That Time an Angel Appeared in my Living Room

 I've had many paranormal or supernatural encounters in my life, probably enough for me to consider them "normal" and "natural". Several should have been creepy, or downright scary, but I have this problem. My threat assessment skills are practically non-existent, so sometimes my reactions to frightening things are idiotic, to say the least. 

But there was one time, when I saw an angel, that was actually pretty fucking scary. 

I should backtrack a bit. I'm an occultist. Not a good one, but one nonetheless. I've been practicing occultism, witchcraft or magic in one form or another since I was old enough to know what that was. I've had a fascination with witches and woo for as long as I can remember. My interests were probably influenced a great deal by my great-gramma and the subtle folk-magics that she would practice around the house (not to mention her clairvoyance). Another influence was probably my love of horror-movies, an interest I shared with my dad. We'd sit up and watch the Friday Night Frights on TV every weekend, often until dawn. A lot of those old movies portrayed witchcraft or voodoo. Badly, to be sure, but it was still enough to fascinate my young mind. 

Getting way off track here. I'm a crappy occultist and I'm surprised I'm not dead yet. It's bad enough that my astral travel practices managed to fling me into a parallel universe (I swear, I'll write about that one another time), but I've had some spectacular failures. 

Not sure whether to count this one as a failure or not. I summoned an Angel, and was surprised when one appeared. 

It was the second time an entity had appeared, fully formed and visible, in my living room, but was the first time it was an angel. It did not look like the accompanying picture to this post, but it also didn't look quite like how people portray the biblically accurate ones. 

At the time, I was living at my mother's house, caring for my terminally ill mother. It was 2008. I was sleep-deprived and silently dealing with a grief I couldn't show. I knew she was dying but I was trying to keep everything about her. I know I failed in this regard sometimes. There were cracks in my facade. Usually the emotions that seeped out through those cracks were directed at my mother's nurses, or at my mother's drunk and useless husband. 

I tried to keep up my spiritual practices as best I could in the situation, but if I had been half-assing it in the past, then during my mother's illness, I was quarter-assing it. One night after tucking my mom into bed, I did an Enochian Key on the fly. Just a quick and quiet reading with a bit of holy oil as my only trapping. Knowing me I was probably wearing pajamas. 

After my less than stellar performance, I went online to chat with a friend. I think in those days we mostly talked via email. Not very streamlined, but it worked. A light in the corner of the room, up near the ceiling, caught my eye and I turned my head to see what I still to this day have a hard time describing. It was like a series of lines, curves and angles, kind of metallic and shiny, surrounded in a golden glow. But this really doesn't come close to describing its alien strangeness. As I looked at it, it vanished, not all at once. It seemed to get sucked out of material existence, like water funneling down a drain. Like it was being pulled into a black hole. 

It didn't scare me at first. In fact, I was kind of like "huh, that was somethin'". I told my friend about it and she said "It sounds like an angel". Neither one of us was completely comfortable with that idea, but considering what I'd just been doing, it did seem a safe bet that it was indeed an angel. 

The fear crept up slowly and settled on me in the days, weeks and years afterward. For a while it became a full-blown phobia. I didn't want to see another angel. But I did. More than once, and wasn't too happy about it. 

I have, in recent years, come to terms with angels. It didn't matter whether or not I wanted to work with them, it seems I opened a door, and they intend to work with me. I refer to myself as a reluctant angel-whisperer these days, though I'm less reluctant than I was. Angels are now a part of my regular practice, but they are most definitely not fluffy, chiffon-wearing androgynes or be-winged babies. I know all too well they are not that. 

In the past few years I've started to lean more toward mysticism, and less toward magic. Maybe it's old age. Maybe it's because I'm a better mystic than I ever was an occultist. Don't get me wrong, magic is still plentiful in my life, but mysticism kicks ass and due to my mystical practices, my connection with angels (and my power trio of saints) has gotten much stronger.