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left her body.

      Suddenly everything seemed to get very quiet and dark and the pain subsided. I felt like I was inside this very soft velvety black bubble. Then instantly, as if the bubble had burst, everywhere there was golden light. It was the most brilliant light. It made the sun in the Sahara pale in comparison except that it did not hurt your eyes. Infused in the light was the most beautiful melodic music I had ever heard. It was as if each note was a precious drop of dew or nectar. Just as the light was so bright, the music was so sweet and crystalline and pure. What was remarkable was that I didn’t seem to be separate from the light and the music. I had no boundaries – I experienced myself to be everywhere. Although it doesn’t make any sense to my conscious mind now at that moment it seemed so real and natural.

      I was unable to think of the past or the future because everything existed right now. There was a sense that every person who had ever lived and every person who was going to live was there and yet we were not separate from each other. We were all individuals and yet a part of a great loving Oneness and infused in this experience was the most blissful feeling of love. I was enveloped in a kind of love which was different from the love that we experience on Earth because the love we have here is a love of separation, as there is always distance between us and the people we love. In that place there was only love.

      The remarkable thing was that it was all so familiar to me and it made my physical life up to that point an illusion. In a blink of God’s eyes my life had become like a dream and this had become my reality.

      Then I came to a beautiful golden river of light that shimmered and sparkled. I could see through this golden haze to the far shore and I knew that I would never return to my body if I reached it. I stepped into the river and I could feel this golden light parting on each side of my body. I was desperate to reach the other side but when I got halfway across I felt a huge tug around my waist and I was being dragged out of the river. I heard a voice which said, ‘It’s not your time now. There are some things you need to do.’ And I found myself instantly yanked back into my body.

      Her body was badly damaged and she suffered a great deal of pain.

      One night I was in so much pain that I was desperate and suddenly I felt someone’s hand slip into mine. As soon as this happened the pain disappeared. I thought it was a kindly night nurse, but when I opened my eyes there was nobody there. Even when I wiggled my fingers I definitely felt as though someone was holding my hand. Then I fell into a deep sleep.

      Throughout her long convalescence she would find herself drifting into altered states of consciousness:

      I could hear music that other people couldn’t hear and see things that they couldn’t see. Once when they took me outside for some fresh air I began to hear this remarkable hum. I looked around to see where it was coming from and around every blade of grass there was this radiant light and I realized that I was hearing the sound of the grasses. Then I looked at this tiny sapling and I saw the same light glowing around the tree and the leaves and I could distinguish a beautiful sound as the sap was rising up and as the sun was entering the leaves and going down the tree. Then a small breeze came up and as the leaves twisted and turned I could hear a pure crystalline sound like a chime.

      Denise Linn has extended her vision of the eternal nature of spirit to the world in the form of healing workshops, books and lectures. It brought her in touch with her Cherokee heritage and helped her to understand the vision of life held by most tribal peoples throughout the world. She considers her near death experience a special gift:

      When I had my NDE I wasn’t given something which I did not already have: it just allowed me to remember who I am. It is as if inside each person there is an ember of remembrance and there are ways to allow that ember to become a flame, a flame that says we are infinite and immortal. That we are spirits.

      RITUALS AND RELEASE

      Do not stand at my grave and weep

      I am not there. I do not sleep.

      I am a thousand winds that blow;

      I am a diamond’s glint on snow.

      I am the sunlight on ripened grain;

      I am the gentle autumn’s rain.

      When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

      I am the swift uplifting rush

      of quiet birds in circled flight.

      I am the soft star that shines at night.

      Do not stand at my grave and cry,

      I am not there.

      I did not die.

      Anonymous

      The ancients grieved over death and yet their belief in death as a positive transformation when the soul begins its journey to the afterlife led them to create rituals as a bridge which the soul could use to move between worlds.

      As a child, Aggie Richards, a nurse and member of the Spiritualist Church, would find herself drawn to funerals, where she would see the spirit of whoever had died shimmering above the mourning guests. Sometimes she saw something which resembled an umbilical cord trailing from the spirit into the coffin; as the coffin was lowered it would slowly dissolve. She knew that no one else could see this and would always say a prayer for the spirit as it disappeared. Her vision corresponds with the spiritual belief that the souls of the dead attend their own funerals and even as the living are saying goodbye they too are preparing to take their leave.

      The religious custom of reading sacred texts and prayers at funerals reminds the soul that it wishes to seek reunion with God and the European custom of keeping candles burning around the coffin light the way for the dead to the invisible realms. The clothes, food, gifts and messages which are often buried with the dead reassure the spirit through lingering memories of their earthly existence and stop them feeling lonely on their journey.

      From ancient Egyptians to Buddhists and the many tribal peoples of the world, many cultures have considered the newly disembodied soul to be at great risk, not simply from external forces but also from its own fear and confusion. The living are also held to be at risk at this time.

      Many rites have grown out of the fear of the ghost of the dead returning to haunt the living as the gateway of death opened from the visible to the supernatural world. The original reason why mourners, pall bearers and undertakers dressed in black was to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible in order to protect themselves from the ghost and any other spirits hovering near. Even today undertakers will take the coffin to the house of the deceased on the way to the cemetery to make sure that the soul accompanies the body, and the corpse must always be taken from the house feet first, otherwise, looking back, it will beckon one of the family to follow it into death. In Haiti the cortège will break into a run as if being chased to the cemetery. Twisting and turning through the streets, it takes the most circuitous route, trying to make the soul lose its sense of direction so that it can never find its way home again. Gypsies pile thorn bushes over the grave to prevent the soul rising out of it and in the past would always burn the possessions of the dead so that they would have nothing to return to.

      THE FUNERAL

      The funeral ceremony is the final and most sacred rite of passage on the wheel of life as the body is returned to the elements and the soul is released. Funerals serve the same functions throughout the world: to dispose of the body, to ensure the safe passage of the soul and to comfort the living. The prayers, rituals, magical incantations and celebrations help to divest the soul of emotional attachment and empower it to continue its journey toward the light.

      THE SOUL THAT WAS MINE IS NOW YOURS

      The Indian custom is to let the soul go and not to hold on to it, so we set aside 13 days for mourning, for it is thought that it will take that number of days to heal. In Hindi the word for 13 – thera – also means ‘yours’ and on the thirteenth day we release the soul that we love back to the keeping of Baba, God, our

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