Angels in the Architecture

 Lately I have been thinking about dead people. Not just people I once knew in real-life but dead people in general. Their spirits, mostly. What happens to our spirit, our "soul" if that sounds better to you, after we die?  No one knows, of course, no one even knows if we have a spirit or a soul or if we are just matter. Our spirit wouldn't be matter, of course, but maybe it is our consciousness because no one can really put their finger on what physically constitutes consciousness. 

There's no specific reason this has been on my mind now; it is on my mind most of the time. Like some people I know, I talk to dead people quite often. Something happens, like I see a group of does and fawns and I say "Oh, Mom check that out!  I know you always liked deer, so look at those!"  I say this out loud, of course.  Once you begin to equate actions and situations with a now-dead person, it is amazing how often the connections are there. Something will remind me of my Dad, my Mom, my friend Martha, and once I comment on it to them, more and more things occur that remind me of them.  Or I think about John Prine for a second and in another second there's a John Prine song playing on the radio or on Pandora, just randomly.

I don't know if others out there experience this, but it gives me faith and belief that some spirits stick around us and are listening to us.  Sometimes they help us out (Thank you, St. Anthony) and sometimes they come to us for comfort or to assuage loneliness or to make us open our eyes to a bit of wonder or beauty. The flower stream I presented this past year on Instagram, posting a single flower each day for 9 months, gave me a temporary reprieve from some of the ugliness of the world. And I felt like my personal spirits were helping.....beautiful flowers presented themselves to me in odd, unexpected ways and I got to share those with anyone who was looking. 

I currently work in a small hotel that has been in existence for close to 100 years. There are stately redwoods on the property, old-growth hydrangeas and camellias and dahlias that are six feet tall.  And there are spirits on that property, benign spirits that exude peace and tranquility. You can feel it when you walk around the property, a feeling of calm and peaceful resignation and hope. I've never worked at a place that felt so safe and accommodating and I am 100% sure it's due to those old, dead souls who still hang around because it was their special place when they were alive.  

Nothing profound here, just my mind rambling on.