I play with angels for a living.

Wait, wait. I know what that sounds like.

I know that we're hovering waaay up the woo woo meter.

But here's the thing: it’s true.

Since 2004, I’ve been writing a weekly column about angels in one of the top-selling magazines in the world. I’ve become something of an expert now: having read more than 10,000 personal accounts of encounters with a presence, a healing, helping force so powerful that it can slow time, lift your car, catch you in midair as you tumble down the stairs (or tumble from a cliff), cancel (or un-cancel) a plane; play the one song that would convince you beyond the shadow of a doubt that your special someone in heaven is really, truly with you.

Still, I didn’t always believe in angels... until the angels started playing with me.It started when, about a month into this writing gig, the angels left a feather on my keyboard at the office. A big white one. Right across the keys.“Okay,” I laughed. “Who put this here?” My co-workers looked up, shook their heads. Blank stares all around. Feeling silly, I put the feather in my desk drawer. I was already the weirdo who writes about angels. I didn’t want to make it worse.

A few days, maybe a week, later,  I was working at home when I got up to get a cup of tea and returned to find, sitting on my keyboard, another feather - a long white one.No one was home but me. Cue the celestial choir and the chills up the spine.

Wow.

What I didn’t understand then - but I do now - was that the angels were reaching out to me; offering proof, in the form of feathers - and, soon, more signs - that this was real; that they were real. They were inviting me into relationship with them.What strikes me now as I look back on that moment is this: It didn’t freak me out. I didn’t start crying or call my husband and force him to COME HOME THIS MINUTE. I laughed - out loud.

It was fun.

It was playful.

I responded.“Thank you,” I said to the empty room. “I got it.”  I understood that the angels were offering tokens of appreciation for the work that I was doing, the letters I was reading, the column I was writing. The angels were giving me a wide toothy grin from the universe.

They were playing with me.Since then, I’ve learned a few things about angels:

1. Angels are real. Really real.

2. Angels are not God. They are expressions of that which we know as God - otherwise known as The Universe, Allah, Awareness, or, as my sister calls It, ‘the big whatever.’

3. Angels are messengers; energetic bridges of light between human beings and the realms of the Divine. They are essential pieces in the puzzle of the universe, designed to ferry communication between human beings and God.

I have absolutely no technical idea of how this works. But I have a very keen intuitive sense of how they do it: our communication (in the form of thought energy - prayer or strong ‘asking’) is carried to God; God’s response is carried back to us as miracles - intuitive guidance, signs, and physical manifestations like healing and helping.

Often, very often, these miracles are delivered playfully.

Oh, there’s one more thing that I know: the angels want to play with you, too - even if you don’t believe in angels at all.In my classes, I help people break down their skepticism (and their reluctance to believe they are ‘worthy’ of receiving signs) with this simple experiment: Ask for a sign that the angels are real - and are with you - and when it comes, if it doesn’t convince you, ask for another sign. If you still aren’t convinced, repeat... until you are certain.

The signs will come... and keep coming:  feathers, songs on the radio, heart-shaped stones, butterflies, hummingbirds. I had a student who told our class, “I’m not the kind of person who finds feathers.” That day, she took a walk and found 13 feathers. Thirteen.

During our first week of collaboration, one of my editors called to tell me that her five-year-old son had stepped from the school bus and handed her a feather. “I got this for you, Mommy!” he said. She was awestruck.

How does this work? How do they do it?

If we only knew! From what I’ve observed (and what I sense, intuitively) the angels are able to work with the flow of universal energies out of which all things emerge to fashion forms in specific response to our prayers and requests.

As the angels have demonstrated, again and again, we live in a ‘call and response universe.’ (Another name for this is “the Law of Attraction). In other words, when we call for help or ask for a sign, the angels respond to that call in a way that we can receive. A specific, custom-tailored response.

When we receive the guidance, help or sign, our energy shifts - we ‘brighten’ - and, this delights the angels.

But please don’t take my word for it:

• Test. Retest. Test again.

• Get playful with the angels and open to the possibility that they might get playful with you.

• Open a conversation through prayer; or just straightforward words spoken aloud in the car, in the shower- or scribbled in a notebook.

• There are no specific words you need to use. No hoops to jump through.

• You only need to ask - from the heart - and then, go about your business.

And don’t hover. Constantly watching for your sign can actually block it, energetically, from forming. Just let it arrive, in its own way, its own time. Let the angels show you, as they showed me, just how supportive, devoted - and playful - they can be!

When they do, I’d love to hear about it!I wish you many blessings - and a whole lot of fun with the angels!