This piece called “Dream Cloud” is carved from a single piece of boulder opal in an ironstone matrix. It measures 8 x 6 x 4 centimetres, weighs 1167.5 carats, and is believed to have been carved in about 1915 CE. My intuition tells me that the artist who created this piece had some divine inspiration along the way. “Dream Cloud” is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017

Learning to communicate with your guardian angels is a tricky, tricky business.

If you go into the New Age section of your local bookstore, you’ll find quite a few books about how to talk to angels. Most of these books are written by people who are in the early stages of their spiritual journey. They don’t yet have the knowledge or experience or scientific training to teach others how to understand the messages of angels. Therefore, a lot of information in these books is flawed.

However, some New Age books are well-meaning and contain the odd useful nugget. This is more than I can say for books about angels that are written by evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, who want to pummel you with the idea that your soul is filled with sin and your angels are part of a vast celestial hierarchy whose only purpose is to worship God. It’s pretty negative stuff when you stop and think about it.

There’s a history behind these traditional teachings I won’t go into today, but suffice it to say that conventional Christian theories about angels won’t get you very far on the Spiral Path. In fact, Christian theories will slow you down. You’re better off to start with a simple model based on observable facts.

Fact #1: Learning to communicate effectively with anyone — including your angels — takes time and practice and patience. It’s not something you learn overnight. It’s not something you learn at a weekend workshop. It’s something you have to work on bit by bit, day by day. In other words, you need to know from the very beginning of your journey that you won’t be able to understand your angels’ messages right away. You’re going to have to practise.

This doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Quite the opposite, in fact. What you’re trying to develop is a complex skill — a way of thinking and feeling and acting that’s holistic and grounded and peace-filled. Because it’s a complex skill, it takes time for you to develop it. But this is a good thing, right? All complex human endeavours take time and effort. People don’t learn how to become jumbo jet pilots by going to a weekend workshop. Cirque du Soleil artists don’t learn how to scale walls by going to a weekend workshop. And adult men and women don’t learn how to communicate effectively with their angels in a few short hours, either.

If you meet a spiritual teacher who claims to have had an experience of instant conversion to a state of full communion with God or God’s angels overnight, you should be very, very wary. The story in the Bible’s Book of Acts about Saul’s sudden conversion on the road to Damascus is exactly the sort of religious claim that should raise an alarm bell in the back of your head. The story of Saul (who becomes Paul) gives people the idea that God chooses certain special people and then swoops into their heads to instantly rewire their brains so they can serve as special receptacles for divine revelation.

Yeah, okay, so God is just going to dump a few terabytes of new data into your head from one minute to the next, and you’re not even going to get a migraine?

This is just goofy. Not to mention abusive. The story of Saul on the road to Damascus describes an abusive God who seizes hold of one man and forces him to instantly convert to a new vision of God. Saul doesn’t get a say in this conversion, according to the Bible. Instead, he’s forced by God to accept his “destiny.” His “fate.” His chosen status as a messenger of God.

And where in this story does Saul apply his own free will and make the choice to seek redemption?

Nowhere.

This leads us to Fact #2.

Fact #2: Learning to use your own free will is a real bitch. I’m not going to lie to you. A big part of your journey to understand your angels’ messages will involve the journey to understand your own free will.

See, this is another reason I’m suggesting you avoid traditional Christian teachings about angels and souls. According to these traditional teachings, you don’t really have free will. Well, you sorta do, in so far as you can choose to commit sinful acts. And, of course, you’re allowed to apply your free will to choose salvation through Christ. But, other than that, the Church says you’re basically an unworthy piece of shit who can’t choose redemption and can’t really forgive others and can’t be a good person unless God has chosen this destiny for you. But good luck trying!

Fortunately, a great many individuals have figured out the Church is wrong.

Among the people who understand the true potential of your free will are your very own guardian angels. All angels, whether in 4D form or in incarnated human form, live and breathe the concept of free will in its deepest grandeur. So you may as well know from the beginning of your journey that if you try to tell your angels that you can’t change because you don’t have free will, they’ll put on their angel earmuffs and loudly proclaim, “Sorry, we can’t hear you. La la la la la.”

Why are angels allowed to ignore your pity parties? Because angels have free will. And they don’t have to agree with everything you’re saying.

Which leads to the last point I want to highlight today.

Fact #3: All guardian angels are equally competent and equally well qualified to guide their respective charges. There’s no such thing as “defective” or “inferior” guardian angels. The angels who are watching over you are the angels who are best suited to you and your unique needs. Period.

I’ve read a number of New Age books in which authors claim you can break a contract with your guardian angels if you believe they’re not “pure” enough or “advanced” enough for you. According to these authors, you can insist on being teamed with a “better” angel or spirit guide, someone who’s higher on the ladder of spiritual ascent . . . like, say, an archangel instead of a plain ol’ guardian angel. Like maybe even Archangel Michael himself!

Hah!

You may have noticed that in my last post (Angels Aren’t Wusses) I described angels as being more like the crew of the star ship Enterprise than the winged, ethereal, transcendent beings of traditional Western art. This is because angels ARE more like the crew of the Enterprise. They come in many different sizes and shapes (think Klingon, Betazoid, Vulcan). They come with many different combinations of talents and strengths (think strong Klingon, empathic Betazoid, intellectual Vulcan). They come with absences of strengths, too (think gentle Klingon, non-telepathic Betazoid, weepy Vulcan — say what?). So angels always work AS A TEAM, with each angel offering his or her strengths, and each one deferring to others in areas where he or she lacks a strength or talent. (Not coincidentally, the same observation applies to human communities at their best — people with different “sizes and strengths” coming together to work as a team.)

No one incarnates on Planet Earth before a full and appropriate angelic team has been assembled for the particular individual who has chosen to incarnate.

Gosh, did I just say “has chosen to incarnate”? As in “wasn’t forced by cosmic forces beyond my control to be here living this lousy human life?”

Yup.

As I said above, all angels have free will. This free will extends to the choice to either incarnate for a while or to not incarnate for the time being.

Angels choose to incarnate for a variety of reasons, but all these reasons are positive and hopeful and courageous and loving. At the moment you may not remember or understand your own reasons for choosing to incarnate as a human being. But you did choose to be here. And your guardian angels support your choice and are doing far more than you realize to help you achieve your soul’s own purpose.

Next time we’ll talk about soul purpose, ’cause, as the Scotiabank’s TV ads say, “You’re richer than you think!”