SOUL RESCUERS

A 21st Century Guide to the Spirit World

TERRY & NATALIA O’SULLIVAN

DEDICATION

To Kadamba Simmons

for her love, beauty, sense of adventure and freedom

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Part I: Journey of the Soul

Chapter 1: The Soul

Chapter 2: Earthbound Spirits

Chapter 3: Ancestral Connection

Part II: The Spirit World

Chapter 4: Ghosts and Hauntings

Chapter 5: Soul Rescue

Chapter 6: Into the Light

Resources

Copyright

About the Publisher

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thanks to Nicola Graydon, our co-author, for her tireless and industrious contribution; the interviews, stories, research and editorial inspiration. Without her determined efforts this book would not be such a powerful read.

Thanks to our ancestors and spirit helpers who have guided us for keeping the heart of the soul rescuers intact. A big ‘thank you’ to all our family and friends who have already moved into the spirit world for their encouragement and visions of the afterlife; and to our children, Sequoia, Ossian and Bede, for their patience and love as we spent so much time completing the manuscript.

Thank you to our publishers and editorial staff including Michelle Pilley for commissioning us and Lizzie Hutchins for her precise attention to minute detail, patience and tolerance. Without their help this book would not have been born. Thanks also to Dave O’Sullivan from Spirit magazine for his unconditional generosity in encouraging our writing talents in his magazine.

We were gifted with the experience and vision from practitioners, shamans, healers and spiritual leaders from many world traditions. Denise Linn, Malidoma Patrice Somé, Credo Mutwa, Emma Restall Orr, Bishop Simon Barrington Ward, Father Edward, Canon Andrew Harvey, Lillian Too, Lama Khemsar Rinpoche and Sister Jemini of Brahma Kumari all spoke to us about the journey of the soul and the craft of soul rescue. Words of wisdom came too from those who help the dying to move through the gateway of death, including hospice workers, nurses, midwives, bereavement and palliative care experts and undertakers. Special thanks to Clare Proust, formerly of The Voyager Trust, Dame Cicely Saunders, Julia Riley, Soizic Aureli, Margaret McGovern, Gillian Lewis, Ali Woozley, Susan Bowes, the paediatricians of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, Roger Gillman Funeral Services, Aggie Richards, Janet Cox, Yvette Tamara, Steven Upton.

And thank you to all our family, friends and clients who sent in stories, experiences and anecdotes to add to the heart of the book: my mother Purita Kovacs, Genie Leiras, Christina Afentakis, Janine Clements, Liz Whiston, Victoria Harvey, Sue Thoday, Diana Scrimgeour, Frank Ozak, Jessie Gabriel, Jack Pleasant, Eileen Quirke, Taryn Hill, Anna Castana, Michelle Bayliss, Nikkita and Joey Rae, Sheila Simpson, Colin Fry, Jenny Waite, Tina Laurent, Connie Beigler, Caro Ness, Bobbie Spargo, Tai and Viv Long.

Generosity of spirit to: Kadamba Simmons’ family, John, Kumari and Linda, to Robin Bailie, Patrick Riley, Kathy and Amy Eldon, George Barker of Flying Rhino, Anita Overland, Emma Westcott, Amina Ricciardi, Mary Summers, Ken and Zina Wiwa, Colleen and Philippa Johnson, Jo Lal, Lara Burgess and Isobel for sharing their moving, powerful stories about their loved ones who have died. Although many stories could not be included, the final text is enriched by their love, compassion and courage.

Extra thanks to Marco Wilson for his inspirational contribution and to Mick Brown and Barbara Erskine.

The following extracts are reprinted with grateful acknowledgement:

Rudyard Kipling, Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories, published by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

Timothy Leary, Design for Dying, published by permission of Thorsons.

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, published by permission of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

Caitlín Matthews, Singing the Soul Back Home, published by permission of Element Books Limited, Shaftesbury.

All efforts have been made to trace the copyright holders of extracts quoted in this book, but this has not proved to be possible in every case. If those holders of copyright who have not been credited contact the publishers, Thorsons will be happy to give due acknowledgement in any future editions of this book.

PREFACE

Not long after beginning to write this book a great friend and our children’s favourite babysitter was murdered by her boyfriend. She had been preparing to come and stay with us for a retreat which we hold during the summer solstice, but instead we got a call telling us that she was dead. The great shock was followed by deep sadness that this young woman who had so much to live for and who gave so much to life could be killed in this senseless way.

Kadamba, whose name means ‘The Flower of Enlightenment’, had a beauty and wild charisma which meant that she was seen at all the right parties. She dated Prince Naseem Hamed and Liam Gallagher among other high profile boyfriends while modelling and waiting for her big break into the movies. Called the ‘star’s star’ by the Icelandic pop star Björk, Kadamba had an indefinable quality which the rich and famous hungered for. Portia, her best friend, described being with her as ‘like taking off in a plane. It wasn’t necessarily smooth, because she was such a ball of energy, but she made things happen and she always took you with her. She was always so generous with people.’

Two years prior to her death, Kadamba had turned away from her party lifestyle and begun to seek some spiritual meaning to her life. She took a sabbatical from modelling and acting, withdrew completely from her high profile friends and became interested first in Buddhism and then shamanism. Many were surprised by her commitment to developing the spiritual side of her life. So was she. She said to us once, ‘Why am I doing all this spiritual stuff now, when I am so young? Maybe I should wait until I am older.’ But she kept coming, bringing a dancing energy to our workshops and a spiritual maturity which was older than her 24 years.

When she first came to join our shamanic retreats in Somerset she was totally inner city London, dressed in black, tramping over the Quantocks carrying a little red umbrella and complaining about the mud. By the third time she had fallen in love with nature. On one of her last retreats she came back from the woods ecstatically happy. She said that whatever or whoever God was she had felt it. She had found herself merging with the nature around her and seen and felt how alive everything was. ‘Spirit is everywhere,’ she said. ‘It’s incredible!’

Soon afterwards she escaped to India, the place where she felt most at home. No one there knew about her high profile life in London, so she was free to just be herself. Portia, who joined her for what would be their last adventure together, had never seen her more beautiful or more at peace.

Some months later she returned to Britain full of plans for the future, although in hindsight it seems as though some part of her knew that she was going to die. She went to see many of her old friends whom she had not seen for ages and, less than a week before she was killed in a flat in London, she said to Portia, ‘You know, I’ve got a feeling that I have really bad karma on this planet. But when I die I’m going to go home and I’m not coming back here.’

After her death, several members of her family and close friends spoke about feeling or seeing her spirit either coming to talk to them as a shadow in the background or as an atmosphere of laughter which was very much her personality. She visited us in dreams. In the first she was trapped and unable to leave the flat that she had died in. I tried to speak to her but she couldn’t talk in words and she would not let me touch her. She looked like a corpse, her face was white and her hair long, unkempt. I remember trying to show her the way out of the flat. Eventually she let me take her hand and lead her out.

Two weeks later I dreamt that we went to a high cliff overlooking the sea to Wales, where her mother had come from. She held on to an orange cord in my solar plexus and pulled herself forward to fly in the air. The pain in my solar plexus was excruciating, as it seemed as if she was using my living, grounded energy to help her. As she flew into the air she released dark unhappy women from under her skirts. It occurred to us that with this action she was freeing herself from the ancestral ties that bound her and that she was releasing these women so that they too could find freedom.

Some weeks later we met again, only this time she was surrounded by a halo of light, holding the hand of a tall angelic spirit and looking light and liberated from the trauma of her death. She told me then that she would attend her funeral and go to the world of spirit immediately afterwards. For proof of her presence she said we would see a cloud of butterflies. She had always loved butterflies.

Her visits to us and others were frequent up until her funeral. For friends and family this was a deeply painful time as their grieving process was constantly interrupted by the police and the press and they had to wait three weeks for the funeral. This was a strange limbo time. Kadamba’s mother was only allowed to see her daughter’s body behind glass. All she wanted to do was to brush her hair, but she could not. The family was not even allowed a priest to anoint the body.

In Tibetan culture rituals continue for 49 days after any death, but with a violent death the anniversary is celebrated every week, for it is said that the soul will return to the death experience each week until the memory is extinguished by the process of purification. In the aftermath of Kadamba’s death we followed the Tibetan prescription, lighting candles and saying special prayers on the weekly anniversaries. Everything seemed more agitated on those days and our grief was closer to the surface. It seemed that Kadamba was indeed returning to the moment of her death, but each week it became less intense. As with the dreams, there seemed to be a process whereby she was becoming lighter.

For our summer solstice workshop which she should have attended we prepared a shrine for her with a photograph, some candles and red roses, her favourite flowers. We continued to light candles and say special prayers for her.

The night before her funeral her body was laid out in the funeral parlour and friends and family sat with her. Many were crying as they sang and chanted. They were finally able to release some of the grief which they had contained since she had died. Portia recalls, ‘Everyone was putting things in her coffin. Rings, flowers, letters, mementos – all went in. There was hardly any room for her!’

At the funeral Portia remembered Kadamba’s words just before she died and at one small moment when a stream of sunlight came through the stained-glass windows her heart lifted as she said to her friend, ‘Go, girl. Fly. Fly as high and as fast as you can. Go home.’

The cortège made its way to the cemetery and streams of people walked to the small hill where Kadamba was to be buried flanked by a Celtic cross and an angel. As we gathered in the brilliant sunshine of midsummer a cloud of pink and black butterflies flew up behind the grave. It was just as Kadamba had told us. Butterflies are a powerful symbol of immortality and despite our grief we felt that Kadamba had gone to the spirit world and that she was safe. Occasionally we feel her presence on the beach looking across to Wales and we know that she watches over her beloved sister Kumari.

Kadamba’s grave has become a place of pilgrimage for family and friends who need to be close to her. During the late summer following her death it looked like a pirate ship – the wooden plinth was laden with pots of flowers, candles, tiny statues and a dolphin wind chime. As summer turned to autumn it continued to grow as more and more people brought gifts and a notebook with a pencil was put in a plastic case for messages, poems and prayers. There were spices from all corners of the world, tiny cars, crystals, paintings, bindies, locks of hair and jewellery. At Christmas Kadamba had two Christmas trees, a full nativity play at the front of the grave and crystals, stars and Christmas cards on the holly bush behind.

‘Her grave is not dead, it is alive,’ Portia laughs as she describes the seasonal transformations of her friend’s grave. ‘It grows. I think she would be really happy with it. It reflects all of her. It is spiritual, wacky, kitsch and stylish all at the same time. She even has a lipstick there. There is an energy at the grave which is so alive. Everyone has put so much thought and love into it. No one has forgotten her and in essence she is still here.’

At the reception after the funeral, as everyone gently tried to celebrate in the sunshine despite their sadness, our older son Ossian came running over to us. He grabbed our hands and pulled us around the house to the other side. ‘Look, look,’ he said and pointed into the sky. ‘There’s Kadamba!’ We looked up and sure enough there she was in the form of a beautiful white cloud in the shape of an angel with the biggest wings you’ve ever seen.

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