I must have hit a nerve

Last week’s article (see it at http://10minutesaday.blogspot.com/2008/03/death-is-another-country.html ) must have hit a nerve, because it provoked more response than any article in a long time. I’m including a selection of what I received in return below.

I went to the memorial service that Dan’s spiritual community (of which I am a member) held for him. We all just sat in a (huge) circle and members offered memories of him as they felt moved to speak. It was touching to hear, and to hear the members caring for each other. I was blown away by the poise of his two young adult children, who articulated their gratitude for the community’s role in their father’s life, and who seemed to be very positive in the face of this really difficult circumstance.

Here’s an odd thing. One woman who was at the service told me her brother had died the day before the service, and another told me her 104 year old grandmother had died two days before it. Given the notes below, I really wonder if we have entered the times of change that have been predicted by so many traditions for so long.

Hollis

I've had two friend die in 5 days - there have been 3 suicides in three weeks out here in West Marin - my friend who lives in
a small community on the Trinity River tells me there have been 40 deaths since December in their tiny community mostly accidents some
suicides and sudden onset illness. Astrologically we are in a time of great transformation and shift - many souls will choose to leave at this
point.

RC

A very good friend of mine died almost two weeks ago. And I think death is simply giving up the illusion of darkness. We are all light whether in this dimension or another; energy and love. I think we re-fold back into the light of the divine spark within ourselves, back into the universe as we 1st knew it, before we entered this dimension in another state of transformation. You know the rest...its love without in or out; top or bottom - as for my friend, in remembrance of her I close my correspondences with 'Savor the moment,' because that was her way. Her life was so full I could almost taste it whenever I was with her. She was my best friend's mother and a surrogate mom. She was a cancer survivor of 23 years.

So its ironic reading your email. These have been my thoughts. Thanks for the chance to share them.

Be well and savor the moment - no matter what it is. I pray the good ones last long and the sad ones pass quickly.

Kathy Lavine

And it, too, hit me like a ton of bricks. I did have a number of very sweet interactions with him, and, as you put in a much more eloquent way, it really hits close to home. Hard when people around our age die, especially those that we know. I am very sad about it -

KK

I cried for the loss of Dan when I read this, and still am. There must be something special about him that touches people's hearts. Another of my immediate thoughts about him was that he was only 50 and apparently healthy--and that does hit very close to home. It really could happen to any of us, and for those of us who live alone--like Dan--we might not even be missed right away. I guess we need these reminders so we'll make the most of life while we have it.
LW

[I think that when people die alone, they are actually giving the rest of us a huge gift. Why? Because we’re fine between the time they leave their bodies and the time we find out about it, which means that we already know, at a very deep level, that we can be okay without them around. H.]

Your description of Dan’s passing is so wonderful. He was a wonderful guy and I did know and appreciate him a lot. He also liked me a lot. That’s the part that makes it sweet and sad, bittersweet.

I just wonder, if everyone thought this person in my life may not be here tomorrow, would I treat them better? Would maybe transform our planet. Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness and eloquence.

I knew Dan was going to go in this way, I just did not know when. I spoke with [a mutual friend] last week, and she asked if I knew someone who could benefit from her [health] coaching program and I said, yes, Dan would, he really needs your help. I've done this before with countless others. Its cool, spooky and scary all at the same time.

I'm not sure what do to with the information when I have it.

CC

I met a man recently who works with the Mayans. The real deal. I understand that 100's of thousands of people will be leaving their bodies rather abruptly in the coming years. We need to learn how to be open to this as not being a "bad" thing. And, if it were my friend, I'd be mourning too.

AL

Death is Another Country

I heard the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the change

(To paraphrase the Beatles)

So another friend left his body rather permanently. I heard the news from a mutual friend. Dan was in his mid-50s, with a grown son and a college-age daughter. He wasn’t sick, except he apparently went home with the flu on Friday... and was never heard from again. On Tuesday, when his business partner couldn’t get in touch with him, he began to worry, went to his house, found his car there, but no answer at the door or on the phone. He called the cops who got in, and...

Dan was more of an acquaintance than a friend, someone with whom I meditated, and took part in group, and occasionally personal, discussions about the nature of reality and the highest good. I respected his insight, his balanced view of life, his eloquence — and his good heart. He was always the first to open his arms for a hug, and the first to burst into a hearty laugh. And I really liked him. But he wasn’t someone I ever called for a personal reason, his or mine.

Dan was one of the angels in this earthly bar, the ones who come and go, as we all do, who enter through the swinging doors (take a body), have a drink, some food, hook up, break up, maybe play a game of poker, or pour a beer for someone else, watch the dramas unfolding, and leave again through those same swinging doors.

So why am I so upset?

I mean, this is as upsetting to me as when my good friend, Charlotte, checked out a few months ago (see http://10minutesaday.blogspot.com/2007/11/so-this-angel-walks-into-bar.html ). But of course, at some level, I expected her to leave, just didn’t know when, and so I was pretty complete with her. And I was most definitely not complete with Dan. I really regret that I didn’t get to know this very cool person better.

Does that explain this level of upset?

As I check inside, I find a sort of energetic steel tube in my core, which I move out of me so that I can talk with it. The first thing it says is, ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I’. It’s true — we can all leave the bar at any time. I’m pretty clear that Dan was complete on some level, and he’s probably having a blast exploring new realms, whatever is outside the swinging doors. So leaving the bar doesn’t sound so bad. But on the other hand, who knows when I’ll find another body to inhabit? And they say that Earth is a destination planet because of its beauty.

I guess I have to get used to it... People, my friends, are going to leave the bar with regular, and probably increasing, frequency. That means I have three choices.

The first is to mourn.

The second choice is to learn to be a clearer medium, so that I can still talk to them. I think of it like this: death is another country. What do I mean? Three or four generations ago, in the 19th century, when someone left their village in Russia to come to America, they could have no expectation of ever going back to visit. Nor could they count on the relatives that they left behind ever coming to America. Communication was pretty minimal, too. This was before the telephone. They had letters, of course, but those were quite slow, possibly expensive, and probably infrequent. Today, when someone dies, it’s like we’re in Russia and he or she went to America. There aren’t any letters, but there are mediums, who may be expensive and whom I’ll only call infrequently. If I develop my mediumistic abilities, it’ll be like having a telephone would have been in the 19th century — not as good as having the person with you, but way better than no communication at all. And eventually, I know I’ll go to America, too.

The third choice is to focus on the angels still in the bar, to love them, and appreciate them, and see one leaving as an opportunity to get to know another.

How to get out of your rut/race

Maybe you know the feeling: you’re really good at what you do, and successful, too, but it just feels... empty. You have this good job (or business) but you feel like the only reason you show up is to pay the bills. You used to love what you do, but now you have to keep reminding yourself why you’re doing it. You’re racing your motor (work to churn out, people to see, presentations to give — it’s endless), and that only makes the wheels spin faster (and yes, you do meet all the deadlines), which digs the rut deeper. You’re in a pretty good place, but you’re going nowhere — and going there fast, and maybe burning out the motor at the same time.

I have a few clients like that right now, men and women both. They’re all experts at different facets of marketing, mid-life, quite successful. Each is on his or her own personal growth path, though the paths are as varied as the people: Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, non-denominational spirituality, Masters Degrees in psychology or related fields, certificates in different types of healing.

My rule is that when something shows up 3 or more times in quick succession, it’s time to look at it. And since I’m quite clear that this lesson isn’t for me, it must be for you!

What you’re telling me is that success for its own sake just doesn’t satisfy any more. Because I’ve been working with marketers, success is, in an odd way, proof of their value — if you’re successful, that means you’re good at marketing, which makes a prima facie case that others should listen to you (and pay you) to tell them how to succeed. The money, the trappings, though they’re great, don’t mean all that much. Even helping other people succeed and get money and trappings, just seems pretty empty. So your success becomes a trap — success begets success begets success — hey, this wheel pretty much turns on its own momentum now! But your deepest need to do something else gnaws at you constantly.

Here’s something else I know from working with people for more than 15 years. If you don’t listen to that sense that it’s time to shift, the shift will come to you, often in a less than pleasant way. Perhaps you’ll get sick, so you’ll sit still and pay attention. Maybe you’ll lose your biggest client. Maybe you’ll lose your job. In fact, I met an abbot once, the ‘father’ of a religious order, who opened up to me, and told me he was really sick of his job, tired of running the monastery. I told him that if he didn’t instigate a change, the change would come to him. And he didn’t do anything, because he felt secure. The monks had taken vows of obedience, and he had no superior. The monks got together and rebelled and he was out on his ear!

So pay attention to that nagging sensation that something has to change. But what to do?

Here are a few ideas, presented in no particular order. Pick and choose the ones that work for you:

Ask yourself, what is frustrating me? Create a vision of your own future that eliminates, or at least works around, all your current frustrations, while incorporating all the things you love (and probably take for granted) now, and move toward that.
Create a vision for how you would like the world to be, and let that guide you in shifting your job or business, so that your larger vision for the world gives meaning to your daily activities. If you want a sustainable future for society, shift your job or business to support that, perhaps by actively seeking ‘green’ clients.
If you’re feeling stifled, limited, or undervalued, then shift your business focus to something related to what you’re already good at, but that uses other skills you’re not using now. If you have lots of people skills, use them in HR or recruiting for a marketing firm.
Start a side business doing something you love to do, that seems more important than what you’re doing now. If connecting people to each other seems more important than teaching them how to do search engine optimization, start a networking group. Play around with business models till you find one that will eventually support you so you can stop what you now think of as your main job or business.
Get help! There are coaches out there (including me) who have processes to help you clarify what you’re choosing to create.

Your body is trying to tell you something!

Have you ever had a sore throat that just wouldn’t go away? A tennis elbow? Or some other chronic physical concern? Maybe your body is trying to tell you something deeper about what is going on. After all, mindbody is one system, and so your body expresses what is going on at an emotional level, especially if you are not consciously aware of your feelings.

I used to have sore throats all the time; in fact, a sore throat was how I knew an episode of my CFDIS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome) was imminent. I eventually learned that a sore throat was caused, on a very real if non-physical level, by something I wasn’t saying. The words were literally sticking in my throat and making it sore. So I began to ask myself, “what am I not saying? And to whom?” When I figured out the answer to those two questions, and did something about it (either saying what I needed to say to the appropriate person, or at least imagining myself doing that), then the sore throat went away in a matter of minutes! In fact, I began to head off the worst episodes of CFIDS with this technique — I’d either stop them in their tracks or make them pretty mild and short-lived.

This is true for sudden, one off issues, too. If you’ve ever broken an ankle, for instance, you’ll probably realize that, at that time, you had an issue around moving forward and/or your direction in life. Think back to any serious medical issues you’ve ever had, or that anyone close to you has ever had, and you’ll see this sort of parallel.

So if something is not working right in your body, ask yourself what deeper issue it might represent. Think about ‘organ language’, which is the use of body parts or functions in everyday language, and see what turns up. So if you have, say, a cough, and the words, “cough it up” come to mind, ask yourself what you need to ‘cough up’ or let go of. Answer that question, and then let go — and see if the cough goes away on its own.

Here’s another resource: Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life, has a terrific directory for this. The directory lists body parts, as well as dis-eases, along with potential meanings for them and possible affirmations to use to heal them. In my experience of using this directory with friends and clients over the years, the meanings are very good clues to what is going on at a deeper level, while the affirmations really need to be tailored to the individual.

Siddhis along the path

Siddhi (Sanskrit:सिद्धिः; siddhiḥ) is a Sanskrit word that literally means "accomplishment", "attainment", or "success". It is also used as a term for spiritual power (or psychic ability). The term is used in that sense in Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism. These spiritual powers supposedly vary from relatively simple forms of clairvoyance to being able to levitate, to be present at various places at once, to become as small as an atom, to materialize objects, to have access to memories from past lives, and more.
- from Wikipedia

********

Last August, I went to the “Ambassador to the Universe” training held by Dr. Stephen Greer, up at Mt. Shasta. Dr. Greer, who opened TM centers for the Maharishi before he became an M.D., specializing in emergency medicine, is an amazing clairvoyant, channel, etc., as well as being very tough and focused on helping humanity change its future to one of sustainability. (You can check out his websites, www.disclosureproject.org and www.aero2012.org .)

Many amazing things happened at the workshop (which I wrote about at http://10minutesaday.blogspot.com/2007/09/multiplier-effect-part-ii.html ). But something else happened that I didn’t mention, because it didn’t seem that important at the time. Dr. Greer did a puja and gave each of us our personal mantra. Of course, it was the same mantra for each of us, one of the four standard TM ones, but with a difference. Dr. Greer had channeled that those mantras were originally sung, and that when the notes that went with the words were lost, much of the power of the mantras was lost, as well. And he had channeled the ‘tune’ for one of the mantras. This is the one he gave each of us, to be sung to ourselves.

After I got back from Mt. Shasta, someone in his office emailed me an .mp3 file of the mantra, sung over and over with a background of Tibetan bowls. I put this on my iPod, both on its own and as a background for my personal affirmations. I began to listen to one or the other every day while I walked. And after a while, I noticed that the mantra generated an energy that swirled around me, sort of like a controlled tornado, though with a difference — the energy seemed to swirl both in and out simultaneously, in the same direction.

********

In December, my husband and I hosted a friend, Mark Macy, for a couple of free lectures on his specialty, instrumental transcommunication, that is, using electronic instruments to communicate with the ‘dead’. He uses a tool called a Luminator to make this communication easier. Mark was kind enough to open up the Luminator for me, and it appears to generate an electromagnetic field at a particular frequency (though I couldn’t tell you which frequency). This field felt so strong to me that when he first turned on the machine, it felt like I had put my finger in a light socket! But he turned it down, and I got used to it. (For more info on those lectures, with photos, please go to http://10minutesaday.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-psychics-have-fun-part-3.html ).

As I got used to it, something amazing happened. I was 'shown' what happens when you 'die'. I did not have the experience of the tunnel that most near-death experiencers describe (not that I was near death in any way), but doors opened from my heart and I came out on a beautiful landscape, which I was told was different for each person. After a few moments of enjoying that, I was showered with a beautiful green light that permeated me, and then a beautiful yellow or golden light that did the same. After a while, that faded away, and I was back in the beautiful landscape, but this time, there were thousands of 'people' there. (I think this is the welcoming party that everyone talks about.) I was at a distance, hovering in the sky, looking at the assembled group, but I noticed that if I asked for someone, they'd sort of come to the front of the group, or perhaps I zoomed in to them. I was given to understand that in a way, this 'party' is somewhat holographic, as if each soul sent a hologram of a part of itself that I would recognize, not necessarily that the whole soul was there.

Then it occurred to me that I could use the technique to ask my higher self to come to the front of the group. It worked! And I had a conversation with my higher self (not sure this makes sense, but oh, well). It’s apparently a great joke that my higher self, which is HUGE in some sense, has to fit into my 5’3” physical body (perhaps this explains why I’ve always wanted to be taller). So the next time I tried it, not only did I ask my higher self to come to the fore, but I also walked into my higher self, so that I’m inside it/me.

*****

I was at a business building workshop recently, and had a couple of amazing experiences. First, as I did a pair exercise with another woman, looking into her eyes, I watched as her 3rd eye popped open (briefly) and later, watched iridescent wings unfold from her back. She said she felt quite good, very peaceful, but wasn’t aware of these things. But I don’t think I’m making them up, because I was pretty surprised. The word, “Namaste” (roughly translated as “the god in me salutes the god in you”), has a much more literal meaning for me now!

But here’s the amazing thing. After the formal classes, we were offered an optional session of “being coaching”. Basically, this was role playing on stage, with the trainer periodically stopping the action to coach the participants. I was up on stage quite late on Saturday night (10:45 PM). Most of the group had gone home, so there were perhaps 25 people left. There was a really nice group field from the work we’d all done supporting each other that day and in the ‘being coaching’ session. Another woman and I were being coached, and the coach, along with the audience said to me, ‘there’s something wild about you and we want to see more of it.’ Well, there is absolutely nothing wild about me, which I said. To which the coach replied, there’s a hurricane around you.

I know what that energy is — it’s the energy from the sung mantra. So I said I knew what it was, that it was more of a tornado, that it wasn’t me, but if everyone wanted to see more of it, that’s what they’d get. So I stood at the front of the stage, invited my higher self to come to the fore, and sang the mantra silently to myself.

People started to cry. One woman, directly in front of me about 12 feet away, began to shake and cry. It felt quite normal and natural in my body, and I wasn’t in trance or anything, just being me, with the mantra going, could even talk a little. It’s easy. I’m very clear that the energy isn’t mine, although it does come through me. I was pretty wired for a few hours after that, though, even though my usual bedtime is 8:30PM lately.

The next morning, I asked the woman who’d been shaking what had happened to her, she said she’d been in a lot of physical pain, and felt a cool mist rain down on her, felt the pain leave her body, and that the tears were tears of relief, joy and gratitude. Three other people, all of whom said they don’t normally see auras told me they’d seen a color around me — for two of them it was golden light behind or around me, while another saw blue above my head. Another three people asked me to come speak at their groups. When I asked what about, one woman said she didn’t care, “just do what you do”. Yet another came up to me and said, “after last night, I’d follow you anywhere.”

I’m under no illusion that I am in any way unique — this energy is available to all -- and wow, how cool is that?

The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors - New York Times

The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors - New York Times

Quote of the Day

"When you possess the courage-- or blunt, gourd-smacking stupidity-- to be totally candid, you silently amass thousands of allies. It's the "me too" effect. As Steven Morrissey (Esq., Demigod) says, there is no such thing in life as normal. And if you walk around pretending to be normal, hiding your scars and incisions and putrescing wounds, you only further the Conspiracy of Normal, which exists to make us all feel like shit."
- Brook Busey aka Diablo Cody

CORRECTION: Love really is blind, U.S. study finds | Lifestyle | Reuters

CORRECTION: Love really is blind, U.S. study finds | Lifestyle | Reuters

To-do List for the next 36 hours

1. Write curriculum for NLP class at Hypnotherapy Center
2. 3 client sessions
3. Assorted other calls
4. Write class for Document Preparers
5. Make hummus and cook peppers and onions for a friend, who's coming to dinner
6. Save the world - details later
7. H.U.B. meeting

Earth's Valentine

Although Valentine's Day is traditionally thought of in terms of lovers showing their devotion to each other, we can recast it as a time to remember our love for any of our fellow humans (the difficult woman at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, perhaps?), or fellow creatures on the planet (pets, birds, squirrels), or even the planet itself.

So today, recognize how important that tree outside your window is to you (you need it to breathe), or how much you appreciate the sun (we couldn't live without it!) or even how important bacteria are (you need them to digest your food). A little appreciation goes a long way!

(The image above, Earth's Valentine, was made completely of unretouched photos of a red camellia, jasmine leaves (yes, they turn red in autumn if they're in the shade), and red clover leaves.)

What NLP has taught for decades finally hits the mainstream

Psychology - Mimicry - Persuasion - How to Build Rapport - New York Times

Stay out of the mall when you're feeling blue!

New research shows that people who are sad spend more than people who aren't.

Sadness may encourage more extravagance - Yahoo! News

This explains the trap of credit card debt for many people. Spend money, feel better. Look at the bill, feel bad. Spend money, feel better. Look at the bill, feel bad. Spend money, feel better. Ad infinitum... or until you're drowning in debt.

Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work - New York Times

Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work - New York Times

12th rule for a happy life

12. Don't take yourself too seriously ~ remember, deepest within you is joy and delight.

(This was from a reader. For the other 11, see Dec. 12 post.)

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? - New York Times

Cosmologists make psychic phenomena look... normal? or at least a lot less weird than a possible reality:

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? - New York Times

Seven-Word Wisdom: The Contest - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog

Some great words of wisdom here -- and a lot of fun, too:

Seven-Word Wisdom: The Contest - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog

My contribution (too late to actually make the contest):

Dream big. Centered, Balanced, centered, grounded. Stay positive.

You can post your 7 words of wisdom here, as a comment.

2nd chakra mandala

Crown Chakra

Learning To Forgive May Improve Well-Being

Learning To Forgive May Improve Well-Being

Try someting new in this 1 year!

I don’t know about you, but from the minute I woke up on New Year’s Day, I felt a real buzz of new energy, and creativity just bursting out of me. This is not normally how I feel on New Year’s Day — normally, it’s more like, “Ho hum, just another random day that we have somehow anointed as the beginning of the new year.”

I’m no expert numerologer, but I do know that 2008 is a “1” year. That is, 2+0+0+8 = 10, and 1+0 = 1. (Yes, that’s how they do it.) And 1 is the energy of the new — new beginnings, new directions, new projects, new ideas. It’s the energy of opportunity, of independence, of leadership, of concentration and focus. It also embodies courage, originality and decisiveness.

Perhaps that’s why, when I sat down to meditate on New Year’s Day, the following came through, with instructions to write it down, so I could pass it on:


It’s a new year. New patterns are possible. Revel in the new, whether that’s a new color, a new thought, a new dish, a new item of clothing, a new project. Pay particular attention to new thoughts that cross your mind and LISTEN to them. These are new energies, not all of which have been on earth before, trying to impress upon you a new way of being. It can start in any way at all, as a seed starts. If you let it unfold and express itself, it will lead in new directions. So the choice of a new color may lead you to pick up a stone of that color which will affect you with its energies, its properties. Or it may lead you to pick different flowers in the market, or different flowers to plant, which will teach you different things by the way they unfold or go to seed. If you have tended to go fast, slow down. If you have tended to be cautious, now is the time to take a risk and jump! Be attentive to the energy of the new and see how it leads you down a different path, one of healing. (if your current path healed everything, you’d be perfect by now! And manifesting everything you choose.)



Pick one new thing to do each day this year — and see how you are different by the end of the year! See how much joy it brings you. (Note: what was meant here was to do anything different, just to see what happens. Run a route different from your usual. Or literally walk part of it backwards. Or sideways. Use butter instead of mayonnaise, or mayo instead of butter.) Notice how you tend to cling to the old. Notice where that serves you and where it doesn’t.



Question the old, from the smallest detail (e.g. How you brush your teeth) to the largest aim (is that really your aim)? Pick one thing each day to question.

I’m having a blast walking backwards and sideways (so far). Let me know what you try, how it goes and how it makes you feel.

Succeed in the new year!

I’ve been doing a year-end review of my goals and intentions from last year (I did better on some than others, of course), and setting goals and intentions for the coming year. (Goals are specific targets, while intentions are more ways of being.) And of course, both of my clients yesterday chose to focus on what was coming up in the next year and how to set intentions, set goals, shape affirmations and take actions to move ahead in their desired directions. This is an important thing to do every year, whether you do it at your birthday, which is great for personal goals, or at year-end (either calendar or fiscal), which is probably more appropriate for a business. Here’s why:

In a study of 1979 Harvard Business School graduates, those graduating were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only

- 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans;
- 13% had goals, but they were not in writing; and
- 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings were amazing. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. And the 3% who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97% put together. (Info from “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”)

It occurred to me to write to you to suggest that you might want to



- clarify your choices for the next year,

- set some goals and/or intentions,

- make sure your affirmations and your action plans support your choices, and/or

- psychically look at the lay of the land in your business (the competition, your partners, or your negotiations) or personal life (love life, anyone?).

I’m offering you 5 free minutes (on a minimum 20 minute session), with all of my tools, tips and techniques, to support you in all of that. This offer is only good for appointments booked between now and Jan. 3, 2008, as its intention is to help you start the new year off right. (omg, can you believe it? 2008!)

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all the joy of the season -- all year long!

This 'quilted' Christmas tree is done from photos of apples (the red), sand dollars (the beige), squash (the gold stars), coffee beans (the brown tree trunk), and about a dozen different green plants. So Nature wishes you 'Happy Holidays' along with me!

Babies gravitate toward good Samaritans, study says - Yahoo! News

Babies gravitate toward good Samaritans, study says - Yahoo! News

How Psychics Have Fun (Part 3)

Last weekend, I had the privilege of hosting Mark Macy (www.spiritfaces.com) and his Luminator (more on that machine later), for a couple of parties, where he described his research into instrumental transcommunication (www.worlditc.org), i.e. using electronic equipment to talk with the 'dead'. The reason I say 'dead' in quotations is that once you've seen his research, you can never again believe that the spirit that leaves a dead body actually dies. His evidence includes computer passages, typed from a computer which was turned on without anyone physically in the room, and which included information only known to the 'dead' woman and her still living husband, and a message left on Mark's own telephone answering machine from a colleague who was 'dead'.

While Mark's presentation is clear and convincing, the best examples of transcommunication he shows are the ones provided by the audience itself. With the Luminator running, he takes Polaroid photos of audience volunteers, and many of the photos have faces completely different from the physical ones of the photo subjects. (I've included 3 of my photos -- one of me (as me, not the best photo, oh, well), one of me that is clearly not me (as there maybe two faces, and at least the nose and mouth aren't mine), and one of my paternal grandmother, who might be the face in the second photo (or maybe not). The only alteration to the polaroid camera is that black tape is place over the light sensor so that the flash doesn't go off, because the spirit faces need a low light situation to be seen on film.

Even more fun for me was getting to hang out with the Luminator. This machine seems to change the electromagnetic field in an area at least a hundred or so feet in diameter. Another clairvoyant who was there described it as changing the energy of the space in my home to that of the borderline between the worlds ('here' and 'hereafter'). At first, I was really taken aback by its power -- it felt like my body was on some kind of speed, or having an adrenaline rush, though my mind was completely normal. As I got used to it, though, something amazing happened. I was 'shown' what happens when you 'die'. I did not have the experience of the tunnel that most near-death experiencers describe (not that I was near death in any way), but doors opened from my heart and I came out on a beautiful landscape, which I was told was different for each person. After a few moments of enjoying that, I was showered with a beautiful green light that permeated me, and then a beautiful yellow or golden light that did the same. After a while, that faded away, and I was back in the beautiful landscape, but this time, there were thousands of 'people' there. (I think this is the welcoming party that everyone talks about.) I was at a distance, hovering in the sky, looking at the assembled group, but I noticed that if I asked for someone, they'd sort of come to the front of the group, or perhaps I zoomed in to them. I was given to understand that in a way, this 'party' is somewhat holographic, as if each soul sent a hologram of a part of itself that I would recognize, not necessarily that the whole soul was there.

A while later, a reproducible way to talk to 'dead' people occurred to me. All I need to do is go back into my heart, open the doors out onto the landscape, be cleansed by light, come out at the party -- and then ask for a particular 'person'. So I tried it with my husband's father, who 'died' when he was 15. I learned some things about him that my husband could verify, which believe me, I didn't know, and others that made sense to him, though he could not actually verify them.

The next day, I happened to be teaching my day-long 'Psychic Skills Workshop', and offered a guided meditation of the process to the participants as a bonus session after class. Everyone stayed, and everyone got to their landscape, and everyone found a person -- not always the person they had thought to contact, but someone they knew! Because it was the first time I had ever done the meditation, I didn't leave enough time for people to have satisfying conversations with those they contacted. Oh, well, that's how you learn.

The Ten Commandments need a rewrite!

It occurs to me that, although the title of teh last post is actually a play on the sitcom title, “8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter”, it sounds a little like the Ten Commandments. Now, I’m not knocking those, but NLP teaches that the unconscious mind doesn’t understand the word ‘not’ (try not to think of a purple elephant), so eight of those commandments, on the unconscious level, are really telling people to behave badly. That is, to the unconscious mind, they read like this:

1. Thou shalt not Have other gods before me. (Materialism, anyone?)
2. Thou shalt not Make graven images. (All those religious icons, perhaps?)
3. Thou shalt not Take the name of the Lord in vain. (We sure all swear a lot.)
4. Keep the Sabbath holy. (One of the two positive ones, though it isn’t honored much in our culture.)
5. Honor thy father and mother. (Most of us do try.)
6. Thou shalt not Kill. (Hmmm... War?)
7. Thou shalt not Commit adultery. (Certainly lots of that going on.)
8. Thou shalt not Steal (Yup, that, too.)
9. Thou shalt not Lie. (And that.)
10. Thou shalt not Be jealous. (And that, too, I suppose, though it’s less obvious.)

Maybe that’s why the world is such a mess!

How about a rewrite?

1. God is more vast than can be comprehended by the human mind.
2. So stop with the pictures, okay?
3. Respect God.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy.
5. Honor thy father and mother.
6. Respect life.
7. Respect other people and their relationships.
8. Respect other people’s property rights.
9. Tell the truth.
10. Be grateful for what you have.

11 Simple Rules for a Happy Life

I am not foolish enough, nor do I have enough hubris, to think that what follows is a complete list, but it’s everything I can think of at the moment (and it is how I try to live, but like everyone else, I’m imperfect). I am certainly open to suggestions, so please send them along and I’ll post any updated versions here.

1) Act from love.

• Be kind, accepting, tolerant, patient -- and that includes acting that way toward yourself!
• Be mindful of the divine flow.

2) Be careful what you do and what you think. You are responsible for your actions and therefore for your consequences.

• Actions have consequences.
• Thoughts are actions in energy form.
• Appreciate what you have, because what you focus on, expands.

3) Live your truth/higher perception to the best of your ability.

• Be who you are, not who you think you are supposed to be. The world doesn’t need another pale imitation of some commercial ideal; it needs real people, being who they are, and bringing their unique gifts and point of view to heal the problems we have.
• Listen to your own higher wisdom. We all have access, even if we’ve been taught not to use it because it’s been too much of a threat to the power structure.
• Tell the truth, whenever possible (you may not know it, or it may conflict with another of these rules, in which case, see #11). Remember, spoken and written words are actions.

4) Respect others.

• Part I: The Platinum Rule: Treat people as they wish to be treated.
• Part II: In the absence of the Platinum Rule (that is, when you don’t know how someone else would like to be treated), use the Golden Rule: treat others how you wish to be treated.

5) Respect nature.

• This includes your own body (eat food, not chemicals).
• Use as few resources as you need to to do the job properly and comfortably.
• Turn down the thermostat (or turn it up in the summer — or better yet, open the windows and let nature in!).
• Turn off the lights you don’t need.
• Walk (you’ll get to know your neighbors and neighborhood) for your errands (it’s great exercise, too!).
• Recycle.
• Share: borrow and return in good condition (neighbors and friends are a great resource) and be willing to lend, too. This builds community.
• Buy used or recycled, or better yet, ask if you really need something before you buy it.
• Don't print if you don't have to, and if you have to print, use both sides of your paper.
• Take your name off the mailing lists (so the paper isn’t wasted).
• Don’t drive if you don’t have to (carpool! Or take public transit — you might meet someone interesting).
• Grow what food you can — it’ll taste good, and feel good, too.
• You get the idea.

6) Respect limits, including the ones you reasonably set, and expect others to as well.

• It’s okay to know your limits and to be clear in stating them.
• ‘No’ means ‘no’, whether someone else is saying it, or you are.
• Get 7 hours of sleep a night (research shows it makes a big difference in your quality of life).
• If someone isn't respecting your limits, you have a right, or maybe even a responsibility, to teach them to respect your limits, or to ask them to leave, or to get away from them.

7) Honor your agreements. You can keep an agreement as is, or you can renegotiate it, but don’t change an agreement unilaterally (which includes not telling the other person for any reason, aka ‘flaking out’.)

8) If it feels good, and it doesn’t harm anyone or anything else, do more of it. This is the Universe (aka God) speaking to you through your desires.

9) Be clear about what you want — it’s probably the only way to get it. Remember, thoughts are actions in energy form.

10) You will never know everything (nor will anyone else), so stay humble.

11) When in doubt, see rule #1.

Funeral

Well, actually, a memorial service, as she was cremated. But it sucked anyway. I mean, most everyone was pretty positive - one speaker said, Charlotte didn't need a eulogy, because everyone knew she was light on earth, grace and compassion personified, as well as a lot of fun. But many of us, including me, got tearful.

What was hard for me wasn't that Charlotte 'died', because if I can't see her or feel her, that's a failure of my communication, not that she has gone out of existence. No, it's seeing my friends suffer. And these are women (and one man, but I think for him it's more about mortality) who know as much as I do that she still exists. One of them, who says, tearfully, that's she not doing well, probably has talked with her, herself. So telling them that I know for a fact that Charlotte is fine doesn't help at all. So there isn't much I can do. I have offered to be there for my friends -- we'll all have to pull together. I feel pretty exhausted, pretty drained by it.

I understand that funerals are for the living, but I really get now, how selfish grief is. It's not about the person who 'died', it's about the person who still 'lives' and what they 'lost'. And perhaps funerals help, so that people don't feel alone in their grief, but maybe they make it worse, too, because all that sadness and loss is in one room together, reinforcing itself. And we all know that the 'dead' person wouldn't want us to feel awful.

As Charlotte says, "There is nowhere that I am not." Wow! So she really is right here. Was there in the room with us, too.

Though I must say, I kept expecting Charlotte, in her body, to walk around a corner into the hall.

Before the event, I 'saw' that I was supposed to stand in the back right corner of the room, and send healing energy into it. I spent the entire service standing in the back corner, gave my seat to a friend, in fact, so I could do it. I asked 'the folks' to send energy, and at points could 'see' a golden light in the room. And I tried, as much as I could, to attach the frayed ends of people's cords to Charlotte to the light. I don't know how well that worked, but I think I 'heard', as I fell asleep last night, that I had done a good thing.

Today, I'm going to help her (adult) daughter, an only child, deal with the financial picture, which I understand isn't pretty, because of all the medical bills (don't get me started on national health insurance, which we should have). Maureen shouldn't lose the house she grew up in because her Mom had the temerity to get sick. At least I can try to help.

Boo Hoo

I felt awful because I'd missed Charlotte's leaving of her body, as if, had I been there, I would have done enough for her, or been complete with her somehow. I desperately wanted to apologize.

I'm not a reliable medium under the best of circumstances -- sometimes 'dead' folks come through very clearly, and sometimes not at all. And this was definitely not the best of circumstances. What to do on a Sunday night? I called my friend, Kat, with whom I trade readings and NLP work regularly, and asked, "How are you as a medium?"

"Pretty good right now," she replied.

So we got into it. And actually, she had had one phone conversation with Charlotte, several months back, when Charlotte wanted a reference on a healer with whom Kat had trained. So perhaps that made it easier.

I knew she 'had' Charlotte, because when I asked Charlotte (through Kat) if she'd seen Boo (Charlotte's cat, whom I loved, who'd crossed over about 6 months before Charlotte, eaten by a coyote -- and that never happens in Mill Valley), she replied in a very flat tone, "Boohoo". This was the title of an email Charlotte had sent me announcing Boo's crossing, which I'd thought was wonderfully funny, even as I missed Boo. And it was something I'd remarked to Charlotte about more than once.

So I apologized to Charlotte for not being there when she left her body -- and she told me she hadn't wanted me to be there! At which point I realized a few things:

** Grief over someone's death has a few separate components:

1. Missing the person, which is partly your own habit body, and partly cords dissolving
   
• Your habit body likes things to stay the same. Maybe this is your neurology, which can't handle paying attention to too many things at the same time, or perhaps its the etheric body. It's the part of you that likes to know if you call a certain phone number, you'll hear a certain voice.
  
• We all have energetic cords between our chakras, and the chakras of those we are close to. These cords dissolve when a relationship ends (e.g. a romantic relationship) or when someone dies. That's not fun, because we still have the ends of the cords to deal with, like an umbilical cord which is cut but not tied or clamped off -- the ends are just left raw and open.
  
2. Feeling badly that you hadn't done right by the person. But you really can't judge what was "doing right by" someone else, at least not on this plane, because you can't know what his or her soul actually wanted. All you can do is live the best you can up to your own standards, and give yourself the benefit of the doubt, when you do something uncharacteristically forgetful, or even nasty, to someone else -- perhaps you were doing something his or her soul needed you to do.

Charlotte was apparently showing Kat some other plane of existence. Charlotte kept saying it was "so vast" and beautiful beyond description, and that it was cold, that she was cold. It was "not like there (on earth)" and Kat had the impression that Charlotte was fine, but a little lost. So I asked Charlotte, through Kat, what I could do to help, feeling sheepish at the offer, because I didn't think there was anything I could do. But Charlotte said, "send angels -- angels can help."

"Let me see what I can do", I answered, and then silently asked all the folks (some would call them archangels, but I'm not personally clear on their titles) who assist me in readings to help Charlotte. Almost instantly, Charlotte said, "I'm warm" and Kat said she could literally feel her own body get warmer. For me, this was verification that the folks do indeed hear me, and do respond. Way cool! (Or I suppose that Charlotte 'heard' my intention from whatever plane she was in.) But somehow, I did do something. That felt pretty amazing, and Charlotte told me that she wanted me to know how powerful I am, even on one of my worst days.

Thank you, Charlotte, for your kindness and our concern, even after you've left Earth. I'm glad you made a compassionate choice for yourself, and wish you well on your way. Come see me when I cross over (hopefully a long time from now.) And than you, Kat, for you assistance.

So this angel walks into a bar...

Sometimes my life feels like a bad movie -- so trite that you almost can't script it.

Scene 1: Clearing the Clutter

Yesterday, I had a great day, working on cleaning out more clutter from the house and the garage, culminating in a trip with a very full car to Goodwill in mid afternoon. I was supposed to be working on my audio equipment, getting it to work reliably, but that seemed really hard, and I was having fun (!) moving things into the car, and reorganizing the garage, so I kept putting it off. Finally I had a carful, went to Goodwill and dropped it off.

Scene 2: Phone Call

On my return, guilt led me to my desk, where I happened to notice the message light blinking on my phone.

There was a message from a friend, several hours old, saying that a mutual good friend, whom I'll call Charlotte, was in the hospital on her death bed.

Flashback:

Charlotte was the soul of compassion, and the essence of grace, a beautiful spirit in a beautiful body. Though she had not lived a particularly easy life, a single mother who worked really hard at a variety of businesses (from running an in-home day care so she could be there for her toddler, to a jewelry store, to a small therapy practice) and jobs (HR and office support) to support and raise her wonderful (now grown) daughter, she left everything she touched more beautiful and more peaceful. She always knew exactly what to say to ease suffering, always had a smile, a gentle laugh and a positive, philosophical attitude for the more difficult parts of life -- the broken hearts, the illnesses, the financial hardships, including her own. At points when I was low, I always knew I could call her, and I'm sure her other friends knew that, too.

I knew Charlotte was sick, had, in fact, been increasingly sick over the last 10 years. But I'd seen her a few weeks ago, and she'd been in good spirits, saying she was getting better after a real scare.

Scene 2, continued

Though I returned the call immediately, it was too late. Charlotte had already left her body. Had I heard the phone ring, I would have barely had time enough to get to the hospital (an hour away) to say a brief goodbye.

Apparently she had left her body peacefully, attended by a Tibetan Buddhist lama and several good friends. And I know, given the state of her physical body, that it was a good choice to leave now, and gift of compassion to herself. Charlotte, who was always so giving to others, had finally given herself the gift of freedom.

I could only have a short conversation with Ann, the woman who'd called me, because she was too teary. Ann is a very strong woman, and I could hear her trying to stay strong and practical -- but she couldn't. The pain was too fresh. We settled on me calling the next day to get Charlotte's daughter's phone number to see how I can help.

Scene 3: Conversation in the kitchen

So I came upstairs into the kitchen, where my husband was seated at the kitchen table, reading email on his laptop. As I entered, he said cheerily, "Hey, I've got something to show you," to which I replied, "Charlotte died." I caught him up on the news, and then he said, "What I was just about to show you is kind of the opposite of that." There were photos of his cousin's brand new baby girl!

So that's when it hit me... life on earth is kind of like this big saloon. You enter through the swinging doors (take a body), have a drink, some food, hook up, break up, maybe play a game of poker, or pour a beer for someone else, watch the dramas unfolding around you, and leave again through those same swinging doors. Life is not about the tables and the chairs in the bar (clearing the clutter), it's about the angels who come and go.

How to Change Your Mood FAST

Have you ever been unfocused before an exam, when you really needed to concentrate instead?

Or have you ever been really nervous before giving a lecture, when instead you needed to be confident?

Or perhaps you’ve been down in the dumps when you needed to be ‘on’ and positive at a social event?

We’ve all had the experience of wanting or needing, for one reason or another, to be in a different mood that the one we were actually in. Most of us just give in, accept our moods, and do the best we can. But there is a quick, easy way to shift your mood when you must, or even just when you choose to. No drugs, no pills, no cost, no side effects!

It’s really simple. It’s easy, too. It’s called ‘anchoring’ a positive emotional state.

In his wonderful online Encyclopedia of NLP ( http://nlpuniversitypress.com/indexA.html)”, Robert Dilts says:

“...“anchoring” refers to the process of associating an internal response with some environmental or mental trigger, so that the response may be quickly, and sometimes covertly, reaccessed.”

If you’re American and have ever heard the first notes of The Star Spangled Banner, and noticed that your right hand flew to cover your heart, even before you were aware of what it was doing, you have experienced a powerful anchor. (If you’re not American, perhaps you’ve seen this and puzzled over it.) If you smell a particular cooking smell and are instantly back in, say, your grandmother’s kitchen, you’ve experienced an anchor. If your partner has ever said, “We need to talk” and you’ve felt icy fingers of fear crawl up your back, you’ve experienced an anchor.

In a famous experiment, Pavlov used this stimulus-response conditioning to get dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. He rang a bell and then gave them food so often that they associated the food with the sound of the bell, anticipating the food so well that they began to salivate just from the sound, even when no food was present.

All of these examples show that a trigger, a stimulus, can instantly and automatically result in a response. Most of these anchors, that is, trigger-response pairs, were set unconsciously (at least, unconsciously by us!). But what if you could set one intentionally?

You can! You can set an anchor to stimulate a positive emotion whenever you need it. Now, with a little advance preparation, you can turn lack of focus into concentration, or a case of nerves into confidence, or feeling low into feeling good. It just takes a little advance preparation.

Before you need the anchor, in a quiet place at any convenient time, do the following:

1) Pick an anchor. I generally recommend hand positions that you don’t normally use (like touching the thumb and pinkie of your non-dominant hand), for a couple of reasons:
- you can do them anywhere, any time
- they’re unobtrusive
- they take a minimum of effort
- they’re uncontaminated by other feelings

2) Think of a specific time and place when you really felt the way you’re choosing to feel. Make it really real for yourself by graphically imagining the scene:

- seeing what you saw around you at the time, looking out through your own eyes at the time
- hearing what you heard, no matter how faint
smelling any smells that were associated with the time and place that you left how you choose to feel now
- touching something in the scene
- feeling all the feelings that go with the flood of emotion. Really notice where those feelings are in your body.

3) When you are completely associated into the positive state that you’re choosing, especially feeling the internal feelings strongly, then set your anchor (touch your thumb to your pinkie).

4) Relax for a minute or so, distracting yourself with something else.

5) Repeat steps 2 – 4 several times.

6) Test the anchor by using it (touching your thumb to your pinkie). The feelings that you intentionally associated with the anchor should flood your body. If not, repeat steps 2 – 4 again until the using the anchor creates your chosen feelings/emotional state.

Then you have “anchored the resource state” so it’s available to you whenever you need it, say before an exam, a lecture or a social event. Just touch your anchor and go!

How to Open Your Heart

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In response to my article on “What stops you from claiming your intuition?” (below), a member of this blog wrote back, taking me to task for not mentioning the heart in intuition. While I still believe that higher perception, which is to say, the clairsenses (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairolfaction and clairgustation, corresponding to sight, hearing, feeling, smell and taste, respectively), can operate without the heart, I agree that the heart also perceives truth and enhances the meaning of what is learned through the clairsenses. And it looks to me like the back of the heart chakra is one’s connection to the universe, the Divine, God (or pick our own word here).

In her book, Hands of Light, Barbara Brennan says that each chakra opens both to the front and the back, and that a healthy chakra opens out like a cone in each direction. (For more about the location and meanings of the chakras, see my website, http://www.888-4-hollis.com/services.htm.) The energy in each cone rotates according to the right hand rule, with the thumb pointed at the chakra, that is, point your thumb at your chakra, curve the fingers as if you were making a fist, and that is the direction in which an open chakra’s energy rotates. This means that the two cones of energy emanating (front and back) from one chakra rotate in opposite directions.

You can open a chakra, including your heart chakra simply by visualizing a circle of energy rotating in the appropriate direction, about 6 inches in diameter at about 1 inch away from your skin. I know it works, because I’ve watched pendulums move in accordance with this visualization, when done by me or by others.

In case you’d rather learn to open your heart with a short (about 4 minutes) guided meditation, I’ve included one here (or you may p need to cut and paste the url into your browser: http://player.goldmail.com/default.asp?gmid=dhti8y3tza2n) --

Update: Sorry, that mediation no longer exists! (as of 2/12/09)

Blackberry Wisdom

What do you see when you look at a blackberry bramble? A weed? A problem? Something that hurts you? Or like me, do you see something truly admirable?

I’ve been working in what I loosely call my garden this summer, attempting to rescue the yard from the overgrowth of a couple of years of neglect. In the hours I’ve spent there, mostly weeding and pruning (with scratches and bites to match), I’ve come to really admire the blackberries. They have a lot to teach us:

Have back-up systems – Blackberries have a couple of ways of reproducing themselves. First, they reproduce in the usual way of plants, by seeds -- lots of seeds! Every plant has many berries, and every berry has many seeds, so each plant has thousands if not millions of chances to reproduce that way alone. And those berries are delicious, so they get eaten by humans and other sweet-seeking creatures, who poop them out in other locations, where they can root and become new plants.

Blackberries also reproduce by rooting the plant’s canes. That is, each stem, called a cane, is only moderately self-supporting. It can rely on other structures, and act like a vine, but if there’s nothing to support it, it grows up and out for some length and then bends over. When it hits the ground, it roots itself, and more or less becomes its own new plant.

(Side note: if you’ve been reading these posts for a while, you may have noticed that I was mostly absent in August & September. It’s because my hard drive, which crashed, was not adequately backed up. Not having a good back up is very expensive both in time and money. It almost put me out of business. So please take my advice – back up, back up, back up!)

Be Flexible – One of the tenets of NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) is “the most flexible system always wins”. It’s surely true of blackberries, which must be the cockroaches of the plant world. They grow in sunny locations, partly sunny locations and shady locations. They grow in rainy climates (we had them in our yard in NJ), they grow in dry climates (it never rains in the summer in northern CA). They grow where winter involves a hard freeze, and where it doesn’t. They grow on mountain sides, in forests, on lake shores and by the sides of roads. They grow like vines, supported by fences, trellises, trees, other bushes, you name it. They grow without supports, too, and can become very effective hedges.

Be Generous – Blackberries put out lots and lots of berries. In fact, early in summer, my husband looked out at the back yard and said, it’s a jungle out there. I replied that that jungle was going to feed us, so I refused to cut them down. And I totally underestimated the generosity of the plants! In addition to a daily serving of berries for about 2 months, I’ve made 2 cobblers, a blackberry chocolate cake, and blackberry coulis. Yum! So the weeds that my husband saw became a delicious addition to our diet. And if we weren’t westerners, with toilets, we’d have been planting berry seeds everywhere we went.

Be Persistent – Blackberries put out flowers, which become berries with seeds, continuously for over 2 months — that’s 1/6 of the year! If a freeze or a hail storm kills a bunch of flowers or berries before they've had a chance to mature — there’ll be more! And have you ever tried to eradicate a blackberry plant? You can’t, (or at least I can’t). Unless you get every part of a root, it will grow back. They are even growing from the spaces between our pavers! And that is part of their success.

Know that you are part of a community – Because those canes become new plants, still tied to the old plants, all the blackberry canes are simultaneously individual and part of the same plant. They are part of a community that has the same genetic heritage. We’re like that, too. As humans, we are part of many communities, both our genetic ones and ones of choice (where we live, where we work, where we recreate, etc.) and we would do well to remember that.

Protect yourself – Blackberries have thorns, lots of thorns — thorns on the canes, even thorns on the underside of the leaves. No animal is going to want to eat those canes, so they can grow undisturbed. And blackberries seem to have a fondness for poison oak. The two plants often grow together, which is further protection, at least from humans.

Point of view matters – If I look at the same plant from above, below, left and right, I’ll see different ripe berries which I can see only from that vantage point. We need to remember that, for other subjects. Other people will have other views. Your point of view is valid — and so is theirs, and if you take the best from all of your points of view, you‘ll have a much more complete picture of the situation than just seeing your own point of view.

It’s worth going over the same ground again and again – If you’ve done any internal work at all, on emotional issues, you have noticed that an issue you think is resolved will often pop up again, and it’s frustrating. But the blackberries have given me a different take on this issue. I picked berries from the same plot of ground, from the same canes for over 2 months. Emotional issues are similar — while you may have resolved one aspect of the issue, like picking one berry, there are lots more berries on the same cane, they’re just not ripe at the same time. Eventually, you run out of berries to pick, just as you eventually resolve all the aspects of your issue.

Info on thyroid/CFIDS

I was at a small seminar on brain chemistry and wellness by John Gray (yes, that Mars/Venus guy, and he is very cool, much cooler in person than in the books) last Sunday, and because it was at the hypnotherapy school where I teach, and because I know the woman who sponsored his talk, I got some time over lunch with him. He had mentioned that iodine is much more prevalent in the diets of Japanese women than American ones, which is why their children are so smart. Apparently, according to the WHO, lack of iodine in the diet of a pregnant woman is the cause of mental retardation in her children. He also talked a bit about how chlorine and bromine push iodine out of the body, and they are needed, particularly by the thyroid gland.

So when I asked him about CFIDS, he said that basically, your thyroid underperforms, and so your adrenals go into overdrive to compensate, until they, too, give out. And he said in talking with over a thousand people about this, every single one of them (yes, this is still anecdotal) had had significant chlorine exposure.

As if to underscore this, the woman sitting next to me in the seminar told me that she had a thyroid problem, and had been a figure skater (I do wonder about the chlorine in the Freon) and then on a swimming team for her childhood and teen years and continued to swim laps until the hypothyroidism happened, and her naturopath told her the lap swimming was over — without explaining why. When I got home, I called a friend, who I know had thyroid cancer in her 20’s, and asked her about chlorine exposure. She said immediately that she’d spent years playing in a garage where the chlorine for a neighbor’s pool was stored.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who spent a lot of time around chlorine who don’t have a thyroid problem — but apparently hypothyroidism is exploding in the population — and pools became greatly popular in the ‘50s, so baby boomers and later kids were the first to have a lot of chlorine exposure. Perhaps it takes 10 or 20 years to develop?

If you know an epidemiologist, you could bring this up and ask them if they might want to study it...

I am going to try large doses of iodine (called ioderal) and I’ll let you know what happens. And if you use kosher (non-iodized) salt, as I used to, you should switch to salt with iodine, preferably Himalayan or sea salt. At least that will increase the amount of iodine in your diet a bit. And obviously, stay out of swimming pools and hot tubs.

On another track, there is a school of thought that says that CFIDS is actually a neurological problem, more properly called RNA-ase enzyme deficiency disease (REDD) -- you can Google that.

What to do to end a relationship successfully

Sometimes, things really do happen in threes. And my rule is that when something happens three times, I should have a serious look at whatever the issue is.

Yesterday, I had three people call me about their divorces. One is just beginning a divorce, another is in the middle, while the third is just finishing up. (And actually, a fourth person called because she’s starting a new relationship, which is bringing up unresolved issues from a very long term relationship that ended a couple of years ago.)

They all had a few issues in common — grief, trust, letting go of attachments, and renegotiation. Grief is basically an intense feeling of loss. When any relationship ends, it’s normal to feel loss (you did lose something), and if it’s a marriage or another primary, long term relationship, it’s normal to grieve.

Usually, though, we associate grief with death, especially of a loved one, which makes sense, because it’s a serious, permanent (at least in this lifetime) loss. But there is a big difference between grieving a death and grieving the end of a relationship. When a loved one dies, your family and friends surround you, and support you. Everyone understands death, right? That person who was just there, in a body, walking and talking and hugging you, isn’t any more. And part of the ritual of death is that of family and friends speaking well of the deceased, remembering all of his or her good qualities, helpful actions, achievements, etc.

It’s different with a divorce. First, there is an interpersonal reason for the divorce, as opposed to death, which is more of a personal issue to the deceased. You loved the person you married — you thought this was the best person for you in the world, or you wouldn’t have married him/her. So something changed. Perhaps it’s the other person. People do change, not always for the better (having affairs, or alcohol or other addictions, for example). Or perhaps it’s you -- you may have changed. You may have grown and now be unwilling to put up with things you’d put up with in the past. Or perhaps the rose-colored glasses of love fell from your eyes, and you now see clearly something you successfully ignored or excused for a long time. Or both. (Perhaps you are the one with the addiction issue, but if so, you probably aren’t calling me, so I’ll leave that for others to discuss.)

That means there are huge issues of forgiveness around a divorce (which there often aren’t around a death). First, for your own well-being, you eventually have to forgive your ex for whatever he or she did or didn’t do or say — often over a long period of time. I’m not saying it’s easy, but remembering that people are doing the best they can all the time helps. Now, it may not be a very good best, but it is the best they can do, given who they are at the time.

The more difficult task is to forgive yourself for whatever you did or didn’t do or say — and most especially for what you didn’t see. Forgiving yourself for ignoring what is now patently obvious to you may be the hardest job of all, harder than moving forward each day, constructing a new life for yourself, (and your kids, if you have them). What makes it so difficult to forgive yourself is that you question your own judgment. How did I not see this (irresponsibility, addictive tendency, cruel streak, whatever)? If I didn’t see this, then what else am I not seeing? How can I ever trust my judgment enough to get into a relationship again? Trusting yourself going forward is critically important. You were doing the best you could at the time, too, and you learned from the experience, so next time, you’ll see more, right?

Another task is to let go of emotional/energetic attachment to the other person. While most people think that this is some huge process that takes a lot of energy over a long period of time, much of it can actually be done in just a few minutes with a simple visualization or two. I did this with a client yesterday, and at the end, she said, “That’s it? That was so easy! And I feel so much better.” Stuff happens — suffering is optional. (It’s different for each person, or I’d describe how.)

Divorce differs from death in another way, too. Your friends and family may, or may not, surround you and support you. Perhaps some of them disappear, either because they don’t know what to do or say, or because they “side with” your ex, or because they believe divorce in wrong in principle. And those who do stick with you will often begin to express the reservations about your ex they had all along, but felt it was wrong to voice. Perhaps they only know you as part of a couple, so knowing you as a single person is a completely new relationship. In any case, the important thing here is to recognize that you are recreating, or renegotiating, all your relationships, not just the one with your ex. When you do this consciously, it goes more quickly and easily than if you’re not aware of what you’re doing.

So in another universe, I never got CFIDS?

Parallel universes exist - study
Sep 23 11:33 PM US/Eastern


Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".

The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.

A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Dr Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis, said: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

According to quantum mechanics, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed. Until then, particles occupy nebulous "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time.

Observation appears to "nail down" a particular state of reality, in the same way as a spinning coin can only be said to be in a "heads" or "tails" state once it is caught.

According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options.

The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.

from Breitbart.com -- http://www.intelways.com/

The Multiplier Effect (Part II)

After the orbs in the Bay Area (see “How Psychics Have Fun (Part II) below), and the enhanced photo, I was pretty excited to see what would happen at Mt. Shasta, which is renowned for its spiritual activity, with a bigger group, and a respected contactor of ETs.

Many anomalous things happened:

** Lights appeared in the sky, that could not possibly have been airplanes (wrong shape, no lights on wingtips, moving way too fast, etc.), and were not on the satellite charts. They blinked on and off, stood still and changed direction, which satellites can’t do. What looked to my naked eye like a craft sending out an energy streamer was apparently (to those with high power binoculars) was apparently one banking hard left into space, away from Earth.

** The temperature inside a circle of 60+ people (i.e. A BIG circle) sitting in a field was often warmer than the temperature outside the circle (and one circle of 60 people sitting father apart than shoulder to shoulder is much too big for this to be body heat). In fact, one night, sitting out on the mountain from 8:30PM to 1AM, someone used a thermometer to check the ‘inside’ temperature repeatedly. It went from 67F to 64F in about twenty minutes, then back to 67F in another 20 minutes, then to 65F, where it held for a long time before beginning to descend permanently. I could feel the temperature varying, as well. There was no wind, and the cloud cover never changed.

** Another night, we were meditating in a huge meadow, with a densely overcast sky. The air was completely calm — not a pine needle stirred. When we finished meditating, most people had felt raindrops (I didn’t feel them; I was either deep in meditation or asleep. However, rain will normally rouse me, and there were no wet spots on my clothes, so maybe it rained around me!) and the sky above us was completely clear in probably a quarter mile diameter circle! The surrounding sky, however, was still thickly overcast. Then, as we watched, the clouds formed an unmistakable heart shape in the center of the clearing directly above us, ringed by open space and then the original clouds. That was magical.

** One afternoon, we sat at the edge of a clearing in the woods, doing a long guided meditation. That is, everyone but me was doing it. There were hordes of yellowjackets in the area, and I’m very allergic to them. Sitting in the circle, I always seemed to have 4 to 6 of them around me, and was constantly swatting them away. I left the circle to stand away, where there seemed to be fewer yellowjackets and I could move quickly away from the occasional one that found me without disturbing everyone else. Of course, I had to stand, and stay alert, which meant I couldn’t get deeply into the meditation. However, I did what I do whenever I’m standing around doing nothing, which is to see what I can see clairvoyantly. What I saw with my external clairvoyance (my eyes, I guess) was that most everyone’s crown chakra was open, while they all followed the meditation, parts of which asked them to all think the same powerful mantra at the same time.

We had the multiplier effect again, that is, all those minds broadcasting a powerful mantra at the same time out into the universe attracted a lot of attention. After a while, probably after half an hour or so, I began to notice (with my internal clairvoyance) that the clearing was filling up with all sorts of beings, from nature spirits (or devas) to spirits who guarded the place (probably Native Americans who’d lived there) to ETs to angels. It was unbelievably beautiful! And as the meditation ended, they told me they’d be back that night. (And yes, they came back.)

I think the reason that we attracted so much attention was that our minds were sending out coherent thought. Not only was each mind coherent (which is probably pretty rare for a human being), but on top of that, 50+ minds were coherent with each other. This is similar to the multiplier effect I was talking about last week, though in that case, tens or hundreds of millions of minds had the same thought occasionally.

Imagine what we could do if a lot of us were coherent about something!

(Actually, I think this is what happened with the “Fire the Grid” meditation. ( In case you missed it, the email went around certain communities on the web like wildfire — and apparently 30 – 40 million people participated. We were asked to send love to planet Earth, in a meditative state, for one specific hour in August.) That hour happened to be from 3:11 AM to 4:11 AM Pacific time, which meant that I meditated, and fell asleep, and meditated and fell asleep, etc. When I got up around 6:30 AM, I checked in with Earth, and it felt different, more alive somehow!)

The Multiplier Effect, Part I

I’m a roadie for 2 days a year (which is about all I can stand) as a volunteer for the Sausalito Arts Festival. I work the stage crew, which in general is hauling equipment, food and ice for the performers, and being additional security for the gates to the backstage areas. (BTW, the performers’ dressing room area is right next to the garbage — so much for glamour.) This year, though, my job was to sell merchandise, which is about as good a gig as you could want, because you sit at the right front corner of the stage, and can climb up backstage or walk in the protected area in front of the stage to take photos. Yeah, you do have to hear all the music and then people shove money in your face for CDs and t-shirts (btw, there’s a lot more money to be made in the shirts than the music, which really says something). Hard job, huh? Plus they fed us.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the “Summer of Love”, so that was the theme for the music this year, and Jefferson Starship was there, along with Quicksilver Messenger Service, It’s a Beautiful Day (now known as David LaFlamme and friends), the only living keyboardist from the Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage and Marshall Tucker Band. It was a lot of fun to hear the great music (the guitar work is wonderful) and see lots of 60-somethings shaking it (I had a front row seat to that, too).

Anyway, the merchandise job went like this. The band’s manager (or someone) would bring you whatever they were selling, and tell you how much it cost. You wrote down the prices, took inventory, taped the t-shirts up to a high fence so people could see them, sold the merchandise, took inventory again, and settled up the money, taking the festival’s cut. It’s amazing how disorganized most of these folks are: no price list, no count of the merchandise to begin, no information about the CDs, no bank (you do need change, unless everything you’re selling is priced at $20). Jefferson Starship didn’t even bring me all the inventory, and lost sales because I was out of sizes that they had but hadn’t bothered to bring me, or even mention they had.

When David LaFlamme (I don’t know if you remember his song, “White Bird”, but it’s one of my favorites) came out to settle up (and btw, he was the only organized one), he was singing ”Everybody’s Talkin’”, the theme from the movie, “Midnight Cowboy”:

“Everybody's talkin' at me
Can't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the echoes of my mind
People stoppin', starin'
I can't see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes
Goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
In the pouring rain
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off a northeast wind
Sailin' on a summer's breeze
Skipping over the ocean
Like a stone”

LaFlamme told me that when he was a young man, he wanted to be Fred Neil, the author of that song. He said, I didn’t want to be like him, I wanted to be him. Then he said that Neil was the guy Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs looked up to, as well. He told me that at some point, Neil bought a sailboat, and took off for parts unknown, never to be professionally heard from again.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I was always puzzled by what that song had to do with a male prostitute in New York City. Good song, good movie, but to me, they didn’t go together. Okay, the weather in NYC sucks a lot, and in the movie, the main characters are in a pretty desperate situation, alienated from much of society, so a little escapism could be expected — but that song is about sailing! And there is definitely no sailing in the movie.

And about a day later it hit me — Fred Neil was putting his dream out there, in a way that probably hundreds of millions of people heard hundreds or thousands of times (it was a top 40 hit). Perhaps that song made him the money that bought him the sailboat that made his dream come true. Maybe all those minds focused on his dream, even a little, made it come true.

Imagine all those minds focused, even a little, on your dream.

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy%u2019s Couch - New York Times

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy%u2019s Couch - New York Times

Two great books!

"The Tao of Equus", by Linda Kohanov , which is the psychic side of horses and the horse/human interaction. Amazing and wonderful! If you ever had any question that animals are smart, and conscious, this should answer it.

The last Harry Potter -- J.K. Rowling apparently understands our political situation quite well. I only wonder if she always had this in mind (as I've read that she had the plot outlined for all 7 books before she wrote even one)?

Are you having relationship issues now?

Are you having relationship Issues right now? Do they seem worse than usual?

Last week, in 2 days, I had FOUR separate people complain to me that they were having relationship problems so severe that three of them couldn’t get out of bed, and the fourth was doing so because she really had no other choice. Three of these people were having problems with life partners (fiancé, husband, and ex) and one with a child.

My rule is that if something happens once around me, it just happens, and I’m an observer. Twice, perhaps it’s a coincidence. But three times, there is definitely something to which I should pay attention, perhaps about me. And four? Wow. But I don’t seem to be having any relationship problems at the moment, at least nothing I’m aware of. So I called a friend, another psychic with whom I trade readings, and she said she couldn’t see anything personal to me in this.

My next thought was that perhaps there was something astrological going on. While I believe that people mostly create their own realities, I do see the validity of astrology in affecting people and situations. So I called my friend, Robin, an astrologer, and — bingo! Venus (the planet of love and relationships) is retrograde. This is asking you to go inward and examine relationships, or to get closure on unresolved issues. Venus goes direct again on Sept. 8.

Enhanced orb photo

One of the readers of this blog sent me an enhanced orb photo, with the following comments:

I hope the changes I made come over in the
email, but I used a free program called Picasa to add
some light to your photo. It doesn't do anything to
alter it, it just makes things that are dark brighter.
There are tons of orbs all around you guys. I
couldn't really see until I added the light. If it
was snowing, they would make sense. But from your
email it doesn't sound like it was.

This is way cool!

How Psychics Have Fun (Part II)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare

If you had told me 3 years ago that I’d be spending a summer Saturday night sitting out in a cold, empty field, in the dark, with a few people who were barely acquaintances (and my husband) with the intention of seeing some star visitors (aka ETs), I’d have told you you were crazy. (This from a woman who regularly talks to discarnate beings, and can communicate with animals and plants, at least sometimes!) But there I was nonetheless.

I mean, just because you can’t see it with your two eyes, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, right? Before microscopes, we couldn’t see cells. And before the Hubble telescope, there were lots of celestial bodies that we couldn’t see, even if we knew they were there. Which is where Mr. Shakespeare comes in... I mean, why wouldn’t there be beings who exist at frequencies outside our usual visual spectrum?

With that openness in mind, we gathered at a restaurant near the field we’d be sitting in later. Over dinner we chatted about other experiences with star visitors, or at least the others did. I was mostly just curious.

There are still places in the heavily urban Bay Area that are quite dark at night, and we went to one of them. Though I’m a newbie, some of these folks have apparently been going for years, so they led us down windy back roads right to the spot. I’m told it has a view, but it was so foggy, not to mention dark, that I really can’t say if it’s true.

There are two kinds of clairvoyance, internal (e.g. remote viewing) and external, which is seeing subtle energies, like the human energy field (aka aura) and chakras (energy centers which relate to different bodily organs and emotional/psychological issues). While my internal clairvoyance is decent, I’m still working on the external. The cool thing about the dark is that you can see subtle energies much more easily. I could very clearly see the aura and crown chakra of the woman across the circle from me! The layers of her aura looked kind of like the layers of an onion, but not as even. But I’ve seen that before, even seen colors occasionally, so no huge deal. The big surprise was seeing her crown chakra, which comes up from the crown of the head, kind of like a small fountain, but with a constantly changing cross between streaks and bubbles, all of which had very faint colors. I’ve seen line drawings of this before, but they really don’t do it justice, because drawings can’t capture the movement, change and color, in the same way that a black and white photograph can’t capture what a color video can.

Then there were the beings. What I saw with my eyes was sparkly things, little (or occasionally not so little) points of light, that came, sometimes moved, and went. What I saw internally were two odd-looking beings. The first was really tall, probably at least 8 feet, with a very long neck, kind of whitish. The second was a human-looking body, with the head of an eagle, and the feeling of guarding or protecting something, maybe us, maybe the land. It told me that similar beings had existed around western North America for millenia, and had appeared to the aboriginal peoples here, which is why some Native American tribes have thunderbird dances, and others have totems like that. Nobody else present saw these beings, though they did see the sparklies. They did tell me that a well-respected clairvoyant had told them of the bird people, who are apparently guardians of the earth.

I did feel what I often feel, which is a warm, loving presence. I have always assumed that these beings are guides or angels, which is to say, higher intelligence. But you know, maybe higher intelligence comes in a myriad of forms, and maybe, rather than being angelic, it’s intergalactic. Or maybe both. What do I know?

Here’s the cool thing — we have pictures! I’m excited by them because it’s the first time I’ve seen visual evidence of what I feel. I’m attaching one to this email (that’s me on the left, with the striped sweater and white scarf, the top clothing layers of about 15 total — did I say it was cold?). Now you could say that these lights are... out there in physical reality? Reflections off the fog? NO. There were no lights at all, not even any in the distance in any sight line. We were sitting in the dark — well, actually, we did seem to be illuminated by some sort of diffuse glow — but either that was our own auras, or something more supernatural. And I was standing diagonally from the line between the photographer and subject a couple of times, so I could see the reflection of the flash on the fog, and it was, tiny sparkles of light, much smaller than what is in the photos. No, there is no “normal” explanation of these orbs.