Your Friend, Leyland

A Word from Leyland The offering of this book should be viewed as a contribution to the effort to shift human beings from ego-driven hatred, separation, anger or war, toward living in the now, leading from their spirit, loving themselves, and loving their fellow human. It seems it cannot be said enough. There’s always a new group needing to hear it. The world stands with many humans in the group in which you, Shirley and Ellie, participate. This group seeks lightness, love, caring, and compassion. Your light added to the world will be stronger than the darkness. You are simply adding your candle to that light with anything you contribute in a direction that helps, heals, gives, or shares. What is a legacy of love, my friend? In our view, it is an increase in the Energy of Love, in your circle of connection. If you increase your circle of connection, by extending the spiritual teachings to others, you have increased the love in your world. All energy is a confluence, much as the water flows from the hillsides into a stream. It builds strength and momentum as more water joins. The purpose of this writing is to influence the increase of love in your circle of connection. Shirley, you and Ellie are perfectly paired to do this writing. Your souls made this decision as non-incarnate beings. So much of your lives have been building to this moment, and our group, Leyland, rejoices in the beginning of this project that will bring our message of “All Are One.” Our hope is for this writing to influence many lives, yours included. Our hope is to bring respite and peace to those who hear its message. Be at Peace, All Are One Ellie’s Preface This is a story about a family crisis during my husband’s and my daughter’s concurrent cancer diagnoses, and how it led me on a spiritual journey from fear and self-hatred, toward love and self-acceptance. While the nature of this journey seemed unusual twenty years ago, today it is quite common to have an awareness of and receive direct guidance from the spirit realm. My family’s guidance, from a loving spirit group referred to as Leyland, was graciously shared through our beloved friend and my co-author, Shirley CHAPTER ONE Listening: Ellie’s Story We would like to gently suggest; do you love yourself? —Leyland January 1998 The call. I expect the call, but I don’t want the words the doctor says. I nod my head as he speaks, but denial and refusal play through my thoughts. I say, Yes. I understand. Thank you. How serious is this? Is there an operation? I use my docile voice. After the click of the receiver, there is no one home to hear me. I scream and scream. Not my daughter. I walk in circles. Not my daughter! I scream again and again, lifting my eyes. To whom? God? The heavens? No one in particular? To fate? Not my daughter—now through clenched teeth. Not her. My walking becomes erratic. Images of her childhood flash through my mind. This is too much. What do I do? I didn’t know. I knew what the doctor told me. My twenty-year-old daughter, Laura, had cancer. She had cancer near or within the lymph nodes of her neck. The doctor suggested surgery to remove several lymph nodes on the left side. Cancer. This hated word had become a daily utterance of my family’s vocabulary. We knew cancer intimately. Fifteen months earlier, my then forty-six-year-old husband, Chuck, had finally, after many visits to doctors, been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was sitting on his motor strip, affecting his speech and movement. The doctor had given him less than a year to live. Life briefly ground to a halt as we reorganized our existence to include a new reality. Our priorities shifted from living to surviving. When Chuck was diagnosed with cancer, we still had David and Becca, our two thirteen-year-olds, at home. Laura, our eldest daughter, and her younger sister, Julie, were both away at college, although they came home to help and support, following the initial surgery. When Laura’s doctor called to give me the news of her cancer that January of 1998, I was devastated and filled with fear. Fear had become a constant companion. It affected every inch of my body as I waited with Chuck for his next scan to be read. It felt like my head would burst and my heart would stop, as I tried to cope with the unknown, the inability to control my life in any way. I couldn’t begin to imagine how Chuck, my partner of twenty-three years, felt. Now, my daughter, my sweet firstborn child, kind, caring, and nurturing to all, could possibly begin this journey. Over the next weeks, I began to read and learn how to become still enough to gain wisdom and strength beyond that which I possessed. What came to me was a most precious gift: a strength from the spirit realm that I didn’t even know existed, and a calm that allowed me to continue. This was when my dear friend Shirley introduced me, in a most unusual way, to Leyland.