Natalia O’Sullivan - Soul Rescuers - A 21st century guide to the spirit world

When she first came to join our shamanic retreats in Somerset she was totally inner city London, dressed in black, tramping over the Quantocks carrying a little red umbrella and complaining about the mud. By the third time she had fallen in love with nature. On one of her last retreats she came back from the woods ecstatically happy. She said that whatever or whoever God was she had felt it. She had found herself merging with the nature around her and seen and felt how alive everything was. ‘Spirit is everywhere,’ she said. ‘It’s incredible!’

Soon afterwards she escaped to India, the place where she felt most at home. No one there knew about her high profile life in London, so she was free to just be herself. Portia, who joined her for what would be their last adventure together, had never seen her more beautiful or more at peace.

Some months later she returned to Britain full of plans for the future, although in hindsight it seems as though some part of her knew that she was going to die. She went to see many of her old friends whom she had not seen for ages and, less than a week before she was killed in a flat in London, she said to Portia, ‘You know, I’ve got a feeling that I have really bad karma on this planet. But when I die I’m going to go home and I’m not coming back here.’

After her death, several members of her family and close friends spoke about feeling or seeing her spirit either coming to talk to them as a shadow in the background or as an atmosphere of laughter which was very much her personality. She visited us in dreams. In the first she was trapped and unable to leave the flat that she had died in. I tried to speak to her but she couldn’t talk in words and she would not let me touch her. She looked like a corpse, her face was white and her hair long, unkempt. I remember trying to show her the way out of the flat. Eventually she let me take her hand and lead her out.

Two weeks later I dreamt that we went to a high cliff overlooking the sea to Wales, where her mother had come from. She held on to an orange cord in my solar plexus and pulled herself forward to fly in the air. The pain in my solar plexus was excruciating, as it seemed as if she was using my living, grounded energy to help her. As she flew into the air she released dark unhappy women from under her skirts. It occurred to us that with this action she was freeing herself from the ancestral ties that bound her and that she was releasing these women so that they too could find freedom.

Some weeks later we met again, only this time she was surrounded by a halo of light, holding the hand of a tall angelic spirit and looking light and liberated from the trauma of her death. She told me then that she would attend her funeral and go to the world of spirit immediately afterwards. For proof of her presence she said we would see a cloud of butterflies. She had always loved butterflies.

Her visits to us and others were frequent up until her funeral. For friends and family this was a deeply painful time as their grieving process was constantly interrupted by the police and the press and they had to wait three weeks for the funeral. This was a strange limbo time. Kadamba’s mother was only allowed to see her daughter’s body behind glass. All she wanted to do was to brush her hair, but she could not. The family was not even allowed a priest to anoint the body.

In Tibetan culture rituals continue for 49 days after any death, but with a violent death the anniversary is celebrated every week, for it is said that the soul will return to the death experience each week until the memory is extinguished by the process of purification. In the aftermath of Kadamba’s death we followed the Tibetan prescription, lighting candles and saying special prayers on the weekly anniversaries. Everything seemed more agitated on those days and our grief was closer to the surface. It seemed that Kadamba was indeed returning to the moment of her death, but each week it became less intense. As with the dreams, there seemed to be a process whereby she was becoming lighter.

For our summer solstice workshop which she should have attended we prepared a shrine for her with a photograph, some candles and red roses, her favourite flowers. We continued to light candles and say special prayers for her.

The night before her funeral her body was laid out in the funeral parlour and friends and family sat with her. Many were crying as they sang and chanted. They were finally able to release some of the grief which they had contained since she had died. Portia recalls, ‘Everyone was putting things in her coffin. Rings, flowers, letters, mementos – all went in. There was hardly any room for her!’

At the funeral Portia remembered Kadamba’s words just before she died and at one small moment when a stream of sunlight came through the stained-glass windows her heart lifted as she said to her friend, ‘Go, girl. Fly. Fly as high and as fast as you can. Go home.’

The cortège made its way to the cemetery and streams of people walked to the small hill where Kadamba was to be buried flanked by a Celtic cross and an angel. As we gathered in the brilliant sunshine of midsummer a cloud of pink and black butterflies flew up behind the grave. It was just as Kadamba had told us. Butterflies are a powerful symbol of immortality and despite our grief we felt that Kadamba had gone to the spirit world and that she was safe. Occasionally we feel her presence on the beach looking across to Wales and we know that she watches over her beloved sister Kumari.

Kadamba’s grave has become a place of pilgrimage for family and friends who need to be close to her. During the late summer following her death it looked like a pirate ship – the wooden plinth was laden with pots of flowers, candles, tiny statues and a dolphin wind chime. As summer turned to autumn it continued to grow as more and more people brought gifts and a notebook with a pencil was put in a plastic case for messages, poems and prayers. There were spices from all corners of the world, tiny cars, crystals, paintings, bindies, locks of hair and jewellery. At Christmas Kadamba had two Christmas trees, a full nativity play at the front of the grave and crystals, stars and Christmas cards on the holly bush behind.

‘Her grave is not dead, it is alive,’ Portia laughs as she describes the seasonal transformations of her friend’s grave. ‘It grows. I think she would be really happy with it. It reflects all of her. It is spiritual, wacky, kitsch and stylish all at the same time. She even has a lipstick there. There is an energy at the grave which is so alive. Everyone has put so much thought and love into it. No one has forgotten her and in essence she is still here.’

At the reception after the funeral, as everyone gently tried to celebrate in the sunshine despite their sadness, our older son Ossian came running over to us. He grabbed our hands and pulled us around the house to the other side. ‘Look, look,’ he said and pointed into the sky. ‘There’s Kadamba!’ We looked up and sure enough there she was in the form of a beautiful white cloud in the shape of an angel with the biggest wings you’ve ever seen.

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