The Divinity of 49

A songwriting experience

Occasionally, inter-dimensional phenomena come along, and among other things, serve as a reminder that there will be no real knowing. There have been more of these this past year than in the whole of the rest of my life, but not like this one. There’s an element in the very nature of grieving that acts to thin the veil down to hardly a wisp of fabric. Death and life are intertwined, fused in a way that I continue to attempt to describe. I imagine that will continue to be the case for the remaining years that I have the ability to do so.

A few days ago, I was outside on the porch deck, under a branch of the giant oak. John Martyn’s Head and Heart had piqued my interest via a British folk station (h/t Scott Hirsch), and I had pulled up the chords and lyrics to learn it. It’s already the time of year that rains acorns, and out of an otherwise calm morning came a few surprisingly big gusts that had them bombing all around me. At first I was a bit annoyed, but none had gored the back of my neck, yet.. and something else was in the wind, too. Someone else. I can’t say that I heard words, exactly—it was more of a sensed “voice”—and my arm hair stood on end. My son hadn’t said a word while he was here either, and still so much continues to come through.

“Can you write me a song, Dad?”

I’ve never been very open to the idea of channeling, though I’ve not been completely closed to it, either. Anything is possible I like to say, skeptically. It’s just that I hadn’t really experienced it so personally, until now. Again, it’s difficult to find language to explain this, but it feels good to try, and that’s more than enough reason for me to do just about anything these days.

With the guitar holding in drop tuning (DADGAD), I started playing. My hands moved and quickly found a chord progression. Words came through, as if someone was reading them aloud from some ancient text. I wrote them down as fast as I could. I had no idea, then, why this particular number came forward.

49 angels from on high
49 days since last goodbyes
You are the sunlight
Holding me
Holding me tight

We never know how it will end
God knows crying helps us mend
Send me more tears then
There’s ever been ever been

Why 49? Where did it come from? As far as I can remember, I hadn’t ever intentionally written it down, spoken about it, or consciously acknowledged it in any way. Yet, it felt familiar. Some mystical talisman that I had been rolling around in my palm for years.

When I need to break
To hide
I look for a light
To show me what’s inside
The darkness of my mind

When it’s my time to go
I’ll open my eyes
With nothing left to know
We can be bright
We can be bright
We can be bright

At the moment Seamus crossed over, the summer sun was low in the sky, and there was this brilliant, golden light streaming in to the room. After a soul leaves a body, we the living can’t be certain where they go, and what they become. That moment, and all that we experience as observers, is to some experiential degree up to the imagination. And to the extent that we can know, imagination is boundless. In our minds, he became light itself, illuminating all that we will see for our remaining time here. I imagine that one day we will again be bright, together.

49 moons across the sky
49 nights I watched you die
If I fall down here
Carry me carry me dear

When nothing is fair and sleep won’t come
When everything’s wrong
And nothing will numb
I sing to my heart
Beating drum
Beating drum
Beating drum

I had never added up the exact number of days that we were home with Seamus. The majority of his life was spent in hospitals, which I had roughly clocked as between 3 and 4 months. When I shared this song with Daron, and my mom, we all wondered a loud at the significance of that number. Mom mentioned that many years ago, in Mexico, there had been a terribly tragic school fire that took “49 angels”. I hadn’t heard of it, and of course found the coincidence of that phrase coming through so clearly rather peculiar. Perhaps my subconscious had noted it at some point among the pummeling waves of ephemera that filter through our baleen, and decided that now was the opportune time to offer it up towards consciousness. I pulled up a 2023 calendar. We brought him home from the first stint in the hospital for 16 days before an emergency brought him back to the ER. Months later, we brought him home again, where he would stay with us for 33 days before we said our last goodbye to his earthly form.

Oh…

He was home with us for exactly 49 days.

I can understand, logically, that my subconscious could very well have known this all along, and that this songwriting process could have originated entirely in my mind. The gusts could have merely been wind. The request could have been my own yearning, for Seamus to be here, healthy, and asking me to play for him. The number could have been dislodged from deep memory by any number of triggers or series of events. I’ve long known every word that was written down, if not the order and sequence. Logic might say with its trademark certainty that magic can always be explained away to some combination of sleight of hand, illusion, and skilled distraction.

I think I was chosen as a vehicle for this song. It didn’t feel like it came from me as much as it came through me. Compelled by the love of my child, the psychedelic nature of processing grief, and the whimsical elements of a natural world that is known to many as God itself. Spirit, and forces far greater than myself conspired here, I’m convinced. The result is a gift of a song in the purest sense that I have known: A direct connection to the divine.

I went downstairs to record it just as it was, just as I sounded. Honestly, I hardly recognize this as my voice.

49 Angels - BWJ

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