Dates with Angels

Walking through Okunoin, the cemetery in Koyasan, Japan.

For the first twenty years of my life I was called Angel. Birthday cards from my father were addressed to '“my darling angel”. I never questioned this ‘nickname’ until my adolescence when I became embarrassed by the epithet.

It was many years later that I discovered I was something of a ‘miracle baby’ coming years after a miscarriage and many complications in my mother’s pregnancy. To my father I was an angelic gift.

I suppose that is why I never had an issue in believing in angels or divine guidance. Those nudges of intuition that come out of nowhere that you follow, never knowing what will happen but trusting that you will be looked after. Falling in love with the luminous gold auras of angels depicted in paintings and on postage stamps.

The author Julia Cameron talks about writing for guidance. It’s the fourth tool in her Artists’ Way ‘toolbox’ after Morning Pages, Walking and Artist Dates. While I have been very diligent with the first two tools; writing my morning pages for the past 20 years and regularly walking, Artist Dates have languished. Possibly because it means taking solitary time out to play, connect with your inner child and nurture yourself.

For anyone who was brought up fairly frugally , the idea of spending money on ‘frivolous’ gifts to yourself is hard to get your head around. The first Artist Date I took myself on was to a newsagent to buy myself an art magazine. For the second one I bought a pair of fleecy lined gloves. I still have them.

I’ve realised how important these Artist Dates are during the last few months. The need to go on an inner pilgrimage, to nurture myself, to play and be open to new ideas and ways of being in the world. I now think of these as ‘dates with angels’. Allowing time and space for divine guidance to walk with me, to feel supported by angelic beings who radiate awe and wonder.

When I visited Koyasan, the centre of Shingon esoteric Buddhism in Japan, I set out early to visit Okunoin, the two kilometre long cemetery in the middle of a cedar forest. To get there you first must cross the Gobyō-bashi Bridge. My nose and eyes were watery from the cold and as I mopped them, I realised I was also crying. I stopped at the start of the bridge and bowed. It felt like the right thing to do.

Turns out that this is the correct procedure when crossing this bridge between the secular and spiritual world where over 200,000 souls of lords, soldiers, monks, friends and foes rest side by side, unified in death.

To walk through this thousand year old cemetery was for me an ‘artist date with angels’. It was quiet, peaceful, and a place where time was irrelevant. Stone stupas of every shape and size crowded with glowing lanterns, while alongside them were little statues with red crocheted beanies and bibs as talismans of good health for children.

When I reached the main sacred precinct temple, I lit two candles, one each for my mother and father who brought me into this earthly world but who are no longer of it.

This extended artist date to Japan has been a reminder that not only do I need to nourish my physical body and artistic imagination, but also create time and space for nurturing my spirit which informs all my creative practice.

It will take extra effort to add writing for guidance into my daily routine, but I know now why weekly and extended artist dates are so important for evolving as an artist. I’ll be asking for more dates with angels, as I realise they have been with me all of my life . Read my 2018 blogpost Of Angels here.

Detail of angels on the outside wall of the church at Rila Monastery, Bulgaria.