The Return
More and more frequent were the summons and the visits to my mortal body, to reimbue, as it was now found possible, with my spirit, to restore with the personal presence, the body within which the vital spark had been kept alive by blessed Guardian Spirits and devoted friends on Earth.
More and more the spirit “Home friends,” the Best Beloved, and the Guides encouraged the thought of my return to fulfill the appointed work on Earth. I had prayed to be allowed to remain, to let the body pass; but now, gradually it is true, the idea of resuming the human habiliments, the garb of the material body, became less repugnant, and I finally freely said: “Yes, I will go as that is the appointed way.”
Have you, dear friend, who may be reading these imperfect fragments of a perfect experience, (as any narrative must be) ever visited some fair garden, some sequestered home of dearest friends, a place radiant with beauty and enchantment; where there were flowers massed in rarest combinations of color and fragrance, fountains murmuring in answer to the summer winds, music, such as seemed a part of the enrapturing scene; have you enjoyed this with the chosen friends that alone could make the scene sacred, the Best Beloved? And have you known the reluctance to return to the “outer world” of daily routine of care, perhaps of pain? Ah, then you know in the smallest degree what it meant to me to return to my bodily form!
Yet even now the soul of all that was mine in that wonderful, surpassing state is ever with me; nor will it again be absent from me—since it is enfolded in my very being. I am more complete now, even in the body which ever divides us from the Soul of Life.
“You will be with us again and often,” they said; the Guide said no formal “farewells,” no “leavetaking,” but everywhere from every Dear and Blessed one “Blessings, Peace, Joy, and Love go with you into added Strength and Work.”
And here I am: ready to help the body to grow stronger, and to willingly, joyfully, in the future as in the past, perform the work assigned me—until—they—call—me—Home.
Cora L. V. Richmond.