The "A" in A-Team stands for Ascended Masters, Archangels, Angelics, and Archetypes. I have yet to encounter anyone who did not have at least two or three benevolent entities attending them. I refer to the entire, diverse, and individually variable group of spiritual beings that surround you as your God Posse. Within that group, the primary entities that assist you on your spiritual mission are personal guardian angels and spirit guides -- which are not the same thing.

Guardian Angels Guard; Spirit Guides Guide

Angelics are non-human spiritual energies that guard and protect you; spirit guides are distinctly human beings -- they have incarnated and walked the earth, perhaps multiple times, and have ascended to the functioning role of advisor or counselor, and are assigned to guide and assist your spiritual development.

When you seek to connect to your spirit guide, you are referring to what I call a Primary Guide -- a once-living human soul whom you have contracted to attend you from birth. Everyone I have ever met, or at least Read for, has at the very least a personal guardian angel and a primary spirit guide. Usually more. The population fluctuates.

Your personal guardian angel(s) do not usually identify as separate from your energy. One of the more frustrating challenges for me was trying to get my guardian angels to tell me their names -- if I asked "What is your name?" I would receive MY name as a response -- "Slade."

If you wish to communicate with your guardian angel(s) as separate entities -- and I do benefit from defining and practicing the relationship in this way -- YOU will have to name them. Willful Naming is still a process of discovery, but it is a matter of your sensitive, creative choice.

A spirit guide, on the other hand, will have his or her own identity, already distinct from yours, including a name, gender, ethnicity, and very much human personality. Your spirit guide will also generally hail from a specific time-period in Earth's history and a geographical place. I would assume this to be his "last life" or the life he considers "most important" or "significant" or "formative" in some way. (Who knows? From our limited perspective the most formative lifetime of experience could've been the most difficult, challenging, or tragic...) It's hard to say with absolute certainty, because I actually do not believe in mainstream, popular concepts of multiple lives, reincarnation, and old souls. I realize I am in a serious minority on this -- even more so because some of the details of our understanding of reincarnation, multiple lives, karma, etc truly resonate with me, while others do not strike me as "quite right." Still, the vast majority of believers alive on the planet at this moment agree about some form of reincarnation.

So, what is an A-Team God Posse?

The popular term "Lightworker" is the probably the best word for conjuring what I'm getting at. Chances are, if you've found Shift Your Spirits, read it on any kind of regular basis, subscribe to these articles, and have sent me an email expressing that I "read your mind" or that my words here ring true for you -- often in ways you might say are serendipity, syncronicity, or some other more intense and down-right spooky phenomenon -- you are probably a Lightworker.

In an older post I regurgitated Doreen Virtue's checklist for helping you identify whether or not you might be a Lightworker. I've also written an overview of Why You Are Here that explains what you are experiencing by engaging me in this way, at this particular time, and in this virtual location.

I can tell you that if you are a Spiritual Blogger, a member of the online community I am proud to participate in and serve, you are definitely a Lightworker -- and I would assume you have an A-Team God Posse, too.

While most individuals receive direct communication or intuitive information from a spirit guide, if you have an A-Team God Posse it indicates that you serve an Ascended Master, God/dess with greater consciouness intent and responsibility. You are also more likely to engage Archangels on a regular and on-going basis. An A-Team God Posse features benevolent spirit entities acting as guides who are not typically found in those roles. In other words, the God Posse who attends your entire mission has been reinforced, augmented, even replaced by different "species" or expressions of spirit than it might normally have been, had you not remembered, answered to, responded to, or committed your life to a more challenging level of leadership and responsibilty.

Generally, were I to connect for a Reading and discover Archies in attendance, it's usually because you are under the temporary support and assistance of archangels -- because of intense life circumstances. They may be intervening or working with you -- even ON you -- in answer to your own prayers for help. You probably have a tendency to seek out the most spiritual assistance and information from a variety of sources when faced with harrowing transformations -- serious medical issues, or major emotional upheavals such as divorce or the death of a loved one, or simply difficult changes that require more energy than you feel you can muster, such as career transitions or relocations.

Sometimes though the presence of A-level entities is the brandmark of a Lightworker -- you have been Called, and serve a more powerful entity with a longer history than your own, and possibly a distinct agenda, under God. (Everything and everyone I'm talking about here is under God -- the "lesser" gods, goddesses, archetypes, ascended souls, saints -- we are all individual expressions of One Source energy, in different packages and vessels. The One Creator expresses and experiences itself through an infinite variety of forms and modes.)

If you are a Lightworker, with an A-Team God Posse, it means that the degree to which you have been called to use your life in a specifically spiritual role is, indeed, a Calling. It's not something you "kinda" do -- you can't ignore the Calling or shirk the responsibility once you have answered or confirmed the Call to serve -- to express your Mission in an obvious spiritual, human context or arena or medium.

This commitment is so powerful and absolute, that no other "success" or endeavor will ever quite satisfy you. No job, amount of money, relationship, or project will fulfill you if it is given a priority position above your Calling. You will always feel that something is still missing -- and until you engage your Calling consciously and intentionally, you will feel fretful, anxious, incomplete -- you may even experience anything you attempt without a sense of powerful intention, anything that doesn't reach out and serve others, to be All Wrong. Lesser -- materialist or selfish -- goals will probably tend to fall apart on you.

You continue to find yourself at dead ends, no matter how promising the outcome in the beginning, and no matter how much you apply your will and give it your best effort.

If you have an A-Team, as I describe it, it means that you have the ability, on this side, to remember where you came from and to retain some powerful link to the Other side. Imagine if you were launched into space, sent to the Moon or Mars, but when you got there, your communication link back to ground control was severed...

"Houston, we have a problem..."

This is the state most people incarnate with and spend their lives operating under. We might call them "lost" or "clueless" or "misguided" or "spiritually destitute." A Lightworker, on the other hand, has "made it" through to this third-dimensional experience with some powerful recollection of his mission -- or more importantly, with an open channel.

With the power, with the knowledge, comes the responsibility to apply it. This only feels like a burden or a curse when you are resisting it -- not integrating your Calling into your sense of purpose. Don't stress out thinking this requires some grand scale project or effort on your part -- don't let the word MORE send you looking up -- it's often just a matter of looking AROUND -- at the content and details of your life as you're already living it. It's more about relaxing your willful control and allowing your higher intent to come through. The better you become at allowing your purpose, and allowing the authentic, creative expression of the life you're already living, the more it will happen, the easier it will be, and the grander the scale becomes.

The action steps required to practice your life purpose and fulfill your spiritual mission are nearly always much simpler than you presume. Whatever it is, you are already doing it. Those who love you and value your unique input already instinctively respond to what that is. You can't see the forest for the trees, sometimes; to move to a better vantage point, look at your life from the perspective of another -- not in judgment -- just take stock of what people ask of you over and over again, the special something you provide in your own unique way -- no matter what your job, your environment, or circumstance.

An A-Team Lightworker Assignment Is Tough

You may go through periods in your life where you can't hear communication from your spirit guides clearly, or you may willfully deny or ignore the information you receive -- because of free will, your spirit guides and guardian angels, your Higher Self, your God Posse have to respect the conditions you impose upon yourself and refrain from interrupting or intervening without your permission.

For most Lightworkers, the connection is confirmed very early in life, around the time that your individual identity is solidified -- immediately following the earliest, initial stage of childhood development. This commonly occurs between the ages of four and six -- with social integration and education stepping in to challenge, muffle, or confuse your inherent spiritual abilities. I've talked to countless Lightworkers throughout my lifetime who recall some intuitive experience, at a very early age, that they would call spiritually significant or religious.

Most neo-pagans, New Age mystics, self-professed shamans, or adopters of faiths that are contrary to their social background, education, and upbringing will recall a profound need to play or express their connections, at a very young age, without the benefit of obvious sources in their physical environment. This is not to discount the ministers, nuns, healers, and counselors who inherit a direct path -- they may have chosen to be born into an environment laden with the necessary support. And, of course, some of us may have specifically chosen life situations and families that are more challenging. Much of this remains the Mystery you contracted to discover in the course of your lifetime.

Want an example of someone else we both know who I would call an A-Team assisted Lightworker? Jeff Lilly engages the god Apollo. And, trust me on this, Jeff hears, receives, and understands messages from Apollo with more accuracy than I could. Generally, I find that Lightworkers discover their own bosses, and do not require psychics or mediums to reveal this to them. Should an intuitive take a peek, they would merely confirm this, or perhaps connect to some other less dominant entities.

There is an impenetrable security surrounding Lightworkers who are consciously and intentionally engaged in their Calling.

Jeff's connection to Apollo, to some degree, defies -- or maybe a better word would be transcends -- his chosen religious affiliation. This supports a pattern in the lives of so-called Lightworkers, as far as I perceive it.

My Kindergarten Confirmation

To give you another example, I was born into a family with virtually no specific social or religious features. I grew up in a community with absolute zero exposure to Catholicism -- even the Christian influences just beyond my immediate family were predominantly Southern Baptist -- yet I was obsessed from the age of four with the story of Joan of Arc and the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. Jesus, I could take or leave -- it was the clairaudient mechanism of Christian mystics and Marian Visionaries that I was drawn to. I wanted to dress up as a Catholic priest each and every Halloween from age 4 to age 29 (the year that I actually DID finally get to don that drag)...

I was aware of my Cherokee ancestry, which, along with the 1970s strain of feminist Goddess spirituality in my extended family, inspired my arrowhead collection and my discovery of earth mounds in the woods behind our little patch of suburbia in upper East Tennessee. I diligently rehearsed and practiced elaborate earth-based rituals when I was only five or six years old -- building stone circles and henges that made me feel ...powerfully consciousness.

The concept of white witchcraft (Wicca) didn't enter my awareness until about the age of nine; but immediately and instinctually I recognized and self-identified with the word witch. Look at your own life for those details that you seemed to recognize more than discover as new. They provide important and literal clues.

As I have already discussed in an article about Why I Blog, my Calling is to serve the Mother Goddess -- surprisingly, to me anyway, in the expression we know as the Christian Virgin Mary. I grow less and less shy about identifying myself as a Marian devotee and visionary. The point of this identity is that in my God Posse, where I normally might have a primary human spirit guide, that role is executed by angelics instead -- my primary spirit guides are a pair of Thrones -- a specific phylum of angel known as the Army of the Queen of Heaven. This assignment or placement was directly orchestrated by Mary, and was one of the most powerful spiritual shifts I have ever experienced. I was two months shy of my sixth birthday when Jane and DJ first stepped forward in my conscious awareness.

Now, of course, it took me almost three decades of worn-out faith and social distortion before I finally began to acknowledge them again with the literal simplicity that I did as a kid...

It is not uncommon for angelics to work in pairs. In my case, I am attended by Jane and her "sister" DJ. Angels have no specific gender, although they do tend to be associated in our perception as either more male or female. Many of the archangels in human history have male names and are artistically rendered with masculine attributes. For me, the Thrones tend to be Amazonian -- bad-ass female-ish entities. Jane, who is extroverted and easy to engage in conversation, refers to DJ as a "sister" -- I suppose for lack of a better gender-neutral descriptor in English.

But, this may confuse you a bit -- I think of Jane and DJ as more like a pair of fraternal twins -- a sister and a brother. I associate some hard-to-pin-down Something about DJ as being the yang to Jane's yin. Jane is chatty, friendly, girly, and out-going; DJ is introverted, intimidating, vocally silent, and intensely focused on more specialized, mechanical concerns.

I call him DJ for two main reasons:

unlike Jane, who stands behind me, DJ is in a seated or kneeling position, bowed over some type of control panel, deeply engaged in a level of information that I can't process without Jane's translation or assistance. I picture him wearing headphones, and operating some type of laptop keyboard or mixing station, like a sound engineer or... a DJ.
DJ communicates with me in snatches of music and lyrics, usually sampled from my memory.

I have learned to interpret the random loops of songs that come into my consciousness -- especially those I wake up to -- as literal messages from DJ.

While Jane acts as more of a guide or advisor -- my spiritual Mouthpiece -- DJ is something more of an Operations Manager -- he monitors my silver cord -- my direct etheric connection to Source energy. He is totally engrossed at all times with maintenance of my physical body and life force. Physical exercise -- particularly yoga -- focuses my attention on DJ.

If you look at the graphics I included in my last article, Visualizing the Invisible, you'll see a simplified graphic depiction of my energy map, showing the position/relationship between DJ, Jane, and myself. According to my perception, DJ is actually the primary receiver of my messages from spirit -- a language that is easiest to process as clairaudient music; Jane translates and interprets that information and shares it with me in conversational English.

There is a layer of information that sits somewhere between the music snatches and the chitchat -- song lyrics. DJ attempts to graft recognizable words on top of the emotional, multisensory content inherent in music by employing lyrics that I then "read" as literal "telegrams."

Next time a song seems to come out of nowhere and begins looping in your subconscious, stop and consider it as a possible form of intuitive information. This doesn't sound particulary Psychic with a capital P... I've heard from you how difficult it is to receive messages from your guides, and when I point out this format, I often see a lightbulb go off in your eyes. Your attention shifts...

Maybe you ARE listening to your inner DJ all the time... And dismissing those Messages as something mundane, or common... So what if they are. Magic is found in the mundane. Your divinity is not supernatural; it's supercommon.

Seek Wisdom -- Practice Love