WHEN WE DIE (PART 2: THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION)

In my last blog post, I wrote about the transitional phase following death.  (If you haven’t read it, you can do so here.)  During this transitional time, spirits adjust to life without a body, and are tasked with making peace with their life and their death.  When spirits are free of all spiritual baggage and fully at peace, they ascend.  The ascension process is a “moving on” and involves what I call The Great Transformation.

As spirits, we are pure energy.  Separated from our bodies, the transitional phase is marked by a cleaning of that energy.  I referred to the impurities with which we enter death as “spiritual baggage” in my last column, but really it is spiritual dirt and debris.  And ascension requires that we be “clean,” for two basic reasons.  One, the energy transformation that occurs during ascension is like a chemical reaction that only works with clean energy.  And two, ascension leads on to reincarnation, and our souls need one life to be all wrapped up before moving on to the next.  When we reincarnate into a new life, we inherit the wisdom gained in previous lives, but we don’t inherit any baggage.  It wouldn’t be fair.

An un-ascended, Earth-bound spirit and an ascended spirit are as different as ghosts and angels.  Un-ascended, your spirit energy is cold, you are restricted to just roaming the Earth, and your energy is finite.  Ascended, your spirit energy is warm, you are free to roam the universe, and your energy is boundless.

Ascension is a good and necessary thing, and all spirits are eligible for it.

Having said that, I need to say more, in order to clear up a misunderstanding that many people have.  When I do readings, my goal ALWAYS is to help the spirit with whom I am speaking to unload their baggage, make peace with their life and their death, and ascend.  I do not conclude a reading until either the spirit has ascended, or a plan has been made for their ascension in the near future (such as at a family gathering).  I get grumbled at because many people feel that in the Earth-bound state, their deceased loved one is “nearby” and “here with me”, and to ascend means to be “gone away forever.”  BUT IT ISN’T LIKE THAT.  Quite the opposite, actually.

An Earth-bound spirit is limited in what it can do and where it can go.  Also, Earth-bound spirit energy is cold, so spirits in this state can give you a chill when they are near, and most humans find this creepy.  They may linger near you in this state, but most humans are not glad to have this type of energy around them.   An ascended spirit, on the other hand, is warm, and energy of this type has a purity about it that humans feel as light and love, so the presence of a loved one in this state is lovely and comforting.  Also, where an Earth-bound spirit is limited to lurking about, an ascended spirit is more powerful and can fly, cross vast distances in an instant, guide you away from danger, come to you in your dreams, and let you know of their presence by wrapping you in love.  It is a wonderful, powerful, state of being.

Ascension is important for other reasons as well.  When spirits don’t complete the final transformation and don’t ascend when the time comes, they remain in their Earth-bound state, and experience an energy degradation that is corrupting.  As I said earlier, in an Earth-bound state, spirit energy is finite.  As this energy degrades, spirits need to “feed” to keep their energy up.  They do this by sucking up the energy that living humans emit.  And, as luck would have it, we emit the biggest bursts of energy when we are angry, afraid, or upset.  So, spirits that stick around longer than they should learn tricks to scare people and to stir up trouble in order to get us to release the maximum amount of energy for them to consume.  This is not what you want your loved ones doing.  Believe me, ascension is a good and necessary thing.

When we first moved to Boston, we lived for a few months in a rental house that came equipped with its own ghost: Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary was an elderly woman who had owned the house for a long time, and had died there.  She was, quite frankly, a pest.  Her favorite pastime was annoying me by turning off the heat.  I would carefully set the thermostat to 68°, feel chilly a few hours later, and come back to discover the thermostat turned down below 50°.  In the throes of unpacking, I did not have time to deal with her, so I set the thermostat to 68° one more time, taped the dial to the wall, and went about my business.  Not happy about this, Aunt Mary started going in my bedroom, which is a huge no-no.  I am a magnet for the souls of the dead, and I have rules.  Rule number one: no spirits allowed in my bedroom EVER.  At bedtime one night, there she was, sitting in the middle of my bed.  Tempers flared.  Which is precisely what she wanted.  Anger throws off a lot of energy and she wanted to feed off of me.  But she messed with the wrong person that night.  I checked her over:  no unfinished business, no unresolved issues, no nothing in the way of spiritual baggage.  Her energy was clean.  I opened a portal to the other side, summoned her ascended relatives to come get her, and within minutes she was ascended.

I acted out of exasperation, which is maybe not the best way to be sent off, but I thought afterwards that what Aunt Mary really wanted was to be alive again, to be full of childish mischief, making her parents crazy.  I think a lot of spirits want that.  And the way to have it is to ascend, paving the way for reincarnation.

I have been asked many times to describe the ascension process.  It is difficult to do, because every ascension is as personal and unique as a fingerprint.  There are common elements, however: a dissolving into light, a “going up”, a crossing over from this Earthly realm into the spirit realm, and a reconstituting into a recognizable human form.  When spirits are ready to cross over, a portal appears (which I can only describe as a hole in the sky) and the spirit’s ascended loved ones come for them, to assist with the transition and welcome them to the afterlife.  Ascension is a powerful and incredibly beautiful thing to witness.  It’s wonderful that we all get to do it.

This pair of blog posts on the topic of what happens when we die feels like a “good start” to me — thorough but by no means complete.  I welcome your comments and questions about earth-bound spirits, ascended spirits, or the process of transition and ascension.  Or really, questions about anything related to death and the afterlife.  I will answer as best I can in the comments section, or who knows, your question may appear as the heading of next weeks’ post.