Kathy Collins

press release: In this compelling true story, Kathy Collins writes about a life-changing season of her life when she was bedridden for six months fighting cancer. Close to death she experienced a mystical awakening of the metaphysical world, including messages, visions, and ultimately self-healing through the heart. This journey led her to be of service to others as a hospital chaplain at Meriter Hospital, Madison.

Collins will discuss and sign copies of The Mystic Chaplain: My Story at Olbrich Botanical Gardens on June 29.

If you would have asked Collins years ago if she thought she’d become a hospital chaplain chances are she would have said it was a path she had never considered. But today, she says her work as a hospital chaplain has brought her heartfelt happiness that she never knew was possible.

Now an author of a riveting new book, published in June 2018, Collins understands firsthand what it’s like to be a patient. Suffering from debilitating cancer she saw what is often considered “the other side.”

“I was shown this world and a world outside of ours simultaneously and I saw how easy and beautiful we are transitioned over,” she said. “When I saw this, I lost all fear of death. I try to bring this joyful view to hospital patients who are transitioning and let their families and those who are left behind, know that their loved ones are never far from them.”

Collins’ own struggle with illness played a significant part in writing her story. While she was ill and over the years while recovering, she journaled the mystical events that occurred between 1994 and 2015 before writing her book. “The messages from the angelic realm appear in many different ways,” said Collins. “Sometimes they appear as color blobs that turn into floating hearts and series of numbers like–444, 1111 and 3s and 9s.”

In 2015 when she was reviewing years of notes in her journals, she told herself she needed to share her spiritual messages that had enlightened her life. “I felt there was something here for others so I put the entries in to my book to see where it would lead me.”

When Collins was bedridden she met what she calls her “cellmate.” By another name it is called “awareness.” While ill she became keenly aware of her soul and spiritual transformation unfolding. The blue morpho butterfly, represents transformation and its blue color symbolizes healing, which is depicted on her book’s cover.

Most importantly, she learned awareness is like the wind. “You can’t see it, but you can feel it. When we respond, we heal and open the heart to receive the most powerful medicine known to us – the fire of love, compassion and oneness.”

So how can cancer be considered a “gift?’ Collins noted illness can be an unexpected present that leads us to true healing by consciously remembering universal doorways we have forgotten to open.

“I was shown the need to heal myself from within by releasing my life’s pain story. In the words of Rumi, ‘What was said to the rose to make it open was said to me here in my heart when I met you.’”