It is said that every time you say ‘there’s no such thing as fairies’, a fairy dies. And so it’s not something I’ve ever done. But I’m not sure either if I’ve ever really believed, not since I was a child and believing in magical things was easy, just part of the course, as natural as walking and sleeping and breathing. In fact, back then, it would have been an effort not to believe, because I was a dreamy child and I have always had a vivid imagination.

But as I got older and my life turned outwards, things like fairies and Santa Claus and magic and miracles fell off. It happens to all of us. It’s part of growing up. A sad fact of life that only a few of us escape.

I continued to love fairies. Angels too, but in a distant, only half-aware kind of way. I might turn to my guardian angel every so often to help me to get past something, to heal me in ways where I was stuck. But I was more likely to turn to God and ask for his forgiveness and love.

Until recently, that is… when I woke up.

Since then, the magic has filtered into my life in delicate streams, small amounts that fit me ‘just right’; amounts that are knowing and gentle, respectful and kind. Some simply see, waking overnight, shutting their eyes to one world and opening them to another. I have slowly had the blindfold removed and I am still unveiling.

Today is one of those days when I experienced a shift, one of several large ones when something remarkable happened, something so impossible, so undeniable, so inexplicable otherwise, it could only be a miracle.

I have a bracelet that is very dear to me. It symbolises many things. And each time I wear it and look at it: I find peace and stability and reassurance and strength. It’s a talisman, each individual bead, each crystal, chosen for its reason and meaning, its inherent properties; its power further heightened by the symbols I’ve placed into it. So when I woke this morning and its absence was felt, I went into panic. How could this be? How could this happen? There was no logic. The clasp is secure. I wear it carefully, I don’t take it off. And yet… here it was: missing, no longer resident on my arm.

I scoured the apartment. I searched high and low. I turned out drawers and looked inside pillow cases and underneath beds. I was distraught. A new one wouldn’t hold half of the meaning or symbolism this one did. It wouldn’t have travelled nearly as far. It would be a replica and thereby impotent. The thought was distasteful to me. I’d rather be without than with alien, with fraud.

After an hour, I gave up: reality setting in. I was tired yesterday, out of sorts. I must have lost it while out shopping, the bags on my arm unclipping the clasp. I must have then not noticed it all afternoon and all evening. I must have slept not noticing it still. I was distracted, desensitised. And, anyway… it’s so much a part of me, I no longer feel it. It just is until it is not.

I concluded that it was gone, that someone had found and taken it, that a stranger had chanced upon an unexpected gift. I buried my head in distraction, surrendering myself to the process of grief.

But there was one thing I did that was different, that was unexpected and new. I went to my bookcase, I selected a book, I looked up lost objects and I called upon Chamuel and asked him to help me. For Chamuel is the archangel of finding lost objects and so, in my newly awakened state, referring to him was the next logical step. But I was doubtful. I’ve asked for feathers and coins as proof of existence before and come up short. In fact, I haven’t seen a feather in months. Maybe that’s a sign in itself? You see, there’s this resistance, this reluctance to bother something so mighty and powerful, so divine, with something as trivial as me. And asking for feathers and coins, just really isn’t my thing. I’d prefer to wait for the big one: helping a loved one, healing a bone, overcoming a really big block. But I have been wanting something more tangible, more solid than the flickers of light that appear just outside my vision and the inexplicable smells that suddenly appear, and the strange noises I hear in certain places and the visions that come unbidden and the things that I know with such surety, such clarity, they can only have come from elsewhere. So I asked. And then I let go and left it there, trusting to the Universe and the grace of things I cannot see but which I am increasingly aware of and gradually more certain.

And I was leaving it, accepting it and letting it, until I suddenly had this urge to go look out the window and check to see if last night’s rubbish was still there. Now this is central London and rubbish disappears fast. Dustmen come at least once a day. And if not dustmen, then other men looking for things that might hold worth. So the chances of my rubbish still being there a good 16 hours later were slim. I’d go as far as to say impossible. And yet, as I looked out the window: there it was, the bag that this morning, only hours earlier, had not been there. Because I had checked, just on the off chance, in the name of not leaving any stone unturned. As much as I had retraced my path to each shop and pavement. But I had come up empty as I had expected to.

It was a sign and one that had me racing down the stairs, washing-up glove in hand, to retrieve the now dirty bag from the opposite pavement, avoiding the looks, the feelings of shame, that picking up things that are dirty seems to attract.

I sat in the kitchen: eager, hopeful, somehow certain. And yet… as the bag grew empty and the amount of pieces that might be hiding it shrank, my faith shrank too. Maybe it was just another test? Another challenge? Because there have been many of those.

And then there is was, staring up at me from the bottom right corner: my beautiful bracelet; complete, whole, undamage, returned.

I won’t go into how I leapt about like a child, thanking Chamuel until my energy was spent. Or how I then picked up the phone, needing to share. I shall simply leave you with this… We are not alone. We are not abandoned. We are watched and cherished and guided and loved.

There are things out there I cannot explain. Things, even, I cannot see. But I have faith and I am learning to surrender, because the more I let go, the more I see.

If you are in need of guidance or holding, why not give the angels a chance? After all, the worst that could happen is nothing at all.

by Rebecca L. Atherton

To be healed is having an awareness that you were never broken

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