Have you ever had someone in your life who knew you better than you knew yourself? Someone who believed in you, even when you were too afraid to admit who you really are?

Master Alignment

In 1998 I was introduced to a body of channeled teachings known as Master Alignment; deep, transformative energy work, unlike anything I had experienced before.  At the time I was a mother of three young children, adrift in a marriage where I had buried my dreams and fears.

My then-husband and I both had readings and the accompanying attunements in this modality, seeking an answer to our questions, and my world was blown wide open over night.  On every level I woke up; physically, emotionally, energetically, catapulted into a healing process that took me down deeply, until I learned how to ride the waves and come up for air.  I attended Master Alignment intensives and workshops in Toronto and the US, uncovering more and more truths, recognizing myself for the first time as protective layers were stripped away.

I shared the journey with a small group of friends who were also drawn into their own spiritual revolutions. Marriages ended, including mine, and I found myself facing the greatest gaping chasm of my life as a single mother with no money, three highly sensitive children and a writing career that had been put on hold when I happened to birth my first child and first novel at the same time. The baby had won me heart and soul, pulling me firmly into full time motherhood, and now here I was a dozen years later, just beginning to discover who I really was.

An immense loneliness surfaced in a flood of creative searching, and I learned to study my powerful dreams.  Night after night of childhood trauma began to surface, and I kept a journal by my pillow to capture the details before they escaped at dawn.  Then one day I awakened to find pages of the most beautiful poetry scrawled in my own hand in the dark, a communication I had written down like taking dictation in my sleep. I had no memory of the message beyond a faint echo, like a reverse Deja Vu.  I was shocked and afraid, yet in awe of the primal beauty of these strange words.

Intuitive Awakening

There was only one person I could tell about my experience, a friend with whom I had become very close, as we shared the same passion for spiritual inquiry.  Her name was Ildiko, another single mother whose marriage had ended as a result of awakening energies. I called her right away and read her what had appeared in my journal.  She listened, she accepted, she understood. She immediately felt the vibration of the poetry, and she begged me to transcribe it and email it to her.  Like the well trained English Lit major that I was, for days I struggled to “edit” the pages of words scrawled over top of one another in the dark.  Then on the third day it dawned on me that this was a gift from beyond me, and that my role was to accept it whole, exactly as it was, without any attempt to correct what could not be understood.  Within minutes the words began to make sense in a new way, and I transcribed them for Ildiko.  That first “poem” was called The Gathering, and it remains very powerful to this day.

I continued to keep my dream journal by my pillow, and the transmissions kept on coming, often two or three a night. Then Ildi wanted to know if I could ask a question on her behalf. I agreed to try, and read over her questions before I went to sleep.  Sure enough, an answer was there for her when the sun rose.  I called her and began to read what I had received, phrased in delicate, obscure references that held no distinct meaning to me. I finished and waited for her response. There was silence, and then sobbing into the phone. How did they do it? she asked, these “guides?” They spoke about things I haven’t told you about. They said things you couldn’t possibly know.

Those very early days of experiencing an intuitive awakening, opening to communication from a divine source, were both magical and strange. I knew that I had turned a corner, never to look back. I was a published novelist and playwright at the time, and a part of me grieved, knowing that my own writing was forever changed. My dreams of a mainstream literary career seemed to dissolve into a mist like that of the waters surrounding Avalon. My life would never be the same again.

An experience of receiving “channeled” writings was not something I could share easily with most of my family and friends. Ildiko however, was not only receptive, but quickly became my greatest fan. Her immediate recognition of the power within the words was so much more clear than mine, as I struggled with self doubt. I would hesitate, and she would push.  I would question, and she would shove. I would fall silent, and she would demand that these voices be heard. Now that I think of it, she was my Jerry Hicks.

We were complimentary friends, my more delicate, etheric energy matched by her vibrant, earthy power. I have come to think of her as a midwife to the poems, and in truth they would not have been born without her. Over the years she was the one who suggested that if I could receive in a semi-sleep Alpha state, I could do so in a fully awake Alpha state, and she was right.  Then she suggested that I try using a computer keyboard, to see if my hands would receive via a technology that would end the tedium of transcription. She was right – it worked just fine. Every transmission was immediately emailed to Ildiko as she was the one with a working printer, and she carried them around in her bag, reading, studying and sharing them with everyone she knew. They were the words of her angels, and now she was never without them.

One day as we sat in the car and she struggled with a personal decision about something, she turned to me and said, please ask them and just say it, just tune in and speak the words.  I need to know.  I recall being irritated in the moment, feeling that there was never a break with this gift that had been given to me, and felt the now familiar fear of stepping into something unknown and dangerous. What if I could not be a pure channel?  What if my own human weaknesses crept in and I caused hurt, where I had wanted only to invite love?

But of course Ildi was right again, and after fourteen years of receiving guidance, I now work primarily with recorded, spoken readings. Opening to the guides is gentler than ever, and my own relationship to their teachings continues to evolve. I have been asked, and given answer to, almost any question one could imagine over the years, and received communications from the guides, the highest selves of the living, those who cannot speak for themselves, and from the deceased.

Kanda and Kokoro

On this date, seven years ago, Ildiko quite suddenly left this world to join her angels. Her death was a great shock as she was midwife to more than just me; she mothered and counseled an entire community, including her four beautiful children. She was, as I have discovered, irreplaceable.  When her bedroom was cleared out, some eight or nine boxes filled with printed transmissions were packed up for me to take home. Many contain her scribbled notes and underlines. Some were specifically for her, and one gave both she and I our spiritual names, Kokoro and Kanda.

I had not researched the names at the time, as I was used to the transmissions sometimes containing words that were unintelligible to me.  After her passing I found that particular poem lying right on top of one of the boxes, realized these words must have meaning and looked them up. She was Kokoro, a unique Japanese word that means heart, but also conveys spirit and mind all in one, and I was Kanda, meaning magical power in Native American traditions, or centre of the astral body in subtle energy systems. She never had the chance to embrace her name, but I have come to love mine, with the addition of Adi, brought through by a respected yogini friend. And so dear readers, I turn now to Adi Kanda as my evolving self, and you will find my writings, music and teachings under this name, with my business called Kanda Kokoro or Kanda K for short.  It’s one of my ways of keeping her near.

The Gathering

The very first oracular poem that I shared with Ildiko on the phone that day was called The Gathering.  When I look back now, thousands of transmissions later, I see that what I was given that day was in many ways a summation of all the teachings that would follow. I still find it to be one of the most beautiful of them all. And so I share it with you via this video today, in memory of my fierce and tender friend. May she always guide me and give me new strength to step closer and closer to who I really am. And may her voice always join those of my many guides, the angels who are forever at my side.

much love,

Adi Kanda