Guiding Our Loved Ones Home By Michael And Linda Quinn

Soul Release Intercession &  The Journey Home: Inspiring Passages From Near-Death Experiences to Comfort the Dying  

Linda and I want to extend our sincerest thanks and gratitude to Dr. Raymond Moody and Lisa Smartt, MA, co-founders of the University of Heaven, for inviting us to write this guest blog. Raymond and Lisa are clear evidence of NDE experiencer Dr. George Ritchie’s directive that “The central message of the near-death experience is that life is inherently sacred and must be lived with blessed intensity and purpose.” 

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A Brief Overview

Okay, let’s state right upfront…witnessing and experiencing death can be overwhelming. But it’s inevitable, like taxes, right? Ultimately, we’re all in the same boat. Nevertheless, the way in which we witness and experience death can make the difference between experiencing great stress and what can be the most sacred and beautiful experience of our life.

If you are preparing for the death of a loved one, or perhaps preparing for  your own eventual transition, a myriad of emotions are probably summoned, including fear, helplessness, loneliness, grief, even wonder/curiosity.

As hospice volunteers for many years, Linda and I have been privileged to assist numerous families and their loved ones who are dying with confronting these entirely legitimate emotions. Their pain is so VERY real.

The heightened emotional states one enters as they ponder, witness or enter into death provoke the question: “Are we helpless at this most holy stage in our lives?”

No, of course not! As you continue to read this blog, we will share with you a profound practice and resource that is ever dear to my and Linda’s heart and the work we do with hospice and the terminally ill. But first, I want to share with you the following personal catharsis.

I used the words “their pain” above. Despite years supporting others’ end-of-life pain, Linda and I had to admit we had a tangible disconnect from their pain. We weren’t in their shoes. Until a year ago.

In October 2017, Linda almost died. It plunged me into an abyss of despair. My hospice experience proved to be of little personal comfort. Me. Mr. Hospice. I was on the verge of losing a 44-year union with my inner compass, my shaman, my bridge between worlds. Linda was my precious soul mate, the one who always created a sacred space in her heart for me, a tender, protective sanctuary where I always felt safe, welcome, and loved unconditionally.

Some mornings upon awakening I’d wish…I hadn’t. I can almost sense the heart pangs of some of you upon reading this. Feels familiar, doesn’t it? And like me, you may have also sought refuge in a warm shower, the water mingling with your tears, the only place you felt safe crying.

And in the midst of my anguish, I pondered living the remainder of my life in a monastery, locking out the world, yet shutting in my pain. Confronted with the teetering-on-the-edge death of my beloved, I now realize I was experiencing a profound spiritual death, my own near-death experience. And I was beginning to learn firsthand how “their pain” felt.

Linda is recovering, albeit slowly. Each day has been a constant reminder for both of us of how fleeting life can be. We have been profoundly experiencing the importance of cherishing every moment as a precious gift not to be wasted.

The near loss of my jewel only enhanced my capacity, our capacity, to extend compassion to our hospice patients and their families. And it re-energized the efforts Linda and I have made over the years to develop ways to assist them.

At this juncture, we asked the question: “Is there a way for everyone to perform an essential role in assisting the dying with their blessed journey?” The answer was yes. 

Soul Release Intercession (SRI)

About eight years ago, Linda and I were privileged to work with Alfred Reynolds, an extraordinary energy healer from South Africa. When he learned of our hospice work, he taught us a technique he uses to assist the dying. He called it the Soul Release Intercession (SRI). Over time, we learned that SRI is indeed sacred medicine and powerfully expeditious. And we now want to share it with you. But first let us share with you an insight into our first experience with SRI.

Compassion In Action

For the last 18 years, Linda and I have volunteered for the Chan Soon-Shiong Windber Hospice Program in Western Pennsylvania. During this time we’ve had the honor of working with their Compassion In Action (CIA) program. CIA volunteers are on call 24/7 to visit patients who are expected to die within 48 hours. Several months after learning the Intercession, the CIA Coordinator called on me to visit a patient named Wayne.

Before every hospice visit, I say a silent prayer, asking for Divine Intelligence to guide me in serving the needs of the dying and their families. Thus it was during my visit with Wayne that I received the Divine Push to use the Soul Release Intercession for the first time.

Note that we use SRI with discretion. Talking with a family about assisting with a loved one’s soul release can be a delicate matter. So it’s important to explain that the Intercession will not hasten the soul’s departure if the soul is not ready to exit. The soul is the observer and doesn’t fully understand the pain and suffering of the physical body. The Intercession brings this awareness to the soul. You are telling the soul that the body is not strong enough to sustain life and the soul must decide whether it wants to stay or go back to Spirit.

After Linda’s brush with eternity, we decided it was time to share the work with hospice staff and volunteers, including hosting a workshop at the March 2018 IANDS Central Texas Conference. [International Association of Near Death Studies.] And as our experience with SRI grew and its receptivity blossomed, we realized that the essential elements of SRI should be made available to everyone. It was a beautifully orchestrated push from Divinity.

Everyone, all of you reading this blog, will at some time be assisting a loved one with their transition. It is a responsibility, an honor you can’t escape, nor should you. Providing our loved ones with a Soul Release Intercession and similar interventions as a means to create a beautiful transition without fear can be one of life’s most precious gifts. We know this to be true.

How Does the Soul Release Intercession Work?

Specific details on the use of the Intercession are available on our website under the Soul Release tab [thejourneyhome.net] and we are personally available to teach SRI and mentor anyone in person or over Zoom who doesn’t yet feel comfortable with the process. No one is excluded from using this method and we strongly encourage everyone to become familiar with it. It essentially involves creating an atmosphere of silence and calmness internally and externally, then introducing heart-to-soul communication with the dying. The room where the actively passing soul lies should be treated like a holy place, with silent prayer and meditation predominating. The atmosphere in the room and in your heart should be conductive to receiving clear spiritual guidance. Remember…we are not orchestrating the process, the dying one is, with the assistance of God-only-knows how many spiritual Beings.

Please keep in mind a verycrucial point in any interaction with actively dying loved ones. They are NOT unconscious. They are non-responsive. They are very much present and aware of what is going on around them, even more so than when conscious. According to my cherished friend, Malynda Cress, an interpreter for the unresponsive dying and death Docent: [www.dying-thefinalhours.com]

“The ability of the dying to animate the body is lost, but their consciousness has expanded to include the non-physical as well as the physical. However, their relationship with both is changing. They are in unfamiliar territory, working in both worlds. Pain, hunger, sound, smell, taste, touch, sight, joy, fear, comfort, discomfort. What was important, now is not. Their consciousness is vastly broadened, more acutely aware.”  

Note: NEVER try to “correct” or “straighten out” one who is dying. NEVER argue, contradict, explain away or belittle ANYTHING that the dying feels. Unconditional love is the only appropriate attitude.

The essential step of communication at this point is calming the soul as it approaches death.

Returning to Wayne

When I entered Wayne’s room he was semi-conscious. His nephew Tom was there, upset that no one else from the family had come to say their goodbyes. We discussed the situation. Soon thereafter, Wayne was non-responsive. I then sat on the edge of his bed, held his hand, closed my eyes, and proceeded to initiate the Soul Release Intercession by speaking non-verbally to his soul. Remember that there is always some part of the loved one that will hear or feel your words, either verbally or non-verbally. Please trust this truth. The power of this step cannot be overstated; the heart and soul of the loved one will feel it deeply, even if non-responsive. The heart and soul are capable of translating all words and feelings.

Also note that the soul communication can be done verbally if family members are present and you’ve explained to them what you’re doing and have asked them to participate. Finding the opportunity with family members to talk about the value of speaking the “It’s okay to go” words to their loved one can be significantly empowering and comforting. These words are sometimes all the loved one needs to hear; they give the loved one “permission” to go. They tell them that it’s okay. Please refer to the Soul Release Intercession section of our website for further discussion on the nuances of family involvement. [thejourneyhome.net ]

The Affirmation

The core element of the heart-to-soul communication is the affirmation. I conveyed this to Wayne non-verbally. The affirmation has to come from your heart; it is not a rote prayer. The essence of the affirmation is to tell the loved one they are loved and cherished, but that their time on earth is almost over. It is time to let go. And if they need to forgive themselves or others for any perceived wrongdoings, they should do it now. They are not alone, now or ever. They have absolutely nothing to fear.

In addition, tell the soul that as they leave their body they will be met by their Angels and loved ones, and they need to accept their help and they will answer all their questions. The Angels and loved ones will take them to the Heaven worlds where there will be no judgments. They will experience love and bliss like nothing imaginable in this world. But this is their choice.

Pink Light Infusion

After completing my communication with Wayne, I asked his nephew Tom to place his right hand over his uncle’s chest and envision a powerful pink light emanating from his hand directly into his uncle’s heart. Now is the time, I told him, to encourage your uncle to let go and return to God. Tom did so, out loud. After a few minutes, Wayne took his last breath. Tom and I both cried, Tom presumably from sadness and me from considerable gratitude that this first Soul Release Intercession had advanced so quickly and beautifully. I was, to put it mildly, blown away. Nothing that Alf taught us prepared me for this!

The envisioning of the infusion of pink light is a powerful technique, joining the loved one and the family in an intimate embrace that is beyond words to describe. Please consider using it regardless of any other connections you make with a dying loved one. I once initiated the pink light ritual with a patient’s wife and their four young children who gathered around his hospice bed, with the patient’s mother participating via Skype video from her home in Italy. Now thatwas a venerable moment, as you might imagine! A few minutes later this beloved husband, father and son passed away.

To participate in the transition of a soul to the next realm is an incredible honor, generating supreme gratitude. It is literally participating in a miracle. Linda and I have used the Intercession many times since being introduced to the method. As we previously wrote, we have come to learn it is indeed sacred and powerfully expeditious, but we don’t pretend to know how it works.But we do know we are all connected through subtle currents of consciousness that continue to fundamentally alter our relationship to and connection with consciousness, with each other. We recognize that a magnificent force far greater than we realize is working here.

The Journey Home: Inspiring Passages From Near-Death Experiences to Comfort the Dying

Another means Linda and I frequently use to assist our patients and their families is our book The Journey Home: Inspiring Passages From Near-Death Experiences to Comfort the Dying. Writing The Journey Home was never on our agenda as hospice volunteers. Linda and I used a loosely-knit collection of NDE passages to provide comfort to our patients and their families. When we eventually reached out to NDE researchers to recommend a published book of NDE passages solely devoted to the terminally ill that we could give to our patients and families, one reply said it all:  “The book you are looking for does not exist. That’s why you must write it.” So we did.

As we wrote in The Journey Home:

 “As you read or listen to these passages from near-death experience stories, imagine that your heart is creating a precious inner sanctuary to hold, nourish and cherish these passages. Thereafter, whenever any fear or sorrow pops up, simply retreat into your special heart sanctuary and allow the comfort provided by these passages to console you.”

There are many outstanding NDE books in print, but we wanted ours to be different. We didn’t want to recount long NDE stories. Patients have a limited attention span. And we wanted to write a book that would be treasured by the patient and the family, a precious keepsake.

We crafted The Journey Home to look like a child’s story book, with simple elegance and a large typeface, with short NDE passages to capture the essence of each chapter. Included are awe-inspiring Hubble space photographs. The Journey Home reads as if we are sitting next to the patient’s bed reading it. Writing in the second person narrative, it provides the patient with the feeling that the stories are their own, that the experience is personal.                              

The Journey Home chapters focus on four typical and uplifting NDE experiences:

• Witnessing inconceivable beauty and Beings of Light;
• Experiencing indescribable, unconditional love;
• Experiencing the complete absence of judgment;
• NDE’ers reporting that they had no desire to return to Earth and no longer had a fear of death.

As one NDEer reported, “The freedom from the fear of death has created in me a foundation of peace that no temporary physical condition can shake. I have a great wish, that everyone could experience the wonders I have, for it would transform the world.”

Linda said she’d like to “emblazon this quote into the psyche of every human on Earth!” Amen.

The Journey Home also has a chapter dealing with nearing-death awareness (NDA), a phenomena many hospice volunteers and nurses as well as many of you have experienced or witnessed. This chapter explains to the patient that “Your deceased relatives or angels are visiting to help prepare for your trip. These spiritual Beings bring comfort and peace to assist you in resolving any unsettled emotional, interpersonal, or spiritual issues, with the goal of a peaceful transition to the afterlife.”

Additionally, we wrote a final chapter called “Forgiveness & Saying Goodbye.” In it, we wrote:

“If there is one thing we have learned during our years of hospice service, it is the importance of forgiveness as you approach your final days on Earth. If you have been holding on to wounds caused by others, we ask you to seriously consider extending forgiveness to them. And it is equally important that you create a space in your heart to forgive yourself for any guilt you may be holding on to for actions during your life or hurts you may have caused another. If Spirit is extending complete unconditional love towards us, does it make sense to continue condemning ourselves?”

Final Thoughts

With these insights into the Soul Release Intercession and The Journey Home, Linda and I are only trying to share with you a glimpse of possibilities into navigating what many understandably perceive as an overwhelming challenge…dealing with death. We hold no illusions that our insights are the be-all and end-all on this subject. But we do know without a doubt that Divinity never abandons us. Please be open to the possibility that departing Earth can be just as a momentous occasion as entering it. As Ecclesiastes 7:1 tells us: “The day of death is even more significant than the day of birth.”

Sacred Acoustics
Linda and I have recently introduced to our hospice work the outstanding vocation of Karen Newell, co-founder of Sacred Acoustics, and Dr. Eben Alexander, author of Proof of Heaven. They are working in tandem with Windber Hospice and hospice medical director Dr. Kelly Warshel to develop recordings uniquely tailored for the dying.

Functioning in a hospice environment is an exciting new venture for Karen and Eben. By blending unique harmonic layering with their NeuralHelix technology, their CD recordings will deliver modulated brainwave patterns to create a profoundly relaxed state and elevate the patient’s emotional and spiritual well-being during this phase of their most sacred journey.  www.sacredacoustics.com

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Michael and Linda Quinn have been hospice volunteers for 18 years. Writing The Journey Home and sharing the Soul Release Intercession are a part of their sacred journey to awaken us to the reality that we are all beautiful, loved beyond measure by the Creator, and that life is full of opportunities to share this profound love with others.

Michael is also the author of Whispers From the New Paradigm;  Chop Wood, Carry Water: Listening for the Whispers; and Suffering From Acatalepsy? Learning to Love the Questions.

 Watch Michael and Linda’s presentation at the International Association of Near Death Studies (IANDS) Conference, Austin, TX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ7EUHMnWlU&t=687s

The Quinns would love to hear from you. You can reach them at  [email protected]. 

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Learn more about how to connect with  loved ones in their final days through THE FINAL WORD, the blog of THE FINAL WORDS PROJECT.