This subject is so dear to me, but it’s been a long time since I’ve written about it formally. I think the reason is I could sense I was experiencing a shift in terms of what these concepts meant to me, and out of respect for it and out of respect for my own growth too, I needed to just sit with it.

As a little historical overview, I became interested in the subject of spirit guides in 2014 when I had, what I consider to be, the first of many wake-up calls. I read books, practiced communication, had lots of personal experiences, and even explored workshops on the topic. In 2016, I was working heavily with tarot and had this epiphany that the two elements would go beautifully together. That was when I devised a system to connect with guides with the aid of tarot. I went as far as to designate certain cards to represent different guide types, and then I took that concept and created an online challenge, inviting others to participate and get to know their spiritual teams too.

Following that, I continued to share my learnings with others, provide resources, and even ran a second version of the challenge at the beginning of 2019. Even at that time, I found it more and more difficult to put my understanding of these ideas into words. I became very aware of the inclination to “over-form” these connections and I began to consider that communication with “the unseen” may be more vast than what I’d so far been able to conceptualize.

So I began to reconsider what it all meant and how I’d describe it now, which is the culmination of lots of contemplation, direct experience, inspired insights, the work I do in conjunction with my partner, and other such things. One night as I was considering this specific post, I set the intention to receive some information in my dreams that could help me. That night I woke up around 2 am from a dream that, while technically fuzzy, left me with a more fulsome understanding of the spectrum I will soon describe, and even gave me the title for this article. It conveyed that rather than referring to this phenomena as “Spirit Guides” in sum, it would be clearer to separate the words. In this way, we are dealing with Spirit as a whole, messages or entities we perceive as being guiding forces, and then the “beyond” (that which remains ineffable and intangible).

I think words and precision are important when it comes to these concepts. This is also why I have removed older pieces, taken down resources, and added addendums to that which remains. I simply found myself in a situation where I believed in something so deeply, but no longer knew how to adequately talk about it.

I am hoping this explanation will prove helpful or at least interesting to those who come across it. The remainder of this post will be formatted as follows: A list of general principles that I uphold as it relates to my understanding of this subject, an overview of the “spectrum of spirit communication”, and then responses to the FAQs I receive on this topic.

Yesterday I posted on Instagram a quote about letting your intuition lead, and wrote about a recent TED Talk I'd listened to before going to sleep. It's become a bit of a ritual to queue up a talk and let it glide me into sleepytime. If I do this, I am guaranteed to catch at least one in full, and then I generally end up falling asleep part way through the second.

Part of the reason I love TED talks is because they are so bite sized and succinct. They also make my mission to consciously consume my entertainment super easy. What I mean by consciously consume is to pursue entertainment in a very intentional way. That doesn't mean I never watch fluff, because yes, I like to let go of consciousness every once and slip into fantasy land. I'm human. But, the purpose of this post isn't to talk about ways to shut off - it's about leaning into entertainment in a way that can intellectually and or spiritually...turn you on.