Shalom my Love
by Sunny Ariel

Opening the Door

There's an old Sufi story about the lover who comes to the dwelling of the Beloved and asks to be admitted. "Who is there?" the Beloved asks, and the lover answers, "I am here." But the Beloved refuses to admit the lover, who then wanders for years in grief and longing, finally returning to the Beloved and begging to be admitted.

"Who is there?"

"You alone are there," the lover responded. And the door was opened.

I guess that I started, tentatively, to open my door ¾ just a crack ¾ in 1989. I'd been living in Israel since 1978, and the intifada* was beginning to polarize an already overly polarized country. Magical Saturday treats of baklava and mint tea in the bazaars of Jerusalem's Old City were no longer considered safe for non-Arabs, and I had left "Jerusalem the Golden" for Tel Aviv, "the city that never sleeps." In truth, it wasn't the intifada that got me out of Jerusalem ¾ it was Gadi.

When we first met in the early 80's ¾ I was producing a promotional film for a hotel and Gadi was sent to direct and shoot it ¾ I think I understood for the first time the meaning of the phrase, "the eyes are the windows of the soul." The chemistry was definitely there, but not the timing. I was living with Manny, and Gadi was married. By 1989 we had been seeing each other for four years ¾ Manny was no longer in my life, and Gadi had left home.

I had become friendly with a woman named Miriam, an ex-kibbutznick who worked as a psychic, or medium. Since February 7, 1989, was Gadi's 45th birthday and he was busy shooting Green Fields

(a feature film about the futility and pain of the Intifada), he invited me to spend a couple of days with him at a kibbutz guest house near Jerusalem. Before leaving Tel Aviv for London, I asked Miriam to "channel" a birthday message for Gadi. I gave him the transcription, but he put it away and we had no discussion about it, so that, a couple of weeks later when he asked me to set up an appointment for him to meet with Miriam, I was quite taken aback. Whatever came through must have had quite an impact. Sometime in March we went to Miriam's together and had a session which lasted about two hours. Actually, it's not fair to say that we had a session. It was Gadi's session and, looking back, I understand that it was a "cosmic set-up" and that I was destined to be there that day.

The information that came through Miriam in trance was extraordinary: "There are many moments of soul searching and loneliness which today are quite strong, and the feeling is that you somehow have to break away from the circle you are going around in. You are quite aware ¾ this doesn't mean that you do anything with your awareness. With you, it's a long process ¾ the awareness, putting it all together ¾ when those things happen you have to do something ¾ you can't then stay in the same place. Your lack of confidence manifests itself into thinking that if you make a major change in your life and you don't succeed, you will be left without anything, and it is this fear that is stopping you from making
changes . . ."

But it was Gadi himself who surprised me by suddenly saying, "Listen, I can tell you that I don't believe there is such a thing as death ¾ the soul continues on, I believe it ¾ I even wrote a script about it ¾ but the fact is, we don't know much about this."

Miriam, who by this time had come out of her trance, said, "Do you know how very much proof there is? Gadi ¾ there's so much we can talk about; we've worked on souls for years."

Gadi replied, "Well anyway, the source of life is the fear of death."

I couldn't figure out what he was saying. Did he mean that our fear of death is so powerful that it motivates our lives?

He continued: "About once a year I get into bed with the fear of death ¾ it passes within half an hour. I assume this happens to everyone. When I get into a car or do my army reserve duty, then I'm afraid that something will happen to me ¾ that I'll die. I ask the driver to drive slowly, carefully... when I go to the army, I'm one of the soldiers who doesn't sleep all night. I say, 'Just me the fucking terrorists will get'... but, when I go up in a helicopter, I'm reborn. I'm not afraid of anything... I ask the pilot to do the most dangerous things ¾ I generally hang out of the chopper. Lots of people tell me how frightened they are that their plane will crash while they're airborne ¾ I don't feel that way at all. I had an experience in the Congo three years ago in a small plane through a lightning storm ¾ my assistant cameraman prayed to God... OK, this is it, goodbye kids ¾ the plane flew wherever it wanted to... night... storm... lightning... we knew it was the end. I wasn't frightened even for one second. OK, I said ¾ we'll die, so we'll die. Something that doesn't happen to me on the ground." And then Gadi suddenly added, "In any event, none of us will be able to enjoy our next incarnation because we don't have enough awareness yet."

Miriam answered, "So start being aware. Do things now. Start to investigate, to question, to read. Becoming aware doesn't just happen one-two-three."

Then Gadi said something that really made no sense at all at the time: "Sunny can continue the work."

At the very end of the taped session, Miriam said that she got a picture of an upside-down forest where there was a ball and Gadi was going around together with the ball. She told him that he thinks there is something else, but that all he needs to do is pick up the ball. She continued: "I'd like you to read the information we received regarding awareness and male/female relationships ¾ we get it from the spirit guides ¾ we work on the information for a few years. We get data about the Earth, the stars, general information on souls... when a person dies... information on that soul... information... "and here the fourth side of the tape ended. Soon afterward, Gadi went to the Philippines to film a documentary with an Italian production company, and was due to return in two weeks.

I had a friend visiting London for ten days, and I asked her to bring me Linda Goodman's latest book, Star Signs. I had a weird feeling that this book had some meaningful relevance for me. Linda Goodman is, of course, best known as an astrologer, but her Star Signs couldn't be further from astrology. It's all about the harmonics of the universe, how everything ¾ words, colors, numbers ¾ is connected. The chapters on anagrams and numerology are first-rate. I was particularly drawn to the chapter on numerology. I would learn much more about it later, but at the time I just knew that her system of numerology worked.

Naturally, the first name I "checked out" with the system was Gadi's. His name came to 12-"the Sacrifice; the Victim." What is particularly interesting about the numerological system Linda Goodman uses is the advent of compound numbers that go from 10 to 52; it is the compound number that gives us an excellent karmic description ¾ a kind of "soul reading."

There was Gadi in Manila; the two weeks had already become six, and he seemed to have cut himself off ¾ from me, at any rate. I consoled myself by listening to the taped session with Miriam. It was his voice, after all, and a far sight cheaper than trying to track him down on location. Anyway, I'd been sending him psychic messages to hurry home so that we could find a different spelling for his name to negate "the Sacrifice; the Victim," but I guess he hadn't tuned in.

On the tape, right after he talked about how he felt "reborn" whenever he was in a helicopter, he asked Miriam about a script he had written called Children of Immortality and "if the day will come when this story, which is a fantastic project, will happen ¾ and if this happens, I have no doubt that this will be the 'headline' which comes after many years of dreams in my life." Miriam's response was especially interesting ¾ she actually repeated the information three times.

She said: "According to what seems to be and according to the feeling, this can be a project which you can do and which will be very successful; it looks like the beginning won't be easy ¾ but afterward, it will open up into two directions ¾ even into a direction which you cannot imagine ¾ it looks like a major point in your life that if you go for it, your soul is your engine and that is what makes it truly genuine. Despite the difficulty which will take place in the beginning, it looks as if you can really go for this. Go ahead with it ¾ somehow this project has a totally different nuance to it. It looks really good. It can bring much success and will go in directions which you haven't even thought of ¾ a real breakthrough. This project has lots and lots of strength, and you will receive help with this... it looks as if the beginning will be difficult, but afterward, there will be a huge breakthrough."

I had sat in on many of Miriam's individual sessions, often as a translator, as well as attending her workshops, and was convinced that she was channeling really "high level" stuff. Nothing astral at all. Miriam worked with about twelve different guides and, although she had never actually "seen" them, she did describe their different personae to me. The only one who seemed to know when "they" were present was Pumpkin, my cat. He would roll and purr on my rosewood dining room table whenever Miriam was over Ð that is, until my cousin, Pippa, came over one evening.

She never met Miriam prior to that evening; all she knew about her was that she was a medium. Suddenly, as Miriam was in trance, Pippa leaned over and whispered to me, "There's a tall, somber-looking male holding a sceptre, next to your dining room table, and a short, fat, jolly type on the table where Pumpkin is rolling around." Exactly two of the guides Miriam had described to me! We were six people that evening, and we were all in a state of shock, particularly Pippa, who had never "seen" before this, and most definitely Miriam who, after working with her guides for years, was finally able to have them authenticated by an outside observer. We asked Pippa to draw what she had seen, and Miriam started to resemble Pumpkin had he swallowed a canary as she watched Pippa drawing.

I, too, have been given a divine gift, although only recently have I truly begun to understand and appreciate it. I have been receiving "information" through automatic writing since 1977. I just need to sit down with a writing pad and pen, silence myself for a few moments and take some deep breaths, and I will start to get one word at a time, which I write down.

Back in 1977, I was part of a weekly metaphysical group that met once a week in Philadelphia. It was run by a woman named Joan who used to channel and access the Akashic records. I'd never even heard of the Akashic records. I was the youngest member of the group, and although I understood very little, I was impressed with it. One evening Joan received a message that the group needed a physics equation and that I would be able to give it to them. I laughed and said, "Impossible!" The last science course I'd studied was biology in the ninth grade. The group was not interested in my excuses and told me to take a pen and paper and go into the next room and sit quietly for five or ten minutes. I felt very foolish for a good number of minutes, and then I received something. I honestly thought that I'd "made it up," but one of the group members was a physicist and he said that I'd given them exactly what they needed. I figured that they were just humoring me, or perhaps they were all little nuts.

The following year I moved with my then six-year-old daughter to Israel, where I continued to do automatic writing, though not on a regular basis; and quite honestly, even though I am able to write for people I've never met, I never took it all that seriously.

So, on the 9th of May, 1989, when Gadi had been away for six weeks, I got the following from my automatic writing:

Know this: All that we have been telling you these years is coming to pass now. You felt a distant chord sound within you when you read Linda Goodman's book, regarding your relationship with Gadi. Know this: He will soon return, and we have done our best to bring him to the point of understanding so that he will now be able to come to you and work together with you on both the relationship and a project. We call him 'Luck',* and he will join hands with you, and together you will accomplish glorious things. Be mindful of jealous and ill-intentioned people. You must see that your relationship is needed for both of you to complete the final karmic round, for your love will generate great miracles both with each other and for the world. Soon you will know of what we speak.

I was elated with this information. Gadi had promised me I could produce Children of Immortality, and I was close to producing another film that I had asked Gadi to direct. Although we were not living together, I felt certain we soon would be.

A week later, I got a phone call from my friend Robin, who said she had a terrible premonition that something awful had happened. She told me she would wait a few hours and then call her family in the States to make sure everything was OK. Soon after, I received a call from Judi, who said that she had woken up in the night in a cold sweat from a horrible nightmare. I asked her what she dreamed, and she said, "The number two." We checked in a book of dream symbols and read: "The number 2 symbolizes the end of a relationship." Since Judi was not in a relationship at the time, we were both puzzled.

That afternoon I felt awful and knew something was horribly wrong, but I had no idea what it could be. I felt as if all the energy had been zapped out of me. At 11:30 that evening, I received a call from a producer friend in London ¾ he was one of the few people in the profession who knew about my relationship with Gadi. The helicopter which was filming Delta Force II had crashed near Manila. Gadi had joined the crew and gone up as cameraman at the last minute. Gadi was killed instantly; four others died after getting to the hospital. I later read in Premiere Magazine ("Death in the Philippines," December, 1989) that the entire production was run about as unprofessionally as anything could be run, that Chuck Norris had had a similar accident just the year before, that they had rented a helicopter (the only one they could get) which had been impounded and had not been flown for over a year, and that the pilot, who also died, was not a stunt pilot. I was in a state of shock.

Gadi, as beautiful as Jeff Bridges and Mel Gibson combined ¾ Gadi of the wonderful body no longer had a body ¾ Gadi, who only felt safe in helicopters and in bed with me, had "passed over." I went back to the automatic writing of the previous week and slowly began to comprehend. Miriam called me the next day and said she was feeling that Gadi wanted to come through and may she come over. What transpired that afternoon proved to me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that there is no death...

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Author's Note Prologue Table of Contents
Chapter One Epilogue
In Memorandum

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