At this point, our exploration into our past has filled with incredible details. It was exciting as we learned, as well as you are learning now, our unfolding lives. We were surprised when we were introduced to the Gatekeeper.
Stephen’s ability to connect to the spiritual world has grown enormously over the years since his fiftieth birthday, when a psychic reading made it clear to him that he had intuitive abilities. Certainly, his skills were honed in the exploration of this lifetime we shared in France. It has also become increasingly clear that some of his sharpest abilities lie in discovering past life experiences for the benefit of people who are struggling with recurring issues.
As we have both navigated this spiritual realm, Spirit has helped us to understand some of the nuances of how it all works. For one thing, the understanding that we are connected strongly to a spirit guide has been made clear. Typically, these are souls that are spirit-connected to us in some way, in some cases, it is someone with whom we shared a past life. At any rate, their “job” is to guide us towards our mission or path and help keep us on track—all from the spiritual realm. This usually is done sub-consciously with the whisper of intuition, a fleeting thought or a gut-feeling that sends us in one direction or another. In some cases, as with Stephen and his guide, there is a strong connection and his ability to communicate on a spiritual level made that bond even stronger.
The other revelation was our introduction to the Gatekeeper. One night when asking questions intuitively and discovering more about our lives in the 1500s, an old man appeared to Stephen in one of his visions, dressed like a wizard. He was trying symbolically to show Stephen the magnitude of his power. Frankly, Stephen was a little freaked out by this imagery and assumed it was a spirit he had not invited into his psyche. Stephen prayed for God to bask him in his protective white light and protect him from evil. The wizard was still there. Fearing the power that this wizard was displaying, Stephen called on the support of the Archangels and “banished” this entity. Sounds kind of dramatic, right? Well, the energy of the exchange was visible and palpable as I witnessed it.
Something about the exchange did not sit well with Stephen and we decided to get some “expert” help on the problem. We arranged to make a trip to Cassadaga, Florida, a town known for its preponderance of psychics and mediums. Soon after we had gotten into town, Stephen had a vision of an old woman with long gray hair. We asked around and were finally directed to one of the matriarchs of the community, a medium named Nellie. Stephen practically ran over to her house and knocked on her door. There was no answer. Impatiently, he went around to the back of the house and saw an older woman standing on the balcony of her house. “Can I see you? It’s very important!” he yelled to her. “Yes, come to the front door”, she replied. She was very welcoming and seemed to know why we were there. After relaying the story to her, she said to Stephen incredulously, “That was your Gatekeeper and you banished him?” She continued, “Did you not think to ask who he was before you called on the Archangels to banish him? Would you, after all, banish someone who came to your door without finding out who he was or what his intentions were?” Stephen’s uneasy feeling quickly turned to embarrassment. Upon reflection, it didn’t seem like it was the best move. Stephen said to me that he should have known, when after his protection prayer, the wizard was still there. “That should have indicated to me that he was not evil or there to cause harm.”
Further conversation revealed her explanation that in the hierarchy of the spiritual realm, we all have a spirit guide or guides, our soul group, and at the top of each individual’s spiritual organization chart is a Gatekeeper. Think of the conductor of an orchestra, who must bring all the different instruments together to make beautiful music—with a wave of the hand the conductor introduces the violins, then wind instruments and at just the right moment the timpani clashes. This entity, while serving a number of souls, orchestrates the music that allows us all to interact and connect on our shared paths. The Gatekeeper is quite powerful in that, if necessary, can appear in human form to help in our guidance. He has the understanding of how we are all interconnected on our journeys and gives the extra push some souls may need to move in the right direction.
Having learned this lesson on our path of enlightenment, thanks to Nellie, the revelation of Dafne’s background was all the more interesting. When Stephen was “seeing” the vision of where Dafne grew up, the vineyards of Tuscany, and the situation which led to her dispatch to Loudun, he was astonished to discover he recognized the old man who had come to the house asking for a meal. It was the Gatekeeper whom Stephen had banished so ignominiously!
Another incredible aspect of the story at this point was that Stephen had met a woman who was the salesperson at a condo development in Orlando. This was several years before ever having met Tracy. He was looking for an apartment for a temporary job there. In the long conversation they had during the signup process, Stephen told her of his intuitive abilities. She was intrigued. She asked what he could tell her about herself. He quickly got a vision of an older woman in a classroom, with a blackboard. Then he said that the door was opened to a beautiful vineyard that stretched as far as the eye could see. She said that her grandmother, who recently passed was a teacher in upstate New York and that she had an apple orchard. Perhaps that was what he was seeing?
It only dawned on us as I was writing this story that what Stephen saw was Dafne’s Tuscan vineyard – and this was Dafne!
It was pretty clear that if the Gatekeeper had interceded and essentially ensured Dafne’s presence at the convent in Loudun, then she was to play an important role in how Dominique’s story played out. Just what her role would be, we didn’t know yet.