Are Guardian Angels Watching Over Us?

My neighbour was wanting to chat over the garden fence, but he said he missed the opportunity as I was walking up the garden talking to a person, according to him. He saw the person quite clearly, but on that day my wife was travelling to Edinburgh and left early and I was alone, apart from the cat. So what did he see? He was insistent I was with someone and I was insistent that I was alone. We both felt the experience was quite spooky. Are ghosts and guardian angels one of the same? Did he see someone following me, a ghostly shade from another world perhaps?

It is nice to believe that we are watched over and that can be a comfort. But, what powers would a guardian angel have? Are they the spiritual warnings of something about to happen? A sixth sense or deja vu when we think we have been to a place before and yet know that we haven't. We all have probably experienced an event where for some reason a sixth sense makes us do or not do something and we are thankful for the warning for example, driving home a different route to usual, not taking a job, pausing before stepping out onto a road. It may seem minor at the time, a lapse on concentration or some such where we nearly do something, but then something else holds us back.

In my novels guardian spirits watch over people and the link to their guardian can either be weak (most commonly) or strong. I explain this as being due to the guardian spirit being an ancestor and the more distant the ancestor the weaker the link. Hence, for most people it is nothing more than a sixth sense.

One of my characters, Lomar, has such a strong link with his guardian spirit that he can set his own spirit free to roam the astral plain. This has its own problems, for if you wander too far from your body it may be difficult to find your way back. Lomar's strong link to his guardian is because his twin was absorbed by him in the womb, so his guardian is the spirit of an unborn soul.

Kaplyn, another character, -- his spirit is replaced by that of a dead emperor from another world. This leads to all sorts of problems, but so not to spoil the plot I won't divulge them here. But, what would that be like, to have an alien guardian watching over you? North American Indians believe in animal guides which must be equally strange, as there is no common language. But, being a spirit would you need language to communicate or would fear, joy or frustration be enough. If someone was watching over me I would like the communication to be clear - which lottery numbers to pick for example. Wouldn't that be nice, to have someone on the other side to tell you which job to take or to pass on some other beneficial steer in life.

I suppose we can only dream and that's the nice thing about fantasy -- our imagination and dream,s can become a reality.