The Seagull: An Unexpected Love Story

By Julie Stafford

The Seagull is a love story of extraordinary proportion. It will encourage you to define your idea of ideal love to enable love to play its role. What if love is the entire reason we live?

A story about trust and faith and the idea that we don't really know all there is yet to know about why we live and what follows death...

A reminder that our physical age doesn't define who we are or who we can become. Only our spirit can do that...

A story of bravery, reminding us that there is more bravery in us than what we sometimes give ourselves credit for...

A story to acknowledge that in the lessons of life's chaos and challenges, we often find our higher, more evolved selves...

A story to know grief was never meant to cripple us. It was only ever meant to grow us...

A story that questions synchronicity. Was our destiny already written?

A story about the power of our inner voice. It will have you asking if you should ignore 'coincidences too coincidental' or if you should more consider them as Albert Einstein defined them. "Coincidence" he said, "Is God's way of remaining anonymous."

A feel good read reminding us that no matter where we find ourselves in life, if we commit to all life's infinitesimal moments, stretching ourselves to go beyond the perimeters of our comfort zone, life has a way of rewarding us beyond our imaginations...

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992429614

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Jalal al-Din Rumi

Sufi poet. 1207–1273

DECEMBER 16, 2007

Pictures flashing through my brain were faint, but clearly they were of Paris. Once, perhaps twice, I’d visited the places I was now being shown. Suddenly, a man spoke. I was certain his words were meant for me. In every word, there was an outpouring of love with my name on it. There was urgency in his voice too. He was willing me to pay him my full attention. I sensed that if I didn’t do as he was telling me, I’d be letting him down. Even though his message was more than a little bizarre, the size of my love for him compelled me to seriously consider the meaning of his words.

At my beach house, in absolutely no rush to get out of bed and spoil whatever was happening around me, I wondered if this strange moment was always written for me. Had it been resting in the seed of my soul since the day I was born to have my human experience? Was I always destined to travel the journey I found myself suddenly traveling? Had this moment, like so many other moments, been hibernating in the depths of my soul, waiting to be unlocked and lived in a particular order as part of the crossing my soul would travel across its human years, for my spirit to evolve? Was this the essential purpose of life? Could this strange moment have been waiting for me to be ready, and because of lessons learned, and subsequent wisdom gained, was the spirit of my soul suddenly evolved enough not to doubt the reasons why Bruce was always in my life?

Even though Bruce no longer lived in the vibration of time I lived, it didn’t stop me wondering if it might be possible for him to still be holding my hand, in my vibration. Was it still possible he might be drawing me down the path I was meant to walk through life, after him? I still felt the strength of his hand holding my hand. I know for sure I did. There were even times when I felt his breath on the back of my neck. This mostly happened in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep: when I was doing it tough without him. It happened at sunset too, when drinking a red wine, alone, made me feel lonelier than I was. Was it possible, that in his spirit form, Bruce would stay close to me until I was ready to walk my way forward, into my new life, without him? I wished for easy answers, but none came. However, over time my inner voice told me that if answers came too easily, my soul’s spiritual evolution, in a journey always mine, would be somewhat compromised.

Nothing shocked me anymore. Bruce no longer needed to convince me he could come and go in my vibration when he wanted to be connected to me. Whether he was being directed to do this by powers greater than both of us, or whether as spirit he had such powers, I didn’t know, but I liked him popping in and out of my life as often as he did. Now, with the pictures of Paris, and his bizarre message, it seemed he wanted to take what had already been an extraordinary love story to new heights. I sensed his wanting to make our love story an exceptional one.

This crazy moment wasn’t the first time Bruce (in spirit) stretched me to trust more in what he’d always referred to as Julie’s Logic. Not for all my life, but certainly for a good part of it, I was convinced of an otherworld. This world was a place where passed souls lived, in their spirit form, eternally in God’s love. I imagined this place was somewhere off in ethereal space, and that spirits became God’s army of angels. It was a rather lovely way to look at life. To my way of thinking, this otherworld ran parallel to the human world (my world) or the place where souls used a human form as a vehicle to have experiences to evolve their spirit. But more than confirming my suspicions of this otherworld, I sensed Bruce wanted me to know the otherworld (now his new home) and my human world could magically interconnect, if humans had faith in the possibility of it.

Of course the pictures of Paris, and the message I heard, could’ve been a fascinating plot of an amazing dream, but I didn’t think so. Instead, my mind rushed me to a place of questioning if somewhere between a state of deep sleep and consciousness I might’ve entered a new realm of elevated awareness where my soul’s vibration had somehow connected with Bruce’s spirit vibration and the result was the possibility of our magical connection. My instinct was also mumbling something about the outcome of my strange experience, as if it knew, even though in the moment of my instinct’s ramblings, I didn’t immediately know what I might do with what was suddenly being proposed to me, in whatever it was transpiring around me.

The bedroom door was open. Outside, birds sang noisily, as they so often did at dawn. I couldn’t make out if their song was about defending territory, attracting a mate, or simply attracting my interest to all their happiness. Light streaming into the room was proof the sun had risen and was rapidly rising higher. I rolled over. My left leg hung heavy on my right leg. My right hip dug deep into the mattress. The pictures of Paris kept turning in my head. My left arm fell loose across my chest. My right hand was in its usual place, tucked under my pillow. Bruce continued to tease me with his strange message. Two fingers of my left hand played with the corner of my pillow-case. Butterflies danced in my stomach. What did his message mean? Strands of hair fell across my face. I was suddenly wondering if I was feeling these real sensations to confirm I wasn’t dreaming.

Suddenly, the pictures of Paris flashed faster. On seeing Sacré-Cœur atop Montmarte, the Eiffel Tower, and the wide-boulevard of Champs Élyseés, I smiled, remembering how Bruce and I had been to all three. I saw Bateaux-Mouches asleep on the Seine, and Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ in the perfectly manicured gardens of Hôtel Biron. Clearly, it was Picasso’s painting, ‘The Dream’ hanging from a cloud, suspended in a Paris sky. Typically Picasso, I chuckled to myself. Then, just so I’d be 100 percent certain Bruce’s message was linked to Paris, the last picture I saw was of the iconic clock on the facade of Musée D’Orsay. Its message couldn’t have been clearer. It was time!

I wanted to get out of bed, but suddenly my limbs wouldn’t move. I guessed curiosity was keeping me prisoner under the flimsy cotton sheet covering me. I rolled over. Now, it was my right leg heavy on my left. Not wanting to lose the thread of what was making my flesh burn, I fixed my eyes closed and pushed my face deeper into my pillow. Darkness made the pictures turn to black and white. Now, I was looking at old Paris. A couple, rugged up against the cold, and holding hands, walked on a narrow cobblestone-street. The light around the couple was dull. A figure in the shadows, leaning against a soaring street light was humming ‘La Bohème’. I wondered if it might be Charles Aznavour. Street after street of historic buildings, in an aristocratic district, made me think the couple might be walking somewhere in Le Marias. I loved this area of Paris.

I noted the man’s hand was comfortable in the small of the woman’s back as they walked. I watched as she placed her hand in the back pocket of his trousers. As he leaned in, in no hurry to kiss her, Bruce spoke and disturbed my thoughts. As if twice wasn’t already enough, once more he teasingly told me, Little One, you must go to Paris for New Year’s. Love is waiting for you there. I rolled onto my back. My eyes opened and the pictures of Paris were gone.

I looked around the room, wondering was my husband gone too. The temperature in the room was rising. Summer was in a good mood. If it was this warm, so early, I’d definitely be swimming by lunchtime, but now, all I wanted was to lie still and wait for summer’s warmth to burrow through the layers of my soft flesh to reach my bones.

A light breeze rode in on the sun’s warm back. Its feathery-soft touch passed over me, like love’s fingers, trembling in the dance of love. My flesh stirred. In expectation, goose-bumps covered my skin. Memory’s door was opened, but I was no longer so drawn to go so far back, and so I quickly shut that door.

The smell of the sea followed the breeze. It was fresh, like a bottle of cologne, just opened, is fresh. My nostrils twitched. I drank large quantities of the sea’s scent. Intoxicated by the wonders of nature’s perfumes, only God and those of the otherworld would’ve heard my gratitude for the small pleasure of not having to rush getting out of bed. But there came another pleasure too. Sweet, smoky lavender fragrance produced pictures of my beautiful grandmother.

There I was, lying in bed, not able to wipe the smile from my face, wondering if she too was somehow involved in this unfolding mysterious moment. Her participation in something so ‘doo doo doo’ as she would’ve called it, wouldn’t have surprised me. Could Bruce and my grandmother both, because both were in spirit, somehow be colluding? As she had loved me, so had she loved my Bruce. I wouldn’t have put it past either of them.

It seemed that every time my grandmother wanted to communicate a message to me, she sent the strong perfumes of lavender to let me know she was nearby. Even in places where lavender never grew, my grandmother somehow magically produced its scent. When I smelled it, I’d stop, think about her, and listen for her message. Innate knowing drove me to believe I heard many of her messages. This time, it was my neighbor’s lavender I was smelling. She grew it all the way along her back fence. It was always easy for my grandmother to find me at the beach house when she wanted my attention.

I wondered if she knew about my sleepless nights when I tossed and turned, and worried about how I was going to live without Bruce’s love? It was almost two years since Bruce had passed. The feelings of being alone, without his love every day, still haunted me. I had to resolve my dilemma of wondering would I be alone for the rest of my life or would I be brave enough to let another love walk with me. Did my grandmother know my dilemma? Had she come because she knew how she could help me get past this point?

My grandmother was widowed at a much younger age than me. I always wondered why she didn’t remarry. I wished I’d asked her. I didn’t know my grandfather. He passed when my mother was just fourteen, but I had such a love for him because of the way my grandmother’s face always lit up when she told me how much she loved him. She made me wonder if we were only ever supposed to have one great love story? Was the idea of another, expecting too much?

Without Bruce by my side, when nights were long, and my aching heart kept me wide awake, it was my grandmother’s face that filled the spaces between dark and daylight. Desperate, because of grief’s capacity, I’d call out to her, How do I fill this big empty hole? In the worst of it, I wondered why her face came to me so often. Did I subconsciously call her when I was so bound to place bunches of lavender on my bedside table, or had she come of her own accord, on the back of breezes that blew over my neighbor’s garden, coming to me through doors and windows barely open. Could this be one of the reasons she was always in my life? Did our journey never end when she passed? Did the ‘One’ who gave her the gift of her soul’s journey always know that she, more than anyone else, would know my kind of pain, and know how to pull me through many of the bad times of it?

I ran my fingers along the lace trim of my French-silk lingerie. My high-charged mood was no doubt the effect of seeing the pictures of Paris, hearing his voice, and wondering what his strange message—Little One, you must go to Paris for New Year’s. Love is waiting for you there might mean. My love-starved body moved against the sheets. I wanted him so badly, but the boundaries of my human world shouted, rather coldly I thought, You cannot have him.

In my half-awake-half-asleep-hormone-aroused-emotional state, I was rescued from falling. A firm hand took my hand, and together we went walking.

Waves rolled in and out along the edge of the sea. On their way out, they stole my footprints, leaving behind a message. I guessed the message was for me. Let life pass through time and place with no need to settle or attach. I walked along the edge of the sea, kicking at the water until I was drawn to look over toward the sand dunes. There were two figures curled together in one of the dunes. I knew these dunes well. They created a bank that bordered a rugged beach that’s popular in the small seaside village where my family spent more than fifteen summers. There are two beaches in the little village by the sea. The other beach, called the front-beach, is a family beach. Children build sandcastles and splash in rock pools here. This, more rugged beach, called the back-beach, is treacherous. The rips are notoriously dangerous. Sharks have been sighted here too. It wasn’t where my family swam, but Bruce and I loved walking along this beach at sunset. On occasion, we would watch the sun go down from the dune that was suddenly calling me to come take a closer look.

I walked over to the dune and stood above the two figures. When I saw the figures were clearly Bruce and me, I was overcome with happiness. Whoever held my hand suddenly let it go. Though I was looking at Bruce and me, from above, I was fully aware of the emotional and physical connection between us as we lay together, spooning. I could feel the force of Bruce’s arms pulling me close against his chest. The weight of his right thigh was heavy as it crossed over my lower body, pinning me to him. From above, I grinned at our tangled mess. Just like always, love’s tangled mess suited us.

Like a trespassing voyeur, I continued watching. I knew the outcome of such intimacy, and so I wasn’t surprised when my cheeks flushed. Suddenly, I was remembering a time when I told my husband, Hugging you feels like the warmth of well-aged Cognac on the back of my throat. He feigned disappointment, saying, Surely I’m more. When I told him that my father had told me there was no greater taste in the world than well-aged Cognac, and how one day I’d grow a palate to know his truth, my husband knew the size of my flattering remark, because he knew the size of my love for my father.

I felt the sensation of Bruce’s easy inhale and exhale as it blew lightly over my left ear and across my left cheek. From above, I watched a small strand of hair blow back and forth across my face on the light wind that his breath made. It appeared to mimic the time it took for a wave to go out to sea and come back. A single hair scratched at my face, like a branch scratching at a windowpane in a mini-storm. I stood, not moving, not wanting the moment to end. Then, as if the point of our meeting was for me to know he was OK, I heard the thump, thump, thump of his strong heart.

Without warning, he turned my face to meet his. His hand cupped the back of my head. He drew me close. I felt his eyes upon my heart. I closed my eyes, taking the image of him with me. There was no need to rush. Two cancers had taught my husband the pointlessness of hurrying anything.

Open your eyes. Look at me, he whispered, so softly, so devotedly, so sweetly.

His kiss was measured. It began gently, before it reached deep, lingering there, before gentle called its name and then it was gone, but while it lasted, I savored it, like a meal not eaten for the longest time.

When he was ready, he leaned back, slowly, like he knew it was the right moment to let me go. As I walked away, I turned, just once, and saw him walking in the opposite direction. In that moment I knew the greatest mathematicians wouldn’t have been able to calculate the size of my love for him.

I rolled over to what was once his side of the bed and hugged his pillow. It was my seeking-relief place: the place I rushed to when I momentarily lost my way because he was no longer beside me. Though I was well past the place of needing to spray his pillow with ‘Aramis’, the half-full canister of his signature aftershave still lived in the top drawer of my bedside table, just in case.

I’d been at the beach house, by myself, for almost two weeks. For a record number of mornings the sun was the color of farm-fresh egg yolks waiting patiently to be whipped into breakfast omelettes, and the sky was a perfect Mediterranean blue.

The first winter after Bruce passed, it was to the Mediterranean I ran, looking to be saved from a grief I feared might crush me. The Mediterranean’s healing powers were so potent that when winter came around a second time, I ran even faster, falling into arms that I knew would protect me. And now, even though it was only December, I had already purchased a ticket for a third escape.

I was in no hurry to give up his pillow. Hugging it was like instantly lighting the torch for the memories of him to find their way home to me. This time, the memory keenest to be recalled was our very first summer together. Our relationship was only a few months old. I was remembering him smirking, when he’d asked, Why does summer make you so happy? and me giggling like a silly school girl, when I told him, Summer’s breath is my elixir. Had I even drunk heavy spirits by age twenty-two? Summer was my elixir, but he was more so.

I remembered how it was late afternoon. The sun had set shadows on his broad shoulders and on a torso hell-bent on teasing a young girl’s impatient longing. Years of training for the sports he loved, plus hard farm work, fueled a shy girl’s bravado. Proud of the long fingernails I’d grown, all because he encouraged me to, I’d run them across his shoulders and down his long spine, stopping just short of a place I’d never been before. I loved how his skin produced tiny raised bumps of appreciation. Did he know I would’ve moved a mountain for him if he’d encouraged me to do that too? My power to please him excited me. Letting my fingers roam some more, I whispered into the canyon of his ear, I love summer because I only need a thin sheet to cover me when I’m sleeping.

He was silent for a bit before his hands, smooth from the wool-grease naturally occurring in the sheep fleeces he classed, as a wool-classer, reciprocated my stroking and teasing. Though I was kneeling behind him, clearly with the stroking advantage, he somehow managed to reach behind me to find my sun-scorched, bare legs. His fingers traced paths to faraway places. When crossroads were reached, he stopped, checking if he should proceed. Young, inexperienced, I wasn’t ready. Gratefully, he had no plans to rush me, and so I cooled our rising temperatures by telling him, In winter my muscles go to war. The cold makes them ache like soldiers ache for sweethearts.

His mood changed. Against him, I knew he meant it when he promised, I’ll keep you warm for all our winters so you’ll never ache again.

Summer was by far my favorite season. I loved it so much that when the other seasons stole summer from me, my longing heart made my disposition worse than the mood of a lonely lover pining lost love. Now, without Bruce, chasing summer suddenly became more essential to my well-being than it was merely for my pleasure.

In two days’ time, I would return to my city apartment. I rented out our other house, where Bruce and I mainly lived until mesothelioma (asbestos cancer) changed the direction of his and my life forever. Without him, I knew I’d never live in this house again, but I wasn’t ready to sell it. Although both city apartment and beach house were more than comfortable, I found it hard to settle in either. More and more, I was carrying the feelings of my home within and the necessities of my everyday living in a practical suitcase with wheels. I liked the flexibility and freedom of moving quickly as my mood so often dictated. However, though movement back and forth between the beach house and city apartment allowed me respite from the misery of having lost the man I’d adored, for more than thirty years, there were still times I needed to stop and let the wretchedness of it have its way with me.

Grief was so often like the bully in the playground. Sometimes it made me skip the joy of life. I’d stay in bed, just to avoid its confrontation. This was so unlike me. I couldn’t remember another time in my life when I felt so sorry for myself.

I’d sulk, until finally I had enough sense , or I was prodded by those I couldn’t see, to pack bags and escape to the beach house to let go some of my weeping and aching for him there. I didn’t want our children, Timothy and Caissie, worrying that their mother was so broken that she might never be fixed. At the beach house, I could lay naked on grief’s sharp edges and slowly peel away the layers of my broken heart. There was no denying grief was a powerful opponent. Many nights, it kept me up late. When I refused medication to numb the sharp sting of it, I’d run hot baths. Steam would fill the bathroom, like mist hovering on an English moor. Submerged in water, so hot that the pain of it distracted me from everything else, I’d lose myself on the moor and let the heaviest of my burden go. I’d blaspheme, blame, and generally feel sorry for me. Hours later, skin wrinkled and ugly, with no swear words left in me, or anyone else to blame, I’d reach for a towel. The process of my rebirth, to a place beyond needing to always be grieving him, wasn’t pretty, but still I was committed to the journey of it. I didn’t just want to be healed from grief; I wanted to be grown stronger by it. However, no amount of positive intention to beat grief was enough. It seemed I was expected to take the crossing through it before I’d ever arrive at the other side of it, a braver, stronger me. But, as difficult as grief sometimes was, I am certain I didn’t do the journey through it alone. When the darkness of it tried to overwhelm and scare me, like shadows frighten a small child, the help I called for always came.

CHAPTER TWO

James M.Barrie

Scottish author (creator of Peter Pan). 1860-1937

My innate knowing told me God’s love was my rescue. I didn’t know whether it was by His hand directly or by the many hands of His army of angels, sent by Him, but God knew the size of my gratitude for His love.

To be clear, God didn’t just show up in my life after Bruce passed. On and off, for all my years, He’s been in my life. More likely, He’s always been the one on in my life when I was more often the one on and off in His, depending where I was in my soul’s evolution of understanding the idea and complexities of God. Like all the characters you’ll meet in my story that enabled me to grow past a state of desperate grief, I believe I owe God the greatest credits. So, before we go any further into the pages of how my unexpected love story unfolded, I want to share my idea of God with you. Knowing my idea of God will help you understand why I read the omens I sensed God planted in some of the more special moments of my life, and hence, why I made choices resulting in me both having an extraordinary love story, and then writing about it.

Let me begin, saying, I don’t see my interpretation of God as being religious. Did I hear someone say Phew? For me, God is behind our ability to innately know something. Religion is about believing a creed, or following a creed because your parents, or elders led you in that direction. In believing, there’s room for doubt. In innately knowing, there’s no possibility of doubt. You know so emphatically that it physically hurts to ignore the truth of it.

For me, God and the religions we recognize today are poles apart. I don’t see a different version of God for different religious orders. I follow the idea of there being ‘One God of All’, whereas I see religions, all those I can name, and some I can’t even pronounce, as man’s attempt to own the original story of God.

I give thanks to a God born of a cosmos far away from a time and place where religions, both ancient and modern, came to be, even the purest of them. The God who comes to me with love comes from a time and place so far back that it’s impossible for man to comprehend the idea of Him and all the possibilities of Him. But let me say that it’s not important you share my view of God to understand the underlying lessons of ‘The Seagull’. It’s only important you know my view so you’ll better understand the choices I made.

Long before the ‘Big Bang’, I imagine there was a force of love so powerful in the universe, that in its explosion, God was born of its energy and in its likeness, because the universe innately knew that love was the essential ingredient for its evolution and longevity. As the universe evolved, past the point of this massive explosion of love, bringing man and woman to be, God’s role was to give every man and woman a soul, touched by the hands of His unique love so that souls would know this kind of love and therefore have the capacity to love as God Himself knew this love. In the interconnectedness of loving souls, the universe would become all it was ever born to become.

It’s not important I know the date of this explosion of love, or why God became of this love: It’s not even necessary I know what the energy of God looks like or where He exists. In the mystery of God, and the road He wants my soul to travel, emulating His kind of love, as I walk my way home to Him, the spirit of my soul will grow in spiritual consciousness to know all I’ll ever need to know when it’s appropriate for me to know it. And though the mystery of God (as I know Him) still leaves many unanswered questions for me, God finds ways to constantly remind me knowing all the answers is unimportant. This is especially the case when I want to hang onto my questions rather than get on with living the life I’m certain He cleverly wrote in the seed of my soul when He found human flesh ready for the uptake of my soul for it to have its inimitable human experience to grow in spiritual consciousness.

When I think it’s all too hard, and I want to set down roots and rest, I am pushed to explore more of my potential. I’m guessing it’s God doing the pushing. I’m guessing it’s He who drives me toward my challenges. I’ve no doubts He knows what’s best for me, even though in the moment of my experiences I sometimes fail to see the value. Anyway, there are just so many questions I can ask God. If I wait for all the answers, I’ll do nothing. Stagnation isn’t my idea of the point of my life, and so I lean on my faith in God, and let Him lead the way.

Innate knowing shouldn’t be confused with religious belief. Planted deep in my soul, the day I was born into my human experience, I’m presuming innate knowing is much deeper than religious belief could ever be. I know it as one of God’s most precious gifts to His souls. Through the doorway of this innate knowing, God speaks to a soul when it’s necessary to direct and support the evolution of that soul’s spirit for it to grow in spiritual consciousness. It makes sense to me that the evolution of a soul’s spirit is the reason a soul chooses its human experience in the beginning. Somehow, it inherently knows that at the point of it reaching its highest spiritual consciousness, God will bring it home to Him to set its evolved spirit free. In its spirit form, it will have reached its highest spiritual consciousness to live eternally in the most perfect love of all. That love, is God’s love. I imagine a spirit will then do God’s work as part of His army of angels.

Through my innate knowing God tells me it’s unimportant how young or old a soul’s human flesh is at the point of a soul going home to Him. It’s only important that by the gifts of its human experience, the spirit of a soul reaches its highest spiritual consciousness.

Some souls will reach this point in young human flesh. Other souls will reach their highest spiritual consciousness in well-aged human flesh. By human perception, some souls will have traveled what appears to be an easy road home to God, while others will have traveled an unimaginable journey of adversity and struggle. When souls arrive before God, all that will matter is that they’ve arrived.

It’s unimportant how many times God will send a soul to live a human experience for the spirit of its soul to become spiritually conscious. It will only matter that a soul eventually becomes spiritually conscious.

Through the open doorway of innate knowing, the soul will hear God speaking through the voice of its heart. All of us have heard this voice speaking to us. It’s a gentle, caring, forgiving, encouraging, wise voice. Sometimes, we’ve questioned from where our unexpected source of wisdom comes. I’m certain it comes from God, when my innate knowing doors are open to Him.

Some will choose to ignore the words of their heart voice, while others will live daily by the wisdom of what they hear, because they innately know, without shadow of a doubt, this is the way they were always meant to walk.

I am certain God is responsible for the evolution and longevity of the universe. It’s a big job. He can’t do it alone. That’s why, once His souls have reached their highest spiritual consciousness they become spirit (also called angels). As God is highly evolved, angels are highly evolved too, but they’ll never be as highly evolved as God. For me, God is beyond the size of our imaginations because His power comes from the massed spirit energy of all His highly evolved souls. As more and more souls become spiritually conscious, the power and possibility of God grows, and so too does the universe flourish. There can, and only ever will be one God. However, there can be as many angels as God gifts souls a human journey.

The spirit of a soul cannot be evolved past the point of spiritual consciousness. This is a state God has determined for souls before He brings them home, and setting their spirits free so more and more angels are born.

I expect the more highly evolved spirits become God’s highest order angels (also called Guardian Angels),