeing you at the last two so much!
This whole conversation merges back and forth with your imagery vision dreams back them @bluebelle
random questions about all kinds of things – Page 2 – Q & A – World Predictions Forum
https://www.jeannemayell.com/community/q-a/random-questions-about-all-kinds-of-things/paged/2/
So many amazing people who've come and gone and sometimes come back again here.
A reason and a season
Wow, Laura. Your response means a lot to me. You know, not only are people in this community commenting on my storytelling lately. Even at work, where I do some environmental writing, people I've only known for the past few months are telling me that my prose has a healing effect and that I need to write a book. Plus when I did a life reading with Jeanne, she saw me writing an important book and doing a TED-like talk at some point in the future. So spirit has been practically yelling at me about what I'm supposed to be doing from now on. And I have ideas, plans in the works for where I want to take my skills.
As for God thinking he's a comedian. In the past year, as I've remembered more and more about my soul purpose, there have been times when I've started crying at the memories of my hard times. But then I always end up laughing uncontrollably: laughing at myself for making things so much more complicated than they had to be; laughing at the synchronicities the universe keeps sending my way; laughing for sheer joy.
In the past year, as I've remembered more and more about my soul purpose, there have been times when I've started crying at the memories of my hard times. But then I always end up laughing uncontrollably: laughing at myself for making things so much more complicated than they had to be; laughing at the synchronicities the universe keeps sending my way; laughing for sheer joy.
Brings me to tears. You connected the energies This is how the joy comes back in. Even in the hardest times in our lives even when the pain is more than we can bare and we feel like it's too hard, I can't do it, I can't bear this.. .We somehow know we've already done it. We have always known we are special and were meant for special things just not sure how or when someone would see it, recognize us, connect the strange human need for validation for someone to truly see and recognize us. We already are doing it. We've already done it and the joy in the deepest part of the gifts--the love is right there, always was, always will be.
Love to you dear dear Coyote. ?
...You know, not only are people in this community commenting on my storytelling lately. Even at work, where I do some environmental writing, people I've only known for the past few months are telling me that my prose has a healing effect and that I need to write a book. Plus when I did a life reading with Jeanne, she saw me writing an important book and doing a TED-like talk at some point in the future. So spirit has been practically yelling at me about what I'm supposed to be doing from now on. And I have ideas, plans in the works for where I want to take my skills.
Yep. Unnecessary reminder that my guides have been forcing me to shout, "HEY COYOTE YOU'RE A WRITER" a lot, too. ?
ETA: @Jeanne-Mayell totally nailed it with the TEDx talk!
That was strange enough, but when I looked around me—and there is no description that could do this justice—the very particles in the air and sidewalk and street and bridge and buildings were rippling, glittering.
Every surface in midtown was covered in graffiti and suddenly the colors and forms were blowing me back in their genius and beauty. The homeless men, the working women, paper trash drifting down the street, that collapsing concrete structure I'd chosen for a coffin—absolutely everything was alive with startling perfection.
There are so many connections popping up in this thread and so many parts of your story, Vestralux, that I want to acknowledge, I'm not sure where to start. So I'll start here. I know exactly what you mean by "there is no description that could do this justice." The rippling, glittering particles you saw in the air are what I saw when I was in the hospital and then when I had my NDE (in my case they were forming geometric patterns, too).
I knew bits and pieces of your hard journey, but reading about your own brush with suicide is reminding me again of why I'm so drawn to this community. Not only are we all fellow travelers, but we're actively integrating our struggles for the enrichment of the world.
I've met too many spirits who had suicided to believe that no one is successful unless they're absolutely and entirely done with living. Add just enough despair and desperation to a sudden impulse, and not even the most stalwart guide or guardian can shut the gate in time.
I trust your intuition, so I know you're correct about this. I probably chose to be born into a family in which gun ownership was not a "thing" so that I wouldn't have the opportunity to act on a sudden impulse. There were definitely times in my depression when I yearned for a gun.
Also, I've had my DNA tested, and I have distant South Asian ancestry from my mother's side (a cousin who had her DNA tested reported the same results). One branch of my maternal lineage is rooted in Greece and the Hellenic communities of Anatolia. So I'm guessing that at some point, members of the Roma diaspora mixed in with my Greek ancestors.
I'm delighted you've been exposed to Kafka on the Shore. Have you read the whole thing?
There are more connections from the explosive comments posted here in the last 24 hours that I want to address, but I'm done for the night. To be continued.