It was after midnight in the ICU when the alarms went off. My father’s nurse rang the alert for the crash cart, jumped up to straddle my Dad and began CPR. They managed to revive him a fifth time since his surgery a few days prior. It would only be a couple of hours, however, before a different nurse knew he was in trouble. The chest compressions had broken a rib and punctured his spleen; he was bleeding internally. Again, alarms and a 3am call to the surgeon as they prepped him for an emergency splenectomy. As the eldest of his five children I received the phone call to verbally authorize surgery. I wouldn’t make the hospital in time to see him before he went in.

We were in the second? third? week of this crisis. My siblings and I were exhausted. But I knew what had to be done. I wasn’t ready to lose my Dad. We had been estranged most of my adult life, and only recently reconnected. My father was a sociopath, the kind you hear about on those investigative shows where the neighbors swear that he was such a remarkable man. He was that, too, but that is a story for a different time. Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to let the S.O.B. go without a fight. I wasn’t done with him yet.

I knew where to find him in the spiritual realm, and I knew the angels couldn’t help with that. So I prepared myself to descend into hell and negotiate for his salvation. Don’t ask how I know this practice; I cannot answer. Some would explain it as past life work I guess. But I do know it, and I don’t have any need to understand how. I don’t care how. I put myself into a deep altered state and made the transition. It began with the heat. I suddenly had the thought that perhaps this is what the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion is! I concentrated on pulling my breath in and shallow so as not to jar my body out of the experience, hence failing at the goal.

I was walking down a slope, out of a creepy dark wood, and I began to sense and then see beings approaching my path on either side. I knew not to make eye contact. I had “called ahead” and was expected. This was the welcoming party. These creatures made the movie Alien look like a Disney princess…and they were huge, much larger than I would have expected. They were being restrained by an army of lesser demons I can only describe as resembling Orcs. I knew I had been granted passage and that as long as I kept moving along I would make it through. A grotto seemed to emerge from the smoldering desert floor and I entered, to be greeted again by two dark masses of energy. The stench turned my stomach and I had to concentrate not to wrench. If I had a strong physical reaction I risked waking my body from meditation and losing the opportunity.

These two dark beings escorted me through a tight opening to a waiting area barely large enough to stand. Something was breathing behind a wall? a curtain of heat? A deep gutturall breath. It seemed to be laughing at me. Was I a fool to try this?

I was not allowed to view this authority, nor did I want to. I communicated telepathically: “You know what I’m here for. What are your terms?” A scene appeared ahead of a weird cafe-like setting where many people waited to be served. They were waiting for something to quench their thirst, and I was to be their server today apparently. I had the disgusting sense that they had all come as I had, to petition for their own request, and that somehow who and what I was serving was like a lottery to determine who would be given audience. Not all of them would return home today. I had absolutely no fear. I understood the task and went about my business. And woke in my sweet little guest room, feet soaking in a pan of ice cold water. I will not share here all the details of my experience, but I knew it had worked.

There would be no more resuscitations necessary. My father would go from the hospital to assisted living while receiving outpatient rehab. He would live another seven years, and a great deal of healing would occur, for him, and for us adult children, There would be more astonishing spiritual experiences that would shake my understanding of how the world exists. I will share some of those (much more heartening!) events in the near future – but suffice it to say that I know – as in, KNOW – that the life experience you and I are having is a tiny tip of the iceberg of what is going on here. And we are truly blessed and highly favored.