Bridging the Gap

CHAPTER ONE

The bridge between two worlds

Several years ago, well before Sensing Murder, when I was still living in Tauranga, I woke up one morning and was staggering around the kitchen making myself a coffee, when I heard a knock at the door. Actually, it was a very definite bang, bang, bang.

I shuffled over to the door thinking, ‘Who can that be at this time of the morning?’ But when I opened the door, I got the surprise of my life. There wasn’t just one person standing outside; there was a whole queue, waiting politely to see me. I put my head out the door, and the queue stretched down the path, onto the street, and around the corner. These were all people in spirit, desperately wanting to make contact with their loved ones still alive.

I said, ‘Right, if you want me to help you, first you have to put those people who need help in front of me.’

And that is what is happening with Sensing Murder, and with the readings and shows that I do. Every time, it’s the people who really need help who are put in front of me by their people in spirit. When you need help, your heart will tell you to come.

Over the years since that morning I’ve done hundreds of readings, connecting the living with their loved ones who have passed on and are now in spirit. While the readings obviously have particular, special resonance for the person directly getting the message, many of them contain universal insights into the most fundamental questions of our earthly life – forgiveness, spirituality, faith, life, death and the nature of love. The loss of a loved one brings all these questions about life right to the fore. Dealing with loss is a massive challenge, and I am so privileged to be able to help people give and receive their messages of love and reassurance.

It is very important to me, also, that the readings I do either privately, in my Soul Food shows or on Sensing Murder, enable people to understand that there is nothing to fear in death. Life and love are eternal, and there is another world waiting for us when we pass on from this earthly existence.

People sometimes tell me they’d like to be inside my mind. I think most people would find it a strange and disturbing place to be! For example, imagine you’re trying to have a coffee with someone in a restaurant. However, the lady at the next table has 12 people in spirit standing with her. You’re trying really hard not to look at her, but the person you’re with – say it’s your girlfriend – knows something’s up and is getting annoyed. ‘What’s the matter, you can’t even focus on me?’

‘Honey,’ you say, ‘there are 12 dead people with this lady, what am I supposed to do?’

You can see the difficulty! And, out of respect, I’m not allowed to say anything to that lady at the next table, unless she asks me.

The spirits standing around her are only there because I am. They’re saying to me, ‘You talk to my daughter and tell her I’m okay’; or ‘I didn’t say goodbye’; or ‘She didn’t make it in time’, whatever the case may be.

Meanwhile I’m trying to have a cup of coffee and a normal, earthly chat. Things are always very busy in my world!

My life is such a spiritual adventure. If you’ve read my first book, Walking in Light, you’ll know that I’ve had my ups and downs coming to terms with my spiritual gift. I now accept that I’m created this way; it’s who I am. I talk to dead people. I just close my eyes and they’re there. What can I do about that? I can’t push them away because if I do that I’m not being true to myself.

I’ve also had heaps of fun with my gift – heaps of good times meeting so many cool people and being the link between them and their loved ones in the spirit world.

Things have happened to me that are so funny. I’ve had people running down the street after me – just like The Beatles, although it was Invercargill, and the crowd was probably a bit smaller! There was a mob of teenage guys and girls who shouted, ‘There’s that fellow from Sensing Murder!’ They came running down the street to talk to me, and when they got to me they took some photos and one of the girls said, ‘Next time you’re on TV, you mention my name and say hi to me.’

I looked and her and laughed and said, ‘If you’re on my TV show darling, you’re either dead or you’re a criminal’, and she went, ‘Oh gosh, don’t do it then.’ She went red with embarrassment.

I want to mention two wonderful experiences at the beginning of this book, because they both made me feel so incredibly blessed.

The first event happened when I was doing an evening charity event for an Auckland radio station, The Breeze, which I’ve done for the last five years. Robert Rakete, one of their presenters who has a huge amount of mana and respect for people, came over to me just before the event started. ‘Kia ora, Kelvin,’ he said. He had a kete with him – a flax woven Maori bag. ‘Before you begin tonight, I want to tell you a little story,’ he said. He went on to explain that he was an avid follower of Buddhism and that he had been to see the Dalai Lama when he was last in New Zealand. The Dalai Lama had presented him with something very special – a silken cloth on which prayers were printed. It came with the special blessing of the Dalai Lama himself.

‘The funny thing was,’ Robert told me, ‘the Dalai Lama gave me two of these blessings. And when I asked him why, he said to me, "You will know the right person who needs the blessing, and you will give this to them.’’ ’

And with that he took a beautiful white silk scarf from the kete and placed it around my neck. He gave me a hongi, the touching of the noses, the ultimate respect from Maori people. I was incredibly moved and humbled. The feeling as Robert placed the scarf around my neck was absolutely cleansing. That was very special and meaningful for me.

The second thing that happened was something that I would consider one of the pinnacles of my life so far. It happened during the five-day spiritual tour that I hosted in Rarotonga in September, 2009. As is usual on these trips, there were around 22 people, none of whom knew each other (apart from married couples and the occasional family group), or knew me. The format was that we did some spiritual activities together – meditations and lots of spiritual discussions – and I gave every person a private reading at some point during the stay.

On the last morning I suddenly got a very strong message from spirit: ‘To set us free you need to honour us.’ And a picture came into my mind of all the people who were in the group throwing flowers into the ocean, in honour of our loved ones who have passed before us.

So, I put the word out, and at six o’clock that evening we all met on the lovely beach. It was such an idyllic setting – everyone had picked special flowers, and some people had woven them into beautiful wreaths.

Over the previous few days these people, who had never met before, had become close friends through our spirit talks and prayer gatherings, and also through spending time together, sharing their different stories.

I stood up – I was pretty nervous – and gave a brief talk. I reminded them of the work we’d done together on letting go of our grief for our loved ones.

‘But tonight, with your flowers, I ask you to honour those family members or friends that have crossed. We will honour them for the people that they were, the kindness they showed us, for the love that they taught us.’

It was a very powerful moment. ‘So,’ I finished, ‘in your own time, in your own way, come on down to the waterfront and we’ll release the flowers and just have a moment with our spirit people.’

In silence, everyone slowly came down to the water’s edge and placed their flowers on the sand, or threw them into the sea. One of the girls had made a wreath of white frangipanis. She flung it out really wide. Another woman was up to her thighs in water. She was quietly crying as she put her flowers in the water, and I could see her husband in spirit right there with her, loving her and honouring her.

It was very, very powerful. And I just had a moment of my own, looking out to sea, to talk to my spirit guides, to honour them and thank them for the work I am able to do. Then I turned around and there before me on the beach were 22 people, all embracing each other.

It was hugs, literally, all around. I don’t know how to put that into words. I had my breath taken away by the power of spirit to bring people together. I just felt this overwhelming unconditional love surround me, and I heard, ‘Look what we’ve done.’

It was an incredible moment: all these strangers who had gone through the worst things you could go through in life had now become friends for life. There was such an openness of love, such an acknowledgement of the wonderful things about the universe, a true knowledge of the power of spirit. At that moment, I saw pain transformed to joy. Every person on that beach knew, at that moment, ‘I am not alone.’ It was a truly beautiful experience.

I have had many wonderful experiences – I was blown away by meeting British medium Colin Fry, and by being on Sensing Murder and making a difference there. But with this experience on the beach at Rarotonga with just 22 other people, well, I felt like a feather on the wind. It was my moment to be blessed.

We can make incredible bonds with one another when we share our earthly experiences.

When I wrote Walking in Light, it was a very emotional experience as I had to relive some very difficult and painful times. I’ve had many traumatic experiences which I now understand were an important part of my learning, as I came to terms with my gift to see, hear and feel spirits. Those negative experiences were necessary for me to recognise the feelings and experiences of others, so that I could help them through their journey.

I’ve been so moved that some readers have recognised their own life experiences in my story, and I feel honoured to have been able to share with them, and let them know that they are not alone.

In this book I want to share with you some of the amazing experiences I’ve had working with spirit. I’m certain that between these pages you will find a powerful sense of shared experience, a sense of wonder about the power of spirit, and, through the stories, a greater understanding of the language of spirit.

I believe that spirituality is about finding peace within ourselves. It’s not about organised religion – although many people obviously find that established religions are the best place for them to practise their spirituality – but is essentially a personal matter.

We can all discover the unconditional love of spirit, a state I describe as walking in the ‘white light’, without fear of life or death. People have many names for this unconditional love – angels, Jesus Christ, God, the Creator, the Universe – and I don’t think it matters what we call it.

We all have inside us the power to enter into this white light, to believe in ourselves, to love ourselves and others, and to achieve inner peace.

I just take everything day by day – that’s what reality is for me. I love to have fun and to enjoy my life, but when I’m asked to do my spiritual work, then it’s my calling and I go and I do it. I love doing it, because to see someone’s pain lifted from them, through the messages from spirit, is like a little miracle every time.

CHAPTER TWO

Freda – a blessed soul

When Walking in Light came out in 2009, I travelled around New Zealand and was privileged to meet many readers and people who are interested in the spiritual side of life.

At one meeting I was very drawn to a woman sitting right in the front row. Now, at these events I wasn’t really supposed to be doing readings, but sometimes spirit comes through so strongly that I couldn’t resist. It was like that with this woman, Freda.

She was an older woman – I subsequently found out she was 75 – and yet she had such a youthful energy about her. She was obviously very spiritual and very blessed – I could see the white light coming off her like a halo. She was the kind of person where you immediately feel like, ‘Oh, I know you, you know me.’

‘Hullo darling,’ I said. ‘I have a friend of yours here, Pat. Does that mean anything to you?’

I could immediately sense that despite Freda’s incredibly positive energy, this was a woman who had suffered some terrible losses and hardships in her life. I went to my whiteboard and drew the message I was receiving, because, although Pat was the first spirit, there were several others coming through behind her.

‘There was a terrible accident, wasn’t there?’ I asked. ‘There’s a young guy who’s telling me he’s your son, and he’s trying to tell you he’s sorry.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I lost my son Glen. He committed suicide.’

‘Well he’s here now,’ I said. I’d drawn his star on the board, and another tiny little star behind him. ‘Who is this?’ I asked.

‘I lost my granddaughter,’ she told me. ‘She drowned at two.’

‘She’s here as well. There’s someone else pushing your son forward, I think it must be his father. Oh I think he said there was another son, you’ve lost another son, too. Hang on a minute … okay, I’ve got it. Heart attack, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘There’s a message from him. His name was Mark, wasn’t it? Mark says, I’m looking after him, Mum. He’s here with me. I’m looking after him. ’

I heard later that this was absolutely right – even as children Mark would always look after Glen, who was the youngest.

As I was doing the reading I began getting some very disturbing images of fire. I felt extremely agitated and uncomfortable, and I asked her if she’d been in a fire.

‘No,’ she said. ‘That would be my husband. He was a pilot and died in a plane crash involving fire.’

That was interesting, but it wasn’t the feeling I was getting. The message I was getting was to do with her, but she was very insistent that she hadn’t personally had any experience with fire.

In the end, she just said, ‘Oh, I think there was a house fire way back when, in some part of the family.’

I began to feel very upset, but of course I couldn’t force this issue with her. I eventually said that I would need to move away from her and focus on someone else in the audience, and then come back to her later. And that is what I did, to give myself time to recover from the overpoweringly disturbing feelings that I was receiving.

At the end of the event I signed a book for Freda and she told me she was so happy to have had the reading.

‘It was all I wanted,’ she said, with tears in her eyes. ‘I just wanted to be sure that Glen was all right now and at peace.’

The next I heard about Freda was three months later. It was the end of a show and I was about to go home when two young women approached me.

One of them, whose name was Melanie, asked me if I remembered Freda and, although I do hundreds and hundreds of readings for people and don’t always remember straight away, in this case I did. I remembered her white light and the sad things that had happened to her.

‘It wasn’t the lady with the son who had committed suicide, was it?’ I was confused and started to panic because, lo and behold, suddenly Freda was standing right there with her son.

‘What’s happened, what happened to her?’ I was really shocked, because she’d seemed so healthy. She was in good shape