Our Team of Light-Who are they and how do they help us?

I often use the term, Team of Light, when talking about receiving assistance from the spirit world as we try to navigate the challenges and adversities of the physical experience. There are two major categories of helpers that I believe make up our team. The first is spirit guides and the second is angels. They both are committed to guiding us, teaching us, helping us fulfill our life purpose, and delivering messages from our Creator. There are differences between the two. For this week’s blog I will discuss only spirit guides, simply because covering both would be too long. Angels will be a topic for another time.

I think it is important for me to explain that I am sharing my experiences with my own team of light. We are all individual souls with a human counterpart and together, those two parts of us, interpret and relate to our team differently. Various guides may have distinct styles as well. If we want to get to know our guides and angels, we must invite them into our life. They are bound by and must honor our free will always. They may try to orchestrate synchronistic experiences that help us become aware of them. Yet only we can actively ask for their help so that we can remember them and allow them to guide us during our earthly journey. Spirit guides are souls who have lived on earth before, so they understand the difficulties and joys we all experience here. They have evolved to a point where they may not need to incarnate anymore and have taken on the role of teacher and guide for those of us still doing so.

Usually, we have one main guide who is with us both in the spirit world between incarnations and during our time here, beginning in utero and continuing through our transition to physical death. Some souls have several guides who have specific specialties and assist off and on in helping those of us fulfilling a rather ambitious and multi-faceted life purpose. Those human souls are usually more highly evolved and may have taken on the role of a junior guide while here on the earth plane. These souls are not only growing individually but have been entrusted to teach and help younger souls move forward on their spiritual journey. We can all call on specialty guides ourselves if and when we decide we we’d like to learn something new like writing and getting books published, medicine, teaching, or developing our psychic abilities.

When I first became aware of my spirit guide many years ago, I wanted to know its name. During a meditation, I asked for it and clearly saw the letters KAMA in my mind’s eye. At first, I thought it was just my imagination which is quite common as we begin attempting to receive messages and assistance from our team of light. Our imagination is our source of creativity and inspiration. The perfect way for our guide’s messages to find their way to us is through our imagination. I was new to this process, back then, and I was sure KAMA was a mistake, so I tried again, and again the same four letters appeared. Upon emerging from my meditation, I was disappointed. The name seemed weird, but I decided I’d look it up in an unabridged dictionary I had at the time. “Maybe it meant something,” I wondered. To my surprise and delight I learned that, in ancient Hindu mythology, KAMA was the god or goddess of love. “Wow,” I thought. It made perfect sense. Then, I understood that my guide chose the name Kama so that I would make the connection to love and remember him. Even back then, just as it is today, my focus was all about love and living my life with love as my motivating force and source of spiritual inspiration and understanding.

I began working with Kama every day as I journaled. The words that flew onto the pages of my spiral bound notebooks were wise and enlightening. As I read some of them today that were written when I was in my 20’s and 30’s, the messages have the same flavor, cadence, and unique style that they do today. Kama has been there for me always, yet I am consistently reminded that I must still ask for assistance from him[i].

Over the years, I have become aware that I have four other spirit guides with specific specialties. These guides have helped me and still do at different times in my life for various purposes. When I enter the temple of my soul’s light, I see with my mind’s eye, five guides altogether. Kama stands in the middle. To his left is Jesus and a little girl about five years old that I have come to know as me, my inner child. To the right is a native American shaman name Okanto, and a lovely Asian woman named Shintu.

Jesus, of course, was my first guide as a child since I was raised in a strict catholic family. He taught me about love and forgiveness and the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Love, forgiveness, and unity have been at the foundation of my spiritual journey ever since. Jesus always appears to me if I begin to stray too far from the simplicity of his teachings. If I do, I realize that what I am teaching feels too complicated for many to understand.  He also taught me to be the director of my own life. Getting away with what Catholics call sins, in terms of our human accountability, doesn’t shield us from the karma incurred for those unloving, or unwise choices. Jesus helped me understand that I need not fear judgement in the spirit world, only consequences that will influence my ability to evolve and grow as a soul.

The child or mini-me, Dru, never says anything. She has large doe looking eyes that seem sad to me. When I see her, she just climbs up onto my lap and nestles close to my breast. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close. This experience almost always brings forth overwhelming emotion and tears, as I feel such love and tenderness for this very vulnerable part of me. Through her silence, she reminds me to always be kind and gentle with myself no matter how much I perceive myself to have fallen short of my intended spiritual goals at any given time.

Okantu is strong and tall with dark skin and wise eyes. His voice is deep and calm. He appears very much like pictures of native American shamans we have seen in books and movies. He teaches me reverence for the earth and appreciation for the plants, flowers, and trees. Those vital entities, he teaches, can provide physical, mental, and spiritual healing during our time on the earth plane and he helps me understand how. He has made me aware that there is wisdom in all of God’s creations. Spending time in nature is important for our health and well-being and helps us remember to care for our Mother Earth if we want to continue to live and flourish here.

Finally, Shintu is a lovely Asian woman with beautiful eyes and a slight form. She is dressed in a shiny colorful gown and has an ornate looking jeweled, gold ornament on her forehead. She has and still does assist me in learning about energy and its importance in healing both myself and others. In my practice as a massage therapist and spiritual teacher, she helps me understand that healers don’t actually heal others themselves. Instead, they assist them in facilitating their own healing by working together with them to restructure and strengthen their energy that has been altered or weakened.

Spirit guides are devoted to us completely. They never judge us and will never abandon us. Yet again, we must ask them for assistance. They are eager and waiting for us to invite them into our lives so that we can remember who they are and how much they believe in us. They will not tell us what to do, but instead they lovingly encourage us and help us remember that all the answers we seek lie within the beautiful temple of our soul’s light and in the unique configuration of energy that defines our most beautiful and magnificent spirit.

[i] I use him for simplicity and because his energy feels masculine to me. I don’t believe souls are either make or female.