A new e-mail healing request from someone sent to me through the Distant Healing Network: A. asked for healing and also had a question for me. He wrote:

" I was reading about some of your healing work with others and that we are the soul. Is this the same concept as us being spiritual beings? Does this have a lot to do with the universal laws of attraction in that we attract what we are inside? As always, thanks."

I felt these questions valuable and worthy of some discussion, explanation.

The "I am the soul" or "I am Radiant Light" is a Remembrance Exercise, and even if we do not meditate this exercise can bring us to Enlightenment, to sainthood. That we are the soul, for me, means that we are not the physical body, nor are we our thoughts or emotions, nor our perceptions.

In this Remembrance exercise we repeat "I am the soul" throughout the day, and when facing negative situations, thoughts or emotions. For those of you who meditate, if you are using "I am the soul" in your meditations, then use a different phrase for this exercise, such as "I am Radiant Light". i.e., do not say the same phrase in both your meditations and at other times during the day. It can also be useful to briefly look within ourselves at intervals and image ourselves as the soul, mentally see ourselves as a being of radiant Light.

We are, all of us, beings of Radiant Light.

We are that radiant Light, not the physical body, not our thoughts or emotions - we have just forgotten. Christ reminded us of this in the Transfiguration:

As I have mentioned before in this Journal, I am not a Bible scholar - and I must admit that I had to look those verses up. But this whiteness, which St. Mark compares to snow, as no fuller upon earth can make white I believe is the self-effulgent radiant Divine Light that I myself have often seen. It is an indescribable Light not found on Earth, yet the Essence of this universe, the substratum of this physical universe - and of our True Being. In my opinion, we are all meant to know this Light, experience it both in the world and in ourselves, as a result of our spiritual aspirations and practices. These mystical experiences are often the direct result of meditation or contemplation. But here again I must say that we all should find a spiritual director or Teacher before attempting to meditate. For some people it can be dangerous, to experiment on their own. I myself made this mistake, so I am speaking from my own experience.

A’s second question was: "Does this have a lot to do with the universal laws of attraction in that we attract what we are inside? " I answered:

" When we realize that we are the soul, a being of Radiant Light - there is nothing to attract or not attract. All there is, all that exists - is the soul.

So, no, I would not say they are the same thing.

Although, I can assure you that once you begin to identify with the soul, you will be a being of Light, and both emit and attract Light towards you. So in that sense, yes they are related. But those universal laws of attraction that you speak of are nothing compared to being the soul while still in the physical body. Once we have achieved that high state of Being - nothing in this world will attract us more than the soul itself and the Divine Itself - i.e. we will have no other needs or preferences than the soul and its direct connection to God. It is only while we still identify with the physical body and its myriad thoughts and emotions that we think about, or even care about, what we attract or do not attract .... "

Saturday, July 26

In the low eighties today; sunny. M. is at work and then off for a swim. Called to arrange aides for three days next week; Laurel is coming tonight. JB dropped off a homemade cherry pie yesterday. I improve each day, but still get very tired very easily.

Stood upstairs today and looked at all my new paintings: four forests - two dark, two lighter, three with wild phlox or Dame’s Rocket - and a painting of clouds over a happy field of flowers. All painted since last Sunday. I have them propped up against the laundry basket, the harpsichord, the bookshelves, so that they surround me as I stand before the easel to work.

I began painting last August, because I could not go outdoors. I am painting the fields and the lake, the forests and gardens I cannot now sit or walk through. It is also a way for me to thank God for the Beauty of Ithaca and Sheldrake and the surrounding towns. Thirty paintings or so have already been in several gallery shows - mainly to get them out of the house. I have sold a fair number, and given many away to friends.

Suddenly a new career, one I did not expect.

I began a new painting today, hoping to somehow capture what I felt the first time I walked in the gardens, after the second surgery - the astonishment and magic, the depth of the colours, the intensity of the overwhelming Beauty suddenly before me. It was the roses I met by the mailbox, at the end of the stone path next to the house, the first flowers I saw that first walk through the gardens after so many weeks in the hospital ... Perhaps I can capture a bit of that in a painting ...

Sunday, July 27
10 p.m.

An e-mail from someone sent to me through the DHN. I had given her the exercise "I am the soul"some months ago:

" Hi Laurie,

Today was memorable. I felt so connected and happy. I felt like dancing. Thank you for your healing. It's what I've longed my whole life. I feel so full of Light.

I've been reading over and over the words you wrote early in our working together.

I'll quote you. All the words about my process I sent to you have evaporated. What you predicted back then is the only truth now.

You wrote: ‘Just hang on! You are surrounded by Angels and Divinity - the Divine is the substratum of this material reality. And you are a luminous soul, a radiant being of Light and Peace and Divine Love. You are not always conscious of it...yet. Soon good friends, the dog, and the garden will be an expression of the Light and Peace and Joy of your own soul manifesting... rather than things you outwardly need to fill an inner emptiness..’

Does that make sense?

The Joy and Clarity you felt the first day I sent you healing and angels - was Glimpse of your future. Just give it a bit of time...and please let me know when that Joy and Clarity returns, even if brief, so I have a sense of where you are in the process.

Thank you for those words, Laurie. I carry them around with me, highlighted in yellow! Today I feel it. I am so grateful.

All my gratitude"

I was deeply touched by her e-mail. This wonderful woman initially came to me with terrible, almost suicidal depression. God is Good, and I am on my knees in Gratitude.

Monday, July 28

An e-mail from the mother of my new friend in Australia, asking me to send her son loving thoughts. I had written her earlier in the day, saying that I was not allowed to send healing right now, that there seemed to be a set time frame for his healing - and clairvoyantly I was not allowed to see a thing. I now wrote:

" Don't worry - someone will diagnose your son correctly. He will be fully healed. It is more a matter of patience, trust, and the Gift of Fortitude which comes from the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also the aspect of the Trinity that brings Healing and Enlightenment - and I might humbly suggest you start talking to Him, asking for both - for your son and your entire beautiful family."

After this I fell into a deep meditation and gazed at the indescribable radiant Light I saw in the spiritual Heart.

and the Light within the Heart grew in Radiance, a luminous and intense Radiance we do not have here on earth ... White as snow, as no fuller upon earth can make white ...