I have not posted in many months, though especially right after Lifelines I posted a lot of retrievals, including my brother. In any case, I am working currently in Integrative and Holistic Medicine, and have the occasion to manage advanced  cancer patients and to provide some emotional and spiritual counselling for them as they amke their transitions out of their physical bodies.  Rita was one such patien and frined, with very advanced ovarian cancer. Last Sunday her "energy" came to me suddenly, out of the blue, and let me know she was leaving the physical. I went out of body a little while later to find her and see if she needed any assistance. I found her eaasily, as I knew her energy so well, and she was still in her transition. Her conscious self was floating above the scene, watching her physical death in hospice care. And then she breathed her last breath.

She looked up, and smiled. I thought, that was beautiful, and she agreed. She looked around, and as she looked many other energies and guides became visible. Her aunt and her mother, and many friends, all reaching to her and offering to guide her along the way. She turned back to look at me, and smiled again as she swept away like a wisp of smoke in the wind, and I knew she was home.

The best kind of "retrieval" in my view is one which gives peace of mind and just happens.

Very nice. How do you go about counselling someone in a period near transition? Have you talked with patients having different views about being bodies or more than bodies?

I remind them of the song we sang as children: "Row, row, row your boat....Life is but a dream." And that they are not their body, their cancer, or their pain. Sometimes, when we have time and the course in clear, we take "practice runs" to the other side so that when the time comes to transit, the process is not entirely unfamiliar. And, most frequently I remind them that, "None of us get out of here alive." Even if we don't have cancer...

I'm thinking that for some the most probable transition is going to be somewhere in the astral at least for a while, so a soft-edged map over the areas you know about could be helpful. Glad to hear about your work.