Angels Everywhere

Four days before I gave birth to my baby girl, I went to see a healer. Her exquisitely decorated house boasted not only antique furniture, but also a number of angel statues. Everywhere I looked there was a handmade angel sculpture. I thought it was a lovely hobby until I lay on her treatment couch. Usually fidgety and impatient with body work, all my thoughts evaporated. It seemed as if I was covered by a blanket of stillness, and even the air in the room was somehow thinner and cleaner. I left the treatment room and forgot all about the angels. Until I got home and checked my e-mails. Coincidentally, there was a Non-Personal Awareness (NPA) (http://www.joelyoungnpa.com/) community call that evening, themed... angels.

Now, generally, I do not believe in angels. I have friends and teachers who do see, talk and seek guidance from them. I totally respect them and trust that it’s their experience, but it’s not mine. The only Archangel I was ever drawn to is named Raphael and when I try to imagine this patron of healing, all I can see is my friend’s partner’s face who has the same name. But I was intrigued by the coincidence. As I sat in the spare bedroom contemplating whether to join the call, I remembered a senior midwife present at my son’s birth two years ago whom my husband and I called an Angel-woman. Every time she walked into the room, we felt safe and supported. It’s as if she brought in light with herself. She wasn’t particularly beautiful. Nor did she say anything unusually heartful. But something in her presence was so luminous that we found ourselves in tears just by her close proximity. Without any further ado, I picked up the phone and joined the NPA call.

The way NPA works is deceptively simple. On the community call, we pair up, one person ‘spews’, i.e. speaks out everything that comes to mind in relation to a particular issue, in this case, relationship to angels, and then the partner who listens points out words or expressions which had a lot of energy. Then the person who spoke first runs those words through a simple sequence of six lines. Sometimes nothing happens. Other times there is an avalanche of emotions and memories. Either is fine and usually there is a powerful release anyway. That evening, I talked to my partner about the visit to the healer and how there were angels everywhere. She picked up the phrase and I NPA-ed ‘angels everywhere’. Nothing happened outwardly. I got off the call and forgot all about it.

Until four days later when I was labouring in a birthing pool in my dining room. The curtains were drawn and soothing sounds of piano music filled the room with calm and tranquillity. The midwives from the homebirth team of Birmingham Women’s Hospital were angels holding tender space for my body do its thing. My husband massaged my back, and my doula cooled my face with a wet flannel and whispered words of encouragement. The room was filled with so much love that at times it felt overwhelming. As I rode each wave of contraction and rested in euphoria in between, I had a sense of the whole room being like a womb held by angels.

Now, while the first part of the labour went well, I did not manage to push the baby out and requested a transfer to the Women’s hospital. Again, angels were waiting there too. The doctor I was blessed to meet did everything within her power to make the experience positive for me, even though in the end it had to be a complex C-section.

My post-natal care was a mixed bag. I received amazing care. I was also neglected at times to the point that I developed pressure sores in the High Dependency Unit (of all the places!). But angels were still there. Otherwise, what were the chances of the midwife who spotted those sores to be a specialist in tissue damage? She was so indignant that she sent official e-mails and arranged for a photographer to take photos of the sores to document the damage.


My daughter is two months old today and I am reflecting on my experience of sensing angels everywhere. Does it make me believe in angels? Well, I certainly believe in the process of surrender to life and its mysterious ways. Whilst I do not see or converse with angels, I am deeply grateful for the way these forces show up in my life. Birthing my baby girl was a beautiful reminder of that. But above all, I believe in human goodness. We do not need to look far to see angels everywhere.


Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Dr Gulara Vincent is a writer of memoir and short stories, blogger, as well as a university law lecturer. She lives in Birmingham, England, with her husband and two young children. You can visit her writer’s blog at http://gularavincent.com/blog