You are never alone. We offer you comfort, and we bring you peace whenever you are willing to accept it.
—Archangel Azrael
Drawn this week to my notes of previous conversations with divinities, I found those of my encounter with Archangel Azrael (also known as Azrail, Ashriel, Azriel, Azaril, and Izrail). First, a bit of background on me …
I grew up as the youngest grandchild in a mess of thirteen. My father had been a surprise, born thirteen years after his closest sibling, so several of his nieces and nephews weren’t all that much younger than him, and they had children right around my age. My mammaw, in her early sixties by the time I was born, had been one of nine or so surviving children in her family, and they were still alive for most of my childhood. We lived in a relatively small community that was mostly family and were surrounded by families that had been living next to and intermarrying with each other for more than a century. It should come as no real surprise, then, that I was familiar with death at a fairly young age.
My mammaw’s husband—my grandfather—had died before I was born, but she had remarried by the time I was born. My step-grandfather died when I was two, a cousin committed suicide when I was around three, a family friend died in a car wreck when I was five, another cousin died from injuries sustained in that same accident only a few weeks later, and yet another cousin drowned when I was a teenager. Then began the more natural deaths of my great-aunts and great-uncles.
I honestly can’t count how many extended family members I had lost by the time I turned eighteen, nor how many funerals and visitations I had been to by then. But after one of my great-grandmothers died—just a few weeks shy of 102—when I was eleven, I was privately certain that she had “stuck around” to become a guardian/protector to me. And while I was in college, the father of a friend whom I had been very close to died, and as I cried at his funeral, I was pretty certain it was his laughing and calming presence I felt.
Because of all this, as a young adult, though I certainly wasn’t happy with death, I was certainly familiar with its presence and its inevitability, and I could sit fairly comfortably in its presence. I could view death as a cause of deep sadness for those who were left behind but also as a great comfort for those who had lived long, full lives and were tired of being ill, sore, and broken-down. While in graduate school, I volunteered for a hospice, offering respite time to caregivers and sitting with patients as they neared the end. During my health crisis of 2009, I prayed more than once for my life to end, if that was the only way the pain could end, and for a while, I stopped fearing my death. Since then, my faith in things unseen has grown deeply and strongly.
With all of this in mind, and knowing that Archangel Azrael was the sixth divinity I was reaching out to intentionally for a conversation, you likely won’t find it surprising that I had absolutely no hesitation about having a conversation with the Angel of Death, as Azrael is also known.
As I called upon Archangel Azrael in August of 2017, it took some time. I felt his presence almost immediately, but it began small and soft, growing in strength gradually, as if it were taking some time for the connection to strengthen, like old TVs or old fluorescent lights, when you turned them on and had to wait for the things to warm up before they would reach their full brightness.
The energy was slow, measured, steady. I felt rather like I was speaking with Treebeard from The Lord of the Rings.
Once I felt that both the archangel and I were ready, I thanked him for coming and asked if he would be willing to share a message or wisdom for my readers.
Yes, I think so. This is a good plan, a good cause. People of Earth, trust and love each other. Trust in the divine cause, which is a just cause. The Divine One, our Creator, our Maker, loves us all and wants only the best for all. We all experience everything to give the Creator more experience. We are all part of the Creator, the Divine Energy, the Divine He/She.
Never doubt that you are part of the same being as I.
Never.
We are created differently, but one is no better than the other, no more than you are better or worse than a black bear or a jaguar or an airplane. We are all part of the same Divine Light.
“Thank you, Archangel Azrael,” I said. “I imagine some people might be confused that you lumped airplanes in there with humans and animals as being part of God. Would you explain your reasoning? How on earth are airplanes part of the Divine Light?”
Yes, humans have a particularly hard time with this concept. Inanimate objects are no less holy because they were made to do work or to serve you [humans]. Human hands may have created them, but human minds did not create them alone. The Divine Mind worked with the human mind to create these grand structures, and they are no less or more impressive or holy than the pyramids of Egypt and South America, nor the cathedrals in Europe, nor the Taj Mahal, nor anything else created by human hands.
They are no more or less impressive or holy than a pencil or an eraser. ALL are Divine. All are holy. Even the “worst” of humans. Extend lovingkindness to others, and also to yourself, for you are Divine. You are part of the Godhead. At your very center lies peace, love, and trust. Embrace [them] and feel the love of God. Experience it for yourself and extend it to all others. We are all the same; we are all united. We are all one.
At this, he sent a pulse of gentle love my way. I smiled as it washed over me.
“Thank you, Azrael, for this kindness,” I told him humbly.
He bowed his head to me, then went away.
After he had gone, I once again read Doreen Virtue’s entry about Azrael. She describes him as helping the dead cross over peacefully, as bringing comfort to the surviving, and as partnering with grief counselors.1 This very much fits with the air of solemn kindness, strength, and dignity that I sensed from him—rather like a kind, attentive funeral director in a small town, the one who is also a friend to everyone, comforting and supportive in his professional capacity.
Doreen Virtue says he “is very quiet and composed” and “stands by as a source of quiet strength and comfort.” That was very much the sense I got of Azrael: reserved, yet strong, steady, kind. I did not get a sense of hard-heartedness that is sometimes mentioned as the reason he was named as the Angel of Death sent to retrieve the soul of the dead.2
About a week later, I was feeling agitated and requested his presence again to enjoy the comfort it brought.
I am here, he announced.
I thanked him for his arrival and asked, “Do you have any other advice or comments for me or anyone who may be reading this?”
Only this: Do not despair. All are welcomed home with open arms. All are loved. All are cared for. There is no ceasing of existence.
Here, he shared with me a very small portion of the joy that people … souls … feel once they have crossed over and once again become accustomed to the energies of “the other side.” Light, peace, song (not like choruses of angels but a low, quiet heartsong that, though sounding as if it is far distant, is ever-present and inspires huge smiles and the opening of the heart in joy).
He provided only a brief and small glimpse because, as Azrael told me, I have access to this at any moment, just as we all do, and I need less convincing than most people at this point in my life.
But have no fear. We all love you. [“We” in this case refers to the entire universe full of beings, so densely populated that if you were to put them all on a single plane (dimensionally speaking), they would overlap “to the ends of the Universe,” he told me.] You have no idea how beloved and supported you are. You are held and cradled in our arms, crooned to like newborn babes, even as you live lives of hardship and believe yourselves to be forsaken. You are never alone. We cry for you. We offer you comfort, and we bring you peace whenever you are willing to accept it. We are not separate from you. Our “hearts” feel the pain that you do, the anguish. We feel your tears. Your terror. We embrace you, though you often don’t feel it, so wrapped in your grief and self-pity. But we are there. Call on us, the archangels, your spirit guides, the hosts of angels, God. We are all here for you, our beloved brothers and sisters. There is so much more on this “side” that you cannot see right now. But it is here. You [humankind] feel like you are trapped in a cement warehouse with no windows anywhere, and you believe that is all of existence, but outside that warehouse is so much more. An incredible universe full of possibilities.
And then he was gone.
I whispered thanks for his words of comfort, and I leave you now with this reminder:
You have no idea how beloved and supported you are. You are held and cradled in our arms, crooned to like newborn babes. … You are never alone. … We offer you comfort, and we bring you peace whenever you are willing to accept it.
May you find peace with the help of all creation.
Sources
1 Virtue, Doreen. Archangels & Ascended Masters: A Guide to Working and Healing with Divinities and Deities. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2003.
2 Conway, D. J. The Ancient & Shining Ones. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1994.
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