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“We were never meant to live life accumulating stuff. We were meant to live simply enjoying the experiences of life, the people of life, and the journey of life – not the things of life.”
~Joshua Becker, author of Clutterfree With Kids

I have a problem and I think I’m not alone. In the process of trying to raise my energy vibration and create positive forward movement in my life I keep running into the same awful truth. I am carrying a LOT of extra weight! No, I don’t just mean weight on my body. I mean emotional weight. I mean financial weight. I mean the weight of things.

Look up from the screen for a moment and gaze around whatever room you are sitting in. How many things, how many objects, do you see? Maybe you didn’t consciously realize that they were there, while you were staring down at the screen.

Now, imagine the same exercise, but differently….imagine looking around the room you are sitting in and seeing only a nice clean side table with a vase on it. Or an empty wall, adorned with one large, beautiful painting and a curtain billowing softly near the window, nothing else. Feels nice, doesn’t it? Do you suddenly feel just a bit more relaxed, more comfortable in your own skin? Less distracted? If so then you have just felt the weight of things or, rather, the putting down of that weight.

For most of us, we have been raised to believe that the pursuit of happiness means the pursuit of things. So much so that we rarely question the truth of it, while going about the IKEA or the Walmart or the shopping mall, or perusing Etsy, Ebay and Amazon. We just need things. Of course, everyone needs things. Sure.

Leaving aside the conflation of need with want, let’s just ask ourselves one question: What do your things really do for you, once you’ve acquired them? If you’re like most of us the answer is, not much.

Stuffitis

Once we acquire something it entertains or serves, perhaps for a few hours, days or weeks and then, eventually, it falls into the background. It gets added to the collection of things. It creates a new base level, upon which the pursuit of the next need is built. It is, in all truth, an illusion. It didn’t make us happy. We didn’t need it after all.

Now, being a pro-shopper myself, I am not casting aspersions here. Only making observations. So let’s look a bit deeper.

As we accumulate things, whether things we use every day, once per season or never, they add up. Drawers fill, bookshelves bulge and cars become rolling storage units. Still, we may rarely get the time to pause and ask ourselves whether this is a lifestyle we are willing to accept. It just is what it is. And, we’re not the only one living this way, so it must just be normal. Right?

Perhaps so. Call it clutter, call it consumerism, call it affluenza. No matter what you term it, the truth is that the majority of us in the industrialized world are suffering from stuffitis! We are living with more and more physical possessions and spending more and more of our waking hours working to pay for it all. The average American has four credit cards in their wallet and not enough time or money for “vacation.” Vacation, the time when we vacate the life we have created in order to head off and briefly live the life that we actually want.

Back to my problem. I live in the biggest house I’ve ever lived in, with one of the smallest loads of stuff that I, personally, have ever possessed and guess what? It’s still too much! My mind is drowning! I’ve begun suffering from anxiety for the first time in my life. I’ve gained weight. My energy is trapped in a cycle of low vibration. My to-do list is full of things I never have the mental or physical space to pursue. My moods are often on a scale between wishy washy and unpredictable. Truly, until I began walking the path of mindful living and deliberate ascension, I never saw a correlation between these things. But, now it is blatant and clear.

Out of Sight Out of Mind?

When you own a thing, aren’t you it’s master? Don’t you have the power over it, to move, use, break or discard it at will? One would think so. But, on the level of energy and manifestation it is not always the case. All manifest things are of equal value to the Universe, to the Creator. Even if you are a being with a higher vibration and a higher consciousness, you will still co-mingle your energy with anything you come into contact with. Add a LOT of things, then that’s a lot of little co-minglings. That’s a lot of energy.

Once you have a plethora of things stacking up, it can begin to feel like a monolith, practically immovable. Add to that the fact that whatever item you take possession of, whether a spoon, a shirt or a car, will never be responsible for you. But, the instant you take ownership, you become responsible for it. You are it’s keeper. You must keep it in your mental catalogue, its whereabouts and its state of repair must be known.

Let’s do a couple of exercises together. Just to illustrate a point.

Exercise #1: Imagine your closet (or bookshelf, or medicine cabinet, or pantry cupboards.) How many items are in that one location, roughly? 50? 100? 200? More?

Exercise #2: Pretend you are sitting in your living room, wrapping Christmas gifts and you need the scissors. Where can you find them? I bet you know right away. Did you picture the drawer they live in? Did you see your hand on the drawer handle? Did you picture your exact pair of scissors, the white one with green handles and daisies all over them? Or the red-handled utility scissors from Staples?

Yep. You had all of that information catalogued in your brain. Just for that ONE item! Multiply that by the number of items mentioned in the first exercise and that’s a whole heck of a lot of mental space! Now add in the rest of your things, your kid’s things, your husband’s things, the things in your office at work and you get to a pretty high level of stress and responsibility before you’ve even woken up to look at your daily to-do list or made that annual glance at your ever-growing bucket list. Always wanted to write a book but haven’t done it? Can you put your finger on a why? I’ll venture a guess: 50% fear of failure and 50% too busy and tired from acquiring and maintaining things! Yup, things. Things and stuff. Stuff stuffs up your mind and saps your energy. Stuff increases your inertia and procrastination by at least 50%. That’s my rough estimate.

So the weight of things is real. It is there, in your brain matter. In your energy. It may be out of sight, in a drawer or a shed, but it is never out of mind. You are storing it. You are waiting for it to be needed, so you can drag it’s card from your catalogue. When necessary your mind will offer up the associated info: location, mental picture of the item, it’s state of repair and what other items may be needed along with it for proper usage. (The extension cord and charger, the matching shoes and belt, etc.)

No wonder modern people complain of lack of time most often, even with all of our faster services, technology and helper gadgets. We are overwhelmed.

Lighten the Load

If you want to raise your vibration, increase your energy and reclaim some of your time and space from the weight of things, where can you start?

Well, for myself, the long and slow push towards relinquishing the hold that things have on me began with the urge to “declutter.” My guru for that stage of my journey was the very funny Don Aslett, a cleaning company owner and author who founded the Museum of Clean, in Pocatello, Idaho. I am the child of one very talented packrat and one mild-mannered hoarder, from a long line on thrifty farmers and resourceful WW2 wives. Trust me when I say that getting rid of things is NOT in my blood. But, Aslett made such funny points in his books and just made it easy to approach my stuff with a keener eye. I took 10 carloads of things to the Salvation Army Thrift Shop.

This was followed by years of world travel, which helped me keep things on the lighter side. But, then came marriage and kids and buying a house. Needless to say, THINGS happened. Lots of things. Baby things, toy things, kitchen things, garden things, tool things, car things, winter things, summer things, parenting book things, school things, work things. Things, things, things!

So, having recently come up for air, and become single again, I asked myself where all my time for blogging and podcasts had gone and why I spend all day cleaning a house that never is and shuffling my kids off to play without me. And, I’ve finally realized that it is a fundamental change that is needed. There is no single round of decluttering that will release you and your energy out from underneath the weight of things. It is the relationship with things, in and of itself, that must be altered.

As a result I have taken a look into minimalism. Not the stark-white-walled-home-with-a-single-aloe-plant-and-a-Poang-chair-in-the-middle type of minimalism but the wow-we-don’t-really-use-most-of-this-anyway type of minimalism, where you begin to understand your relationship to things and how pairing down what you own, along with pairing down what you buy, is not actually a type of lack but, rather, a type of true abundance. I could wax quixotic about this all day, but I won’t. Instead, I will skip the sales pitch and just give you some of the tools and approaches that I am finding useful as I try to go from Clutterbug to Minimalist.

The “Buy It Now” Button

As you go through your things and look for inspiration to do so, you will undoubtedly come across pieces of advice on how to make your decisions about what to keep and what to let go of. Every book on clutter and minimalism has it’s own gem and each one will come in handy in some situations, but not in others. The same is true of this approach. It can be used for almost any item in your house, excepting maybe sentimental and heirloom items. I use it for “collections”, like books, tea cosies, GI Joe figurines or Franklin Mint plates. (Honestly, I only collect one of those things, but you get the picture.) It is very helpful for things that you deliberately purchased, or were gifted, too many of, multiples that were deliberate. It works just as well for things you used to think you needed, like a shoe horn, an ice cream maker or a bacon press.

If you wouldn’t, then out it goes. Thrift it, Gift it, Ebay it or Recycle it.

Here’s how to do it: Pick up the item, peruse all of it’s colours, features and supposed benefits. Then ask yourself, “Would I buy it now?” Picture yourself clicking “But It Now” on Ebay and tapping in your credit card numbers. If you wouldn’t, then out it goes. Thrift it, Gift it, Ebay it or Recycle it. Sounds easy, but it won’t be. At least not for every item. Though it does tend to make the initial step of decision-making easier because asking yourself if you would buy it now is an intellectual process, not generally an emotional one.

After you’ve tried this, then implement the following approach ‘Spark Joy’ on all remaining items. (Do not do this in the opposite order, as some would suggest. I will explain why.)

Spark Joy

By now you have probably heard of the bestselling book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, a Japanese cleaning expert. Even if you are not interested in minimalism, or weren’t until now, you can’t really avoid the book or the trend it has inspired.

She asks people to approach cleaning category by category, throughout their house. You can read more about how she has her clients do it and give it a try yourself. For myself, however, I have decided that this is really a second-level approach to be carried out only after the initial declutter of all my spaces.

She does have one really great tidbit that I am using along with the “Buy Now” Button approach. This is the concept of items adding to the joy in your life.

Pick up an item and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” In other words, does it give you a good feeling?

This can be tricky and, owing to a great channeling that I did a few years back with the Lullites, I want to explain it to you a bit deeper, from the energetic level.

Well, then, this is the actual energetic weight…Yes, it sparks joy. But, it doesn’t only spark joy.

When you pick up a thing, or even glance at it, it can bring in all kinds of thoughts, memories and feelings.

You look at the ribbon you won in the track meet, senior year of high school, what do you feel? Pride? Excitement? Joy? Accomplishment? Okay, that is your first reaction. However, is it also followed by other reactions and thought processes? Do you feel guilty because your best friend, who was a faster runner, sprained her ankle and couldn’t run that day? Do you feel sad because your Mom had to work and didn’t make it to the meet? Do you feel depressed because you’ve put on some weight and can’t run like that anymore? Well, then, this is the actual energetic weight of your track ribbon. Yes, it sparks joy. But, it doesn’t only spark joy.

When you look at your books from college, what do you feel? Do you feel intelligent? Lucky? Or do you feel like you wasted your time? Do you feel sad your career has stagnated? Do you feel angry that you are now doing something else with your life? Jealous that your college roommate is now working in Rome? Then, you know the answer. The negative energy outweighs any joy you may initially feel.

This is why I say to use the Spark Joy approach only after you have tried Buy It Now and several other approaches first. A spark is a quick thing, just like buying a new pair of shoes, it wears off and what does it leave in its wake? Yes, your mother’s wedding photos may spark joy, for a second. Is that a reason to keep them framed on the wall forever?

What would you do with all of your mental and physical space if it wasn’t filled with things that only spark joy when you first pick them up or look at them? How often do you open that scrapbook from your spring break in Jamaica, 15 years ago? Often enough that the little joy sparks from back then are worth trading possible bonfires of joy in your present life?

Process through your belongings, questioning the value of keeping each thing in your life. Ask yourself, does this only add value? Does this only bring positive thoughts and feelings? In this way it will be easier to determine how much you are getting from, and giving away to, each physical belonging.

The Benevolent Box

This is a new one that I am trying out to help me scale back the items I hold onto in my life. It is called the Benevolent Box.

So often we keep things because they once sparked joy for us. We once really, really loved or wanted them. It may be something really beautiful, or valuable or useful. But, we have so many things that this thing rarely gets used or appreciated, or perhaps we liked it so much that we bought duplicates of it.

In these cases you may have a hard time convincing yourself to send it off to a nameless, faceless person via the thrift shop. You will have an even harder time convincing yourself to send it to the landfill.

Enter the benevolent box. Take a look at a thing you are having a hard time parting with and ask yourself if it might spark joy for someone you know. Could your local school use that old fiddle for their music program? Maybe your best friend used to always mention how much she loved that t-shirt? Does the lady next door love baking a heck of lot more and would actually use that earthenware pie plate? Add it to the benevolent box and then send it off to that new, happier home.

I use this more and more and it feels great! You are saving your formerly beloved item from oblivion while putting a smile on the face of someone who actually needs it. Win/win!

The 20/20 Vision

I have to thank Josh and Ryan of The Minimalists for this idea, and it is so helpful, especially in garages, basements and junk drawers. Get ready for it…

If you are holding onto something, or many somethings, that are just taking up space for the “someday” usage, or for that “just in case” scenario, try this method of decluttering.

Just ask yourself, is this something that I can replace for less than $20 or in less than 20 minutes?

Spare toothbrush. Painting tarp from the Dollar Store. Empty plant pot. Third pair of slippers. Bottle of NyQuil from 3 years ago.

All of these things can be replaced easily and quickly if you discover, somewhere down the line, that you really needed them. Most likely, you won’t. In five years, Ryan Nicodemus of the Minimalists has had to replace 20/20 items only five times. That’s a cost of maybe $100 in five years. How much do you pay for the square footage to store those things for the same five years? How much do you pay in time searching through stuff and in wasted energy?

If you can easily buy a replacement, let that unused excess go. Bye, bye just in case. Hello, world of opportunities!

Added Bonuses

Decluttering is a winner! Whether or not your are on the road toward total minimalism or just toward increased happiness and freedom.

While I am by no means close to the shining art gallery of a vision that I have for my ideal surroundings, I can already see some benefits. Every time a spend a day, or even just a few hours, sifting through the energy of my stuff and releasing things that no longer serve or inspire, I get a bounce in my step. Life seems a little less daunting, my mind a bit less confused.

Sometimes I even step on the scale the next day to find that I have shed a pound of body weight during the process. Energy is indeed made manifest, if it slows down enough. This goes for our own physical and emotional vibrations as well.

I feel that I am contributing to improvements in my mood and physical health as I release excess belongings. Not just for myself but, also to the benefit of the rest of my family members.

Whether or not you feel inspired right this second to jump up and begin purging unnecessary items from your life, perhaps just take it under consideration. Leave it in your mind in the coming days and ponder it as you go about doing things in your life. You may notice that certain tasks take longer because you are always searching for lost things. Or that you’d rather get a take-out meal than tackle your kitchen. You may find yourself in a check-out line and realize that you are about to spend $100 on just a few small items. You may go to pay your credit card bill and suddenly understand that you could have arranged a borrowing deal with your sister instead of buying that expensive lawnmower that you use just 5 times a year. You may observe that when you visit a waiting room, a museum or a hotel room you feel less stressed, more at peace. This is because these places are usually open and uncluttered, sure, but also because you, personally have no responsibility for the things in that space. You are, for a short time, free.

It is my belief that if we could all lighten our load a bit it would drastically improve our health, our relationships, our creativity, our connectedness and the livability of this place that we call Earth.

If you’d like to explore the concept a bit further before deciding whether decluttering would benefit you, here are few additional resources.

May your path lead you toward bright joy and amazing experiences! And, may the weight of “things” fall easily from your shoulders to put a new bounce in your step.

Articles:
10 Unexpected Costs of Owning Things

Books:
Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More by Doing Less
Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists
The Joy of Less

Podcasts:
The Minimalists

Videos:
Clearing Your Clutter with WellCast
Why It’s So Hard To Get Rid Of Stuff
Beginner’s Guide To Minimalism

“I’m interested in memory because it’s a filter through which we see our lives, and because it’s foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I’m more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.”

~Kazuo Ishiguro, 20th-Century British novelist

We all have a story. Some of us even have several. Some keep their story to themself. Others relish the retelling of it at any chance. But the truth is that even having a story at all is enough. It is enough to change the direction of our life on a day to day basis. The story makes our connections for us, choses or friends and lovers, leads us to certain jobs and journeys.

There once was a girl who did everything differently. She never lived up to anyone’s expectations and she was always treated as an outcast, a weirdo. Her overly sensitive ways made her an annoyance, or a laughing stock, to nearly everyone that she met and she could do nothing satisfactorily, because she was one of those unfocused, creative types who drop things once they start them and will never achieve any type of success in life.

So, there it is…the story of my life as told by the nagging little pessimist inside my head. It has been my script for decades, a part that I dutifully played and played well. Every relationship in my life, friend or foe, lover or coworker has either begun or ended somewhere along this plot line, which means that the story as told must be true, right? Well, not necessarily.

The mind is a tricky device, kind of like the hall of mirrors at a carnival. Each distorts your vision in a different way and yet each appears so very, very real. The only eyes that we have in this world, and the only mind we have for perceiving, is our own. We can never see or think as another person does, so we can scarcely guess at how they may or may not see us, or the myriad thoughts that may be running through their head at a given moment. This means that each of us is, necessarily, me-centric. It is impossible to be anything else. All that goes on around us must be about us, or caused by us or happening to us. No, need to ask, “is it me?” because of course it is! At least, it is to you.

The Universe, our source, our creator, is a funny thing. It thinks in pictures, creates in energy. It also seeks always to increase, thus is gives you whatever it believes you are asking for. In creation, in the universe, all things are possible. So, in order to deliver you your most desired reality, the source of creation constantly sends to you situations and scenarios that prove to you that your version of reality is right, is correct and true. This is why your story gets reinforced in your life and your reality. But, this also means that you can choose to have your story and your life unfold differently.

Don’t believe that you are at the mercy of your version of reality? Mayhaps you cannot see any evidence of it in your own life. But, I am certain you can see it more readily in the lives of others. (Somehow patterns are much more stark when they are not your own.) Think of that friend who always attracts that kind of guy. Or the cousin who constantly sees themself being victimized by circumstances. Or the neighbour who continually loses their employment in the same exact way every time. It can even be as small as constantly overeating the same food.

Now can you see it?

Think of the last time you sounded like a broken record. Were you having the same argument again with a spouse? Even repeating the same words? Or maybe running around the same circle with your child or your sibling? Have you ever noticed how these things read almost like a script that you are reciting? Surely enough, you are. These situations arise because we keep telling ourselves the same story, both about the other person and about ourself.

Realising that we embody our stories is nothing to be embarrassed or even angry about, it is simply a recognition of truth and a chance to change the hold our story has over us. Releasing old patterns and hurts and blockades to happiness can honestly be as easy as telling a new story, if we wish it to be.

This is why I am recommending that we all engage in a collective re-scripting, both for our personal and planetary stories. Sit down, think about what the story is that holds you, holds us, back. No need to write out that old tale, but do take a moment to acknowledge what it might be. If it helps, you can jot down a sentence or two on a clean sheet of paper. Such as, “nobody likes me the way that I am” or “I am an angry person.” Then, tear it up and chuck it in the trash bin.

Take out a fresh, clean sheet of paper and write a new story. Make it as detailed and long and memorable as possible. It can be your life story or the story of your career or romantic life or your health, etc. Write the story that you wish to be yours. Fill it with all the things that would set a better foundation under the life you are now building and carry you in the positive direction that you want to be your own.

It does not matter whether you believe yourself to be a “good” writer or not, only you will ever read this story. Just write it the best of your abilities, don’t rush this activity. Give other people the parts in the story that you would like them to have. Give yourself the attitude and reactions that you would like yourself to have.

Read the story out loud to yourself and to the Universe. Read it at the beginning of every day. Tweak it as necessary, but read it and feel it every day. Embrace it is your divine truth and see what people and opportunities it begins to draw into your life. Engage with those new arrivals from the place of your new story, not the old one. All the world’s a stage and you choose which part to play.

Here is a re-script of the story with which I opened this article:

There once was a girl who marched to the beat of her own drum. She lived in a way that pleased her and allowed her to explore the truth of her own talents. Her unique sensitivities came across as warm and inspiring to everyone who crossed her path. People came into her life for positive reasons and shared their genuine selves and creativity with her openly. Her friendships became the steady, guiding light of her life. She was successful at all that she truly loved and was able to gently release things which might other wise have distracted her. Life was her oyster and she lived it unencumbered by fear or embarrassment.

Whenever you tire of scenarios, circumstances and emotions that are no longer serving your highest intentions, you can try this exercise and see where it takes you.

Though some stories will be more difficult to reshape than others, such as self-stories that involve abuse or addiction, it is my firm belief that rewriting it again and again in your more positive light will eventually shift it to the new place that you desire. Let your heart lead the way, not your head, and the energy will follow.

Namasté

“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.”

~Theodore Roethke, 20th-Century American poet

Some of you may be aware that, as an herbalist, I prefer self-healing to westernized medicine. Of course I do not advocate skipping immediate medical treatment in cases of extreme illness or emergency, but I feel that all intuition and common sense has vacated the local doctor’s office and gone searching for greener pastures.

For acute illness I do often suggest an herbal or vitamin remedy. They may not always taste like a dream but the results can be seen within about 24 hours and the illness or ailment is often sent packing much faster than the over-the-counter, knock-yourself-out-and-forget-about-it, type of remedies that we are all used to taking.

How do herbs heal? They work on a chemical level to correct any imbalances in our various physical systems and also to kick-start those functions whose sluggishness most likely led to the infection, sickness, etc…

Yet, as I have mentioned here on the blog in the past, all things are made up of light and all light is energy. So the purest and most subtle form of healing the human body, or any living thing for that matter, is energy.

There are many forms of energy healing, the most important one being thought. The power of positive thought has been expounded upon ad nauseum lately, but it cannot be over-emphasized.

My own preferred form of energy healing, for it pleasant effects, is the use of flower remedies. (Because energy signatures are universal, the essences are also great for use on animals for their healing.)

Flower remedies, most famously those of Dr. Bach, are a liquid containing the energy signature, or essence, of the flower from one or more plants.

Flower remedies can be made from the flowers of vegetables, trees, herbs, wildflowers and even the decorative garden flowers that we all know and love.

These simple essential healing remedies are made by infusing pure water with the blossoms in the noonday sunlight. Although I use the light cast during various astronomically and astrological phenomena, noonday sunlight is the most common method of creating flower remedies.

The light beams directly onto your vessel, passing through a floating layer of flowers and carrying their energies into the water.

Once the flowers are skimmed off, the energy water (or Mother Essence) is then cut or diluted using a preservative such as vinegar or brandy.

Some healers then ship the product as is, I prefer to bless or “activate” the essence for healing by stating the properties of the flower or flowers aloud and asking the universe to help it carry out its higher purpose within the life and body of the end user.

The properties of each flower are not made up quickly by some creative mind, but instead come from the energy experiences of test users around the world, from ancient healing knowledge that has been passed down, by looking at the physical design of the plant (often the shape of flowers tells you quite clearly what their usage is) and also from herbalism. Often the herbal use is related in some way to the energetic use of the same plant.

Though they most certainly can heal major physical ailments over time, the most pronounced effects of flower remedies come when used for emotional, spiritual and psychological healing.

I have used them for psychic development, youthfulness and vitality, all with great results. They have been prescribed with positive effect for depression, self-esteem, bravery and stronger will power.

The flower remedy treatment formula, usually a combination essence made specifically for the ailments and needs of the client based on their own answers to some brief questions, can be mixed using a variety of intuitive and research methods.

My general approach is to read the clients answers, get a sense of appropriate remedies based on my own personal experience and then to channel additional suggestions for remedies from my guides.

The end result is a subtle but highly attuned energy essence that benefits the whole person as opposed to focusing narrowly on one desired outcome. This is most beneficial since sickness creates many locales of imbalance and does not operate solely on the element or “symptom” that we have come to notice in ourself.

Flower remedies can also be taken as a solo essence, right from the original dosage bottle. This helps to treat more acute symptoms that come on more suddenly or have built up to an unmanageable level over time.

I have used this single remedy approach quite successfully on myself for treating a feeling of getting old, getting more tired and feeling less energy. Within just a few days that shine in my eyes had returned and my skin looked younger. The essence was Elderflower.

I have also seen this method used for swollen joints, arthritis, stress and panic attacks.

By locating a flower essence practitioner you can get access to your own custom blend of flower remedy, designed to alleviate long-term illness and readjust hormone, energy and mental imbalances in order to bring you to your best possible health.

Please consider doing some research yourself on these wonderful healing essences, the gifts of the universe for our souls. Please incorporate them into your life however you can for I truly believe that healing is meant to be subtle and natural, not harsh and chemical.

Best of Health to You All!

“Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to Love”

~Virgil, Roman poet and mythologist

A little over a year ago I culminated the journey of the Maiden and underwent the rite of passage that delivered me onto the path of motherhood. After 51 hours of labour I became the Mother, gifted with a baby boy who was healthy and bright and filled with magic. As all babies are.

This amazing passage was followed by dazed weeks of cuddling, waking, admiring and crying. Yes, crying. Sometimes I wept for joy and awe, sometimes for anger and confusion. There were so many questions, some related to baby, but many related to me. Okay, how do you get bright yellow poop out of crisp white fabric diapers? And, more importantly, WHEN DO I GET MY LIFE BACK?!?!?!

That was it, in a nutshell. Yep, spot the crafty, travelin’ hippie chick, now feeling saddled to a grindstone with no release in sight. No more writing, no more knitting, no more hiking…my life must be over now. Right?

My pregnancy had been all happy, it had been as “Ohm on a Mountaintop” as I could make it. But that was back when I had some control over my own days. This changed once my new baby was actually out of the womb and into the world. Since his arrival, my Motherhood was fast becoming a bit more of a “Silent Tears in the Bathtub” kind of journey. Not very happy at all.

I really thought this parenting thing would be all fun; kids laughing, everyone cooking together, playing hide-n-seek, decorating Christmas trees and reading bedtime stories. I never imagined a 6-month-old screaming bloody blue murder and tugging on my pant leg with snot streaming down their face while I tried, desperately, to make some darned oatmeal. “Am I am failure?” I would wonder. “Do my more pure, attachment parenting friends have clingy, angry babies too? Why can’t he just be humming in a corner, playing with his Ganesha statue or sit calmly and listen to my chant music? I mean, come on! This isn’t how it works, is it?”

Well that’s the truth of it. Babies are people too. They have personalities. They have moods. They have needs and wants and preferences. And they change as they get older. We are all human. Some days we are giggles and fairy tales, other days we are food throwing and temper tantrums. It is what it is.

Now, I wasn’t so much regretting my decision to have a child. We definitely wanted him in our lives, he had been planned and worked for. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was finding my way on this new and surprisingly more complicated path and not being able to find my own inner peace with all the changes. What I wanted was to make peace with parenthood, to not be afraid of it or overwhelmed by it, to be a better parent than had been passed down in previous generations of my and my husband’s families. But I also wanted to still be “me.” I guess you could say that I wanted to be a good parent to all of us, my son, my husband and myself.

But what to do with the tragic, shell-shocked, overwhelmed feelings that were dominating my days? I couldn’t ignore the truth of what I was feeling.

What I had to do was to go back to my base, which for me is always spiritual awareness. The spirit is always free and empowered and optimistic. So, I practiced quieting myself, over many days, taking a few minutes each day to listen within. And eventually my guides, or guardians, spoke, gently and clearly. They reminded me that I (my spirit) and my son (his spirit) had chosen each other as companions. We had chosen this journey of learning together and we had chosen this time and this place to meet up. And neither one of us existed in a bubble. We were to learn from each other. That meant that I am his parent/protector/teacher and that he is my spiritual teacher as well — my Guru. Our life together was to be the temple, or Ashram, of the Guru and it was therefore a sacred place of dedication and spiritual community.

In light of this message from my guides, I began to pause in my moments of anger and frustration to step outside of the moment and look at our relationship, that of Mother and Son, but also of Guru and devotee. “How can I honor my Guru, my teacher, the divine Source and our sacred community in this moment?” I would ponder. And, over the following weeks, I came to understand that letting my tension and worry dissipate, singing happily at our spiritual connection to one another and doing what he needed most in that moment to comfort him or teach him, with true love and compassion and without any resentment or animosity, was my divine service to him, my “seva” within our sacred Ashram.

Seva, or selfless service, is the spiritual practice of doing something that benefits others and doing so without any expectation of recognition or reward. Seva is done to honor the relationship of God with all things, to honour the essence of God/Goddess/Source within all things and all people. The concept of seva works well here because true parenthood is the place where self and other lose their separateness.

This does not mean that it will always be easy to maintain this headspace. Seva, even though in many temples it will be something as mundane as hand-washing the floors or scrubbing toilets, is the hardest work of all. The overcoming of self, of ego — or rather the melding of self back into oneness while still living in a materially manifest body — is the work of all spiritual paths. It is to lose the defensive, over-thinking nature of humanness and embrace, without any plan of why or to what end, the mindset of loving acceptance of all life and life circumstances. It is the most challenging awareness to gain and just as challenging to maintain. But the reward is the task itself. Freedom from suffering, through the process of loving surrender.

Now some people may say this does not fit their vision of parenthood. Parenthood is love and joy and fun and creativity, right? Yes. All that and more. But it is also loss of self, on many, many levels. You maybe hadn’t planned on losing yourself, but parenting with all your heart and soulful intentions will require loss of self, in little ways, over and over again. YOU are not the main feature anymore, you are backstage support staff. And when everyone goes home and the footlights are turned off, you can creep quietly out from behind the curtain and twirl in the spotlight. But being “seen” isn’t your biggest thrill anymore. You may get a starring role from time to time, but directing and clean-up are really what your life purpose is, at least until someone says “Mom, I got this. Feel free to steal some sunshine, my leaves are bright, my roots good and deep now.”

To be able to understand the peeling away of your excess layers and accept changes to your most dearly held beliefs about why you are so special and what makes life worth living, within the framework of sacred service, is very important for keeping positive and upbeat as your new life unfolds and unexpected challenges are faced. Knowing that it is not all about you, believing that there is divine providence at work, that perhaps in past lives this soul was not the child but the parent to your own small soul, can put into perspective the sacrifice of missing date night or going to bed so early that even your 8-year-old self would have felt gypped, or giving up your dream vacation for someone else’s dream bike or offering the last piece of cheesecake without gripe or waking up to soothe an angry, cranky, fever-ridden child when you just worked the late shift and haven’t even had 3 hours of sleep yet. What matters more, patiently taking 5 minutes to teach your child to brush their teeth for the 8th time or snapping at them and tucking them, crying, into bed so you can get that 5 extra minutes of “relaxation” time with a book or a cigarette or a movie?

Yes, you need “you” time and you will know when to put yourself first — no one is saying that neglecting your own physical and mental health is a smart or spiritual way to parent — but taking the “you” time in a peaceful and flowing way and making sure that your children know love and a balanced foundation is not only possible but totally manageable. Put a rhythm in place, in your home and in your thought processes, that builds a support network for your seva and for your “ego,” as well as for the your children’s unfolding and exploration of life and self and the world. Teach them seva as well, so they can appreciate the gift of selfless service. Take one holiday out of the yearly calendar and cancel your family celebrations to instead create a celebration of Earth or of community or of health. Whichever feels most age-appropriate for your children.

Every child is different and constantly changing, which means their needs and your service will be changing as well. Yes, our little one was once screaming whenever I cooked and making me take him to the toilet with me. But that wasn’t “who” he was, it was just “what” he needed. Now our son is calm and curious, talkative and very sensitive to the emotions of others. He is joy. Except when he’s not. Because sometimes they just won’t be. When they don’t sleep good, or are learning new social behaviors or cutting a new tooth, they can be angry and weepy, throwing and shouting. But all that this behavior says is “I need a different Mama today. I need MORE Mama today.” So, in service to the highest good of our spiritual connection, what I do is set aside my plans for that day. I breath one deep, calming breath. Then I open my arms wide and give in. I give everything I’ve got, with peace and love and presence. Because tomorrow he will be calm and sweet and curious again. That child is this child, one and the same. One day he will become a man, and he will have a foundation that says, “Love is given freely. You are lovable on every day, not just the good days.” He will know that service to the ones you love, to what you believe in, is divine even when it is not easy or not fun.

And he is giving me gifts as well. I have learned so much from my son already. I have learned so much about myself, what is true about me and what were just wrong assumptions. I feel that he teaches me even in his sleep.

I like to bow to him, in his calm and in his frustration, and say “Namaste”, meaning “the divine that resides within me honors that which is divine within you.”

It was remembering and including our spirits that helped me to improve our life together, but I can still recall the sharp pain of how it felt before. It all seemed so tragic then, like I had lost myself forever and was doomed to a long, walking death. Many new parents must find themselves in this same, painful mindframe at first. Now I can see how wrong I was.

It’s not that you “lose” your self in becoming a parent, it is more that self is no longer your primary function on this planet. You might say that you have less time for self-ish-ness. You will not always be able to sleep when you want to, eat when you want to or even pee when you want to. Will you see these moments as angering, frustrating, resentful? Resentment is certainly there, lingering on the sidelines, waiting to take hold. But parenthood is the shift from how the “me” feels and what the “me” wants to a new paradigm of “we”, especially for the primary caregiver. You and this little soul have made a pact with each other, to be teachers and learners of each other and of life, together. As a parent, you hope the majority of the lessons you teach will be good ones. Using Seva in your understanding of parenthood is a tool that can remind you, when times get difficult, of your gift to your child and of their gifts to you. Accept service with peace and openness and watch for the little miracles and unexpected joys along the way. Life unfolding is a wild ride and the scenery is extraordinary.

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

~Buddha

No one person, place or thing in this life is constant perfection. There is ebb and flow, give and take, constant change in all things.

Living in balance with the disappointment that we feel in any one particular moment of our life is the challenge that we all face as walkers on the path toward connection with spirit.

Remembering our true divine nature, even amidst the ravages of the modern world, is the compass that will guide us to a steady stride on a wobbly path. We have all chosen to incarnate NOW, here in THIS body, in THIS life.

The WHY is not a quest, it is a process. Living to our highest capability, with the most open and loving heart that we can, at all times, is the only thing that will bring us to the answer. And the answer WILL come, at the end of a life well-lived.

Only then can we know the true value of the grievances and graces that have been bestowed upon us by our creator/creatrix, the ALL consciousness that is universal love and awareness.

What guides us is our connection to that divinity, a connection which we each possess, every moment of our life. Nothing external, or internal for that matter, can diminish this sacred connection. All that is diminished is our AWARENESS of the divine connection.

How can we maintain this awareness? How can we be divine even in the most harrowing of moments? By consulting our own inner compass. By checking in with that small, honest voice inside of ourself. This is the spirit, the heart, the higher self, whatever you wish to call it.

This voice of truth, of universal love and spirit is always with us, always speaking. The trouble in hearing it lies only in remembering to listen.

This voice does not have any connection at all to the Ego, that self-preserving, self-aggrandizing voice that comes installed along with our physical body. This “Ego” is a standard option, one that we don’t necessarily ask for but which, nevertheless, we become dependent upon once we start driving the car, so to speak.

True inner voice speaks in tender ways. It is a gentle guide. It does not scream “No!” at us from every corner. True inner voice does not chastise or seek to employ fear as a means of manipulating decision-making.

True self, the inner compass, remains constant and balanced at all times. It is the conscience observer, the neutral witness to all the happenings on the path of your life.

It can understand how YOU think of things as negative or positive, but IT does not hold opinions such as these.

The inner compass can see the benefit in all things, can remain calm and still, remain whole, even when events transpire that attempt to rip the “self” -the Ego- in pieces.

This is why learning to listen, to tap into the voice of the inner compass is so central to spiritual development. Our seeking may be outward but, on a spiritual path, our answers lie inward.

When we act from Ego, without giving the true inner compass a say in proceedings, we are never sure of ourself, never know if the step we are about to take is the right step. Self-doubt, naturally, ensues.

But imagine if you could call on a friend, someone that you think of as wise and fair. Imagine being able to always have an objective opinion, uncolored by desire or emotion, someone who could give you a balanced, unbiased point-of-view on every decision that you were faced with. (A friend who never says “I told you so.”)

That would be so comforting, wouldn’t it? You would feel so much more secure in your decisions then.

Well luckily you have a friend like that, and I do, everyone does. It is the true self, the inner voice, the spirit compass. We can choose to let it guide us any day, in any situation, and it will.

STOP, for a flash of a moment, the troubles (whatever they may be) that are reeling around in your conscious, Ego-centered mind. Let the subtle, true voice of your inner compass say a line. Let the spiritual observer speak for just half of a half of moment.

That one line from your inner self may very well change circumstances, and point your energies in a whole new direction. A direction of peace and acceptance, a realization of the opportunities and options that the universe has laid before you.

Herein lies the lessons that you chose for your delicate soul in this physical plane. Take that inner peace and accept the true value of it.

That is the basis of freedom from suffering.

“A cheerful frame of mind, reinforced by relaxation… is the medicine that puts all ghosts of fear on the run.”

~ George Matthew Adams, American newspaper columnist

I have heard from several folks who have a variety of issues in their homes and personal lives that they believe to be caused by spirits, negative energies and other people. Here is a short primer on some ways to deal with several of these issues…

GHOSTLY ACTIVITY

Firstly, much ghostly activity is actually negative turbulence that builds up from the people who live in the house. This can come from thoughts, words and actions…such as having arguments with others, feeling depressed, crying a lot or illness. Some houses hold it more than others due to the way light flows in the structure or due to what kind of rock the house is built over.

How to combat this:

1. Get some copper wire and twist several strands of it together while you are thinking about grounding out the negativity in the structure. You want to make four separate pieces of at least 12 inches in length. Then go outside and at the corners of your building, tack or nail one to each corner of the foundation (even if its a brick foundation) and stick the other end of it down into the ground. (If you live in an apartment try putting it behind a bush or a planter or something so as not to weird out the neighbors. However if you cannot hide it, don’t worry, humans in general are unobservant and if you do it after dark they will take no notice of it the next morning. Begin in the east and work COUNTER-clockwise until you finish in the south….remember, these are for grounding energies OUT, not for bringing energies UP.

2. You want to smudge the house or apartment COUNTER-clockwise beginning at the highest point and moving to the lowest point….saying something like “I banish from this home all wayward negativities, any and all spirits and elementals of ill intent and I protect this home from prying eyes, both incarnate and astral. Then, as you continue saying this, walk the energies to the door…cast them outside and shut the door on them.

3. Place a line of sea salt from left to right across all windowsills and entry doors. (Don’t worry if the kids or the pets get a hold of it…it will not hurt them) A note: some mystically person will eventually tell you to use Black Salt…DON”T…you will end up casting yourself out of your home and that can be dreadful if you haven’t planned for it.

HOUSE MEMORY

This is sometimes also called “place memory” since it can happen in other places besides houses, such as battlefields and hospitals. It is a phenomena that occurs when something of great emotional strength and depth happens in a place. This can sometimes create an imprint, a type of recording, upon a place.

Explaining how house memory works is difficult but a simplified explanation is that when conditions are exact to those that occurred during the original episode the recording will replay. This usually means the light within the place, the temperature, the time of year, the earth magnetics…any number of factors.

One can usually discern house memory from other phenomena by the fact that the spirits seem to be doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same part of the house every time that they appear. So if you always see a woman in an apron cooking at your stove when you get up around dawn but don’t see her when you get up a few hours later, than she is most likely a house memory. Perhaps this is what she was doing when she was at her happiest moment in her life, or her saddest. If there is a part of your house where you always think that you hear a scream and then someone running down the hall, and it only seems to happen in autumn or only around midnight, chances are that it is not a spirit but a house memory.

Getting rid of house memory is generally a rather large undertaking. It is best to understand it as house memory (a phenomena that ha no will or intent) and live with it. But if you want to get rid of it, some strong measures are required. The only way to try and dispose of it (and I say try, because there is no guarantee of success) is to change the physical layout of your house in the area that is affected. remember that we are talking about light and energy flow here. So you need to widen the hallway, open it to a room at one end, board up the nearest window or move the staircase, move the stove in the kitchen, move the kitchen and switch it with the living room, etc..

My grandmother had a spirit that lived in her house, not a house memory but similar. He wasn’t tied to the house per se but to a specific room that had been his. Her attic was divided into two rooms and one had been his. She didn’t much mind him as he had been the friend that she had purchased the house for decades before. All he ever did was come to her at night and try to show her where he had hidden something in the basement. The family thought she was nuts and she left it at that. Then, in the 1980’s, she had a chimney fire that did some damage to the attic. When the insurance came through and the repairs were made they combined the two attic rooms into one big one. The day that they took down the divided wall the ghost disappeared and hasn’t been seen since.

House memory is very similar, you gotta change its pattern by trying to figure out what energy recorded it…light, heat, magnetics, human emotion…and then take steps to change that particular energy flow. If you see a man come screaming through the living room whenever you and your husband fight in that room…there you have it…quit fighting or do it in the garage.

Sometimes house memory works in reverse.

You decide to do some remodeling. For some reason you really want to create an open walk-through form the dining room into the living room with a little half-wall to either side, something you can set a vase on. The thought of it makes you feel all warm inside. After struggling to convince your other half you get the workmen into do it. A few weeks later the room is done and you sit there, in front of the windows, admiring your work but you realize that there seems to be a shadow of a woman leaning against one of those half-walls looking in your direction. You aren’t frightened though, she gives you the same warm feeling that you had before when thinking about the construction changes. What has happened is that you were reading the imprint left by a former house memory and have inadvertently changed the house back to its original layout, making the light flow between the two rooms as it did when this woman had leaned there, looking out the window, happily enjoying life.

DEPARTED SPIRITS

Another phenomena that may be going on in your home is that there is indeed a spirit of someone departed who is terribly unpleasant. Most are not of the type that will ever HARM you or a child but they might be in the hopes of chasing you away. This has very little at all to do with you or your family and so much more to do with the experiences that they had in their own life. Hopefully in this circumstance the grounding and smudging will help.

One thing to avoid is sitting around and talking about the spirit while in your home, laughing about it or getting angry at it where it can sense this is only going to strengthen its behavior. Talking to it and more specifically putting your foot down is the best policy to begin with. Try not to speak in negatives such as “You will not disturb my sleep!” instead say “You will let me sleep in peace!” When you command a spirit or elemental you must MEAN it, with all of you will power.

If simple commands like this do not seem to work, you may also strongly but kindly point out to the spirit, out loud and on several repeated occasions, that “This house is for the living! It is my home and I choose to share it with YOU! You will be kind and accepting of those who live here! You will let us sleep, eat, dream and interact peacefully in OUR home! This is my will!”

You can always try friendship and helpfulness…get a good spirit medium or psychic (like Moi) to come in and talk to it, see if they can discern its issues and help it move on. Calling in a spiritualist from any faith who knows how to handle banishments is your last resort, never do this straight off as it can be dis-jarring for both the spirit and witnesses to the banishment.

~

There are so many other types of spiritual turbulence that one can experience in the home, work place, garden etc… Things like elementals, poltergeists and such. What I have written here is just a primer to the most common occurrences. I’ll write on some other related phenomena later. Til then you have my blessings.

-Vera Nadine

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
~Martin Luther King Jr., American Clergyman, Activist & Civil Rights Leader

Reiki, a form of energy healing that began in Japan, has changed my life. It’s subtle and loving ways are still transforming my relationship with life and the world, months after my first exposure to it. Many of you probably know that it cleanses and opens chakras and the aura, but it can do so much more. For me it has birthed greater self-awareness, peacefulness and physical health in ways that I would not have imagined. It works with you, who you are inside and in essence, and then offers you (okay kicks you in the bum with…) the opportunity to take greater responsibility for your body, mind and soul. It finds its way into your relationships and thought processes, slowly bringing you more into alignment with the divine source of all things and asking you if you might like to live fully, feeling that divinity every day. My answer is, yes, please!

For several years now, nearly a decade even, I have been having little synchronicities come in to my life that revolve in some way around Reiki. Sometimes it is just someone I know getting a treatment or overhearing someone in a café talking about Reiki, but always the mention of it seems to tweak something in my mind, somethings that says, “You should look into that. You should learn to give Reiki to others.” As this has occurred to me numerous times, I eventually attempted to get a Reiki Level 1 attunement. It was scheduled and fell through. I tried again more than a year later and that time I, myself, had to cancel. Weird. But, though I still wanted to make it happen, it fell to the back of my mind and there got trampled by other things in life.

What I have learned now, looking back on it, is that Reiki gets passed through different lineages and in different ways. You don’t want to get an attunement from just anybody. You want to get it from someone with the right kind of energy and mindset. It is also very important that you be at an open energetic state in your own life, because Reiki attunement realigns things in your own mind and heart…this can be a bumpy ride or an inspiring one, but you will most certainly be changed forever on the other side of it. Sometimes, when we are seeking Reiki, things are just not synched up enough yet. It will happen for you when the time is best.

My “happening” finally occurred in May of this year. It was everything I hoped it would be, surrounded by a magical group of people, healthy food, crystals, music and sunlight. I felt embraced, connected and loved. I was opened and learning occurred. So much joy and ease was in that space. Two lovely, talented ladies each gave me a Level 1 attunement that day and I still feel sisterly love with them and for them ever since. I am so grateful that I waited. That I took this time for me. That it was memorably the first day away from my new son, that my husband and son made sacrifices so it could become my new way. That the ladies made generous offers and traded energies with me. Such an amazing gift and just at the time in my life when I really needed a shift, a rebirth.

I am not saying that the way Reiki was given to me is the way that it can be, or should be, for everyone. My only point here is that what we need and when we need it will unfold in it’s own time. Reiki, as raw universal flow, cannot and simply will not be pushed or forced. That is the nature and beauty of Reiki. You don’t need to direct it or will it onward in order for it to heal…it is health, it is light and will flow to the dark and to the illness of its own accord. Blessings and love, gentleness and light. Period.

For me it came in and shone a light on my mental self, the inner beliefs and compromises which had been part of my thinking, especially about myself, for so long that I had forgotten how they ever started in the first place. They had become unconscious stumbling blocks, accepted and assumed and as real as a stone wall. There were parts of life and the world that were not even open to me as possibilities because the past energies I carried with me had already made me blind to them. There was a solid, dusty picture frame in which I lived and anything not contained within the frame was therefore inaccessible to me.

Somehow, in the weeks following the Reiki attunement, things in my environment and things in my mind shifted in ways that had me looking more deeply at crutches and comforts that I had clung to for years and years on my journey and also at new barriers that I assumed to exist because of my new role in motherhood. What Reiki asked me was, “Is it all true? Is it all valid? Is it all serving your highest good? If not, can you do more to change it then simply sitting back and complaining about it?” I assure you that these were some of the most profound changes in my own thinking that I have ever undergone. They rocked me to my core, gently, but still, I was rocked.

Within a couple of months I had learned to give Reiki, not just for physical healing, but for calming others and bringing them toward their own inner peace. It helped me immensely during the final illness of our beloved cat Forrest, to be able to soothe his discomfort by giving him Reiki. Reiki was also simultaneously helping our household as we attempted to teach our infant son, Thoreau, to sleep through the night. I would lay beside his crib and send him calming Reiki whenever he awoke at night. Both transitions are complete now, but without the help of Reiki I do not think that either event would be remembered as being so imbued with love, connection and acceptance. Reiki blesses life with a sort of gentleness, a subtle and constant joy that, if you live in mindfulness, is tangible and real to you.

Also, in the month immediately following my introduction to Reiki, I became inspired about my own physical & mental health. Yes, I have spent much of the past 5 years as a meditating vegetarian, I have occasionally given up gluten and dairy and I have shed some unhealthy weight. But, very little of this was self-motivated. I did these things to make others proud, to make others happy. Where was I in all of this? That is what I began to ask myself. What I needed was physical activity, I decided, and a higher self-esteem. And, surprisingly, this time it happened so easily, so effortlessly. I wanted to be active. I wanted to meditate and do affirmations. I wanted to make a promise to myself and stick with it. “Wow! That is something new,” I thought. So I went with it, creating a 79-day fitness plan for myself and becoming a long-distance walker virtually overnight. I joined a 40-day Global Sadhana and began saying the words from my heart instead of just my head. All of these things became so simple to sustain, because Reiki told me that I was finally being who I really am. And that feels good, very good. No need to question it or where the motivation might have come from…I am changing coal for diamonds here!

The thing about Reiki is that you often think that you are getting it just for yourself. You get a treatment or an attunement and you do this from a necessarily selfish place…like going to get a massage. That is something you aren’t doing for anyone else, just yourself. Well, one’s initial approach to Reiki is often the same. What I have found in the aftermath, though, is that Reiki doesn’t stop there. It has blessed my mind and my body, my home and my family in so many magical and practical ways that I found you cannot keep it to yourself. You really want to pass it on, to share the love. This is why I had to start offering Reiki healing to others, in-person or at a distance. It is not possible to sit with all of this peace and universal love and not be filled with a desire that everyone, everywhere could feel its effects in their own lives. “My cup runneth over,” as the Psalm goes.

I am presently in the process of creating a divinely inspired “body doll” which my guides have suggested I make, using natural materials, affirmations, healing herbs and crystals at each chakra point, with an added silk “aura.” Anyone who feels the urge to contribute crystals to this doll, feel free to send them my way, their energy would be much appreciated. The purpose of the doll is to focus the intention and energy on the corresponding chakras in the person being healed, no matter how physically far away they may be. Reiki, as an energy healing modality, knows no distance. It originates from, and travels within, the divine space of all things, the world between worlds. In that world, as in this, we are all one, all connected. Time is non-existent there and love is the highest vibration, permeating everything. Energy transfer is instantaneous.

These days my every moment in my life is somehow filled with Reiki, whether it be in my writing, my dealings with my son & husband, in my shopping or my cooking. The Reiki magic is indeed gentle, but so very real in its presence. I have studied magic and ritual in a few other forms, but the magic of Reiki energy is that it just is. It does not need bells or whistles to call it out of hiding or to psyche you up for conducting it. This is similar to the All, the Universal Source that we all come from. It is present in us in our low moments and our high ones, filling us with divine creativity and inspiration. We do not have to worship it in order for it to grace us, we are always graced with it. All that we need to do is to become aware of it and let it flow. No membership card needed.

I do actively try to tune in to Reiki every day and to increase my vibration so that I may be filled with more of it. I allow it to whisper to me in moments when I would have previously gotten stressed-out or distracted. It helps me to stop old patterns before they actually arise, instead of getting carried away on a roller coaster ride and only then realizing what pattern I was repeating. In short, the mindfulness of Reiki in my life has broken several of my deeply-ingrained patterns and taught me about who I truly am, divine and loving. I also continue doing self-treatments, as is suggested for all practitioners, so that I can feel the loving grace and be cleansed in my own etheric body. It is this that brings an easier smile to my face and makes healing others possible.

The words and intention of Reiki are my waking ritual now. Each morning I stand before my bedroom window, look at the trees and the sunrise and recite the Reiki affirmations, with deliberate intention.

Just for today, I will be free from anger.
Just for today, I will be free from worry.
Just for today, I will be humble.
Just for today, I will do good in my work.
Just for today, I will be kind to all living creatures.
In this way, I invite happiness.

These words really have helped shift my focus, giving me the positive intention to be a better “me” every day and also leaving me the freedom to not be that person, if I so choose. We are all saint and sinner, Reiki doesn’t ask you pretend otherwise. But we are all in charge of our own happiness and healing, that is what Reiki seeks to remind you.

The world truly is filled with joy and opportunity, community and acceptance. Reiki can clear the fog of indifference from our eyes and open us to this truth in a very real way. It is given from the Universe for all to tap into and utilize. One touch, one affirmation, one attunement can bring it to your fingertips and empower you to empower others. If you feel at all drawn to Reiki, I recommend learning more about it, taking a healing or attunement, and allowing it deeper into your life. May you be blessed on you journey.

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century Essayist & Poet

This channeling is fresh, from my secondary guide Astra. Astra is ascended and has a unique way of keying into popular topics in order to deliver universal insights that are timely. This one is a little brief but very informational.

~

I want to talk to you about the cause and effect of your thought upon your path. I can’t say that this is the “Law of Attraction” per se but is more like the law of opposites. What you think you make that is well known but what folks don’t recognize is the opposite truth that accompanies that: what you don’t think you don’t make. Don’t think about negative things and they will have a harder time manifesting in your life. The same is true for positive things.

Sometimes people say be in “the now” as if thinking about the future is a bad thing, or a waste of time. What is bad about not being in the now is the dwelling on the past. In your place and in your realm of existence the past is not changeable so why dwell on it? Sometimes you must face it and change it’s effects in your mind (if not in reality) in order to progress beyond some of its programming, but in general the past is just that…passed.

Back to the real reason for my visit to you today. The law of opposites is that you must be in the now, experiencing it fully, in order to maintain happiness but in order to make your tomorrow contain what joys you want it to contain you must think about it, you must empower it with positivity to call out to the universe your intent to have that positivity in your life. That which you don’t think about, and don’t empower, doesn’t happen.

It is the manner of your thinking about it that matters most… Don’t think “I want” don’t think “I need” just think “I will”. If you sit around in a brooding and longing fashion thinking about what you don’t have or what is impossible then it is impossible for you to have anything but continued longing, it is a wistfulness, almost like a nostalgia for the future if you get my drift. Nostalgia is a longing for what is lost, wistful longing is basically a longing for a future that you see as lost. Get it?

Instead think that exactly what you want to happen will happen. It is not just about thinking a thing and then it goes out and becomes an intention and the universe just delivers…it is about BELIEVING a thing, about putting the energy behind it that says “Here this is an intention already. Now, it WILL be.” And it is about not negating the thought with dismissal or banishment, “Oh that is basically impossible.” or “Gosh I doubt that will ever happen.” You do not get a beneficial response from the universe by challenging it to a duel. “I bet you can’t make this happen” will not get the universe to respond with “Oh yes I can, watch me.” The universe is highly evolved, far beyond your conceptualization and it is not a ten year old human child.

The universe has a creative life force tendency to ignore negatives, or more particular to turn them into positives but it is also unpredictable in how it applies this tendency. So speak to it in affirmatives, in positives and you are already on its wavelength, thus leaving more energy behind your thought to feed the intention and make it stronger.

I know that all that you can think, you can create. But working in a respectful way towards that universe, towards the life force and towards your own self is the best policy for achieving the best means.

The law of attraction is a only a part of a much larger set of concepts, of principles for creating absolute happiness, absolute spiritual achievement on this plane of existence. By understanding fully the whole of each concept, we as spiritual beings can better understand how best to function in a physical reality. The Kybalion gives you a more complete set of principles and if you wish to know more about how you are indeed a part of the divine whole, give it a read online.

Keep looking forward but keep being NOW, keep connecting to all life and what you desire will come. I guarantee it!

“What is a cynic?
A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

~ Oscar Wilde, 19th-century Irish Writer & Poet

I am so glad that self-development and spiritual-development are becoming more widely accepted topics, and that so many people are embracing the betterment of their lives through connecting with nature and their true souls.

Myself, I’ve been on this path for over a decade, you could say that I have been on it for my whole life, and I have experienced some fantastic changes and magical occurrences along the way.

That being said, I occasionally still find myself falling into the trap that many modern seekers do. The quest for money…the urge to master manifestation and spiritual thinking in order to create material prosperity.

This is not to say that thoughts of this nature mean that we are losing our spiritual achievements or that we are greedy, evil people of any kind. It is simply a true factor of a modern life.

In ancient times, when humans lived in small, manageable communities, staying in the same place for generations, there was more support for the spirit and the spiritual.

Spiritual leaders, the psychically gifted and those with metaphysical knowledge were honored by the community. These special community members acted as advisers, healers and intermediaries between the people and the spiritual realms. In return they were supported with food, clothing, shelter and love.

But those days and those community ties no longer exist for most of us. Thus it follows that we HAVE to be concerned with our own finances and how to get what we need in this world. The challenge is to learn to balance this with our spiritual development and spiritual outlook, without losing our focus and becoming myopically fixed on the “prosperity” issue.

Being a parent now, I am faced with this issue nearly everyday. You put yourself and aside and instead focus everything on the little being you are now trying to raise. Money does not go far, especially when you are trying to choose between providing the best for them in the present moment or saving for their educational and life expenses of the future.

Here I am, in one of the most historic and ecologically beautiful towns in Eastern Canada, fields and trails and ancient waterways all around me, and I am still worrying about paying the phone bill.

So, walking around with these very thoughts in my head yesterday afternoon, a line from a song that I was listen to caught my attention: “When did the light die?”

And at that very moment it occurred to me that with all of the planning and dreaming and hopes and intentions for success that have been swimming around in my mind lately, along with worry and doubt, I had somehow gotten blinded to the shear wonder of all that I found myself blessed with in this crazy life.

What about the idea of having chosen to incarnate now? As this very spirit that I am? What about wanting to live my life purpose to the fullest?

These things are our true motivation and the only thing that will bring us TRUE happiness. How many vastly wealthy people do we hear about every day who are just a miserable mess?

And why is that? Because they long for spiritual fulfillment and try to fill that hole with possessions and parties.

So, having realized the misalignment of my thinking with my core values, I have readjusted my viewpoint. And now looking at it from a spiritual perspective, I see very clearly that the same issue of needing value (ie. cash- as this is the object of value in the modern society) can be addressed in a way that is in line with my vibrational values and the nature of the universe.

Many, many times I have had ideas and concepts for ways that I can build my career, for valuable content that I can offer the world. Usually one of two things stops these great impulses cold: the opinion of others or, more often, the realization that the time I put in will probably NOT pay off monetarily.

What to do then?

What I now realize is that, in keeping with reciprocity, if there is no outflow their can be no inflow. You must give value to the world if you expect to receive value from the world.

Constantly sitting around willing the universe to bring you prosperity, while at the same time being paralyzed by the lack of it (ie. taking no initiative on your own behalf) is like a potter begging for someone to fill his cup and buy his bowls, when he hasn’t even bothered to sit down and make any yet.

From this point forward, when I get the impulse to create I will go with it as a gift of inspiration, a gift of value that I can give to the world. Whether others agree with me or not, whether the creation flops or not, is irrelevant. It is in the giving of it to the world that the energy of the value is released to the world. And the outflow will naturally attract inflow, I leave it the universe to decide how value is repaid, but I create value regardless.

How I intend to live my life from now on, is to ask, answer and act on these three questions every day:

3. What value can I provide to the world today?

I invite you to shift your own thoughts from desiring to giving, and see what the ever-creating universe blesses you with in return.

The Tao Te Ching said:

The Great Tao is universal like a flood.
How can it be turned to the right or left?

All creatures depend on it,
And it denies nothing to anyone.

It does its work,
But it makes no claim for itself.

It clothes and feeds all,
But it does not lord it over them:
Thus it may be called “the Little.”

All things return to it as their home,
But it does not lord it over them:
Thus it may be called “the Great.”

It is just because it does not wish to be great
That its greatness is fully realized.

And so this is how the spiritual attempt to live out their life purpose. Giving freely without expecting return and becoming great through the lack of desire for greatness. Ram Dass, who inspires me greatly, learned to live this core truth, to be more like the Source Creator from which all came.

I aspire to use my gifts, my words and my light, to give others inspiration and hope on their own spiritual journeys. If I were to become financially wealthy, yet fail to live up to this aspiration, there would be no joy in my heart, even if my bank account did rival that of Bill Gates.

Therefore my true value lies within my true soul purpose, not within my wallet.

Provide value and you will have value.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, lecturer, and poet

Please Note: This article is a repost from our old blog – originally dated February 2007.
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Well, we had a question from one of our new forum readers (Welcome to you all!) and decided to tackle the answer. First the question, which we suspect was asked partially in jest, at our expense: How does God justify life?

How indeed? Remember folks ask a foolish question, get a foolish answer. *wink, wink*

Okay not foolish, but instead intended for anything but fools. You need to have some level of spiritual integrity and a raised awareness to fully grasp the meaning of such high-minded and philosophical things. So here goes….

The answer to your question is a question in itself: How would YOU justify your own life? Why do I ask instead of answer? The question is the answer. You are God. Knowing this, how would you justify your own life?

Now I will attempt to explain the true, universal nature of God. God is not masculine, nor is God feminine. God does not physically exist, nor is God nonexistent. God is not positive or negative, good or evil. God is not black or white.

God is ALL. For everything that Is and even the non-Is that we call “nothing” are part of the ONE God, the ALL. So if you suspend disbelief and confusion for one moment and imagine that there is only one true being, one true, living creature and that this creature is the ALL, you come closer to approximating what God is, in a way that is understandable by human consciousness.

The ALL is made up of different parts, each with its own purpose, the way that you have arms and toes, a stomach and hair. The ALL has a portion that is called strength, a portion that is called weakness. It has both chaos and order. It is the twilight and the dawn. It contains both youth and age. These parts do not stop having their individual purpose just because they may be detached from the ALL or not in use by it for a time. Just as your arm, an upper body limb designed to move and lift for various reasons and purposes, still holds its purpose even when you are asleep and not using it, and retains its purpose even if you suffer an horrific accident and lose the arm. It is still an arm.

The ALL is total consciousness, all-knowing and all-seeing, able to think in any way that you can imagine being able to think and many more than that still. It is the ALL that truly knows what we have forgotten, that it is the act of thinking, not of hoping for or physically building, things that makes reality. (Reality is fashioned by thought and nothing else.) But, you see, even this infinite, eternal Godhead has a mystery, for what is the purpose of life but to learn the truth of the mystery of life? Even for that ALL.

The mystery that the ALL cannot understand, cannot ever completely solve is the mystery of itself. And so, as some religions have guessed, Man was indeed created by the God in its own image. But of course, so were rocks and trees and fish and bears and all that is. Everything that we, as creations of the ALL, create is also made in God’s image. For all that is and ever will be, anywhere, any time, infinitely is a part of the ONE, the ALL.

Now, why did the ALL (God) take pieces of itself and give them forms, different forms and different consciousness? Because, in order to fully understand the mystery of itself it needed a mirror, through which it could see itself at work, to watch all of its aspects develop and act out their own true nature, to experience the purpose of all its “limbs” so to speak. So it must take all that it is and set it free in the form of planets and weather, people and volcanoes, water and music…everything that is.

Every form that the ALL can imagine, every thought that it has must be made manifest in some way, in some place and time. The ALL experiences itself through us and once we, as a part of the ALL have lived all of the cycles and learned all of the lessons that we can in our particular form (ie. through reincarnation) we gain a certain, infinite spiritual knowing and ascend to our original form, as pure universal energy. When we reach this place we are reincorporated into the great ONE ALL.

The end of time comes when the ALL has experienced, and understood all that can ever be imagined, all that can ever be experienced, positive, negative and in between. This is unlikely to ever come, and thus we have the concept of infinity. Now you know why it is said that “That which does not change, stagnates and then dies.”

Thus all along we are God. The ALL is all. This ALL God justifies life by simply being. How do you justify life?

~Vera Nadine

“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18th-century German Writer & Philosopher

Someone says “Meditation.”

Do you think “Om?”

No fault there, most of us think of sitting quietly in the sun next to a placid lake when we hear about meditation. This is normal considering the big bucks that go into the “Feel good and escape the rat race” industry nowadays.

They want you to believe that meditation requires a perfectly peaceful, luxury-filled lifestyle, a highly organized and beautiful environment. They are setting you up for failure.

But why would they do that you ask?

Because it is simple monetary psychology.

People are willing to pay for that which they believe they do not or cannot have. Why spend money to achieve a feeling or a reality that you believe you already have?

Make Yoga or Pilates or Meditation seem appealing to the masses and then convince those masses that they NEED certain THINGS in order to have that appealing reality in their lives…instant rags to riches story.

But what if the truth was that you can be active and be busy and get things done and still achieve the benefits of meditation?

That would make it so much more convenient wouldn’t it? If you needed only your mind and nothing else to meditate…I bet you would do it more often.

You would?

Well good! Because that is the truth of it, meditation is free for everyone, no glitz, no gimmicks just your own mind required.

Meditating sitting down in a quiet, peaceful, beautiful, epic environment is optimal of course. But you try and get that in today’s world on a daily basis.

What is more likely is that you can fit in a few minutes of “you” time when you are up to other things.

Walking the dog is a perfect time for meditation.

Knitting a baby shower gift is great too.

Washing the dishes? Again, get in a short meditation.

Paying bills? Meditate on drawing prosperity to you.

Painting the bathroom can be an excellent time for meditating on beauty or on change.

Jogging in a 5k? Then tie on those trainers for inner peace.

Cooking food is a fantastic occasion for meditating on health and connection to nature.

What elements do you need for your activity to become a meditation?

Well, to be honest meditation, even in its highest form, is a simple thing. We meditate to calm our mind, to connect our spirit to our body, to our actions. We meditate to honor breath and aliveness, connection to spirit and nature.

Mindfulness, ie. putting spirit and intention into each and every small movement, small thought of our life, is the main goal of meditation.

So, focus your intent on being a spiritual being who is carrying out a physical activity, and Voila! You have meditation.

If you shake cinnamon into your recipe, make yourself aware, peacefully, of your connection to the country and the plant and the human being from which that cinnamon is sourced.

If you are rollerskating in the sun, consciously connect yourself to each stretch and twitch of muscle as you move. Purposefully set-up a give-and-take of energy between you and those sun rays.

Know that every activity has an element of growth, of energy, of awareness within it.

By allowing yourself to be a mindful participant in these exchanges, you are strengthening your awareness as a spiritual being having a physical experience.

You are strengthening your true self and allowing that inner person to fill the moment of even the most mundane activities.

By all means, if you get the chance, then say “Om” on the beach in Tahiti.

But know that the tranquility is from the beauty within you, not from the beautiful view.

“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.”
~William Ellery Channing, 19th-century American preacher

Please Note: This article is a repost from our old blog – originally dated April 2007. It is not current but is added here for the information contained within.
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Well, if you’ve visited either of my sites in the past few weeks you’ve probably been asking yourself, where is Vera Nadine? Why hasn’t she been posting, offering up any true hope or sharing any information that might help me connect with my divine self?

The answer to all of these questions is a forced hiatus that I’ve been under, induced by a terrible cold that morphed into something much worse.

Around the third or fourth day in March, I developed a little tickle in my throat…just a nagging little cough that wouldn’t stop. It progressed from there into the worst cold/flu that I can ever remember having. I called it the A-Z Cold because it sequentially progressed through every symptom that one could imagine…hives, fever, nausea, sore throat, congestion, inability to sleep, runny nose…just the works.

Around about the sixth day of this horrible annoyance I went to my main guide, Gretchen, and asked her what was going on. She said that it was something I needed to go through to clear my energy which completely confirmed what my Acupuncturist had said that, it was resulting from some clearing treatments that her and I had been doing recently.

While I was on her plane of existence, Gretchen had me lay down on the floor of her cabin and attempted to get me to eat some leek soup, saying that it would help clear up the cold within a day or two.

Oh, if only I had listened. If only I hadn’t thought: firstly, I don’t like leek soup and secondly, eating leek soup on an astral plane is going to do absolutely zero for my cold on the physical plane. Um, spot the out-of-touch Mystic. Well, all I can say is that I was very ill and not completely with it.

So she told me to stop trying to reach her and communicate with spirits while my energy was so low and to go home, rest and eat more green stuff. Okay, I came back and went to bed.

The next day the cold morphed into something vicious. I had a slight pain along the bottom of my jaw line. Weird, I thought. But maybe I had been sleeping funny, as I tend to sleep on that side. By the end of the day it grew more concerning, as the chin below the jaw began to swell.

I took anti-inflammatory, drank hot tea and went to bed that night hoping it would be better in the morning…Nope, it got puffier and began to spread down the side of my neck. A hot, hot shower seemed to help a little but I began doing a little research online just in case.

That was it! Eureeeka, I have a lymph infection! Damn, that is not good, very bad side effects, not so easy to get rid of. I took more anti-inflammatory and began putting hot compresses on it. This eased the pain but I began feeling it was hard to breath at around 2 am the next morning so I went into the Emergency Room to see what the heck was going on.

Now here is my little side rant on modern medicine, as opposed to 10th-century medicine like Gretchen practices….modern medicine is so sloppy, and is also half blind, all deaf and slightly dumb.

I go in and say: this was a cold, it has infected my lymph-nodes and I need some anti-biotics.
They proceeded to: look at me with derision, treat me like a fool, stick me with holes, leave me in an empty room for several hours, ignore half of what I said to them, force me to undergo several useless tests, then… after I am distraught, tired, jittery and weak…

They come in and say, “Well your cold seems to have caused an infection in your glands and lymph system. This is very dangerous and you need to immediately begin a regime of very strong anti-biotics.”

Oh really? Amazing! And what amount of money did my insurance company just get billed for this incredible feat of modern medical science I wonder?

In (my guide) Maggie’s day you would have gone to her cabin, a nice, dim, warm and comfortable place where she would have welcomed you, given you a cup of tea, asked you why you weren’t feeling well and how it started and what you felt might be going on inside of you. Heck depending on how sick you were she may have even come to your place, to save you the trouble of running about out-of-doors while you were unwell. Then she would have felt the inflamed area, read your energy channels, considered what you had told her, decided that something was infected inside and said: Drink, the leek soup.

She would not have put you in a bright, cold, lifeless place and proceeded to put you through any number of unnecessary tests that further weakened you. Now in those days they did not know about by bio-organisms or anti-biotics, so her place wasn’t sterile per se.

But actually they did know about these things, or at least had an awareness that something was there in illness that worked like an infection or a virus does. They just had an innate understanding of the complimentary ways that different systems and elements work upon each other.

Another rant: You see, innate knowledge and common sense have gone right out of the medical profession. Therefore, what is medical and what is healing have become two extraordinarily different things.

So today I am finally back typing to you all after two rounds of super-antibiotics and several weeks of being laid up. I cannot yet use my gift again to its fullest potential as this was truly the sickest that I have ever been in my life and it took a lot out of me. But the good news is…

I have another new guide which appeared when they slipped me into the CT-Scan machine at the ER.

I look forward to beginning my relationship with this new guide as soon as I get my energy back…I am sure that it is one which will be most beneficial in helping you all and, given the manner of the connection, is most likely a healing guide of some kind. Wish me luck with this.

As an aside (and a personal DOH! moment) I have done a little research today and found out that leek soup has been shown to have antibiotic properties. Uhhhh…..

What I wonder is:

If I hadn’t gotten the infection and been forced into the CT-Scan machine would this new guide still have found a way to connect with me?

And…If I had eaten the leek soup, would I still have been laid up for four weeks with this darn infection?

Morals of the story:

1. Sometimes things happen for a reason, even when we cannot imagine why the heck something is happening to us.

2. DRINK THE LEEK SOUP!

Blessings to you all.

~Vera Nadine

“There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
~ Albert Einstein, 20th-century Theoretical Physicist

—————————————————————————–
This article is a repost from our old blog –
originally dated February 2007.
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10. Already having your umbrella handy for that unforecast summer shower.

What? You got a problem with that? Where I live this ability has come in quite handy. No…spirits don’t come from the grave just to warn me about the weather. I just know. Sometimes it comes to me when I wake up in the morning and sometimes when I watch the “real” weather man on the news…he says his bit and my intuition says its bit. My intuition is usually spot on.

9. Asking Julia Child for new recipes when you’re in a pinch.

Okay well I don’t know if its really her or a spirit who knows a lot of recipes and talks kinda funny. All I know is that is some fantastic Chicken Alfredo that she whipped up. And I am asking her now for some good artisan bread recipes the next time that she pops in. Or the elusive recipe for that Death By White Chocolate cake that I had the last time that I visited Orkney.

8. Alway having someone to talk to, even if half of the time the voices are only in your head.

One of my guides has this habit of popping in when I am in a situation that is so particularly modern and in some way completely ludicrous. She is always blurting out sarcastic remarks in my head and I have to fight especially hard sometimes to keep from laughing out loud or repeating her comments for all to hear. I think she’s a riot but one of these days she is going to get me in trouble. (Next time I go and chat with her I’ll make sure to comment on her situation in such a way that she has to fight from being inappropriate on my behalf. ;))

7. Being able to throw out the Ouija board (now that you are one.)

I had an ancient pagan priest come to me and tell me that I was “a f-ing Ouija board” and so therefore my desire to use one was just a further removal from the source and I should get rid of it. I am, as usual, a little bit insecure about my gifts and wish always to have them reinforced or “proven” by some other type of divination. (Hey, it’s a known issue and I’m working on it.) Nevertheless, no more ouija board, gone, finito, adios, bye-bye.

6. Being able to hear Elvis sing “Live” even though he’s no longer alive.

Get this…I don’t even really like Elvis. I ‘d prefer to hear Hendrix, Lennon or even Nat King Cole. But Elvis was a strong-willed kinda guy and when we die we are still exactly who we were, end of story. If someone plays an Elvis CD near me I just know that I’m gonna accidentally tune into his energy and the next thing I know its like he’s crooning in my ear. And it’s never the song that’s playing on the CD, it’s always some other song. My head gets confused by this sometimes and so I avoid the ole Elvis music as much as possible.

5. Having dead folks try to tell you what do to with your life.

Though it does seem a bit ironic, this is not meant to be a joke, honestly. They are full of wisdom and are generally altruistic, trying to help the living live the best life possible, without regret. I had a deceased relative come to me after her funeral recently and offer me some advice. She noticed that everyone around her grave could say she was generous but that no one thought of her as kind. You see, she had bent over backwards to help people but was always a bit opinionated. She always gave good advice but in a rather harsh and judgmental way. This made folks afraid to disappoint her and in the end made people back away from her as she became more cantankerous. Her advice to me was to learn the meaning of the two words: kindness and generosity, and try to cultivate BOTH in my life. Good advice since I am asked to give my opinion all the time and usually on topics that people are quite sensitive about.

4. Standing back and watching the building of Stonehenge through one of the builders eyes.

I went to visit Stonehenge on one of my trips to England. In general the place is way too commercial…too much camera clicking, too much highway and not enough chanting for my taste. But, once I sat down and got into an Alpha state the place changed completely. I was there at three different stages. One stage at which there were wooden markers and workmen’s platforms all around, with people hustling and bustling about. One stage with people coming in, down a long promenade to bless the finished circle and one stage at which a ritual was going on. I was standing far outside the circle with multitudes of other worshipers and then I was able to fly up over the whole place and come down in the center circle where an initiation ritual was being performed. Believe me when I say that this is where our phrase “Being part of the inner circle” comes from.

3. Seeing things come to fruition exactly as you had known they would.

This can sometimes be big stuff but is usually just a small-scale, warm fuzzy way of getting a reaffirmation from the Universe of my gift. A while back I woke up in the morning with a song in my head that reminded me of an old friend. As I lay in bed listening to this song I just knew that he was thinking of me and would be calling me later that day. But after I got up and started moving about my day I got a feeling that I understood to be a wake-up to listen. I listened to my intuition and it told me what he would be calling about. He had been diagnosed with a chemical imbalance that was causing him to be clinically depressed and he was wondering if I in my herbal healing, “know-it-all” way I could suggest some things that might help him. That put me on alert and I sat down that afternoon to do a little research. When he called (and he did) later that evening I already had some info put together for him and a brief list of where he could get the stuff. He wasn’t surprised that I already had his info for him but, to be honest, I kinda was.

2. Helping others on their personal spiritual journeys.

People always need some kind of help along the way to achieve their best possible self. That’s why we are all here together, to challenge and assist each other. My most common question from folks is “What is my purpose in life?” Well I really love this one, it shows real thoughtfulness on the part of the individual. They have thought about life, about joy, about health and about family and have determined that each would be benefited most by their following their true purpose. That is the best decision that can be made for anyone. So, they come to me and I tap into their energy waves, their guides and the universal map for their life and that allows me to give them a definitive answer: “You are meant to use sound to heal others. You have a spiritual connection to harmonic sound. Go and learn how to use a synthesizer and make your creations available as a podcast or as CDs. You will find joy in this and will be offering true benefit to this world.” As a spiritual seeker myself I get great joy out of helping others with their paths.

1. Knowing that you are working toward your ascension every day.

Whether you believe that the planet is changing in a fundamental way and that the whole kit and kaboodle is about to enter a higher dimensional existence or you just believe in personal ascension into a higher level of consciousness, the truth is that we are all changing. we are all constantly learning and evolving, releasing behaviors and beliefs that no longer work for us and embracing new thought patterns that better represent what we are now in our lives. In this way we transcend our old selves and become something different, wiser and more evolved. To transcend the past and lovingly embrace who we have come to be is the path to personal ascension. I know that I am working toward my greatest self and toward ascension not just because the spirit guides always tell me so, but because I can feel it within me. With every question that I answer, with every person that I help, I vibrate at a higher level and I emit more light of Universal Love. You are each helping me with my ascension as I live out my calling and help you toward yours. It’s a symbiosis.

“A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.”
~ Andy Goldsworthy, British Environmental Sculptor

Psychometry is a form of psychic reading in which a physical object is “read” in order to learn more about the object itself or about its owner.

Though some people find this a very simple form of psychic exercise, others find it down right impossible.

There are several milestones on any psychic journey and psychometry can be a good entry point for some beginners. If however you have yet to master the practice of meditating, you may find the techniques of beginning psychometry a bit frustrating.

The easiest objects to read are those comprised of geological elements. The energetic density of these objects makes them highly likely to record strong impressions of the world around them.

Reading an Object

Begin with a stone or a piece of jewelry. Do not use a stone that has multiple points.

Seat yourself in a comfortable position.

Take the object in your receiving hand. This is usually the opposite hand from which you write.

Close your eyes and ask the object to tell you its story.

Envision the energy of the stone flowing up your arm and filling your whole body with itself.

Allow the information contained within this energy to enter your mind. Know that it will be easily understood by you.

Do not hold any expectations of how explicit or vivid this information will be.

Simply allow it to share with you whatever pictures or feelings it choses.

If you are having a problem with getting any sensations, just switch the object to your other hand and try again.

You may see flashes of light, you may feel as if you have been through a great earthquake or volcanic explosion.

You may feel sadness or elation of the person to whom the object belongs.

You may see the creation of the jewelry or the mining of the stone.

Once you have ridden this wave, however long or short, of information, thank the object and let go of it.

Be sure to record your experience, anything t hat you may have seen or felt, how long the exercise lasted and how vivid it was for you.

You can practice this again and again with a different object each time, referring back to your vision journal to gauge your progress.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
~ Helen Keller, American author, Political Activist, and Lecturer

A Call from Maggie and the other Guides…

It is time to forego the weapons of the mind, the hand. It is time to relinquish the media culture and the political fog over your eyes.

Let the world wage a healing war. Let thy weapons be thousands of candles lit in prayer.

All of you, my enlightened ones, must send, now, your healing light, your songs and your loving energies to the Syria, to New Orleans, to Palestine & Libya, to sweatshops in Asia, to the angry minds and hearts in Spain & Greece, to London, New York City, Cuba & Haiti, earthquake ravaged Japan, to the still-scarred lands of former Nazi occupation, to Iraqi families, to Afghanistan, to the mountains of Tibet, to India and Pakistan (so set in their ways,) to Africa and those suffering with Aids and with starvation…..

Wherever there is human suffering unresolved there festers an open sore in the plane of this existence. This open sore permits an entrance point for infection of the whole entity that is the Mother Earth. When Mother Earth ails none, no people, no land, can be safe from her illness.

If these wounds are healed, however, by the unconditional love of the human community, they may instead become the seeds of a revival….a blossoming of love and peace in the garden of life, from which the sustenance of all creatures is derived.

Hug one another without fear, forget about personal space, for space is merely a perception not a reality, enter each others lives in openness and love. Meditate on the distribution of free love, love without expectations, to all….light candles of white and yellow and pink and let them illuminate the dark and wounded places of this world and fill them with light and balance and joy.

I emanate undying light from the All to every corner of the All, where what is possible is everything that you know is not im-possible and that, is ALL.

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. ”
~ Aristotle, Greek Philosopher and Intellectual

What is Spiritual Hermit Syndrome, a.k.a. Buddha on the Mountaintop? It is a psychological disorder similar to agoraphobia which some spiritual seekers, mystics, prophets and gurus can develop. It sneaks up on you and you don’t realize that you’ve developed such a bad case of it until it becomes a serious problem.

It is not a catastrophic development but rather is a social dysfunction that builds over time leading to a psychological type of disorder.

At some point on a spiritual path all seekers will choose to distance themselves from society and the mundane for a brief period of time in order to connect to their true self and to take stock of their spiritual progress. Some may even come to this point more than once on their path if they remain dedicated to self-improvement and mindful connection. But for most this is a six-month to one-year process after which they reemerge, reaffirmed and ready to rejoin their family, friends and society.

For some, a rare few, the process can become a lifestyle. These folks may be working toward ascension, toward spiritual mastery, at a pace and at a depth which many seekers have yet to attain. They may have more reincarnations under their belt and be closer to the next step on the journey of spiritual evolution. Whatever the reason, these seekers do not return to “the norm” after withdrawing to find their inner solace.

You may view this as a stagnation or you may view it as an awakening. But this is not a pattern of behavior brought on by depression or by conceit but rather by reaching a sort of spiritual height, by raising one’s energy vibration. It stems from a desire to maintain a spiritual balance that we have reached, to not mingle our energies with the energies and behaviors of those who we fear may drag our vibrations and our awareness downwards.

At any rate if you think about it, many of the people that the rest of us seekers tend to seek out and rely upon for wisdoms and universal information are this type of spiritual hermit. They are the Masters. For don’t we all seek to walk without touching the ground?

But the problem develops under exactly that situation. We are incarnate beings. We cannot achieve ultimate spiritual form while we are each living here on the Earth in a human body. That is simply a fact.

From my own personal experience, I have always been a very social and outgoing person, not shy, not uncomfortable with meeting new people. After having been working on my spirituality by learning from others and participating in group activities for nearly 9 years, I reached a point where I needed to go “underground” so to speak and get some perspective on ME personally and where I fit into my chosen belief structure. This was not a depressing thing, on the contrary it was quite exhilarating.

Usually it starts with a thought: “I need to get away from all of this mundane chitter-chatter” or “Don’t these people even hear themselves speak? How can my family be so ignorant of what life is really about?” or “There must be more to life than this (job, class, budget, country, etc.)…I wonder what it is” or just plain…“Stop the world I wanna get off!” So you decide that a month, semester, year of going inside yourself is not only the potential answer to your problems but is actually being imperatively called for by your whole body, soul, even the universe itself.

We choose to put distance between ourself and the mundane, work-a-day, social pressures (and may even be kind enough to inform folks of it) to retire into a practice of daily meditating, disciplining ourself to keep a spiritual journal or doing some other act of daily spiritual dedication.

But what begins as a removal from social pressures, if continued over a prolonged period of time can become a detachment from formerly pleasing activities, the support of those who truly know us and even a shutting out of the natural world. We may forget the mountaintop and settle for the armchair, trading trees for books, people for meditations, interaction for epic movies.

Most folks don’t realize that their spiritual bent has become a personal problem until they find themselves canceling last minute on people and things that they care about. Say your best friend is having a baby, a baby that she has wanted for a very, very long time. You want, really want, to go to the baby shower, you just know it will be a fun time. You plan, crochet a crib blanket, write her a sweet poem to read at the shower. then as the day approaches you begin to get anxious…What will you talk about with her coworkers? What if you can’t make simple chatty conversation? Will you do something socially unacceptable and give away that you are “different?” Why are you going to this blatant nod towards consumer society anyway? Do you even want to go to this thing? Whose big idea was it anyway? Why don’t you just send her the gift?

That’s how it sneaks up on you…it’s perfectly rational and spiritually based, until it isn’t anymore.

I decided to nip this process in the bud when I found myself getting uncomfortable while in these simple social situations, when I noticed that I simply didn’t know the proper way to act around people when I met them, and when I realized that simply going out my front door so greatly improved my mood. If it could improve my mood so much, I must be lacking in the outdoors, the manifest human experience.

We were each put here in physical form in order to experience the world in a physical way while still learning to embrace our true spiritual nature. If we cash in the chips and leave either aspect behind then we are missing out on the vastly important lessons that we are meant to be learning. To embrace the spiritual aspects of ourself and loose the physical interaction with environment is to miss out on life and love, and love is the entirety of the universe.

Staring at the pixel and missing the bigger picture is a waste of our time in the museum.

So I must counsel all the spiritual seekers out there to feel free to take time for yourself but don’t loose your world in the process. If you think that you’ve reached a point where your spiritual seclusion is effecting your mental state, begin by doing a radical thing…talk to someone who you care for, who is not a spiritual seeker-type, about your problem. When they are done looking at you funny, a very interesting thing will happen, they will show you love, they will be grateful that you chose to share a bit of yourself with them. You may even begin to see that not all the folks in the mundane world are necessarily a burden to your spiritual enlightenment.

Some other simple steps that you can take are going out taking a walk everyday or joining a group. Get yourself out in the sunlight once a week, get yourself into a chatty situation, take a painting class or a dance class, go to a poetry reading or a knitting group. Once you realize that interacting with other humans, facing the challenges that it affords and building social skills are not things that you do for the benefit of other people but things that you do for your own benefit, you will have reached a good balance.

Do yourself and the universal creator a favor, make the best of both worlds while you’re here…for it is a gift to be incarnate along with all of the other light beings and all of your ancient relations, here in this time and in this place.

“Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.”
~ Shakti Gawain, Author and Public Speaker

A few times throughout these pages I have explained that I have two guides whom I frequently use for my own spiritual growth and from which I get much of the information contained here.

With the readings that I do now being provided to the client in MP3 format, allowing them to hear the different changes in cadence and intonation that each specific spirit speaks with, I have had many curious clients email and ask me about these different spirits and how their connection to me works.

During a conversation with my lovely husband I realized that I had been meaning to write a post explaining the different types of guides as I have come to understand them.

Without a doubt the most important (and comparatively easiest to access) type of guide is the personal guide.

A personal guide is one whose “purpose” is to guide You and You specifically. Yes they can offer guidance to others THROUGH you, but their intent is to offer guidance to you and to help you grow and develop in your actions and perceptions.

The guide that I speak most often about is Maggie, she is my personal guide.

A person’s connection to their personal guide can be based on so many different levels and interpersonal factors.

The personal guide is always a reflection, in some form, of the higher self.

The higher self is the raw soul form, the true spiritual consciousness that is represented by the physical persona. It has access to levels of perception and vibration that cannot be experienced directly by the living being who resides in our limited 3-Dimensional plane.

So, I think we can agree that your “personal” guide is essentially an aspect of your higher self. But they can also have an additional level of interpersonal connection to you in the form of varying degrees of typical human relationships.

For example, my guide (who we have already determined is a representation of the higher self) is also a past incarnation of myself. She is my own past life. As time is not real and all things occur at once, I can drop in on her or she can drop in on me and we have conversations about both the past and the present realities.

This relationship is just one of an infinite number of connections that your personal guide can potentially have with you.

Most of our connections with the people in our lives, as well as with spirit energies, are multi-layered, serving more than one function.

I see no reason why guides should be any different.

Some personal guides may be connected to you based on energetic compatibility or based on family ties (ie. a great-great grandparent) or other past life activities. I also believe that future incarnations of yourself, or even your future children in this life can be expressions of guidance from within your own higher self.

Certainly, I would love to explain the whys or hows of these spirit and energy bodies but I am still learning the ins and outs of these realities myself. Perhaps I will post more in-depth explanations at a later date.

Personal guides can come to you in many ways, through reading, meditating, love or trauma. The opening experience is different for each person and usually occurs for you when you are least looking for it and least expecting it.

Though their main purpose is to offer you a glimpse of enlightenment and a further understanding of your own true self and your place in this world, guides can often be promoted to give information on any topic.

The true questioning process, asking pointed and general questions on your own or others behalf, can begin once initial contact has been made and some number of communications have passed between you, allowing the connection to be strengthened and explored.

Though I cannot speak for all guides, I know that my own personal guide is quite willing to attempt advice on “mundane” topics such as finances, jobs, romance etc… but she is also the first to admit that her perception of such everyday concerns (on our plane) is a little fuzzy and distorted (on her plane.) She tells me straight-out that her advice in these types of areas should be tempered with my own observations and conclusions about the situation at hand.

The best policy with any new materials or channels of communication is to take their input as very interesting but not necessarily 100% true. Not all planes of existence have the same perceptions or rules of reality as our living plane.

Working with a personal guide, whose ultimate goal is your own highest best interest is a gift that you carry within you at all times. Appreciate this simple fact and allow everything else that may transpire to be a beautiful gift.

“Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.”
~ Michelangelo, 16th-century Italian Artist & Poet

Beauty…

What is it?

How do you recognize it?

What does it feel like?

These are all seemingly simple questions. But when you try to answer them it becomes clear that they are nearly as deep and penetrating as “What is the meaning of life?” So take a minute to think about what makes a person beautiful.

Think of somebody that you find to be a beautiful person.

Are you thinking of a physical attribute? Maybe you are. Is it their eyes, their breasts or their smile? Do you admire them for their slim waistline?

I bet you don’t. I bet the “beautiful person” isn’t beautiful to you because they wear Versaci or drive an expensive car. I bet that after your initial thought of their physically appealing attributes you quickly moved on to what truly makes you think this person beautiful.

In fact I’m willing to bet that the person you find beautiful is someone that you find beautiful because they are lovely to be around. Maybe you can always share your thoughts with that person, maybe they make you laugh a lot, maybe they inspire you with their confidence. But their beauty isn’t about their perfect pearly whites. It’s about their spirit, their energy, their kindness.

Isn’t it?

So, now that we’ve established that beauty isn’t a superficial attribute but involves our spirit and its outward manifestation, the personality, let’s look at how you can cultivate this kind of lasting beauty.

Accept Pleasure

Most folks think of modern humans as pretty darn self-centered and greedy. But this is only a generalization put forth by those in a bitter state-of-mind. Individually, humans tend to fluctuate between being too self-serving and too giving. This giving nature can also be reflected as too much giving-in.

I want you to accept pleasure, personal pleasure and sexual pleasure. Expect pleasure n your life, allow yourself to experience joy at your own accomplishments, no matter how small.

We tend to belittle our own achievements as a way of trying not to seem too conceited. We reach a goal or manifest an intent and instead of allowing it fill us up with positive energy, we immediately begin thinking about the next thing that we have to do. As if stopping to enjoy our triumph will someone slow our progress towards some unknown success.

With food and drink, we rush through a meal or pay attention to the television while we eat instead of savoring the taste and texture of our food. Let the chocolate cake melt in your mouth. Let it just sit there on your tongue while you are flooded with its rich and creamy flavor. Do this with the wine and the cheese too. Allow yourself to experience the pleasure that it brings you.

Don’t think about the fat and the calories of your food. Make the decision of what you will eat in a completely mindful way and then let all supposed negatives that may be attached to it simply Go. Don’t ingest that negativity.

The same goes for sex. There are so many negatives tied up in this one act that it is not surprising that modern people find it very difficult to receive any pleasure, even in the act of being pleasured.

But looked at from a different point-of-view sex can fill us up with energy, raw pure energy. This makes us feel more confident with ourselves, walk with a bounce in our step and smile just a little more easily at the beauty and quirkiness of this world.

See sex as a viable and natural way to recharge your batteries. Know that the other person and you are ONE. We are one with everything on this planet, but sex is an affirmation of that. It is a co-mingling of energies, of life force. The process can be one where their negatives and your positives, as well as your negatives and their positives, link together to create a spark.

They have willingly allowed you to connect with them, to pleasure them and be pleasured by them. By attaching to this exciting coupling any negatives that are not really there, such as past experiences with this person or other people, or by doing this natural act the injustice of attaching guilt to it, you rob yourself and the other person of its pleasure. This person is not expecting anything of you other than to be there with them in the moment, so be there and allow the pleasure in.

When we allow ourself to experience pleasure and when we expect pleasure to come into our life, a very strange thing happens….we walk around looking pleased a lot more often. And that is beautiful.

Keep Learning

There is nothing more unattractive than ignorance. When I see a person who has so obviously allowed themself to stagnate, I am saddened for that person but also turned off on a possible relationship immediately.

Your brain is a muscle just like any other in your body and as they say, if you don’t use it you lose it. Keeping fit is beautiful, there’s no doubt about that, but this goes for your mind as well as your physique.

If you don’t keep challenging yourself to learn new things you begin to feel stifled. You begin to ask yourself, as you get older, what if? “What if I had taken that photography class instead of buying myself the video game console? Maybe I would have a great portfolio built up by now instead of the all-time top score on Pole Position.” (Okay very old reference there, but you get the point.)

I’m not saying that you need to work towards becoming the next Einstein in your spare time. I am saying that to reach a plateau, one where you are talented at all that you do whether it be work or hobbies or spiritual gifts, and then to not take on a new element that you aren’t good at yet, is to accept mediocrity. This sends a signal to your brain that says “No more workout for you, I’m happy with staying put right here.”

This in turn sends a signal to the world and the people around you that “What you see is what you get. Some people adapt and change but I don’t plan on being one of them.” And that, is not beautiful.

What is beautiful is a person who is excited by something. A person who speaks passionately about their pursuits is someone who appears to have it all together, to really be interested in life and in their own development. That is more beautiful than nearly anything else.

So keep learning. Read a book on a new subject. Take a class in something that you’ve always wanted to try. Join a new club or walk up and talk to someone who does something you don’t know anything about. You’ll be amazed how much you learn.

Listen

Many people can be heard talking but what is rarer is those who cannot be heard, because they are listening.

A great listener is a valuable friend indeed. We all need to be heard sometimes, it validates for us that we have thoughts which are worth listening to.

We can get advice from lots of people, but most of them are giving advice without fully understanding our situation. This is because they haven’t listened. So they tend to give inappropriate and even plain bad advice.

The human instinct is to try and relate to others. So we cut them off and we begin to tell our own similar story of being in the same harrowing situation.

We do this partially to try and comfort them, to say “I’ve been through it and I’m alright now.” But we also do this because our Ego wants us to be the biggest whatever in the room, the biggest success, the biggest know-it-all, the biggest sad and sorry person. The Ego doesn’t care what the topic is, it is the best, hands down.

What this does is negate the feelings of the other person who is trying to use you as a sounding board, an outlet to voice their own ideas and misgivings about their situation.

It is very difficult to listen. Because listening does not only require silence and attention to the words being spoken to you by your friend, but it also requires you to silence the inner dialog, the Ego, and to fight the urges that it is flooding your mind with.

Don’t give in. Let this moment be about the other person. Fight the urge to turn it to “me, me, me.”

As I said it is not a simple task, but those who manage to practice it anyway are very beautiful people indeed.

Affirm Yourself

Who are you? What do you see as your positive qualities? How do those equate to your physical body?

I want you to complete these sentences:

I am a great_________________.

I help others by ___________________________.

I am a total success at __________________________.

Now fill these in with a body part:

My __________________ helps me to helps others.

This ____________________ is a tool for my success.

I am grateful that I have healthy _____________.

So, why affirm yourself?

Because a person who is aware of their own talents in an active way is a person who is more confident in those talents. Confidence is beautiful

Also, a person who is more confident in their talents is more apt to use those talents to help others. To be generous and helpful is definitely beautiful.

Think more about what makes you unique. What makes you who you are? What makes you great?

Keep these thoughts in your head. Take the sentences that you’ve filled in above and step before a mirror.

You can do this naked or clothed but I prefer naked.

Look yourself in the eyes. Tell yourself that the person in there is unique because________ and great because _________. Use the first group of filled-in sentences to affirm who you are and why you are special. Look at your face, your hair, your body.

Look at how you stand, how your lips move when you are speaking. This is the representation of your inner spirit. There is no blame here. There is no shame. Your physique is not at issue here. Your self is what we are dealing with…inside and out as a reflection of your uniqueness. There are only positives.

When you arrive at the second group of sentences, touch the body parts that you listed. Touch your head, touch your arms. Spread your hands out wide. Run your fingers along your calves. Pat your stomach. Memorize how these parts of you look and feel.

Through this exercise we are accepting our talents and connecting them to “me.” We are acknowledging that the mind, the spirit and the body are all working in coordination to make us the whole and completely beautiful individual that we are.

You can repeat this exercise over and over again in order to get to know yourself better. You should begin to KNOW that you are beautiful, not just HOPE that you are.

Continuing On…

Let these ideas sink in for a little while. Think about what beauty means to you and what ideas you can take from above to develop your own beauty even further.

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century Essayist & Poet

So many people have asked me about building their own psychic connections that I thought I would begin an occasional series on techniques that can be used to develop the sixth sense. (No, not that Bruce Willis movie.) This is the human mind-spirit connection.

I call this gift “the Knowing” and it constitutes not only talking to spirits, or knowing the future but also a certainty, an acceptance of what you feel and hear inside of your heart and mind.

These techniques will not be requirements, you do not have to follow these posts in any order. These are simply possible ways to awaken your mind to the possibility of experiencing guidance, knowledge and visions that come from beyond the material world in which we live.

Trusting you own Intuition is a big door-opener for more intense psychic awareness.

Let’s look at “Intuition” in its strict dictionary definition. Oxford English Dictionary defines Intuition as: “immediate insight or understanding without conscious reasoning” it also uses the synonyms “instinct” and “inspiration.”

This is a very good definition indeed and it illustrates what I am going to be saying here.

Intuition is a natural capacity that we all have wired into us. Why? Because a saber-toothed cat can run faster than us. Our only hope of surviving in the environment in which our species lived for so long was to be aware of the presence of a thing before our eyes could see a thing.

Today this sense is dulled and often made into a joke. We have so much external to distract us, shopping and mass-media. What do we need our Intuition for now, knowing which outlet mall will have the designer purse that we want and getting there before the next lady?

In this exercise we are going to train the mind to suspend doubt and insist that the Ego give up the reins once in a while.

I bet that you cannot even count how many times you have heard a little voice in your head saying DON’T do this particular thing or DO do this particular thing.

You don’t know where it comes from, but you hear it anyway. It is irrational, this voice. It’s opinion doesn’t seem to based on any known evidence about the situation at hand. Yet it is insistent.

At least you think that it is insistent, but as soon as you begin to ponder on it you can see that it is just a silly thought. You say to yourself, “I must be crazy.”

How many times have you ignored the crazy voice only to have exactly what it said proven right later? How many times have you kicked yourself over this happening?

What is going on here is that we westerners live in a society where we expect things to be explained TO us.

We are so externalized in our view of self that we try to fit our physique, our language, our personality, even our very thoughts into a widely-accepted societal view of what the good specimen of an individual should look like, should behave like.

We begin to believe the flashy news stories that tell us a sixth sense is a fallacy, un-proven by science and therefore non-existent. The sixth sense is a joke, not real, a conspiracy theory that is only believed in by wackos and acid-dropping, tie-dye wearing hippie-types.

So the first step to development for most people is simply to build a trust in your own Intuition. By doing this you will make its voice become louder. You tend to speak more when you know that someone is listening than you do if it obvious someone is ignoring you. Right?

Now, because each one of us has this pushy, know-it-all, dominant voice inside of us known as the Ego…you know, the one convinced of its own superiority even though it has an extreme tendency to lead us astray into struggle and personal suffering….Well because we have this voice we must begin by:

1. Listening to the record of doubt that our dominant mind-voice plays to us in our head and disallowing it to affect us.

This will allow us to pinpoint and isolate all of the falsehoods that our own day-to-day mind tends to run off of and to stop this record.

We can hear our Ego say: “Oh the world is in a terrible state, so I should be frightened.” We can then stop the record, by not trying to ignore what the Ego says but instead paying attention to it and explaining gently to the Ego all of the ways in which it is wrong. (After a while this can become quite a fun game, especially when you see that the Ego begins to chatter less inside your head and leaves you in peace more often.)

In this case you can explain to the Ego that in your own life you are not suffering, that there are no bombs in your front yard and that you have enough food to eat. You explain to the Ego that the peace you feel inside is not false and that the images on the “news” are not exactly true at all. You can calm the Ego by refusing to give in to ITS irrational fear-mongering.

Now we can begin the listening and allowing part of the exercise. We must hear the little voice of Intuition and allow it to affect us.

We are so used to letting the Ego get away with anything and punishing the Intuition for even existing. So when we DO go with what the Intuition says we have a tendency to change our minds several times, back-and-forth. In this exercise we will begin by making a decision, one decision, using our Intuition.

Because the difference between the Ego and the Intuition is that the Intuition is always telling you what will be best for you overall, in the long-run. The Intuition is the “big picture” mind. The Ego is always telling you what it thinks is best for you RIGHT NOW, it is always basing its ideas on limited evidence, the evidence that it deems to be obvious. The Ego is the “pixel by pixel” mind.

The Intuition has the preservation of the whole you in mind while the Ego has the preservation of the conscious you in mind. The Ego is built upon years of accumulated misperception whereas the Intuition is based on the same simple truths with which we are born. Another way to put it is that the Intuition is “nature” and the Ego is “nurture.”

You are free to make either one of these minds into your dominant mind, but as the Nurture has a set of actual voices attached to it and the Nature simply is and has a subtle, universal voice, it becomes easier to listen to the Nurture because it screams louder.

We must train ourselves to hear the subtle voice that is Intuition.

2. Make a decision, big or small, using your intuition. Hear the Ego voice telling you what to do, trying to interject its views into the internal conversation, but then just let it fall away. Calm yourself and ask you heart: What should I have for breakfast? Where should I go to college? Which new house should I buy? I promise that the answer you get will be unlike anything that the Ego would say.

Often the Ego needs to give you examples of why it MUST be right about something. But the Intuition just knows. It often gives no examples, only an answer.

Practice this more and more often. Even when you are just trying to avoid rush-hour traffic. Quiet the conscious mind and ask the Intuition should I take the highway or the back roads?

The challenge is in hearing the answer that seems to come from nowhere and allowing yourself to “go with it,” even though the Ego says “No, no. This is wrong, because we have no proof. What if there is more traffic that way instead of less?”

Well in that case you sit in traffic and you listen to yourself more. Did you get it wrong? What does your intuition know that you don’t? What were you meant to learn in this traffic? What did you avoid by going the intuitive way?

The more you listen to the Intuition, the more that you will understand its ways and why it looks out for the long-term you and not the short-term you.

But don’t be surprised if after sitting in that traffic, you get home and find out that there was an awful accident on that short-cut that the Ego wanted you to take.

Between traffic and death, I’ll take traffic.

“Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”

~Marianne Williamson, Inspirational Author

The universe works in mysterious ways.

The invitation for this article simply arrived in my scope of vision. A relative of mine asked for a bit more info on intuitive development which made me realize that this is indeed most likely to be what draws people to this blog. It is not just simply my stories of spirituality and psychic experiences, but a desire to have these things become an integral part of your own lives.

Now, this person asked for more info on developing intuition. I, of course, read way too much into things and become over excited, always wanting to help increase the vibration of this planet by guiding others to spiritual awareness and enlightenment. (Total Light-worker Syndrome.)

Anyhow. I have decided to create a multi-approach and multi-subject list of good reading materials for moving you along your path toward intuitive abilities and spiritual awareness.

There are beginner, intermediate and advanced books here. They deal with many facets of energy and spiritual awareness. Some will be too weird or too heavy for the absolute beginner. This does not, however, preclude you from being able to read them. The beauty of reading in these subject areas is that you know when you are ready for a book, by whether or not you like and understand what you are reading when you pick it up.

This is about intuitive development so, as Serge suggested while I was writing this, just scan the list of subjects and titles. Use your own intuitive vibe to choose which few books you’d like to read first. Then see where that reading leads you to next. I suppose you could call this “going with the flow.” When something is right, you just know.

My belief is that two things are essential to the development of intuitive gifts:

1) Meditation, lots of it, in many and any forms.

2) A shift in awareness, a willingness to look at things from a new point-of-view, I would call this “mindfulness,” the act of becoming consciously aware of all the multitude of things that we do mindlessly in our modern world. (Such as speaking, eating, bathing, buying, judging others and being entertained externally, in ways that disengage us from our spirit and our environment.)

Have a look below and see how you can begin developing the necessary spiritual awareness to connect you to our natural energies and intuitive abilities…

Spiritual Awareness
The Power of Now
The Book of Secrets
There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem
A New Earth
Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match Your Desires
The Way of the Wizard
Awakening: A Daily Guide to Conscious Living

Beginning Intuitive
Developing Intuition
Trust Your Vibes
The Time Has Come to Accept Your Intuitive Gifts
Personal Power Through Awareness
Living With Joy

Intermediate Intuitive
Psychic Pathway
Awakening Your Psychic Skills
Living in the Light
Spiritual Growth: Being Your Higher Self

Contacting Spirit Guides
Ask Your Guides
Opening to Channel
Contact Your Spirit Guides To Enrich Your Life

Meditation
Meditations: Creative Visualization and Meditation Exercises to Enrich Your Life
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Meditation for Beginners
The Miracle of Mindfulness
How to Meditate: An Illustrated Guide to Calming the Mind and Relaxing the Body
Teach Yourself to Meditate in 10 Simple Lessons

From the blog front page, if you want more topics and materials click here:

Audiobooks & Meditations (these are a mix of the subjects throughout this post)
Unlocking Your Intuitive Power: How to Read the Energy of Anything
Developing Intuition: Practical Guidance for Daily Life
Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love
Guided Mindfulness Meditation
Stress Reduction and Creative Meditations
The Essence of Being in Balance
Meditations for a New Earth
Spiritual Growth: Vol 1 Raising Your Vibration
Spiritual Growth: Vol 2 Being Your Higher Self
Becoming an Intuitive Healer: A Professional Development Course for Health Practitioners
Guided Visualization Series Vol. 1
Living the Light Body
How to Meditate with Pema Chodron: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

Earth Spirituality (ie. Paganism, Native Ways and Wicca) * I am in no way stating that this spirituality is the only path to developing psychic skills, only that its openness to individualization and its balance between masculine and feminine divinity has led me to my own development of these innate gifts.*

Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
The Elements of Natural Magic
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess
Spirit of the Witch

Oneness & Light-working
Oneness
The Calling
Family of Light
Bringers of the Dawn
Earth: The Pleiadian Keys to the Living Library
Affinity: Reclaiming the Divine Flow of Creation

Hermetics & Power of Intention
The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece
Spiritual Alchemy
The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent
Path of Alchemy: Energetic Healing & the World of Natural Magic
The Law of Attraction
The New Hermetics: 21st Century Magick for Illumination

Energy-Healing
Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field
Vibrational Medicine
Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine
Intuitive Wellness: Using Your Body’s Inner Wisdom to Heal
Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul
True Balance: A Commonsense Guide for Renewing Your Spirit
Energy Work: The Secret of Healing and Spiritual Development
Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness

There are of course many more specific and advanced subjects that people may choose to study, or may naturally develop, along their own path of intuitive development and spiritual awakening. These include, by aren’t limited to, Astral Projection, Trance Channeling, Aura Reading, High Magic, Astrology, Divination, Herbal Medicine, Yoga, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Feng Shui, Acupuncture, Aromatherapy and many others.

However, many spiritually aware people are happy to just develop an intuitive relationship with their spirit guides and their higher self. This is what enriches life and makes it a full and rewarding experience. All else is just icing on the spiritual cake.

~

To my relative who inspired this informative post, I love you. I love you not just because you are family, I love you because I know the curiosity, and joy, and excitement, and trepidation, that run through you when you begin looking into the limitless and beautiful world of things that can be felt but are unseen. I want you to know that I will help in any way that I can. And I love you because, in general, I aspire to love all people, and I can see how we are all one, at all times, no matter the form or the circumstance.

I am not yet completely altruistic. I don’t claim to be a bodhisattva, to have achieved Buddha mind, I am far too opinionated on world matters and personal behaviors to be that yet. But I am sending light energy and peaceful support to all spiritual seekers in this changeable place that we call Earth.

“There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.”
~Frederick William Faber, British hymn writer and theologian

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This article is a repost from our old blog – originally dated February 2007.
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You are my brother one. I am your sister one. The divine ALL from whence we came is calling upon us to ascend, to raise our personal vibration along with our awareness and begin to come together to show others the way of healing, of community. We must take our awareness, which is still rather a rare gift, and use it to heal the planet, to save whomever we can by helping them to awaken to their own true divine connection and to accept the truth on a very real level, that we are all ONE. That each of us is just a simple expression of one tiny aspect of a larger, limitless whole. We are like molecules in the body of eternity, but molecules with all the creative and loving powers of that whole.

We can teach others verbally or with written words about light energy as creation, about the existence of the ALL that is all we see and more or we can teach others by the laying on of hands. Some are open to these “direct understanding” methods of spiritual learning, but many are not. Are these the “sleeping” ones who will not ascend when our planet enters its true fourth-dimensional state? Perhaps. But I believe that we each have the opportunity to awaken some of them, and without any true forcing of the topic at hand.

The answer, as it is to all things, is light and vibration. We may carry ourselves in the mode of integrity and the mode of spiritual awareness, as most of you reading this already do, and by so doing we may unintentionally give off an energy that makes those asleep who are wakeable become curious or in awe. They may mistakenly see you as a God or transversely, may take you as Self-righteous. They will see what they are willing to see, but you may lead by example, so to speak, in a way that pulls them out of the closet and closer to the open window through which spiritual awareness can shine in upon them.

Yet a more proactive way that we can shake the awareness of the sleeping ones is by practicing what we preach, in all interactions, in all circumstances. You interact when you purchase a book from the cashier, you interact when you meet a stranger at a dinner party, you interact when you go to a job interview, you interact when you get pulled over for speeding, etc…. Now, attempt to always emanate healing, loving, accepting energy, even when the mundane situation could be interpreted as uncomfortable or unlucky, whatever. Feel the white, yellow and pink-tinged light fill you up, pulled from a connection to the universal divine, and then let it surround you like an unseen, glowing egg. When you smile send out a beam of that light, when you laugh or talk let it’s divine truth be the sound from your lips, when you shake hands send some of it off into the world of the other person.

Know that you are not doing anything that you should ask permission for, you are not doing anything that injures your karma but something that improves both your own karma and the karma of the other person. Humans were initially sent here to learn how to love, but became enthralled to the glamour of the “self.” What you are doing when you consciously carry yourself in this way is returning to your own true meaning, to the ONE true purpose and reality of humankind.

At first it will not be easy to remember to carry yourself in this way. After all, this level of vibration and understanding is most likely something that you only embrace and actually open yourself to when you are at home, comfortable, purposely exploring and learning about it. But I ask you, what good are these talents if you do not use them to the betterment of the whole world? If you hide them beneath the same armor that you have always adorned yourself with when you are out in the world interacting with other humans?

So, make a conscious effort to be emanating your loving, spiritual and healing light at all times, to all people. This will be difficult to remember and tiring to maintain at first. You must train yourself to keep in this mindset even when you are embroiled in some modern, mundane human drama, like being late for the kids school play and getting stuck in what seems like the slowest check-out line on the planet. Don’t be snippy with the check-out girl, give her a glance of love from the eternal divine, you are doing both her and yourself a longer lasting favor than nastily pointing out the obvious could ever be.

You will slowly find that doing this exercise will increase your own awareness of divinity along the way and make it easier overall for you to reach those aware levels when you sit down to meditate, channel, dream, walk the astral etc… You will also come to experience more love and good luck, so to speak, in your own daily life. For, with each person that you send universal spiritual and love energy off to, the energy is exponentially increased in the world. This is because, generally unknowingly, that dear, special other person will carry this infinite energy off with them and express its existence, often wordlessly, to others in their life and like a piece of gossip it will fly around the globe creating positive karma and small loving creations along its way.

You have been given, by your own free choice, awareness on this globe of good and bane that others may not have access to. You have chosen and been granted this for one purpose, to heal others with its truth and to help raise the collective vibratory existence of this time and this place. Begin simply, for the benefit of the ALL and see how it unfolds in your world all the “impossible” possibilities that you have found wanting in your soul.

~Vera Nadine

“The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, British Author & Linguist, The Fellowship of the Ring

We have recently published our newest ebook, Medium Adventures: Exploring the Lord of the Rings.

Exploring the Lord of the Rings is the second book in the Medium Adventures series. In this installment, we connect with spirit guides and Universal Record in order to investigate the concepts and truths behind the magnificent and epic story woven by J.R.R. Tolkien.

We find the answers to questions such as:

– Did Tolkien have a channeling experience when he wrote these and other novels?
– What percentage of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series is based on actual truth?
– Did any of his humanoid creatures, such as dwarves, elves and hobbits ever actually exist in a previous age of the planet Earth?
– Why do modern-day humans feel so drawn to, and inspired by, these fantastical stories?
– What can we as humans do to live closer to the ideals and magic expressed in Tolkien’s works?

With a bit of fun and a touch of mysticism, including intriguing revelations about the creative process and human motivations as well as surprising information about Earth’s multiple dimensions, our future evolution and the other beings who share our world, this channeled session is enlightening in more than one way and is a must-read for Tolkien fans and spiritual seekers alike.

Here is a very brief snippet:

Some lovers of Tolkien’s works believe that he actually channeled a true history of former times and civilizations on this planet. Did Tolkien have a channeling experience when he wrote these and other novels?

Of course. He would not have described it as such, nor would he have agreed to any suggestion that it was, but all great works of art, no matter their medium, are channeled from the true energies of the Earth, the Universe, the soul realms. They come from the Akashic Record. Some of them closer to truth than others. But the physical body, the painter, the writer — it is only a conduit for the great, vast fabric of knowledge that exists: past, present and future. The Akashic Records are not just the past, or a record of the present, they are the entire fabric of reality, every possibility for every time period and every soul, in every dimension, every planet.

He was a wise man, spiritual, but not overwhelmingly so. A private person, but born with an openness, particularly to the environment, to the vibration of the country in which he was raised. He had what might be described as an ease of inspiration. He could find inspiration in any moment, in the smallest thing. And he had a mind like a catalogue. He could remember every moment of inspiration and every idea that it gave flight to, and call upon them at a moment’s notice to push his creations forward, to give them depth, meaning, life and, yes, truth.

Never in his wildest dreams would he have even considered the notion that anything he had written was true. He was a lover of words, of stories, songs and histories. The myths that he wove together were just that to him, myths. Like any good lover of myth, he believed that there was a thread of truth, but that that truth was too distilled and obscured, it would never be able to be understood by the waking human mind. And he never fooled himself into thinking that he could find the truth and separate it from the myth, and therefore chose to love them for the pictures that they painted in his mind, for the songs that they had been turned into over time.

He believed himself to have written a myth for the modern age. It was his love letter to language and history, to songs and culture, but no more real to him than Jack and The Beanstalk or Peter Pan.

Add it to your Kindle ebook collection for only 99 cents and help support our channeling endeavours.

“Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.”

~John Milton, Paradise Lost

What is channeling?

Channeling is the act of entering an open spiritual state (ie. alpha) and allowing an incarnate energy to use your psyche and your mouth to express valuable messages to living beings. Very often these are not deceased spirits per se, but more global and universal energies such as light beings, angels, deities, personal guides, ascended masters, higher selves and elementals.

How is channeling different from being a medium?

A medium is not generally able to allow spirits to speak using his or her own mouth, but instead can hear or “see” deceased spirits and interpret their situation for others. Mediums deal almost exclusively with deceased humans, whether recently deceased or long dead. This is why I make a distinction between my work as an Historical Medium and my work as a Spirit Channel.

How did you learn to channel?

Haha. I wish it had been a process of self-application with the intention of reaching channeling as my goal. It was not like that however. I have always been a sensitive, telling stories as a child that I later realized to have been truths, things that I only knew based on my spiritual awareness. But channeling as a direct act is something that revealed itself after years of studying meditation, paganism, nature and magic. In many ways I am still “learning” to channel, in that I am yet to grasp all of the myriad ways that this gift can be utilized to bring about positive change in my life and the lives of others.

Do spirits ever show you frightening things?

Well yes, but at the same time, not really. People are often afraid to ask for channeled advice or to hear about spirits of any kind because the fear being told or shown something horrific. “Do they show you their gunshot wounds?” “Do they tell you that you or someone you love is going to die?” In most instances they do not. Spiritual guidance is just that, guidance, it is meant to point you in the right direction, to communicate to you something of value. If you are scared out of your wits, are you going to be receptive to any guidance? If you become so fearful that you forget to live your life, are you receiving value? Their guidance and appearances tend to be gentle, subtle and yet specific to your circumstances. Sometimes they show me unpleasant things, designed to get their point across, but I have never yet been frightened or tortured by anything that they have shared with me.

How come you can channel light beings and ascended masters?

The answer is simply, I do not know. I do not choose them, they choose me. It is most likely due to two things, my belief that they even exist and my higher vibration, which comes from a clean diet and a spiritual outlook that is as much a part of me as my name or my face. I am aware that there are several other mediums out there who can channel beings from the higher realms, including ascended masters, and some of them have made great contributions to human consciousness with their works. Perhaps, in the future, I will bring more ascended messages through for the world. Right now I am content to offer you words from the ancients and from the few light beings who I regularly speak with.

How do you know that what they say through you is true?

Good question. How do you know that anything a teacher, politician, priest or reporter, or even your spouse, says to you is true? The answer is that you don’t. You see truth wherever you have faith. And I have faith in my connection to spirit. One can usually tell a falsehood by a nagging feeling in their gut that something is just not right. Well, in developing sensitivity, you will find that there is a matching feeling, also in the gut/heart area, that is the sign of a deeply honest truth. I feel this more often than not and am always able to tell if something that comes through me is untrue or misguided. In those cases, rare as they are, I keep the information to myself. I only share something on this blog or with my clients when the feeling of truth from it is overwhelming.

Do spirits always speak English?

This is a very funny question. Some of you may have noticed that I, in my Medium Adventures series, I have communicated with spirits from other cultures such as a Geisha Girl, an Anglo-Saxon Warrior, a Mayan Priest and a Roman Slave. And I always speak to them in English. I have also channeled ancestors for people whose primary language is Chinese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, Czech, Greek and French, yet they too always speak in English. This does not mean that the being’s primary language is English, only that, in order for them to communicate, their words must be filtered through my own physical consciousness. Many of them do come through to me speaking in their own languages at first, mumbling coherent and non-coherent words through my lips. But, once reminded that neither I nor anyone else who is present speak that language, their messages inevitably switch to English. I have yet to figure out if it is my higher self that translates for them or some facet of the collective unconscious. Generally they still keep their accents, which is odd, to listen to a recording and hear my own voice with a Spanish or Latin or Chinese accent.

Can you channel living people?

I wouldn’t have thought so but, oddly enough, the answer is actually Yes. I have, on occasion, been able to channel for others a part of themselves that has been repressed, or that cannot find a way to express itself outright to the person in question. This has proved most common in areas where the person has an emotional blockage or painful experiences that have left them scarred in unseen ways. Hearing their own internal feelings expressed vocally is a way of enabling them to release these issues and move forward unencumbered in their lives.

Can channeling tell you the future?

Yes and no. Most of the entities and energies that come through in channeling sessions are of a higher vibration than us, in other words they either do not live on the planet Earth, or they live in a different dimension on the planet Earth. For this reason they do indeed have access to future possibilities, they do not however see the same reality that we see. So what is true for the future of the fifth dimension may not be quite the same truth for the future of the third. I do have a personal belief, based on my own experiences, that one can channel your own future generations and the children which you have yet to have, just as one can channel one’s past lives to gain valuable information.

Do people think that you are crazy?

Perhaps some of my family do, though not all of them, and I know that in some third world countries I could be locked up for my all-encompassing spiritual beliefs. But the amount of people who write to me and tell me that my words or my channelings have helped them to overcome painful feelings, to let go of unhealthy relationships, to gain a more spiritual view on life and to find not just a more peaceful mind but a more joyful heart, makes up for it all. The relatively limited number of people who are judgmental and unloving enough to shun me without truly understanding what it is that I do for a living, are nothing compared to the number of equally talented and enlightened people whom I have had the privilege to meet and befriend since I fully embraced my spirit and my gifts. Thank you all so much!

Is channeling and talking to spirits a sin?

I do not personally believe in the concept of sin, as all Gods are one God and all of creation is but independent pieces of the great eternal Source, there is no good or bad, only shades of energy. Light and Dark are one and the same and each would have no meaning or existence without the other. All that I do know is that every great religion, religion being an entirely different thing than spirituality, has been based upon the foundations of meditation, communion and prayer. Taosim, Hinduism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Paganism all have at their great texts and philosophies, but at the basis of each is a mystical message, brought through to humanity by a great prophet or wise person which has spent their life in piety and meditation, often times these messages come through communication with a spirit of some kind. So, you should not be afraid of being a channel or a medium. I speak to spirits in order to help them move into their own peace. In channeling, I believe in bringing through messages of a positive intent that can benefit people in finding their inner peace and joy. Therefore, I know that I am a good person, and that’s good enough for me.

Do the spirits give you guidance that helps you?

Yes, when I speak to spirits they inevitably allow me to see something about their lives that inspires me in some way, reminding me of the magical nature of incarnation. Guides and light beings have helped me numerous time both with my own spiritual development and also with health problems that I have faced over the years. Their advice is both spiritual and practical, depending on the circumstances, and having the faith to follow it when it feels right has saved me much unnecessary suffering along the way. Still, I feel that a combination of my own spiritual beliefs and my own reasoning is generally the best guide. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that valuable answers to life’s questions can only come from outside of us, inside we are of the same divine consciousness, whether we are incarnate or not.

How can your past life be your present guide?

I know that I have shared with all of you that one of my guides, in fact my main guide Maggie, is actually a past incarnation of myself. And, without a solid grounding in quantum mechanics and hermetic teachings, it may be quite difficult for the everyday, modern human being to grasp how past lives are possible, let alone how you can communicate with your past self. But, I assure you that it is quite normal to have your past self as a guide, though this differs from your Higher Self. For more information on the past and the spiritual nature of time, read the Psychic Elephant.

What do I do if I want to become a channel?

The first step is to ask yourself if you have ever experienced moments of strong intuition or psychic tendencies in the past. If so, you are already open to this path, if not you can still become open to it. It is all about seeing the unseen and being willing to believe in the unproven. It takes a lot of faith for people to believe in an external God, but even more faith to believe that God is within you. Opening yourself to the unseen and the God/Goddess within is a process which requires diligence, innocence and patience. The innocence that is required is that of a child, children do not yet know the difference between dreams and reality, between imagination and reasoning and thus are openly embracing to whatever thoughts and visions come to them. To develop diligence and awareness, begin by adopting a daily meditation practice, even if you think that you cannot actually reach a state of meditation. Read Meditation Basics as a starting point. The other valuable thing that you can do, for honing your skill of patience, is to spend time out in nature, alone is best or with someone who is equally as spiritual as you and who can keep quiet as you explore. Walk in the woods, sit in afield, climb a mountain or just sit on a swing in the park, but be with nature, be consciously aware and make a game of seeing how long you can stay that way. The gifts will come to you when your third-eye and your vibration reach a higher state of awareness. (It took 10 years of regular spiritual practice for me to actually find the key to this gift within me, even though psychic tendencies have been with me since birth.)

Blessings, and thanks for the questions!

“May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Monk, Author & Peace Activist

I have heard the calling. It made no sound except perhaps a swish of warm air through the core of my being. But nonetheless, I heard it.

It didn’t say my name, for my soul is nameless. But it was meant for me, as sure as birds were meant for the air.

Listening. I had quieted myself. Deliberately. I had released the struggle and simply sat. For years. But the song that I knew was there remained elusive.

I languished, wallowing in my egoism. And the loud clatter sank back in. It deafened my soul.

Then…

Then I heard it! It was silently beautiful, my soul song. The universe within, humming like a waterfall. Pulsing. The heart of love.

And I connected to it. I embraced my uniqueness without a qualm.

I am the voice of eternity. By mouth and pen. By my actions. I tell the stories of ancient truths.

The calling sang to me. It whispered as well. It’s loving guidance pouring upon my open mind.

And now I sing. I sing to the seekers. The listeners.

I am pouring myself into a healing. Healing one gentle spirit at a time. With acceptance and free will.

I embrace the lonely path, enlightened for my journey.

I am strengthened. By the touch of divine creation.

I will relinquish self-doubt. It is returned to the Source.

I know myself. The conduit. Come and speak to me. Let your positive light pour through me. I am willing to share.

I no longer take comfort in waste. I am comforted by self-restraint. And you will be too. I live closer to my Mother planet. I am unprocessed and wise. Natural woman.

I will live wild. Live free. Unburdened. For fear is fruitless. Peace. Joy shall be the way.

Let me be the seed. A future bright with community. Self love. The seedling and the flower.

May the prosperous fountain overflow. Leaving behind all need. Thankful. With gratitude, I share. My spirit, my truth, my bounty.

Entwined and clasped. Hand me your hand. We sing.

And it calls to you. The Oneness. Your heart beating for Source. The race never was.

A breeze whistling, a brook trickling. You have been called.

Begin now.

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Sadhana is a Sanskrit word that pertains to spiritual practice. It has been translated and used in many different ways but, in the modern Western usage, it has come to mean a dedicated spiritual practice, something done mindfully with the object of achieving a specific result. Most often this takes the form a 40-day practice involving certain mantras (words), mudras (hand gestures) and yoga poses.

At the beginning of August, I was inspired to join in a global sadhana being offered by Ramdesh Kaur at Spirit Voyage. The aim of this sadhana is Transforming Negativity Into Love, something we can all use, both personally and globally. I have never taken part in something like this before. Of course I have had personal spiritual pursuits that involved carrying out a certain meditation or dedication every day, but I’ve haven’t ever joined others in a sadhana of this type.

This 40-day sadhana consists of two different practices. The first is a series of four kundalini poses, each of which must be held for at least 1 minute. The second practice involves reciting an affirmation designed to bring about self love.

The affirmation, recited with hands clasped gently over the heart centre, is:

My heart, I love you.
My body, I love you.
My mind, I love you.
I forgive myself for any words or thoughts I have made about myself which were unkind.
I release any emotional attachment to the unkind words others have said to me.
I forgive myself for anything that needs to be forgiven.
I recognize my own beauty.
I believe in myself and in my dreams.
I am bountiful.
I am beautiful.
I am blissful.
I am.
I am at peace.
I am whole.
I am loved.
I rest in the light of this truth.

The process of allowing this sadhana into my life has been loving and transforming on the most gentle and subtle levels of my being. I have been surprised by it’s energetic effects, so light and inspiring.

Some of it has been new to me, such as physical Kundalini poses and hand mudras, but some of it is familiar and comfortable, such as soft music and verbal affirmations. It took a few days to figure out the process and memorize all of the practice, but it quickly became a happy, soothing part of my day.

For myself, I chose to complete my sadhana in the evenings, after dinner and after my young son had gone to bed. Taking this time for myself and using it to connect with others around the world who I knew were doing the same practice really brought more light and peace into my life.

Today is day 37 of 40 and, as we are now coming to the end of this particular sadhana, I am reflecting on the practice and what it has brought to my own personal and spiritual development. Firstly, it has taught me to embrace whatever makes me feel good in my spiritual pursuits, as opposed to being locked into one belief structure or one way of doing things. It has also shown me, by utilizing the affirmation during various ups and downs, that taking a few moments to love oneself every day really can make you express your love to others more easily. And last, I can palpably feel how increasing your own vibration and mood will, collectively, increase the joy and happiness of humanity on a much larger scale.

Sadhana is not just for hindus or yoginis, it can be utilized as a growth tool by anyone, of any belief structure and for nearly any purpose. Sadhana can be any number of days and any practice that feels right to you. For more about the many ways to use sadhana in your life please check out this article at Yoga Lunchbox.

Now, having approached this 40-day sadhana through the ease and serenity provided by Ramdesh Kaur, I am hooked on the practice. I am looking forward to the next global sadhana and in the meantime will ask my guides for a suggestion of a personal sadhana that I can embrace for continuing the uplift of my own personal vibration.

Goodness spreads itself far and wide, plant one seed with love and watch it reach for the sky.

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

~Desmond Tutu, South African Bishop & Social Activist

Hope is coming to you from all sides. It is pelting at the Earth from beings and planets unknown to you. Each beam of sunlight, each fresh breeze, they are carrying to you warmth and tenderness from your energetic brothers and sisters throughot the cosmos. We have no agenda. We have only love for you.

Some of us choose to come and offer you guidance, but in general we are simply desirous of celebrating our kinship with you. Your world is in a time of great change, great awakening. This is signaled by the newfound open-mindedness of your specis, but also by cataclysm, social upheaval and fear. That is why we are here, offering you love, embracing you at the heart level, mingling our divine spirit energy with your own. Such times call for togetherness on all levels, for a strengthening of community and for creative answers to age-old questions.

Most cosmic societies have already undergone this process. We have already walked the flames of awakening and been birthed out the other side. As will you be, in whatever way your species evolves.

Still, it is not enough for us to say to you that more beautiful things than you can imagine are awaiting you, beyond all of the gloom, fear and suffering. You cannot see that yet and so you will likely not believe us.

Just know that there is immeasurable, divine joy surrounding you, that you are being loved and guided, even as you walk unware of your own magnificence and your own divine opportunities.

Everything will unfold as it should.

You are already blessed.

“Movement never lies: it is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.”

~Martha Graham, American Dancer & Choreographer

Not all of us are triathletes. And, not all of us are couch potatoes. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

I tend to label myself in the category of homebody intellectual, meaning that most of my pursuits require brain or some occasional hand-eye coordination but few of them require me to get off my butt and leave the house. Yet, I still consider myself a well-rounded person.

Until recently I saw no problem with this arrangement, but have suddenly come to understand that to be active and breath fresh air is just as important to a spiritual life as are faith and meditation.

Those of us who maintain an active spirituality often eschew physical exercise and physical labour in favour of chanting “Om” and reading about the power of attraction or the life of the Dalai Lama. Yet getting spiritual must also mean acknowledging the divine nature of your physical body.

Our family recently lost a beloved pet. From muscular and energetic he sickened and went down hill so suddenly that we very clearly saw what happens when a spirit leaves this physical existence. As he got closer to passing away his eyes lost their sparkle and his spirit slowly became unmanifest. He fought and fought, following us and meowing, laying with us and attempting to swat at his old toys. His spirit was not willing to leave, it wanted to live more. Then, when he crossed over, his little furry body, which had been so sleek and beautiful and cuddly, just looked like an empty shell – a puppet.

Seeing this process with a loving eye, I had to then stop and look at my own life, my husband’s and my baby’s. Could neglect of our bodies, our environment and our natural world take one of us from this physical plane before we truly were ready to go? Could our lovely little soul family be separated so easily and so rapidly?

Spirits come to this world to experience the magic of being a spirit and yet being able to act and create and learn on a physical, solid level. Some are taken back to spirit long before the lessons they desired have been experienced.

The “reality” that we humans currently live in can be harsh and dangerous, chemicals and machines often lead to illness and accident. We cannot control everything and some things truly are destined to be. Yet embracing the divine nature of this one-lifetime-only body that we have been given means honoring it’s fragility by caring for it just as vigorously (perhaps even moreso) than we to tend to our spiritual development.

In acknowledging our own sacredness we must eventually come closer to our physical world, not more detached from it. Moving our body is a sacred act, feeding it right is a sacred act. These have been difficult lessons for me to implement in my life. Truth be told I find reading, knitting and meditating much easier than walking, swimming and cooking for myself.

My spiritual and creative work is my true life purpose. I am here to bring light to my son, my husband and my readers. But, if I get sick (and I have been so more than most) and I become disabled or die suddenly, I leave my work undone. I leave my family broken. The same is true for us all, divine guidance is telling humanity –during this critical time for our species– that balance is key. We must find the balance between spirit and body, nature and technology, greed and kindness.

Balance for me seems more crucial than ever. Not just once, but several times, I have woken up at night with a pain in my chest or my arm and thought “That’s it, the bad diet and extra weight has caught up with me. I am having a heart attack.” Can you imagine being a new Mom and having such a horrible thought? So, I began a serious challenge to myself – spend 79 days doing something that is good for you, especially if you don’t want to do it, and watch your life change. I have chosen 79 days of smaller portions and a focused fitness regime.

When you embrace deliberate movement you are not just honoring the body as a vehicle for your true self, you are caressing the spirit within. You are enlivening it and its purpose, increasing the energy of your oneness. There is a unification of mind, body and soul, all working towards one goal: the betterment of you, your mood, mindset, life & divine purpose.

I am more than 50 days into it now and you know what I discovered? Believe it or not, sticking to a hard workout and repeating it over and over again makes you feel amazing! Confidence boosts and chakras glow. You get so proud of yourself, you feel more energy and you begin to smile at yourself in the mirror. When darkness looms, and you feel depressed or someone has upset you and made you feel powerless, just 30 minutes of jumping jacks, sit-ups, dumbbell curls and toe touches can bring true light and happiness out of you.

I hear some of you saying, “Oh it’s endorphins.” And, I am sure that is partially true. Remember also that we are divine, aware beings walking around in these temporary shells. That eternal spiritual being knows that it needs the body in order to accomplish its life purpose, its goals and lessons. When you take care of that body, the spirit can shine all the brighter, at a higher vibration closer to its original loving source. This is genuine happiness that comes from deep within.

Happiness is also contagious. It’s infectious. So when you move to benefit your own heart and soul, you are also moving toward benefitting those of the people with whom you spend your time. It’s a win-win situation!

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”

~Neil Armstrong, Astronaut & First Man on the Moon

The following is excerpted from our ebook of the same name…

From time to time, in the course of my channelings and meditations, I get a piece of psychic history that shocks even me.

This is rare and usually comes in the form of first-person experience of a topic or time-period which I was not even expecting or intending to contact.

One such occasion was in the course of a personal meditation, a few years ago now, where I was receiving guidance from my higher self. All of a sudden, she told me to look into a puddle on the ground and that she would show me something of great importance.

I did as she suggested and was immediately transported in a direction that I can best describe as upwards. I rose up through a misty haze and was instantly transported back down again, backwards in time, into an endless lush jungle.

The covering or canopy was thick and green, damp, tall and dark. I knew that there were tribes of people living here, though how I knew this at that point I don’t really understand. I walked through this ancient, untouched place, pushing branches and large fronds out of my way as I went and eventually came to a small clearing amongst the trees and vines.

There, in the clearing, was a sight that I could never have dreamt, not in any vision, dream or meditation had I ever seen anything even remotely like it. There, in the middle of the clearing, stood a speechless (as in not able to produce what we think of as speech) wild man.

He was similar to, though more magnificent than, our textbook illustrations of Neanderthal man. Behind him, towards the edge of the clearing, stood a small group of other wild people, half hidden in the jungle. It was obvious to me that he was their chosen leader, perhaps for his physique and strength or bravery. In front of him, in a huge, blinding beam of light, stood some kind of “alien” creature. It was flat as a piece of paper, tall, angular and orange-reddish of color, and dwarfed the wild man by as many as three or four feet.

This creature, obviously also a leader of some sort, had a number of similar creatures, of varying heights and shades of orange, standing behind it. These two groups of beings were communicating with each other, exactly how I cannot work out, but the orange people did not speak in words, they spoke telepathically. The wild men seemed to only grunt and gesture, yet their “leader” was nodding his head and grunting in an understanding toward the orange leader.

The orange creatures were asking for something from the wild men, showing them pictures of their own reality in their minds. Once these beings had finished telling their story to the wild man, he paused for a few moments, just standing before this tall, flat being.

Then the man stepped backward a bit, toward the edge of the forest and seemed to hold council with his fellow tribes people. There was a lot of confusion, then some level of disagreement, followed by some type of compromise and a consensus of some kind. After this the leader stepped back into the clearing and, in an almost pitying way, gave a positive answer to this orange being.

I have thought much on this since I had the vision and asked for clarification of my ideas in several other meditation and dream sequences after that, and this is the understanding that I have come to about at least one portion of our human history:

In our ancient past, we lived as peaceful, highly-spiritual beings in small groups that worshiped the Earth, Sun, Moon and stars as actual beings, as thinking, living and feeling elements of nature. We did not have the power of speech, but did have many concepts that modern people think of as marks of “civilization.” These included self-awareness, ritual practices, agricultural knowledge, religious understanding, cooking and communication as well as the concepts of truth, responsibility, family connections, past, present and future.

At the same time, in other corners of the greater cosmos, other beings who looked and communicated differently to us were undergoing great changes in their way of life and on their own planets. One such group, the orange people, were suffering under the expansion and immanent explosion of their sun.

The normal course of life for them, on their sun-scorched planet, was to be born as flat yet moist, yellow beings, coming into an orangeness as they passed beyond puberty, getting taller as they also grew to have less moisture in their bodies, and eventually, when approaching middle to old age, to become reddened and drier, often like the texture of a tree, except flat.

They lived in extended family groups, on a dusty, rocky, and arid planet that was comprised equally of mountains and extensive dry plains. Each family group shared a plain or cave, where dozens and dozens of them lived together. What specifically they did, in other words, what they’re daily life was like, was never shown to me. I do not believe, however, that they went to work every day as we tend to do or that they had a care for the creation or collection of material goods at all.

These creatures seemed to be extremely spiritual in their reality, living for and by energy and thought, not growing or harvesting things. They did spend their time thinking, vibrating, creating, but not in a way that could be “seen” on a physical plane of existence. They seemed to act solely for the betterment of the whole race and of their planet, however certain forces in their universe were beyond their control.

The only true vision that I had of their planet and their life on it was at the very end of their world. Groups of the oldest and the youngest (I guess you could say the grandparents and grandchildren) of these orange beings were cowering under a large rock outcropping in the middle of a large open plain and were slowly frying, cooking to death, under the now constant radiation of their sun. As their sun grew, it not only became as close to them as our moon is to us, but also started pulling things toward it, like a vacuum or a magnet.

It was at this point that the strongest (adult/orange) of these beings chose to take the drastic measure that they did, coming to Earth and asking the peaceful people of this place to provide them with some kind of help. I get the sense that this was highly taboo and was only undertaken due to the most desperate and imminent of circumstances.

What did they want? How could these seemingly simple and unrefined humans have helped these highly evolved beings?

…To read the remainder of this story, please view our ebook on your Amazon Kindle reader. The book can be purchased for just 99¢ at Amazon. Also, stay tuned for future ebook instalments in our series entitled Ancient Alien Chronicles.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
~ Henry David Thoreau, 19th-Century American Author & Naturalist

Sometimes in life there are points of convergence, when several unrelated things suddenly come to a crossroads. These synchronicities are the way that the Universe acknowledges your right-footedness, the fact that you are following the correct path. Something of this sort has been unfolding for us over the past year.

During my recent pregnancy I became increasingly sensitive to any form of negativity, whether through social interactions, television or even in books. I also became rather sentimental about the past and my life experiences. These two things led me to dreaming about my youth in Massachusetts and to reading gentle, inspirational books. The one I most enjoyed in my early pregnancy was Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, written while the author lived separate from society in a small one-room cabin, it is a book that muses on a simple life and a personal connection with nature.

Not long after I started re-reading Walden, Serge and I went for a 3-D ultrasound to discover whether we were having a boy or a girl. We were both convinced that it was a girl. But, guess what? It was a boy! Well, I was shocked and emotional and it took some time to adjust to the idea. (What the heck do I know about raising boys?!? Nada.) The thing that really helped me connect to the concept of mothering a boy was our decision to name the baby Thoreau. I had taken so much peace and inspiration from Walden and Thoreau’s other works, like Civil Disobedience.

In my 6th month of pregnancy, we found ourselves visiting Massachusetts for my baby shower and, during our trip there, I thought it would be a fun exploration to visit Concord and channel Henry David Thoreau at the site of his Walden cabin. It seemed a good idea to know more about his true nature before giving birth to a child and naming him Thoreau. Our session with the author was touching and enlightening and we came away feeling that his forthrightness and his gentle spirituality were a perfect mix of energies to imbue our son with.

Then, upon our return to Nova Scotia, we began looking for a new house rental, something affordable for the time while Serge was to be on parental leave. Oddly, and with very little effort on our part, we ended up living in a small off-the-grid cabin with an outhouse and no running water. So quiet, and such a fitting place for little Thoreau to live after his birth.

Now, with our 4-month-old in tow, we are comfortably living back in the “modern” world, but the woods are definitely the baby’s favorite place to be.

All of these experiences converged and ran somewhat of a “Henry David Thoreau” thread through our lives. We feel a special affinity for him and his writings now and have decided to release our channeling with him as our first ebook.

Thus we introduce Medium Adventures: Channeling Henry David Thoreau — now available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook. Like all Kindle ebooks it can be read on your Kindle device, on your computer using the the Kindle application or online.

Here is a short excerpt:

“Finding a downed tree which could be easily sat upon and also offered a clear view of the cabin site, we chose this location to attempt a connection with the man himself. Channeling him was easy and he accepted the process willingly. I felt his energy to be both steadfast and soft, he emitted a bright, open-heartedness and sad sort of wisdom. There was a simple, gentle joy about his demeanor and also a weariness of some kind, no doubt from the knowledge that the world has continued on in the industrialized direction that he already saw it headed in his time. He was eager to speak and his words, channeled raw and spontaneously, are what follow —

Choosy about everything, you become cantankerous, stubborn, undesirable to be with. Then when your moment of need arises, you say, “Why has everyone abandoned me?” But, you have cut yourself off. I learned this. Yes, running away is a young man’s game, a fool’s pursuit. But finding the balance is the path of the wise.”

As you can see, Henry David was quite open and willing to share his wisdoms, earned over a short but productive lifetime.

We dedicate this work to our son Thoreau Avery Bóinn, born October 15th, 2011, who has already shown his preference for peace, balance and the great outdoors. The joy and lessons about love & selflessness brought to our family by this magical little spirit are priceless and unique, and he grows more aware and fun by the day. May his life be blessed with creativity, love and spiritual harmony.