Image: View from the dock at Windgarth House
Tuesday, July 2
Yesterday & today I called on Saint Martin de Porres for healing. For those of you who are not familiar with this great saint, St. Martin had the ability to become invisible, hovered many feet in the air while in deep prayer, and he could walk through the thick walls of the locked monastery whenever he wished. He also managed to feed the entire monastery, the town’s poor, and the town’s animals all from one pot of soup each day. A humble man, God granted him many miracles for others. Saint Martin is often pictured holding a broom because one of his duties was to sweep the monastery floors.
After my car accident many years ago, one of the few things I could do was sweep the floors each day. A friend brought me a book on Saint Martin because the statue of him on the book cover showed him holding a broom - and he has since become one of my favorite saints.
I perhaps most admire his humility.
In any case, yesterday I called on Saint Martin for healing and he appeared to me in the kitchen. As I have often said in these Journals and elsewhere - whenever we call on a saint, they come. Saint Martin is a very gentle saint, and his Light is luminous - all I saw was his Light, in my mind’s eye. He did not appear before me as many saints have. And he seemed to be covering my body with his own luminous Light.
I was made to understand that the healing would be gradual, over time. He is not allowed to heal me completely, all at once. I can only assume that the soul has much to learn from these health experiences, crises - or they will benefit the world and/or other souls in other realms. I deeply hope that the problems and suffering I face and experience will in some way help others, other souls.
Friday, July 14
Cooler again today. Finished proofing Sections I and II of Realms of Light. Diana is putting my corrections in and then sending them back to me to reproof. I will go through these same steps later, with the publisher.
At present we are both working many hours each day on this project. Lost and found a Padre Pio footnote; discussions on formatting; changing a word here or there. The usual.
Saturday, July 21
M. is at Windgarth and I am in town still working on the book. Diana sent me half of the interviews to proof. I am sending her my corrections. Between my being flat on my back and not answering her e-mails for days at a stretch, and her going full steam ahead - we are running into some problems. When I delete sentences, often it reduces the number of pages in a story or interview - which means Diana has to reformat all the pages which follow. I asked her to send fewer stories at a time, to avoid this problem - but unfortunately my plea arrived too late. She e-mailed:
“It's true, there's no method to our proofing madness. It's sheer slog and scramble.
If you have an idea of how we could structure our proofing process, by all means speak up. I've just got the pedal to the metal, streaking down the publishing highway full speed ahead. When I get wrapped up in a production like this, there's only one way to get it done: Surrender to Absolute Obsession.”
I wrote her back and suggested she put my corrections in before she continues to format new interviews. That way I can get caught up to her. Since my suggestion came too late for these pages of the manuscript, I will have to send all the corrections to her rather than type them in myself, i.e. slog through the manuscript and type the corrections into e-mails she can easily understand.
A beautiful day, in the low seventies, sunny. All the doors are open; a wonderful breeze downstairs. Upstairs is far hotter, I am using the AC in the computer room.
I had best get started. It will take hours.