In the past three decades of reading for clients, I have met beautiful souls from all walks of life. Every spring, I think of my clients and students blessed with green thumbs, and I wonder how you all are getting along with the season just around the corner.

I also can't help but to remember how much my mother loved this time of year.

The garden back at the old family home was my mother's pride and joy. I remember being dragged to the garden nursery every spring and being relegated to pushing a shopping cart full of seedling starter trays, heavy bags of soil and fertilizer, and new gardening tools. Flower pots, garden spikes, watering cans, trellises. The list seemed never-ending. This was my mother's passion. It was her escape from the mundane.

Springtime couldn't come quickly enough for Mom. The season always began with tulips and Easter lilies, but from there, it all seemed, to my novice mind, a chaotic but majestic whirlwind of vibrant color welcoming the sun and warmer weather. Having watched Mom go through her annual planting ritual most of my life, I know that her fellow green thumbs are out there right now, scouting for ideas and inspiration. And while I must admit that her green genes hadn't been passed along to me--houseplants fear me!--I can, at the very least, take a peek into the angelic mansions for you to see what the angels have growing in their gardens. 

If you're looking to draw a particular angel's energy into your garden space this spring, I lovingly write this three-part blog for you! ​​

I talk about angelic mansions in all my books. I've even covered them on this blog several times, so my summary of them here will be brief.

An angelic mansion is where the source of an angel dwells. Think of it as an angel's personal space in Heaven, a space which arose from divine decree. The Creator encouraged her first children, her first creations--the angels--to create their own worlds. The command was for each angel to create as the Creator creates and make a world to each angel's liking or taste. At this point, the angels had seen countless worlds and watched humans create wonders. Now, it was the angels' turn.

At first, many of the angels were clueless as to how or where to start. They were angels, messengers, stewards of the cosmos--essentially babysitters to humanity. They hadn't exactly done much in the way of creating, but it didn't take long for them to figure it out. 

Requiring no further instruction from the Creator other than, "Go create," Archangel Cassiel was the first to break off from the angelic body to go construct one of the very first angelic mansions. In Heaven, everything is made of light. Cassiel, however, remembered a time when light hadn't yet existed. As much of the angelic body--including the two eldest, Michael and Helel--Cassiel was born before light. He remembered darkness, but at this point in Creation, darkness had been relegated to human dreamworlds. The former Angel of Kings now become Angel of Sorrow longed for the comfort of night, of shadows, and that's what he created in his mansion--a world of darkness.  And he wouldn't be the only angel to do this, Archangel Uriel, Angel of Armageddon, lights his mansion only by the fire of erupting volcanoes. Archangel Raphael, Angel of Healing, locks his mansion at dusk with the amber glow of a setting sun just below an indigo and magenta horizon.

Archangel Michael, firstborn and Prince of Heaven, was initially hesitant about this whole "go build a diorama" assignment, but in his mansion you will find bright blue and sunny skies crowning a shimmering, golden desert that spans as far as the eye can see. Archangel Gabriel, Angel of Annunciation, also loves the blue, sunny skies, but they prefer a more moderate climate--warm, breezy, Mediterranean.

With the now countless angelic mansions peppered across an infinite Heaven, no two are identical, and each is representative of the angel's individual style, which we humans constantly pull inspiration from. These majestic venues are wonders to behold. They are entire worlds unto themselves where souls are always welcomed to visit, lodge, explore, and so much more. I encourage you all, in your next meditation, to visit a few.

​But until then, I've paid a visit to the mansions of our resident archangels here at Atlantean Glow to see which spring flowers, if any, were blooming. Below is a short list of popular springtime plants that I was able find. 

In The Beginning
According to Judeo-Christian mythology, Lucifer fell to Earth after being defeated by Archangel Michael. The naughty angel, said to be consumed by pride and desire for the divine throne, landed on a blackberry bush. He cursed it, spat on it, stomped it with his hooves, and then urinated on it to show his utter disdain for the prickly bramble. In all, that fateful October 11th was a no good, very bad day for who would become God's archnemesis and humanity's fall guy for all eternity.

Early Christians loved this story so much, they decided to deem Lucifer's eviction from Heaven a holy day. To add salt to the fallen angel's wounds, the Christians named this holy day of October 11 “Michael’s Mass.” But when the first European countries made the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, Michael’s Mass--now "Michaelmas"--was moved up from October 11 to September 29, and European Christians still celebrate it to this day.

Dancing On The Head Of A Pin
But if you give just one angel his holy day, all the other angels are gonna start huffing and complaining. Thunder starts rumbling, lightning starts streaking, a village goes up in flames, and then nobody’s happy. Gabriel and Raphael were lucky enough, as they had stellar public relations with the humans. The two angels would be awarded their own feast days in the spring and autumn, respectively. Alongside Michael, that's only three angels, though, and we all know there’s a hell of a lot more angels than that, pardon my language.

​Angels have always been gender fluid. They are divine creatures of spirit who take on a gender identity only to better connect with us, their human siblings. Reflecting back to us our own projections and expectations, an angel may present male to one person, female to the next, nonbinary, or whichever gender in which that person finds comfort. 

"But...but, the Bible calls them 'sons of God, Chantel!'" Indeed, it does. That is how angels were perceived by the writers of the Bible. But the Bible is merely one book. That, and the angels are not and never have been sole property of any one religion or belief.  

The angels are here for all of us. They are here to help guide us through this life experience, and because there are over eight billion experiences happening right now on our planet, the angels will present themselves to us eight billion different ways. There's no need to argue over, for instance, whether Michael is male or female, black or white, blond or brunette, stoic or passionate. He is all of those things.

And none of those things.

Michael is a facet of the Creator, a bite-sized portion of divinity created and designed for human consumption. Such is the nature of all angels. Through the ages and civilizations of our world, Michael has been the warrior angel, vanquisher of demonic forces. (Even that is a loaded statement accompanied by varying interpretations.) But as we change, as humanity changes, so does Michael.

So do all the angels.

When I arrived on the scene with my first book fifteen years ago, I presented Michael as this swaggering, West Coast, surfer dude. I presented him that way because that's how he presented himself to me. Apparently, that’s what I found comfort in, despite having never lived on the West Coast, nor being a fan of the ocean, much less surfing. I don’t know what subconscious element within me chose to dress Michael up as such, but I didn’t question it. I accepted it, despite all the portrayals of angels throughout history. Michael didn’t speak Early Modern English, as the angels in the KJV Bible. His patois was contemporary and snappy with a whole lot of snark. This is how he approached me, and now I can’t really picture him any other way, even though my calling as an angel medium demands otherwise. Recognizing an angel without relying on their appearance is absolutely paramount in my line of work because the angels can easily change their appearance based on the clients they accompany. More on that later.