An Unusual Conversation

I chatted with an insectile-being during an art therapy session...and this is what it said.

I recently organised an online masterclass with art therapist, Shubhashree Sangameswaran from Canvas of Calm, for my Spirited Living community. Shub is a highly regarded therapist here in Singapore, and jumped at my invitation for a slightly more unusual art therapy adventure. I asked her to create a process whereby my community members journey within their minds and through their art to meet a spirit guide.

I’m not a stranger to interacting with psychic phenomena for guidance. I am, after all, a Psychic Medium, so I speak directly with the dead most days for clients. I am also a seasoned explorer of different shamanic frames, well-curated plant medicine healing with true lineage medicine keepers. I practice western magic, which has its own realms of spirits, gods, and archetypes, and I am also a huge advocate of journaling, my main channel for ‘receiving guidance’.

And I take a very disciplined, interrogative approach to my explorations, too. I am by no means a flighty, gullible seeker. I hold several degrees, have had a successful corporate career, and am an avid reader of the mystical classics, comparative religion, and neuro-scientific explorations into the mind, awareness, and consciousness. I give talks on intuition and psychism for organisations. I teach a global community in psychic development.

I explain to my student communities and clients that our ‘spirit guides’ are patterns of consciousness that are alive, intelligent and responsive. And the process of connecting with them, whether that be through journeying, light trance, ritual, or daily journaling, is a way we extract that pattern into our awareness as separate from us, so we can interact with it. Whether the spirit guide is separate from us, or an aspect of our greater awareness, I thought, was just semantics. In the end, if the guidance is affirming, feels true to you, and suggests lifeward actions or inspiration that steer toward harmonic relations with self, others, and the world…then it doesn’t really matter how it is defined.

And then I attended Shub’s master class…and something shifted.

After a series of short and simple ‘warm-up exercises’ to free up the flow between mind and page, we did a short and lovely meditation to settle into stillness and ask our question, in our hearts, quietly on the inner. At the time, I was at a standstill in writing my novel. I was right at the precipice of the story arc and had become paralysed about how to resolve the many threads created, maintain the tension and counterforces to my protagonist’s mission, and bring it to a thrilling conclusion. I was creatively stuck. So I chose an open question - one that allowed for some room to move. One that opened a space for subtle direction, as well as a possible upswing in motivation and inspiration. I asked, ‘What’s the best attitude and approach to completing The Humming Bee Prophecy?’

Shub then took us on a guided visualisation to a spot by a river, near a large old tree, where a picnic blanket is laid out and waiting for us. As with all journeys into inner terrain, she expertly guided us to pay attention to the details and ‘feel’ the scene as well as ‘see’ the scene. To place ourselves viscerally within it. To engage all our senses.

And then, just like that, without any major thunder roll or shift in my attention, a being arrived. I had a clear impression that this creature was not a forced conjuring of my mind. It almost surprised me when it came into view, and it wasn’t like anything I had encountered before. It didn’t appear to have a solid body. Whilst it had humanoid facial features, two eyes and a mouth, it was distinctly insectoid. Filaments of waving light in turquoise and magenta emanated from it and around it. It hovered, and had a distinct presence about it, authoritative, masterful and whilst it didn’t give vibes of ‘warm and fuzzy’, I felt completely safe, and definitely knew that I was in the presence of something very old and wise.

My logical mind was still active, faintly in the background, but rather than questioning whether this was real or if I was ‘making it up’, it seemed to have wholly accepted the creature’s presence and was trying to categorise it, but coming up short in my database of references. What transpired was an illuminating and very resonant conversation. This is what went down.

Hello! You’re lovely. I have never seen you before. What are you?

I am elemental, but not just from this physical earth plane either. Part clan spirit. Part myth. I am an earth custodian and keeper of bees.

Are you guiding my writing of The Humming Bee Prophecy?

Yes, for a long time

You’re very patient!

I am always busy beneath the surface of your thought. But it’s good to feel you expressing the book into being. You are closer than you realise. Listen to your writing coach; I am working through her mind, too.

Did you bring me to her?

Yes, I did.

I absolutely love working with her, but I feel she does too much editing. It makes me feel territorial over the story, and I always rewrite what she suggests.

This is good. This is why she does it. She knows you better than you think. This story is uniquely and entirely yours, but reread what she just sent you. The key to the final chapters is hidden in her appraisal.

When will I finish the book?

It has its own time. This is not for you to know. It’s all there, already finished, waiting to take form. Your job is to release it. Just keep writing.

OK, I will. Can I call on you directly when I need help?

You already have. Years ago, but you don’t remember. I have been with you since you were 6 or 7 years old.

Do you take different forms?

Yes, often. Sometimes in the breeze. Or a movement in your heart. I am a frequency.

Are you a god? Have humans tried to define you?

No, I am more like a dynamic or universal mechanism.

Do you have a name?

Nebruzealeth

That sounds like an angel name

Take it as you will

It’s a mouthful. Can I call you Nebru?

…a tinkly laughter, somewhere between a cicada chorus and a little child giggling…

Thank you for being there, beneath my surface and for your frequencies. Thank you for coming tonight.

And with that, it just vanished. Poof. Shub started to guide us back to the Zoom class and invited us to draw what we had experienced and write words that the guide had inspired within us in relation to our question.

Within three weeks of this unusual and unexpectedly lucid encounter, I had found the missing pieces in my story, retrofitted a new theme and antagonist, upped the drama and suspense, and became clear and totally pumped for the story’s conclusion.

The question remains: what exactly was I interacting with? Definitely non-human, perhaps a fragment of my awareness? Perhaps a universal dynamic that my mind had woven into some sort of relatable form as best it could? I’ve decided to let Nebru be regarding definitions, as I can’t quite make them fit into anything I know. Instead, I write and quite like the idea that this book is already complete and my job is simply to give it form.

Perhaps we all have a Nebru, quietly and patiently vibrating under our surfaces, bridging our works from ether to form. What a glorious idea!