Divine Encounters Episode 006 | Near-Death Experience Story
Robin Landsong was an eight-year-old girl in 1977, far from home and in danger in a war zone, when she says a shot sent her out of her body and into a series of realms where she was held, guided and shown how deeply everything is connected. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari what she says she lived through, who she says met her, and what she carried back.
Key Takeaways
- Robin says she was eight years old in 1977 when she found herself in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the middle of a civil war and in great danger.
- She describes being taken in by a village where women sang to her, which she calls her first deep experience of belonging.
- She says a shot grazed her head near a river, and that she watched her life force ebb in and out of her body before moving through a fast tunnel.
- She describes two women in yellow dresses, whom she knew as her deepest sisters, and a golden glowing sphere she remembered she could return to.
- She says an elderly man took her into a dark cave where she saw herself through his eyes and understood that nothing was wrong with her.
- She says the same man showed her that dying is held, guided and graceful, as they fell together through the night sky.
- She says a peaceful being with a beard and a staff showed her a vast web of connection, and that her job is to help others remember how to live inside it.
| Guest | Robin Landsong |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 006 |
| Age at the time | 8, in 1977 |
| What Robin says happened | A shot grazed her head near a river in a civil war zone, and she left her body |
| Where she says she went | A fast tunnel, a golden light, a stone stairwell, a dark cave, a night sky and a green field |
| Who she met | Two sisters in yellow dresses, an elder man who guided her, and a peaceful bearded being with a staff |
| The message | We are all connected like gems, and compassion travels along those lines of connection |
| Note | This story involves war and childhood harm, told without graphic detail |
A Child Who Learned to Read Adults to Survive
Robin begins in 1977, after the Vietnam War, when she was eight. She tells Alex that she was already a survivor of abuse and was surrounded by adults who were not safe. She says it taught her to read people quickly, to sense what an adult needed her to be, and to become that in order to get through the day. Her intuition, she says, was a survival tool before it was anything else.
This is a heavy story, and we want to treat it with care. Robin shares it plainly, and she does not dwell on details. We follow her lead here and keep the hardest parts brief. The focus, in her telling, is on what she says she found when she could no longer fight to stay alive.
Taken Far From Home
As best she has been able to piece it together, Robin says, an adult in her life was linked to recruiting for the war in Rhodesia and took her with him. She does not remember the flight. When she became conscious again, she says, she was in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, on a military base, and every moment was about working out how to survive.
She says there was one moment she defied the man who took her, because she did not actually want to be alive anymore, and she was hurt badly for it. Later she was placed with another man, and he lost her in the bush. Some of the more extreme soldiers found her and took her back to their base. They argued over whether to save her because she was a child or to shoot her.
She says her body made the decision for her. It went into nervous system shutdown, which she calls “a state of mercy” that all animals can enter, and she lost consciousness. If you are struggling, you are not alone. In the US you can call or text 988 any time.
The Village That Sang
When she woke, she says, the man who had won the argument to save her life was taking her away from the most dangerous area to the border between Rhodesia and South Africa. He handed her toward a village. He spoke another language, so he gestured for her to go there. She did not go in yet. She spent the night alone in a tree. In the morning she heard women singing.
Robin shares a little of that singing on the episode, and says it drew her in. The women were grinding corn together, looking at each other, and there was warmth. She had never met adults who were so alive, who lived with music inside them. She says every gesture they made was about the singing moving through their bodies.
In that rural area, she says, white and Black people did not mix, so when the women saw a white child alone, they assumed her parents had been killed. They fed her and took her in. The children came over to touch her white skin and her blonde hair. One of the girls took her to the ceremonial fire and put black ash on her face so she would look more like them. “It was my first softening,” Robin says, and “it was my first deep experience of belonging.”
One of the women sang to her, calling her closer, and Robin says she collapsed into her arms. It was the first mothering, the first time she had been held, in her eight years. She thought this was her new life. The women took her to the river and put clay on her injuries, and sang. Then they asked her to sing back to them. When she could, they considered it a sign that she would be okay, and that the hatred from the harm she had suffered was off her. The river became a positive place for her.
The River and the Shot
One day she went back to the river alone. She did not know a battle was starting on the other side. A soldier who was scouting the area saw her across the narrow creek, dressed in the clothes the village women had dressed her in, and raised his gun.
When she saw the gun barrel, she says, her heart broke. She could not understand how the people of the village could find her valuable and precious and worthy of being part of their family, while he could see her as disposable. She saw him pull the trigger. She says that he was so close the scope was off, and the bullet grazed the top of her head and knocked her off her feet.
She lay bleeding and prayed for someone from her village to find her. That is when, she says, her awareness rose above her body. She looked down and watched her life force ebb in and out. She thought that if it did not go back in and stay, that would be the end. It ebbed out. It came back once more. And then her awareness passed through the back of her heart and into a tunnel.
A Fast Tunnel, a Golden Light and Two Sisters
The tunnel was so fast, she says, but “I was completely held.” She felt she was being carried somewhere by a wise source. There was a freedom in it. “I no longer had to fight to survive,” she says, and could just rest and be held.
When she landed, she could not perceive much at first. Slowly she opened what she calls her new eyes and saw a golden light area with two female presences touching her face. She realized she had a face. They helped her see where she was and gestured toward a golden glowing sphere. She remembered she could go in there and be fully restored, and that the energy of that source would not be diminished by all her need.
The women had dark skin and wore yellow dresses, and she knew them. She remembers them as her deepest sisters, who had always been there to greet her, and whom she had known for lifetimes. If this idea interests you, our glossary entry on soul groups shares how people describe such bonds. They gestured that she could go home to source.
The Stairwell, the Elder and the Dark Cave
But she was not done with her African family, she says. She wanted to stay connected to them, because they were the first people who truly loved her. She wondered where they had gone, and why she was separated from them. That wondering, that not being ready to go home yet, sent her falling backwards through layers.
She landed at the bottom of a stairwell. It was cold, more like iron and stone, and so worn that she knew many people had walked down it before her. She felt disoriented and wished for help. An old, rickety-looking elder man appeared in front of her and offered his hand. She was a very defended child, she says, as many abused children are, and she fought him. Finally she accepted his help.
He led her down the stairwell and through a stone archway into a dark cave. She thought she had it better before. She did not understand then that she had more to clear before she could go home. In the cave, she says, was all her repressed emotion and everything about the abuse. She was confronted with the faces of the people who had harmed her, and she recoiled. She turned to run.
In that moment, she saw herself through his eyes. There was “nothing wrong with me that made the abuse happen in the first place,” she says. It was the deep confusion and lostness of the adults around her. He was not trying to fix her. “He wasn’t trying to fix me or change me,” she says, because she was already okay. When she felt that through her whole being, she says, she was done with the hurricane.
Falling Through the Night Sky
They came out into another landscape with living stars in the sky. She understood that this man could go anywhere, and he had chosen to come and help her so she would not get lost in her own dark cave. Her faith in him radiated through her. She put her hands in his and asked where they were going next.
Telepathically, she says, he told her they were going to jump off the cliff and dive into the night sky. They fell together like birds. He told her this was dying. “I knew dying was held, guided and graceful,” she says. They fell until they reached morning sunrise and the golden glowing sphere again. He gestured her toward it, and then he departed. She was changed. She had some of his wisdom and his allowing grace inside her, and she breathed that in and out.
The Shepherd in the Green Field
Again she thought of her African family and wanted to share all this with them. Again that wondering took her away from going directly home, this time into a landscape where she searched for them. She started to worry. What if they had been shot? She became panicked. She now understands that she was seeing into the future, and that she cried until she was like a storm, and that it was preparing her for what happened later in the war.
After she was done crying, she found another being in an open green field. She saw him as a man with a beard, a shepherd’s staff and robes, a presence of peace. She ran to him and asked how to get back to her family. Before him, she says, she was already in connection, in belonging to her universal family, and she no longer grasped for what she had on earth.
His face kept changing as she stood there. It became a person from the village whom she loved, then someone she did not know, then a lion. At some point, she says, he touched his forehead to hers and she could see as he sees. It was a vast universe of connections. She says she understood “we’re all like gems that we can strengthen our connection with our loving heart,” by being generous and compassionate with one another. When we send compassion and generosity along those lines from our heart to another’s, she says, “we live in the matrix of life.”
She saw herself in the future, visiting every frog, every tree, every mountain. She understood that no matter what, “I’m always in this universal connection.” And she understood that her job is to help others remember how to be in that loving presence, giving and receiving in the heart.
How Robin’s Story Sits Beside Other Near-Death Accounts
People who share near-death experiences often describe a tunnel, a light, a sense of being held, and meeting beings who guide them. Robin’s account has all of these, along with another theme that appears often in stories of childhood harm: a gentle, wordless message that nothing was wrong with her. Her description of oneness, of life as a web of living lines between hearts, echoes what many people mean by oneness.
We share Robin’s account as her own experience, in her own words, and make no medical claims. For the wider picture, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
A Gentle Practice for This Week
Robin’s story shows how connection can begin with something very small: a song, a warm hand, a bit of clay on a wound. If you carry hard memories, you do not need to revisit them. You can simply notice where you feel held right now, and let a little more of that in. If you need support, reach out to someone you trust or a professional.
Her practical message is simple. Send some compassion or generosity along the lines of connection that already exist in your life.
Questions to Sit With
- Robin describes a moment of being held for the first time. Who has made you feel held, and have you told them?
- She says she saw herself through an elder’s eyes and understood nothing was wrong with her. Where could you try looking at yourself that way?
- She says compassion travels along lines of connection from heart to heart. Who could you send a small act of generosity to this week?
This week, choose one person and do one small kind thing for them, without needing anything back. Notice how it feels in your own heart.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Robin says we are all connected, like gems joined by living lines.
- She says compassion and generosity travel along those lines from one heart to another.
- She says dying is held, guided and graceful.
- She says she was shown there was nothing wrong with her, and that she was already okay.
- She says her work is to help others remember how to live in a loving presence.
Please enjoy my conversation with Robin Landsong.
Guest Links: Connect With Robin Landsong
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Robin Landsong?
Robin Landsong is a near-death experiencer who shares her story in this Divine Encounters episode with host Alex Ferrari. She says she was eight years old in 1977 when she was in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, during its civil war.
What happened to Robin Landsong?
Robin says she was taken in by a village after a very dangerous time, and that a shot grazed her head near a river. She says she then left her body, watched her life force ebb in and out, and passed through a fast tunnel.
What did the village mean to Robin?
She says the village women and children were the first people to hold and welcome her. She calls her time with them her first deep experience of belonging, and says it began when a woman sang to her and she collapsed into her arms.
Who were the two women in yellow dresses?
Robin says they were two female presences in a golden light who touched her face. She remembers them as her deepest sisters whom she had known for lifetimes, and they gestured toward a golden glowing sphere she could return to.
What was the dark cave?
She says it held all her repressed emotion about abuse. With an elder man beside her, she faced the faces of the people who had harmed her, and says she understood nothing was wrong with her and that the adults around her were confused and lost.
What did the elder man show her about dying?
She says he led her to jump off a cliff into the night sky, and told her telepathically that this is dying. She says she understood that dying is held, guided and graceful.
Who was the man in the green field?
Robin describes a presence of peace with a beard, a shepherd’s staff and robes. She says his face changed several times, and that he touched his forehead to hers and showed her a vast universe of connection.
What does Robin mean by the matrix of life?
She says it is the web of universal connection that we live in, and that when we send compassion and generosity along the lines from our heart to another’s, we are living in it.
What is Robin’s main message?
Robin says we are always in a universal connection and belonging, and that her job is to help others remember how to be in a loving presence and to give and receive in the heart.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as lived experiences told in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean. Nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What oneness means
- What a soul group is
- Allison Snowden on discovering her spiritual purpose after a brutal assault
- Anne Bayford on seeing past lives with her abuser
- Ana Christina on being saved by the Holy Spirit after a tragedy
- Susan Walter on a child’s journey into realms of light and love
- Ingrid Honkala on what she saw after drowning at age two
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what happened to you when you left this realm.
Robin Landsong 0:03
And so it was 1977. So post Vietnam War. And like I said, exposed to a lot of unsafe adults. And one of them spotted me and said, I believe as best as I've been able to put together, there was a Soldier of Fortune magazine was actually recruiting soldiers, Vietnam vets to fight in the Rhodesian war, because the Rhodesian government didn't have enough people on their side. So theoretically, as best as I can put together, there was a spring edition of that soldier Fortune magazine that was literally in writing like there was an advertisement cumbia man among men, you can have a gun in your hand, and be here will even send you money for that ticket. So I believe he was going to fight in that war. And in his mind, he was going to get a daughter, which is me. And so he watched that I walked home from school and pick me up after right at the end of the school year and treated me. People asked, Did you know he was mentally not Well, and, of course, he was threatening my life right away. And so the strange thing about already being an abuse survivor is I was already quite quick to respond to use my intuition to read adults and figure out what do I need to be to survive their mental thought process? And what how they see me and what do I need to become to be what they need. So yes, he threatened my life. He took me he drugged me, I don't remember the flight. But when I became conscious again, I was in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and on a military base. And my every moment was just figuring out how I was going to survive. And the one moment I defied him, because I didn't actually want to be alive anymore. So he assaulted me, he broke all my ribs on one side. And it was really somebody else pulling him away from me, but they probably threatened him with again, to get him away from me. And so I was hospitalized. But again, this is 1977, during the height of the Civil War, so he just came to the hospital and got me in. And he ended up getting me to another man, I don't know the exchange of that nature that exchange whether, you know, there was money exchanged at all. And that man ended up losing me in the bush. And so from there, again, higher the Civil War, some of the more extreme soldiers, they actually found me, put me in the truck with them, took me back to their base, and had an argument over me whether one wanted to save me because I was a child, and one wanted to shoot me. And, and the, my body just said, I don't want to feel being killed. So I went, I went down, I went into what's called to just nervous system shutdown, which is a state of mercy, all animals can do this. And so I went unconscious. And when I woke up again, I'm the man who had won the argument to save my life was taking me from that most dangerous area, to the border between Rhodesia and South Africa. And he was basically handing me over to a village and he spoke another language, which has been there. And so he was kind of gesturing. Like, go there, little girl, girl, be with those people in that village. I didn't go into the village yet. I spent her night in a tree by myself. I didn't know that animals can climb a tree. And in the morning, I went and I heard the women singing. And their singing is different than my singing, but I'm just going to share just a little bit of that calling what what drew me into connect to them.
*Singing*
And they were grinding corn. And they were together. And they were looking at each other. And there was warmth. And I had never met adults who were so alive who lived with music inside them who their every gesture was about this singing that was coming through their body. And so they spotted me a white child and and keep in mind, this is rural, rural reader there, there's no mixing of races, like white people are over here and the black people over here and so to see a white child, they just had to assume that my parents had been killed, but I was Rhodesian and that I was just running you know, trying to find a safe place myself. So they fed me they took me in the children were really the my first experience of belonging, they were coming over and touching my white skin and my hair that was more blonde then and they really welcomed me in and one of the girls took me to the ceremonial fire and was putting black ash on my face to make me look more like them. And it was my first softening. Like I was so rigid. I was so tense. And it was my first deep experience of belonging. And again, one of the women sang to me. And in that moment of she was calling me closer to her and I literally collapsed into her arms and it was The first mothering the first being held, that I'd ever experienced in my eight years. So I thought, This is my new life, I didn't understand the full context of the Civil War, the women took me to the river and clay on my broken ribs. That was a huge public bruise and again, sang to me. And then they called me to sing back to them. And when I could sing with them, they considered me well, they consider you're going to be okay that the hatred from his assault is off you and you're going to go through life well, so this river was a positive place to me. And one day I ventured back and I ventured to that river. And I didn't know that there was a battle starting right on the other side of the river. And so one of the soldiers interviewed people, they're the best I can put together, he was scouting the area. And so he spotted me right across, you know, this is a very small, small river kind of a creek. And he spotted me there by myself, dressed in the African clothes, and because the women had dressed me as their own, and immediately he brought up his gun. And when I saw his gun barrel, my heart was so broken, it was just, you know, the circle. I knew he was lined up right here. And I couldn't understand other people of this village found me valuable family precious found me worthy of caring for and being part of, and how could he see me as just erasable as disposable. So before I could even turn it around, I was so close, I actually saw him pull the trigger. And I heard the gun go off. And what I now know is that scopes are designed for long distance, so he was so close, the scope was off. So the bullet grazed the top of my head, it blew me off my feet, I fell to the ground, immediately was bleeding out. And I was praying for someone from my village to come find me and help me. And what happened was my consciousness, my awareness went above my body. I was looking down and I was watching my lifeforce AB in and out of my body. And I thought, if that doesn't go back in and stay in my body, that's the end of me. And so it ebbed out. And then I had one more time going back in my awareness went through my heart through the back of my heart, and I went into a tunnel that was so fast, but I was completely held, I was being transported somewhere else. And there was a freedom, a piece of I no longer had to fight to survive, I no longer had to do all I could to keep this body alive, I could just rest and be held and be taken where I was going where this wise source was taking me. And when I landed, at first, I couldn't really perceive very much. But eventually I could have open what were my new eyes. And I was seeing that it was a golden light area, and that there was two female presences with me. And they were touching my face. And I realized who I have a face. And they were bringing me back to being able to see the whole area it was in. And they gesture their hands over to a golden glowing sphere. And I remembered that golden glowing sphere that I could go in there and be fully restored. And that energy of that source wouldn't be diminished at all, by all my need. And the women were at their skin was black, and they had yellow dresses, and I knew them. I remember them as my deepest sisters that they had always been there to greet me and I'd known them for lifetimes. And so they were gesturing Oh, you can go home to source but I wasn't done with my African family. I wanted them to still be part of that I want to be connected to them because they were the first people who really loved me. And so I started wondering, Where have they gone? Why am I separated from them. And this wondering this, kind of not being ready to go home to source yet. Sent me backwards. And I started falling backwards through layers through layers. And I landed in this new place which wasn't quite as warm. It was more like iron record crowd today. And I was at this bottom of this stairwell. And it was it was kind of cold and I looked at this stairwell and it was so worn because so many people had walked down the stairwell and I thought I must be someplace important because so many people have journeyed here before so I was a bit disoriented and I was kind of wishing for some help but but again, I was a very defended child. So this elder man showed up right in front of me it didn't know where it came from. And he looked old and rickety and he was offering his hand to help me out. And again I wanted help but I was fighting him So many abused children do. And so I finally accepted his help. And he led me down this stairwell, this more stone stairwell into, we went through a stone archway into this dark cave. And I thought, Oh, I had it better before, why am I going to this dark cave. And I didn't understand at that moment that I still had more to purify, more to clear out before I could go home to source. And in that dark cave was all my repressed emotion, all my disturbance about having been abused. So I was getting confronted with the faces of the people who had abused me. And I was recoiling and fighting the whole experience. And I turned to him to want to run away. But in that moment, I saw myself through his eyes, there was nothing wrong with me that made the abuse happen in the first place. It was really the deep confusion and lostness of the adults I was surrounded by. And he wasn't trying to fix me or change me, because I was okay already. And when I felt that through my whole heart through my whole being, I was done with the hurricane. And we came out to another landscape that was living stars in the sky. And I suddenly understood this man could go anywhere. And he chose to come help me to not get lost in my own dark cave. And so my faith in Him, radiated through every part of me, and I put my hands in his nice. Where are we going next? In telepathically? He told me, we're jumping off this cliff, we're diving into the night sky. And we're allowing ourselves to fall into this next freedom, this next layer. And so I did that I was falling with him. And we were like birds going through the night sky. And he said to me, this is dying. And so I knew dying was held, guided and graceful. And so we fell through that night sky until we were in morning sunrise. And again, there was the golden glowing sphere. And he gestured and telepathically said, go there a little girl. And then he departed past her mind. But I was changed. I had some of his wisdom, some of his allowing Grace inside me. And so I was breathing that in and breathing that out. But again, I thought of my African family, and I wanted to share all of this with them. And so I wondered where they went, where are they? And that curiosity, again, took me away from going directly home to source and took me down into another landscape where I was searching for them. And I started to get worried, what if they've been shot? What if something has happened to them, and I got very panicked in my search for them. And again, I didn't understand that it was I was seeing into the future. And that again, this was wrong. And then I had this fear that they were falling, they had been taken down. And so I was in that panic, but then again, a grace came through me humbling and accepting. And I cried until I was like a storm, you're down. And I understand now that was preparing me for what was going to happen later in the war. So after I was done crying, I found another being in this open green field.
And he was the presence of peace. I saw him as a man, he had a beard, he had a sheepherder staff and rose. And I ran to him to ask him, How do I get back to my family? How do I get back to connection and then before him, I was in connection. I was in the belonging to my universal family. And I no longer was grasping for, for what I'd had here on Earth. And when I stood before him, his face was changing. And it changed to a person from the village and my love for that man who had helped me bloomed open or it changed to somebody I didn't know and a change to a lion. And at some point, he named his Forward, forward and touched his forehead to mind and I could see as he sees, which was this vast universe of connections, that we're all like gems that we can strengthen our connection with our loving heart, and being generous and compassionate with one another. And that when we do that, when we send compassion and generosity, through those living lines of connection from our heart, to another's, we live in the matrix of life. We live in these universal connections, and I was visiting myself in the future, visiting every frog, every tree, every mountain, an understanding that no matter what, I'm always in this belonging, I'm always in this universal connection. And that my job others to remember how to again be in that loving presence be in that giving and receiving in my heart.
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