by Eileen Bennet, Ph.D.

Editor’s Note: This charming allegory at first glance looks deceptively like a fairy tale for children—hardly the type of material to appear in a professional journal. But on further acquaintance, it becomes so fraught with meaning that we cannot resist bringing it to our readers. Dr. Bennet tells us that it grew out of some past-life therapy work she had been doing with Dr. Hazel Denning, APRT’s executive director emeritus. “This session,” Dr. Bennet says, “was motivated by feelings of deep grief, which had been a core issue for me. In the session, Hazel directed me back to the original cause of these feelings. Since that time, I have experienced a shift in my consciousness that has not included those once familiar feelings of deep grief.” The content of the regression is fictionalized in this allegorical story.

Danielle was a beautiful blue angel with blond hair and the sweetest smile. This night she was flying among the stars as usual. She felt as free and happy as the meteorites around her that suddenly fleeted across the sky because they could contain their happiness not one second more.

Danielle folded her hands to her lips and said: “Thank you, O Beautiful Great One, who gives me my many gifts. Thank you especially for the gift of flight. I love to fly freely through the night more than anything in the whole universe.”

After her prayers, Danielle let her body get so light that she became a blue mist hovering around the stars of Sirius. Then she made herself a little denser so that her blue form could be more than a mist. She liked practicing density control. She was almost a grown angel, complete with wings and a pouch of angel dust, which she spread across the skies in beautiful trails of sparkle and light. While she was making her sparkling sweeps across the sky, Danielle remembered some prayers she had forgotten to say. She put her hands to her lips and said quickly in one breath: “Thank you, Beautiful Great One, for my lovely sister angels, and our beloved teacher, friend, and elder angel, Gabrielle.”

Remembering her prayers for others made Danielle feel happy about herself. Gabrielle taught all the angels that being an angel included thinking about and helping others. Sometimes Danielle had trouble remembering this, because her mind was always drawn to playing in the stars. How she loved the light! Her favorite game was to fly straight into a star and hide in the light. “Not one angel sister could find me here, not in a million light years,” she would giggle to herself.

Being in a star was so wonderful! Danielle loved the way the starlight changed the blue cast of her angel form to pure, sparkling, golden-white light. She tried with all her strength to stay in the light as long as she could without bursting into a million sparkles. Although she tried very hard, she could not stay directly in the light for long. But she could bring the light with her, and the light was her best friend, always helping her find her way.

Sometimes she would think: “I wonder what it would feel like to burst into a million sparkles of starlight and travel forever into eternity.” The young angel was tempted to see just what would happen if she changed from angel form to pure light, but she didn’t think Gabrielle would approve of her coming to class as a million sparkling atoms—although sometimes Gabrielle surprised her. The Elder Angel seemed to smile and love everything that Danielle did, which puzzled the younger angel greatly.

Danielle decided that her second favorite thing next to starlight was Gabrielle’s smile, especially the Love Smile From the Angel Heart, which was warm and snuggly and made Danielle hear celestial melodies. Gabrielle had promised that she would teach all the young angels the Love Smile From the Angel Heart, but this young angel was in no hurry to learn that special smile.

Danielle continued her flying between the stars. She noticed a dark patch of sky that seemed like a black hole or tunnel, leading to she didn’t know where. She approached the black hole slowly. The energy here felt different, a little like black molasses, kind of drippy and thick. Danielle could still fly, though not as easily. The dark hole wasn’t a tunnel. It was a box. She could feel the sides of the box; they were limited and closed, not at all like the open sky. She didn’t like the feeling of the box very much, so she decided to leave and go back home.

But something was wrong. She couldn’t move her wings very well in the soupy thickness. And, when she finally managed to get to the top of the box, the corner was sealed. She couldn’t get out. She tried all the other top corners, and they were all sealed too.

“Oh, no! What am I going to do? I can’t move my wings. I can hardly breathe. I’m sinking…I’m sinking…Oh, no!” Danielle tried to flutter her heart to call out to her angel sisters and Gabrielle, but the energy of the box was too sticky. She became heavier and heavier, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a wishing well. She tried to remember what Gabrielle had taught her to do in emergencies, but she couldn’t remember anything. She just kept sinking, and getting heavier, and forgetting everything that Gabrielle had taught her. She felt absolutely terrible. Finally she hit the bottom of the box with a harsh thump and crumpled to the cold floor like a pile of dirty rags. She was cold and tired and heavy in her heart, and she didn’t know what was happening to her.

Drops of water came out of her eyes and she didn’t know what they were, either. This made more drops come out of her eyes and drip down her face, and she began to sob, louder and louder. She finally realized that she was crying. Gabrielle had taught the young angels that humans cry on the earth plane, and when Danielle figured out that she was probably on the earth plane now, she cried even more.

“I miss the light. I miss the light,” she kept saying as she pounded her small fist on the cold floor. “I want to go back home,” she wailed.

The sound of her cries echoed through the black box. Her crumpled body formed a large shadow on the edge of the wall, which frightened Danielle when she looked up. She was crying so hard and hurting so much in her heart that she could not hear what Gabrielle, who had been standing right beside her all the time, was saying.

“This is not what it seems, my dear,” Gabrielle kept saying over and over again in a soft and beautiful voice. “There, there, my little one, this is not what it seems.”

But the fallen angel could not hear her teacher’s message over her own quivering voice, which grew fainter and fainter. “I miss the light. I miss the light.”

Finally Danielle fell asleep, feeling all alone and heavy in her heart.

Gabrielle was glad when the young angel fell asleep. Danielle would hear her teacher’s message in dreamtime. The Elder Angel waited until the little blue form rose out of the pile of rags.

When Danielle awakened, still in dreamtime, she was happy to find Gabrielle smiling at her and saying, “Dear sweet angel of light who now walks on earth, know that you are loved and cherished and never alone. All you must do is remember who you are. You are the angel essence that is one with the light. You are the light, my dear, if only you remember.”

Danielle pointed to the pile of rags sleeping below her. “But Gabrielle, it’s not the same anymore. I do miss the light.”

Gabrielle smiled lovingly at the younger angel and sent her the Love Smile From the Angel Heart, which made Danielle feel better and more open to listening. Gabrielle floated toward Danielle and touched the young angel’s forehead. Danielle could feel a lovely, cool crystal resting on her forehead, and she automatically closed her eyes. Gabrielle was saying, “I’m going to show you something, dear one. Tell me what you see.”

The young angel let the images come to her. “I see a beach ball divided into bright colors.”

“Yes, dear, these are the primary emotions that humans experience on the earth plane. Last night you began to experience some of them.”

“But Gabrielle, a beach ball is for having fun and playing. I wasn’t having much fun crying and feeling alone.”

“No, that’s true, at least right now. But on the earth plane, things are not always what they seem. When you begin to experience things as they really are, life will be more like a game and you will have more fun.”

Gabrielle touched the younger angel again on the forehead and this time Danielle saw a curtain suspended in an oval shape on runners that moved easily. The curtain was actually a plush velvet tapestry. She studied the detailed scenes of history that were painted on the tapestry. Then she raced toward the curtain and wrapped it around herself, enjoying the feel of the velvet.

“Oh, Gabrielle, it feels so real and wonderful! And the colors are so bright! I feel like I could actually step into the tapestry.”

“You can, my dear, and you will. But are the scenes actually real?”

“That’s silly, Gabrielle, they’re only paintings on velvet tapestry.”

“That’s right, sweet child. Remember, the earth plane is filled with things that seem real but are not. These are called illusions. You must see through these illusions, just like you do now. Then you will be free again.”

Danielle danced around the curtain playing hide and seek with herself. “Is that all, Gabrielle?”

“Just about, dear.”

“But what happens when you get to the end of the curtain, when there are no more illusions to see through?”

Gabrielle beckoned Danielle with a moving, curled finger and summoned the young angel behind the curtain. Danielle was fascinated to see a large crystal ball sitting on a marble stand. The crystal ball was luminous and filled with bright, golden-white light. The light was so beautiful that it filled the young angel’s heart with love.

“Look inside the crystal ball, sweet child of the light.”

“I see all the images of the tapestry on the inside periphery of the ball. But in the center, it’s pure light. Sweet light, Gabrielle, just like when I used to play with the stars.”

“Now go into the center of the light, dear one, right now.”

“Oh, yes, Gabrielle. I am the light. I am the light. There is no separation is there?” Danielle could hardly stop laughing.

“No, dear one. Only the illusion of separation.” “But it doesn’t feel like that down there, Gabrielle.” “Not now, dear one, but it will. Just remember what you know. Experience the colors of all the emotions, see through the illusions on the tapestry of time, and you will be free.”

“Can I come back home then?” Danielle pleaded.

Gabrielle laughed, “Sweet angel of light who makes my heart glad, you can come home anytime you want. Just remember who you are.”

With that Gabrielle placed a million kisses on the young angel’s face and told her how much she was loved and how proud the elder angels were of her for choosing to come to earth for her initiation into angelhood.

Danielle drifted off into sleep. She had wonderful remembering dreams. She remembered how happy she was when she felt the flutter of hearts in the Elder Angelic Council. The council was honoring her by letting her come to earth to learn advanced lessons in the ways of love. She remembered how, with a burst of happiness, she had swept across the sky to her favorite star, knowing that this time she would beat her record of being able to stay in the light longer than ever before.