101 Ways to Meet Your Angels (11 page)

44: Express Gratitude to the Angels

Expressing gratitude to the angels can take many forms—a straightforward thank you will do, but also consider demonstrating your appreciation through your actions and good works. As you already have learned, the angel energy is energy of light, love, and respect. When you understand the inner connectedness of all things in the universe, you grasp the idea that a change in one thing affects change elsewhere. When you are on your path, and working toward spiritual enlightenment, that can lift others. When you live in the spirit of love and honor and respect for even the smallest, seemingly insignificant beings, you are showing gratitude to God and the Angelic Host for the blessing of life. As you live in closer alignment with the heavenly beings, you cultivate positive attitudes of joyfulness, loving kindness, serenity and peace. That too is a way of expressing appreciation and gratitude.

Think about it for a moment—when you shun strife and struggle (by calling on your angels for help)—and instead find the harmony in your own life, that colors all your relationships. The subtle ripple effect, though intangible and unseen, can actually lift the collective consciousness of those involved with you. In ancient times, people offered sacrifices to show their gratitude to the divine. In the New Testament, Jesus demonstrated loving kindness through his acts and taught his followers to live with an appreciation for what they already had; He also taught them to trust that their father God knew their needs. A life of loving service is one of the best ways to thank God and the angels for the blessings you receive every day.

FIND THE BEST PLACES TO MEET YOUR ANGELS

Your angels don’t really need a special place to meet. They are around you all the time, but having a special place where you can sit, pray, meditate, talk, chant, sing, or write without interruption can aid in quicker attunement with angel energy. When the dog is barking, the baby is crying, and your spouse is frantically searching for that misplaced item, you are not in the right frame of mind for angel visitation (although you can call upon them to quiet the dog and baby and show you where the misplaced item is hiding). It might take some exploring to find the best place to meet your angels—that place where you feel peaceful, gather your thoughts, and sink into deep reflection, meditation, and contemplation.

45: Invite the Angels Into Sacred Space

In truth, even when sitting at your computer, turning your attention to prayer for a short daily period can energize the surrounding area into a sacred space through the energy vibration of your intention and thought. Any place where worship or religious ritual is conducted spiritualizes that place. Sacred places are also sites of creativity and spiritual renewal. Religious anthropologist Mircea Eliade suggests that sacred spaces are places where spiritually transformative experiences that have particular meaning for humans take place. A safe place, away from the chaos, for God’s peace and serenity to enter your life can be your desk in the home office or elsewhere. But when you have had an experience with the angels or with divine guidance, regardless of where it happened, that space most likely will be deemed sacred space. Your sacred space will most likely already be in your environment; this means you don’t have to find a cave in the Himalayan mountains or a spot in an isolated village along the fringes of the Sahara Desert. Moses dropped to his knees on Mount Horeb. The Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree. Jesus often prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. These places became sacred because of the transformations of those praying there. Your sacred space where you choose to invite your angels might even be at your computer. The point is to find a place, and extend the invitation to your unseen allies.

46: Visit Houses of Worship

Perhaps you are attracted to the great cathedrals in Europe, the hillside grottos of France and Italy, the miniature churches dotting the Greek islands, or the villages of Central America. Or you appreciate the quiet, spiritual sanctuary of your local Jewish temple, mosque, or church down the street. Houses of worship are great places to meet angels, especially if you often spend quiet time there. These places are always charged with the palpable energy of the devout who have been gathering there for years, sometimes centuries, to show devotion and engage in prayer and ritual.

After you choose your special place, possibly in some corner of a house of worship, set your intention that this is your special place to come where you can let go, pray, and be open to the gifts and miracles of the angels. Each and every time you enter your space, invite the angels to gather, and ask them to surround you in their loving light and protection. Ask them to fill your space with the highest vibration of divine white light and energy, and know that with every breath that you take, you will become one with this sacred healing light.

After you meditate, engage in intuitive exercises, or spend time in prayer anywhere, (but especially in houses of worship that others are using), remember to ask the angels to “zip up” your energy field. You don’t want to walk around taking on (receiving) everyone’s psychic information. You want to allow only the divine guidance meant for you and your highest good.

47: Pray in a Cemetery

Cemeteries are final resting places for souls who have completed their journey from life in a human body. Some people believe in a continuity of the human spirit and that when people pass away, they exist as spirits. Cemeteries, often adorned with angel statuary or angel images on headstones and benches, are places of serenity and solitude. Manicured lawns, graceful trees, and pretty shrubs and flowers such as roses and lilies can be seen in many such necropolises, or cities of the dead, as large cemeteries are known. Also, many cemeteries contain some of the most beautiful sculptures of angels, archangels, and spiritual symbolism in the world.

Angels gather in such places (and not only as stone and granite sculptures). In fact, there have been apparitions of angels and of the Blessed Virgin Mary in cemeteries such as the Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois (on August 15, 1990). The angel art in cemeteries is also inspiring. In Paris’ famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery, some of the world’s most beautiful and oldest angels have been photographed. Images from there are available in poster stores all over the world as well as through Internet sites. Just viewing some of the angels (using the
images
tag on Google) will undoubtedly lighten your heart and lift your spirits.

Many cemeteries bear the name of Mary, Mother of Christ or one of her many monikers. You may associate a cemetery visit with grief and sadness or disembodied spirits, but they are also places of light. You already know how to ask for angel protection and the light of the divine. Perhaps you know of a cemetery in your area where you could visit, and sit for a spell to invite the winged ethereal messengers—your angels—to join you.

48: Retreat to a Peaceful Garden

Gardens, havens of creative energy and new life, provide especially tranquil areas for meeting the angels. If you have access to such a place, go there often and invite the angels to join you. In San Jose, California, and other cities across the United States, the local municipality has established gardens for the community. San Jose maintains a spectacular rose garden and cultivates different varieties of roses, from hybrid teas to tree roses. Such lush and lovely gardens serve to “green up” urban America, and they have become an important part of city planning and urban renewal.

If you don’t have access to such a garden or your community hasn’t started a garden, why not create one in your yard where you and your angels can spend time in communion together? Your garden can be formal or informal; it is your choice. You can plant herbs, vegetables, flowers, berries, fruit trees, roses, and climbing vines, or include all of them in a French-style potager (kitchen) garden. You can plant in a way that creates a labyrinth (around which to do meditative walks), or cast the seed wherever and let it be a wild place. Hang wind chimes, place bird feeders around, and plant giant sunflowers to feed a variety of wild critters in the garden. Add a bench, a large stone, or a stump to sit on when you are not gardening and can talk with your angels.

49: Spend Time in a Monastery or near an Ancient Shrine

If you live near a monastery or facility that watches over an ancient shrine, take time to visit, and invite your angels to join you where you can convey thanks or ask for guidance or blessings. Some monasteries and convents welcome people to spiritually recharge on their grounds, but you do have to follow some rules. In some places, for example, silence must be observed during meals, and lights have to be out by a specific hour. Shrines the world over have been established because a holy and transformative event took place at the site, and shrines exist because of the spiritual love of the devout and the devotion of pilgrims intent on paying homage. Find ancient shrines, monasteries, convent grounds, and other such holy places where the devout worship, and there too will be angels.

When you believe you might need a spiritual retreat to quench the thirst of an arid heart, or to rejuvenate spiritual desire and longing for the divine and you feel that invisible pull on your heart, check in with your angels. If the guidance (or the vibration pull or attraction) isn’t coming from your angels, it might be coming from spirit beings in even higher realms. Regardless of who is “calling” you to action, invite them along. Your angels will no doubt enjoy the vibration of the holy place you decide to visit. You too will enjoy the ambience and sacred hospitality you will likely find there. Just remember to focus on transcendence. Let the surroundings lift your spirit, but use the time you have during the retreat to nourish your inner world in order to deepen your faith and intensify your desire to live a richer life in spirit.

50: Hike to a Rock or Mountain Peak

Some people enjoy climbing rocks and scaling mountain peaks—the high they get is every bit as spiritual as diving deeply inward into blissful meditation. If you enjoy the outdoors and like scampering up cliffs, rocky crevices, or the sides of mountains, by all means go and do it. There is something sacred about standing atop a lofty peak and looking out to survey the world. There too you will find your angels. In fact, you can invite them to join you in every step of the process and ask them to be your guide, your sherpa, your protector, and navigator.

Combine your climb to a mountain peak with a period of devotion in a monastery, temple, or small church. It may come as no surprise that there are many sacred sites in the world where people have been worshipping for centuries in high places or along rocky promontories. For example, Orta San Giulio, Italy (site of the Santa Maria Assunta Church); the Yamunotri Temple in the lower Himalayan mountains of India; Mount Croagh Patrick, in County Mayo, Ireland; or the Temple of Poseidon, in Cape Sounion, Greece.

Jesus delivered one of his greatest moral teachings, the Sermon on the Mount, on a hilltop near Capernaum (
Nachum
in Hebrew) or possibly Mount Eremos (as it was known during biblical times). Moses talked with God on Mount Sinai; the great prophet of Islam (Muhammad) was visited by the angel Gabriel as the former meditated in a cave on Mount Hira, located near Mecca. Not only were these high places, they were also holy places—places where God spoke and the angels visited. Such places are often isolated and peaceful, and those are two excellent criteria to keep in mind when choosing suitable places for you to meet your angels.

51: Walk Into the Desert

If you live in America’s arid west or southwest, you likely already appreciate the beauty and solitude the desert offers. There is something about the intensity of the desert landscape and the peace and quiet that draws you inward to align more closely with God and the angels. Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, spent forty days and nights in the ancient Judean desert while the Devil tempted him, and at the end of that period was visited by angels: “. . . behold, angels came and ministered unto him” (Matthew 4:11). It is not surprising in that bleak environment that he found comfort in communion with the divine, in the company of angels. Unlike the heavenly choir that filled the heavens with their chorus to herald his birth, or the two who would sit at his tomb to announce that he had risen from death, these angels simply cared for him.

If you need the comfort of angels, walk into the desert and invite them to keep company with you. Ask them to assuage your fears, heal your heart, help you understand how to fix what isn’t working in your life, protect you and your loved ones, and shelter you from the temptations that pull you in directions that are detrimental to your wellbeing and highest good.

52: Retreat Into the Temple of Your Heart

The most beautiful place to meet your angels is in the temple of your heart. By using your imagination and seeing with your mind’s eye, this temple can appear in the style of ecclesiastical or other types of architecture that you most love, or it can appear simply as a natural setting with flowing water, blooming scented flowers, sheltering trees, verdant meadows, and a quiet cave or sheltered area. Imagine it any way you want that will draw you inward again and again. This imaginary place in your heart is hallowed space, made so because it is where you retreat from the cares of the world to commune with God and your angels.

If you like the idea of using a ritual to start the process of raising your vibration and preparing to meet your angels, conceive of a ritual that you will use each time you go into that temple. Your ritual might involve lighting a stick of incense before sitting or lying down, closing your eyes, and turning inward. Or it might involve sipping an herb tea from a special cup or placing a glass of water before you to be energized by the presence of angels (drink it afterwards). You could drink a little of the water before meditating to symbolize your consciousness sliding down into the inner recesses of your heart, symbolically opening the door of your temple. Or perhaps you close your eyes and visualize energy in a column rising through your chakra centers, along a channel extending from the base of your tailbone upward through the solar plexus (area of your kidneys) and navel to the heart chakra. As you see the energy column rise, imagine it passing through each chakra vibrating or whirling in the colors of red (at the tailbone), orange (at the solar plexus), yellow (at the navel), and green (in the heart). Rest in awareness there, or move your energy higher where you will see blue at the throat chakra, deep purple at the third eye, and violet at the crown. Whatever ritual you devise, use it whenever you are ready to spend time in your heart temple. You and your angels both understand that when the ritual begins, it is time to join together.