The same message came to me in rapid succession this past week through a client and Karen Bishop: we can choose when to leave this planet and actually be able to “die”, return and still be in the same body.

So, I’m processing and will admit: I’m a skeptic at heart who believes in magic. Or I’m a magician with a skeptical side. Someone came into the Pyramid the other day selling cheap plastic wands filled w/crystals that supposedly purified water. Just stir it a few times in a glass. Okay, I’ll call bullshit when I see it. And that was bullshit, couched in new-agey jargon. It almost made me embarrassed to be in this work. Yet I believe in Reiki and will put my hands over water or food to bless it (granted, when I’m not wolfing it down).

This idea about death (or how about…”the power of transition”?) has got the wheels turning. I have felt over the past year what I call an “acceleration”, even before my Mom’s sudden passing in January. It feels like a very wide portal that is allowing many people to pass from this Earth (perhaps en masse before 2012). This is where my skeptical side comes out because it’s based on feeling. So be it. I’m not so certain about this idea of having a death experience while remaining in the body (read Karen’s WINGS for her take). I understand the walking dead –and avoid them whenever possible– but the coming, going and back again? I’m not really sold on it. Once I go, I go.

I nearly died last summer in a car accident, right before Solstice. During that time period, I was flirting with the idea of death. Not actively pursuing it, not planning a suicide but wondering if my work here was complete. The “near-miss” was one of those slow-moving occurrences that you don’t quite believe actually happened. You just keep driving and end up wherever you were headed–but life is fundamentally transformed after that moment. I wondered then over the idea of choice. It was as if my wiser self said, Are you sure? Because it will appear. It took that near-miss (and the wheel literally jerked out of my hands to avoid the truck headed straight for the driver’s side) to make me realize that my thoughts are incredibly connected to this actual “reality”. I am my reality.

I do believe that many souls –especially ones that cannot handle the stress and uncertainty of this Great Shift– will choose to leave. The Earth will continue to cleanse and realign herself. The ones who arrive will be of the highest realm that we are able to manifest.

I’ve had a couple more “choosing to check out” options since last summer but I don’t flirt with the idea anymore. I respect the power of thought too much. And though I’ve had unusual dreams of disaster on a world-wide scale, there is inherent choice in both the individual and collective consciousness. Maybe the desire to end suffering created this portal. Maybe humanity will decide to base their energy on healing rather than war (and Mama Ocean needs as much as we can send her right now). Maybe a plastic wand filled with crystals does purify water. I’m open.