This is the story of my remembering.
The night I died was in January 2021, mid-pandemic on the island of Penang, Malaysia. It was an evening of dinner with four best friends; a wooden hula hoop stolen from school’s PE cupboard; Tina Turner’s ‘Rolling On The River’ blaring from Bose speakers; uncharacteristic but enthusiastic chair-dancing from me; far too much white wine; and a lot of laughter among friends.
I woke up a medium.
I’d known for a year before that there would be death. I felt it deep within. Like a disused quarry pit ready to fold in on itself. I could hear the wrench of the land underneath. The cracks fracturing across the rockface. The parched, barren, red earth preparing for the fall. The great thunderous roar of mother earth. She was ready to let rip. She was ready to expose this gaping chasm within. She was ready to unburden herself of heavy boulders with crashing, unapologetic thunder. She was ready to scream, shriek, wail, cry, sob, weep. She was ready for death; but was I?
There wasn’t any choice. The earth beneath my feet wasn’t mine to tread any longer- that path had vanished overnight as I lay numbed, unfeeling, from too much wine. Blurred vision, head throbbing, mouth dry… The universe had spoken. And would continue to speak for the days, weeks, months to come. Death had come. I had been killed off.
5 days before Christmas, I’d slept-walked into the crystal shop in a tatty, run-down mall in Pulau Tikus, a north-western suburb of Georgetown. I was blind to the transformation that awaited me. The catalyst came in the form of a mottled, dark-grey, weighty lump of rock shaped into a pyramid. It beckoned me like a siren: she knew she was mine; she knew I was hers. I was lured to death by a meteorite. Resting in the palm of my hand, hot flashes pulsed up and down my spine, the back of my neck burned, my head swam. Without knowing why, I needed her. Without further thought, I gave my money and placed her in my rucksack.
Later that evening, laying under the whirring fan and listening to the regular in and out breath of the sea in my twelfth-floor apartment, I sat with the meteorite. I cradled her in my hands: she held power. The foster dog had already sized her up 20 minutes before and determined the best course of action was to bark at her. I decided otherwise: I would meditate with her. When I say ‘meditate’, I don’t mean the sort of ascetic meditation of an orange-robed monk in the mouth of a limestone cave; I mean lay down, take some deep breaths and attempt- often without much success- to clear my rattling brain of her inane chatter. Due to the weight and shape of the crystal, the most obvious place to rest her while I attempted this futile meditation was on my lower belly- plenty of surface area there! Little did I know I was placing a stone renowned for its transformational power on the root of my kundalini.
White fire raced up and down my torso from the root of my spine to the crown of my head. Tingling sensations took over my hands and feet as I heard sparks and crackle. Fire and brimstone. My inner vision changed from burning white to mossy green in concentric circles. Over and over. I was mesmerised. I was over-awed by high vibrational intensity. The power of this rock was otherworldly. She was intense. She was high-vibration. She was orgasmic. I didn’t know what was happening, but I wanted more.
The afternoon that the meteorite blazed into my stratosphere, so too did the phone number of a local Chinese-Malaysian, Hokkien-speaking healer. Out of mere curiosity, I wanted to try reiki. I had done no research, I had no conversations with friends, I hadn’t heard others’ experiences. This curiosity had landed in much the same way the meteor had: suddenly and unexpectedly, a throwaway comment from my sister: “try it while you’re in Asia.” Of course, those in the world of spirit may argue differently; this was all part of the plan too. There are no coincidences.
On the day of the winter solstice, I received a 13 second voice note in Hokkien. The voice was quiet, calm, soothing. I was instantly drawn to it. I had no idea what the healer had said. With the thought of communication and translation being too difficult, I replied asking if she knew of any English-speaking healers. The reply came back:
Next week Monday. 10am.
That was that. Unbeknownst to me, my awakening pathway was set.
The full moon that December was called the Winter Maker Moon. Looking back, it is no surprise. My three healing and chakra clearing sessions took place on the three days of the full moon, and not so co-incidentally the three days leading up to New Year. I was on the cusp of something, the Winter Maker Moon would make something of me. I just didn’t know it.
Monday 4th January 2021
Email title: Spiritual journey
Hi Michelle,
[…]
I’m generally getting the impression the universe is saying something to me…. But not sure what yet!
[…]
I feel in a pretty good place in life and think I’d be ready to confront anything that may need confronting. I was wondering if you could help?
Best wishes,
Fran
Mornings that January started like spring leaves unfolding: the operatic notes of La Bohème rose high reaching for the sunlight, like young shoots, in the high-ceiled apartment. The high notes reached out their hands with urgency, seeking, grasping… at the air… at something beyond the air. The prima donna’s throat opened and out gilded finches flew: their wings, free, carved the thick air like oars swimming through water. The apartment needed a clean, not an ordinary clean, not the spring-clean of grandmothers gone-by. The air needed to be shaken up, shaken out, sieved. Old energy needed casting out to make space. Out with the old, in with the new. Pavarotti played, over and over and over. Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, louder and louder and louder. That would do it. The air buzzed, vibrated, trembled, quivered. Lightness rose up, blooming like rose buds, charged ions tingled. Energy became rocket-fuel. Lit.
The room was primed; I had been prepared, but not readied.
‘Please wait, the meeting host will let you in soon.’
The laptop softly whirred while sticky palms rested facing upwards in my lap. What was I expecting? What would occur over the next hour, across continents, oceans, time zones, realms? It had been less than a month since I had met (albeit virtually) a medium for the first time. The first time I had had a reading; the first time I was confronted with the reality of the other world that Western thought had mostly dismissed for me. Like the sunrise, I awoke in the East; I awakened in the East. I look back with gratitude and joy at the island of Penang, the place where my biggest transformation occurred. It made sense that 16 years earlier just 5 miles away from where I now lived, spirit had contacted me. I had been staying on Penang Island as a backpacker on a visa run from Thailand and I had an encounter with spirit back then. An encounter I quickly pushed to the side and forgot about. I hadn’t been able to sleep for the screams of a woman in trouble, in need. My travel-mate didn’t hear it- couldn’t hear it. Even then, I knew I was hearing it from a different realm. I packed that experience away in the far-reaches of memory. Dismissed it. And now, 16 years later, on that same little island- ‘the pearl of the orient’- spirit had contacted me again. I wonder what role the island took in this? Spirit existed. And there and then, 13th January 2021, I was sat at my laptop having made a conscious decision to explore behind the veil. The unknown. I wasn’t a passive recipient- this wasn’t something being ‘done’ to me- I was driving this. I was at the wheel. I just had no idea the direction or the destination, and I didn’t have the map. I still don’t.
“Hello hunny!” beamed the wondrous woman who would light my path over the coming months: Michelle. It was no coincidence I had met Michelle just weeks before. Michelle brought with her a suitcase of love to every meditation: she was fizzy, intoxicating, rapturous. Without her bright light, my world could have been a dark place over the next days, weeks, months. The warmth of her almond-shaped deep brown eyes cut through the screen, cut through the nervousness. Bounds of glossy dark brown hair tied up high on her head and a thick fringe fell to her eyes. She was radiant. It didn’t take me long to realise Michelle holds a beauty that starts inside and radiates out. I knew I was safe with her. I started my first guided meditation: “Close your eyes and breathe into the count of 4 and out to the count of 6.” I held at the top. I repeated this. Again. And again. My pulse slowed; my breathing became light. The air wrapped around me like a white, cotton blanket. I was safe; I was protected. My spirit stood up, left the body and pressed down on the cool, chrome handle of my front door. The door opened and I took a step into the unknown.
My barefoot came to rest on the earth-damp forest floor. Autumn’s mulch and winter’s fir needles were underfoot. The peachy balls of my feet pressed down, my toes stabilised me, then the heel relaxed down. The familiar scent of a forest in which I had spent my childhood afternoons and long summer’s evenings rose up: woody, citrus pines; musky-cloy leaf-pile; rich, earthy clay. Both feet firmly planted. I breathed in. I breathed in through the soles of my feet.
I looked around. What was I looking for? I cast out my senses like a fisherwoman and her net. Who’s there? What’s there? No one. Everyone. Nothing. Everything. The forest gently hummed. The slow, methodical beat of a shaman’s sami drum sounded in my ribcage. D-dum. D-dum. D-dum. I breathed in again. I breathed in Mother Earth. I breathed in her steadiness. She calmed me from my feet upwards. Spiders’ webs were spun from my heels. Fine, wispy shoots buried down from my toes. Like blind, new-born mice, roots from my body sought the comfort of Mother Earth: her nurture, her warmth, her safety. They pressed down, down into last autumn’s russet leaves. The gossamer roots nestled in, mouthed their way, they latched on. They grew thicker, stronger, sturdier. They reached down, down, down fingering the damp soil as they went. Thick, branch-like systems rooted into the ribs of the ground, into her beating heart, into ruby caves beneath. My foundations were strengthening. I felt her. She held me. I gave my roots a tug; they were activated. My meditation skywards could begin.
“You see two paths ahead; you take the path that feels right for you,” Michelle’s voice gently directed.
I took the left. The path narrowed and became only wide enough for one. Spring green turned darker as the ferns, cypress firs and holly bushes edged closer creating a passageway, a secret tunnel, a slipstream between the worlds. The air grew dense, thick like treacle. I continued walking as the air breathed around me. I felt no fear. I was being guided from one world to another.
“You see a staircase before you. Each step is made of a crystal- whichever colour you see is right for you,” Michelle guided. I placed each foot carefully upon the amethyst purple below. 12 steps. Up, up, up. With each step, my vibrations grow stronger, higher, faster. Up, up, up. I was a flame burning brighter, fiercer. I felt it, deeply. I was lit like fuel. I reached the top of the staircase, the bridge between worlds.
Thick brushstrokes washed the sky, oils cut with an artist’s knife across the canvas: dusky, rose-quartz pink; silver shimmering blue; liquid gold; primrose yellow. The air at the top was temperate and easy. I had arrived in a different place altogether. I had been transported to a different realm. Mirror-topped lakes and rainforest thick with morning mist stretched below, easy like Sunday morning. Ahead of me, atop this metamorphic summit was a tree. Not the kind of enchanted tree that would be found in fairy-tales. No. The kind of tree whose beauty throws a punch in the gut. The trunk kicked her way out of Mother Earth’s womb, glorious, not sorry. A triumphant fist risen from one realm into the other. The tree’s wizened fingers uncurled, unfurled. Thick branches unleased from the trunk. Unashamed. Ruinous in her beauty. The tree’s talons clasped at the canvas ceiling of the sky above: she tore at the edges; she ripped at the stars; she scorched the heavens with her hellish splendour. She is a ballerina and a wild woman. A tree unearthing Gaia’s force and fecundity. She is the Rain Tree. Outstretched, outspoken. The Rain Tree is born of Mother Earth’s cavernous riches, deep and bold. She rises out of the ground with the spirit and might of grandmothers. She rises, rises with the grit and wit of sisters. She rises, rises and rises with the moon’s eye, Kali’s fury, St Bride’s unbridled possibilities. She rises, like I rise. The Rain Tree, oh! The Rain Tree. She fuelled me with courage to explore the unknown land.
“Ahead of you is a cushion placed just for you, whatever colour you see is right for you,” Michelle’s voice steered. I sat, crossed-leg, on a silver meditation cushion, under the Rain Tree. “You see a figure walk towards you… they have a message for you… I will leave you here for a few moments to receive it.”
I gulped. Although I felt safe and relaxed, surely this wasn’t happening? Surely no one would arrive? And if they did, it would just be my imagination, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would be my imagination. This was ridiculous. Ludicrous. And then, just then, in that moment, I felt an energy swim into the net I had cast out. Deliberately, carefully, definitely. It felt safe and deep and warm and like honey. Love arrived; unconditional love swam into my net. The love of a great-grandfather to a little girl he had adored. Jack Wollage: born in 1896; died in 1990. He was there at the top of the crystal staircase, stood on the volcanic rock, next to my silver meditation cushion. Great-grandad was with me for the metamorphic transformation. We had last been together on a Thursday morning in his council-owned bungalow in West Clandon, Surrey, over 34 years before and 6000 miles away from where I was now. The last time we had been together, I had been four years old and carried a red Post-Man Pat lunchbox with brown bread cheese and pickle sandwiches. And now, there we were, reunited, outside of space. I had taken a step towards him in his world and he had taken a step towards me in mine. Mediumship; middle ground; meet in the middle. That’s exactly what happens. My first mediumship message was simple: “be you.” The message would become the spine of the coming year, maybe years… “Be you,” he said with kind, smiling, sparkly blue eyes. I didn’t hear his voice; I still can’t recall the geordie accent he had never lost after an adulthood of living in the south of England. But I knew the message he gifted to me. Over the coming year, that was what guided every meditation, every decision, every action: I needed to step into myself. To step into my power.
With rose-tinted glasses, it would be easy to look back on January 2021 as a flower unbudding. The slow revelation of beauty. An unfolding of a lotus flower that many spend a lifetime seeking. But that wouldn’t be the reality of what happened. The real story is one of sleepless nights, hot sweats, breakdowns and tears, terror and grief. 3am seen day after day, morning after morning. Not a minute before, not a minute after. 3am on the dot I would awake, wide-awake. Why? Why? Why? I asked without an answer. Flashing lights. Moving objects. Number patterns. Coloured orbs. Visitors from the other world any time of day or night. My world had shifted on its axis. And a new me was being birthed, and it was painful.
My belief systems emptied and were flung out like rubbish. What had made the ‘old me’ tick stopped in an instant. My career: all my ambition snatched away like a thief in the darkness. My patience with rules, routine, systems and corporations vanished overnight (which quickly became a problem as a member of a senior leadership team in an international secondary school; not only did I have to follow the rules, but also, I had to embody the rules). I quickly began to suffocate in that environment. My view of life and death was never to be the same again. Everything in my world view needed assessing and starting over. My relationship with myself fell under scrutiny and therein laid a gaping crevasse. How deep and how wide was the fracture? That was to be explored in the months ahead. Fran wasn’t who I thought she was; I wasn’t who I thought I was. Fran was found out to be an ego. A masquerade. An illusion. Fran was a mask, an avatar. There was something much, much larger than ‘me’ in me. There was light within; the universe was within.
This idea would require a lot more exploring over the coming months. Right then, my relationship with my friends became my biggest worry. I thought coming out as a lesbian 15 years before was hard, but ‘coming out’ as a medium trumped it. How would I explain to friends of 30 years that Fran was dead and had been replaced with someone who slipped between worlds? How would I communicate my ethereal experiences, my new world views, my abrupt and irrevocable shift? I couldn’t undo what had been done. Would they accept me? Would we exist in worlds apart that couldn’t be bridged? Would they still like me? Would we lose each other? Could we find each other? Would they think I was having a breakdown? Would they think I’d joined a cult? Would they believe me? Would they want me? The great lumps of rock that had held my world up came thundering down. I was left with the ruins.
But I was also left with a gift more valuable than I had ever known. A river of gold. More value than I ever knew possible. A new way of living had been shown to me, a doorway into a new life, and I had the key. Would I change this? No. “Be you” rung in my ears. I needed to step into me. I needed to learn to love myself. I was being stitched together with gold thread. And after that, I would need to learn to accept myself. I would need to learn I am not Fran, the human ego: I am spirit. I am spirit in a body. “I am”: nothing more; nothing less. I am not me; “I am”. The oath is a lifetime and the path is unknown. In the coming days, weeks and months, there would be times I wanted to run down the path like a waggly-tailed puppy. There would be times I would tread the path with care and an open heart. And there would be other times that I’d want to attack the path with a JCB digger with anger and fury and hurt. I’d want to erase the path out of existence like I would wipe a whiteboard clean after a lesson. In the end, the path I endeavoured to walk was the middle path: it was not difficult; it was not easy.
There was a ten-day window in mid-January where spirit made sure that I continued with speed and purpose, like a train of dominoes falling one after another. The fourth wall had crumbled and spirit acted quickly to prove to me that it didn’t need to be rebuilt. Day after day, spirit showed me new tricks, new evidence of their being. They were shouting loud and clear that they were here and they were here to stay. They showed up in my physical reality: lights were flashing on and off in my apartment; I could feel the presence of them around me; and there was an incident of objects moving- photographs of my grandma and my aunt, who had died the year before. After that, I met again with Michelle and she first referred to me as a ‘medium’. My stomach lurched; my heart beat fast. After a guided meditation, I gave my first ever ‘reading’ as a clairvoyant. The reading was for Michelle, which utterly terrified me. What was happening? I was giving a medium a reading. Me? How could this be? I remembered back to just one month earlier and the old Fran was still alive and kicking. The stacked dominoes continued to fall. Next, I had my first ‘conversation’ with spirit: my nanny. She proved to me that mediumship was not a one-way conversation; it was a dialogue. I could ask questions, enquire, probe. And finally, my vocabulary expanded and my understanding of spirituality changed forever when I was taken into trance.
It was Friday morning on 22nd January one month after the winter solstice and my first encounter with meteorite. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we were amidst the interminable days of online learning (I was a secondary school English teacher and I had been for a decade.) I sat at my kitchen table in my airy, open-plan apartment: the walls were whitish-cream, the floors were parquet, the morning light shone in brightly from the floor-to-ceiling glass sliding balcony doors. The laptop screen glared back at me: that morning I had run a whole-school, online assembly; taught Year 7 poetry; and mediated a pastoral meeting with two students and their Head of Year. After a late breakfast of peanut butter on toast, I rested on the high-backed kitchen chair. Without any reason, I suddenly felt a pang of nervousness high in my stomach paired with a sense of restlessness. I needed to walk: I began pacing around my kitchen table. I walked three times around in a circle and then weakness struck my lower legs- tingling shivered up my shins. My hands rose midway up my torso guided by a puppeteer’s strings; they began to beat at the air like I was trying to cope with something unexpected and uncomfortable. It wasn’t me in my body; it was my aunt. Auntie Lou, beautiful Auntie Lou who had been snatched away by a rare and aggressive throat cancer ten months earlier. Sounds leapt out of my mouth: “ooh, ohh, ohh”- just the sounds she would have made feeling a little uneasy, a little out-of-body. Or in this case, in-body. This was trance mediumship- when spirits become so, so close that they merge with the medium. A spiritual skill and manifestation that can take years to acquire. And I had done it- unintentionally- during morning break. It was clear that nothing in my life would stay the same. Everything changed.