We all have exit points planned into our lives. I believe this is because it’s all too easy to plan a challenging life on the other side, only to find yourself living out the incarnation completely overwhelmed. It’s a safety mechanism, an out. A place where we can say we’ve learned what we wanted to learn, or we’ve done what we wanted to do in this life, and we can either stay or go.

Sylvia Browne says we all have five exit points in our life. Sylvia likes to be precise like that. I believe the number of exit points we plan varies upon our past life experiences, the difficulty of the life we’re planning, our comfort level with incarnation etc. Sweetie has exit points planned every two to five years. After Sweetie asked this and got the answer, she realized that indeed she has had “close calls” about every two to five years, depending on what she’s been going through. All her close calls have involved modes of transportation, usually cars, but once she was almost hit by a train. Considering Sweetie committed suicide in her last life by setting herself on fire, it seems that having frequent exit points in this life is a good safety measure… even if they can be scary.

I’ve been vaguely aware of making a choice in recent months to “stay or go”. I want to stay, I’d decided already. I’m not done here, and I look forward to all the work I’ll be doing, now that I’m out as psychic, teaching classes, writing blogs etc. This is great, I’m not done yet.

I recently had a discussion with a friend who’s struggling with her friend’s diagnosis of MS and her impending decline into death. She just can’t believe how calm her friend is about all of it. We ended up talking about how our souls know when our exit point is coming, and we prepare for it, even if it’s not consciously. I told her about my grandfather, who walked into the hospital with low back pain, only to die of cancer just two weeks later. No one was with him when he died because everyone was out at the circus – a month before, Grandpa had purchased tickets for all the grandkids and their parents. He didn’t know he was sick when he purchased them.

Last Saturday, Sweetie and I passed an exit point. When you have things charted into your life, you can change the parameters so that the event is less devastating than it could be – a bout of pneumonia could be lived out as a short cold, and a fatal car accident could be downgraded to a fender-bender, which is just what happened with us.

The startling thing is, we *know* that was an exit point. Sweetie was aware that I’d left my body just before the accident – I guess I went to consult my chart, my guides or whatever. Next thing I know, the car in front of us slammed on their brakes – I slammed on the brakes too, but my foot slipped off the brake on to the gas. Fortunately, several things were in our favour: my other foot was on the clutch, so the car didn’t speed up even though the engine was revving, the oncoming lane was clear so I could maneuver into it to avoid slamming into the car and instead the corner of our bumpers connected, I could have been going faster, the other driver could have stopped the car sooner. So many ways that accident could have been worse.

The other car was occupied by two tiny, grey-haired women in their 80s at least. I’m not going to say they were done with their lives at that point, but it’s not unreasonable to wonder if they were willing to facilitate our exit at that point if we’d chosen to go.

There were also a variety of ways any particular individual could have chosen to go. Hitting that corner of their car could have killed Sweetie. An oncoming vehicle could have swerved into them and killed one or both of the women in the other car.

On the way home from the fender bender, Sweetie and I marveled at how neatly tied up our lives are right now.

We had recently declared bankruptcy, so there would have been no debt for our families to reconcile.

I had booked a week of “workload” coverage at the hospital, to get caught up on some projects before the summer rush. If I’d died, the hospital would not have been short-staffed.

Sweetie had finished energetically and physically cleaning the morgue. Afterwards, maintenance took the initiative to paint it! It hadn’t been painted in 10 years. Sweetie & I would have been the next two bodies in that morgue.

My parents were planning to come and visit – they’ve already purchased airline tickets on sale.

I’d made the impulse decision to take the dog into town with us that day – he was with us in the car, on Sweetie’s lap, and would’ve been killed too.

Our landlady is connected with the hospital and would’ve found out right away. She would have cared for the cats; maybe adopted them herself as her own cat recently passed away. Certainly, she would have found them good homes.

Earlier that day, I asked Jesse if he’d like some company at church on Sunday. We had this long conversation about religion and spirituality, and he said, “Religion is not my crutch. It’s my walking stick.” He’d taken his rosary-like necklace off and given it to me, saying, “These can only be given. You hang on to it for a while, and give it back whenever.” I was wearing a crucifix for the first time in my life, and I would have died wearing it.

And then there were all the angels. That morning, Sweetie asked me about a ball of gold light she’d seen in the living room before the sunrise. “Oh, that’s an angel,” I replied. Doreen Virtue wrote about angels often appearing as balls of gold light. Clients have said to me they can see sparks of gold, green or blue light during readings, and often those are angels who want to talk.

One of the readings I did earlier that day involved none other than Arch Angel Michael. I’d never spoken with him before, and he came up during the reading because my client, Satwant, had invited him into her house about a year ago and wanted to know if he’d really shown up. She isn’t Christian either, but like a lot of us, she had a lot of faith, if not a religion.

When Michael arrived, a wave of energy hit me and reverberated around the room. He had a lot of encouraging things to say to Satwant, he shared a lot of strength, and he told Satwant that she’d soon be comforting people as they passed through death, or were surrounded by death. I saw this as a natural disaster (not necessairily here) but the weird thing was Satwant saw the accident and was at the scene shortly after it happened. She was in the car with my other student & client turned friend & colleague, Hernan. If the accident had been worse, she would have been right there to help us.

They helped us anyway, by taking us to the beach after the accident to help us calm down. I guess in a way, we had “passed through death” without actually dying.

So here we are, still here. I didn’t go to church on Sunday, instead I stayed home and stared into space for a lot of the day. This is exactly what I did after passing an exit point when I was 12 years old, and was hit by a city bus. I distinctly remember flying out of my body, hearing “stay or go?” replying “stay” and returning to my body as it rolled on the pavement. Somehow, I’d been pitched clear of the bus while my bike had been pulled under it and squashed into a twisted hunk of metal.

I got out with some minor injuries, and a shock-like state of detachment that lasted for days after the accident. Talking seemed redundant and strange. I could sit for hours and stare at the grass. I had to be reminded to eat. I think it was my mother who insisted that I speak at least a few times a day who eventually pulled me back into my body and my experience completely.

After that exit point in my childhood, the next ten years were excruciatingly difficult. I guess I’d decided I had a strong enough background, childhood and support system to survive it – which I did.

I’m aware that many of us are rediscovering our intuitive birth-rights, our inter-connectedness with each other, the earth and all that exists, existed or will exist. I believe that a lot of people are choosing to “raise their vibration” and move into a new phase of living by leaving their bodies, by dying. They’re not going that far, they’re just shifting into an existence that heals the earth, which relieves them of the burden of watching this messed up world destroy itself.

From all I’ve read, I understand that this “dying the body” is not essential, that you could just take your body with you if you wish… but I don’t see what you’d want to bother, when our bodies are generally tools for us to experience *this* dimension. It’s so easy to step out of our bodies, why would we put in the energy to take them along? As well, that would look to our families as though we disappeared – most people want to grant their families the closure of a dead body to mourn, rather than a missing person who could reappear in their lives anytime. And, as we’ve seen, the death of a loved one does tend to pull people closer to spirituality, and open them up to things like psychics, meditation, and visitation from loved ones who have passed on.

Sometimes people die to teach *us* a few things.

Well, Sweetie & I are still here, and we plan to remain. It does beg the question, what’s in store for us now?