I live a quiet life these days, although not one without challenges. At seventy-seven, for me this has become a time for going within, for expanding awareness, for learning to love and take good care of myself. And also for reflecting upon where I’ve been and where I want to be now. A time of sorting through experiences — the good the bad and the ugly — many of which spontaneously play through my mind, reminding me to honor all of my journey.

It was in my mid-twenties that I started asking the big questions. Who am I? Why am I here? Have I been here before? What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of my life? Over the decades I received answers, many of which came from amazing sister souls who were gifted “channelers” and seemed to slide into my life at times I needed help the most.

Dimensions, from my perspective, can be thought of as realms that vibrate at different energetic frequencies. The higher the dimension, the faster the vibration. The higher/faster the vibration, the more expansive the possibilities.

The third dimension is the realm of physical reality, of density, of ego, of never enoughness, of fear, of very little to no spiritual awareness. It is the realm of duality — good/bad, right/wrong, black/white. There is no gray.

The fourth dimension is the bridge between 3-D and 5-D. It has a slightly higher/faster vibrational frequency than 3-D, which allows for accessing spiritual practices like mindfulness, meditation, more awareness of our multi-dimensional beingness. It is where we can begin to process what happens in the third dimension from the perspective of our Higher Self, although it is still accessed more through the mind than the Soul.

The fifth dimension is the most exciting to me. As I understand it, until this time in our planetary evolution of consciousness, it seems the high vibrating frequency of 5-D could not easily be sustained on Earth. Only Self-Realized Beings, like Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Jesus could hold that vibration within a body. Now, however, through the intent of millions of spiritual practitioners globally across the planet, it is becoming possible to access more and more of the expansiveness of that realm.

The fifth dimension is the frequency of Unconditional Love and Light, of synchronicity, psychic communication, Joy, and true Freedom. It is also the realm of dreams and imagination. It is being in the Now, the present moment, yet being able to access timeless Soul memories. It is the vibration from which we can send Light, Love, Peace, Compassion into the “field,” creating new choices for those beginning to awaken. It is the realm of unlimited possibility.

Dimensions, however, are fluid and we constantly move through them as we live our lives. I’ve had decades of esoteric experiences that tumbled through dimensions, shaping my understandings, and playing a major role in my becoming. They included glimpses of Souls I have traveled with, memories of other lifetimes, amazing synchronicities.

When I look back on these experiences now, they feel like other lives I lived in this body, Sometimes, I don’t know what to make of them. To some, these stories could be considered fascinating, even miraculous, although they often caused me to question my own sanity, and called upon me to draw up courage and strength I didn’t think I had in me. I have written in detail about these encounters in both my novel, A Love Apart, and my memoir, Rare Atmosphere: An Extraordinary Inter-dimensional Affair of the Heart.

Being of the Yellow Band, it is not surprising that some of my closest Soul connections and recognition was of those also of the Yellow/Gold Band. And at times this recognition expanded to memory of past lives as historical figures from the world of the arts. In one case, I recognized a Soul partner as the energy of Frédéric Chopin (Romantic composer) to my George Sand (prolific writer, scandalous feminist) who were in an intense nine year relationship. To this day, I cannot listen to Chopin, the Nocturnes especially, without tears welling from a deep familiarity with the haunting melancholy of the music.

In 1999, fourteen years before I wrote my memoir, a writer and visual artist friend came to Asheville for a visit. One evening she did a sketch of me for my birthday. At a later time, when I came across a photo of George Sand, I was amazed and a little freaked to find how strangely similar the images were.

[If you have any interest in a wonderfully entertaining, brilliantly acted, and somewhat fictionalized account of Chopin and George Sand, I would recommend one of my all-time favorite films, Impromptu 1991.]

♥

The last interdimensional relationship I had I shared only with a few very close friends. The experience had many of the same remarkable aspects that my other encounters like this had — immediate recognition of connection, extraordinary synchronicities, moving through dimensions, guidance from channeled Spirit Guides, but this encounter gave me something more — an experience of true healing, unconditional love, and what it feels like to merge into Oneness.

This relationship was with another public figure, a consummate film and stage actor this time, who I will call Benjamin. I had felt a connection to this being since I was sixteen years old. Although he was of the Yellow/Gold Band, he also held the Green Band vibration of a Healer. This relationship was extremely sensual, sexual in a Tantric way, and deeply spiritual. In those inner spaces, we meditated together in lush gardens, by lotus pools, in the light of a thousand candles. We recognized our own reflection in each other. We made love with more than our bodies.

Early in the relationship, Benjamin “sent” me the name Makura, which he asked me to call him. I felt it was from a future past life on another planet. One day while driving, I briefly “saw” us as extraterrestrials. Another time, in an altered state, I heard him speak to me in a language that was not like any language on this planet, and I understood it.

At the time of this relationship I was struggling with an intense physical challenge, and Makura, in his Healer persona, “toned” into my body. The sounds, which seemed to come through rather than from him were unearthly and miraculous — first melodious, then haunting; first barely audible, then projected to a depth and vibratory strength I was sure could move mountains.

Yet, as in my other interdimensional journeys, I also had to face difficult issues within myself, which, in this case, were revealed through story aspects and parts Benjamin played in films that synchronistically “showed up” in front of me.

Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Elinor resurrected Shelley from his watery grave in her novel, The Orphan Angel, based on the premise that Shelley didn’t drown, but was rescued and brought to America. She attempted to turn every dinner conversation onto the subject of Shelley. She professed to hear him in the next room, or see him press his face against the door glass. It was said she even believed, at times, she was Shelley.

Elinor’s feelings felt frighteningly familiar. There I was reading about another aspect of me in a past life having an intense interdimensional relationship like the one I was having in my present life, only hers was with someone who had died a hundred years earlier. I had to find out who this man Shelley was…to Elinor, and to me.

My desk looked like I’d booked a literary excursion into the past two centuries — Elinor’s writings and biography, Bill Benét’s poetry, biographies of Shelley, Shelley and Byron, Mary Shelley’s journals, poetry and prose of Shelley… I had a grand time, and I, too, fell in love with Shelley, a man whose heart, for reasons not known, remained whole instead of turning to ash as he was cremated. But who was this incredibly beautiful and sensitive soul that could evoke such passion in us? Who was he to Elinor? To me?

Then, one evening, I was talking about all of this on the phone with my dear Soul Sister who channeled my Asheville guides, when, in a familiar profusion of feeling, bodily sensation, and the inevitable tears that follow an exquisite recollection, it came to me. Benjamin, of course, was Shelley. It seemed so obvious, I didn’t know why I hadn’t come to it sooner. It was a quiet revelation, just another incarnation, but it solved for me — and perhaps for Elinor, too — a little interdimensional mystery. As I’d followed my clues through a trail of time, I’d felt Elinor with me, right beside me, just as she’d felt Shelley, just as I feel Benjamin and Yashu, just as all of us, whether or not we’re aware of it, feel all of us, because we are all of us. Elinor was not mad, and I wrote her a letter telling her so.